Who Stole the Go Signs?
There are no signs in the sky—well, at least no man-made signs. I like this. One of the reasons I relish my time in the air is due to the brief break from a landscape littered with so many negative signs:
“Stop.”
“Slow.”
“Keep Off The Grass.”
“No Admittance.”
“Stay Back.”
Everywhere you turn, you find words trying to contain you, to limit you. Where are the positive signs? Even the billboards we see on the highway, the ones that seem to convey a positive message, are typically negative in their subtext, which usually is, “You are not good enough until you have this,” whatever this may be.
I wasn’t always so aware of this negative assault until a wise person pointed it out. Last year I stopped at construction on a two-lane blacktop, mine the first vehicle in a growing line of cars. A workman held the familiar red stop-sign-on-a-stick. I sat there, probably thinking about work or an item on a long to-do list, when a tiny voice came from the back seat.
“Dad… are there any Go signs in the world?”
The voice was from my youngest son, Cort, who was four at the time. Cort is always keen to know, "what is and isn’t in the world." That’s exactly how he says it and for some reason, he puts emphasis on the in-the-world part.
Silent for a moment, I dredged my memory… Had I ever seen a Go sign? I’d seen green lights, of course—on stoplights mind you, not go lights—but that wasn’t what Cort meant. His question surfaced because he saw the man with the stop sign. He knew the opposite side didn’t read Go and I did too. Truth was, I’d never seen a Go sign other than the corner on a monopoly board and I didn’t think that counted.
Dads pride themselves on having great answers and I managed the best I could.
“I’ve never seen one, Cort," I said with a big grin, "but if there aren’t any Go signs in the world, there ought to be.”
I watched his face in the rearview mirror and hoped he’d give some signal my response was a fine piece of wisdom. Hell, at that moment, I would have settled for just plain acceptable. His face showed me it wasn’t. I could tell he was sincerely troubled there may not be Go signs in the world. But that shouldn’t only trouble him, it should trouble us all, not just the 4-year-olds in the world.
Sometimes what says can stay with you for days. This was one of those times. Where are the Go signs? I kept thinking. And what about the Dream signs, and the Relax signs? Who stole the Breathe signs and the Fly signs? Was there a Grinch among us who slithers through the world year-round removing any positive road-side message or could we as a society truly be so oblivious that we willingly populate the world with so much negativity?
I know we need rules. We can’t have cars barreling through busy intersections. But shouldn’t we counter every negative sign with a positive one?
Stop would become Stop and Breathe.
Slow would become Slow Down and Enjoy.
Keep Off The Grass would include, Float over it Instead.
No Admittance, But Your Mind is Free to Go Anywhere.
Stay Back, and Relax.
I have this hunch—don’t ask me how I know—that our government and municipalities will never erect these signs but guess what? They don’t have to because I see them all the time now.
And… It… Feels… Great…
Every time I pull up to a stop sign, I see Stop and Breathe. It becomes fun to see how I can turn negative signs into positive ones. The next time you see a sign that limits you, change it into a sign that lifts and frees you.
We all need that kind of positive influence in the world.
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