Ruts

Yes, ruts.

We all get into them. And some are worse than others... But some can actually be good. Think irrigation ditches. I find that so many times in my day-to-day, I get into many, many ruts. You would think a few hours isn't enough time to get into a rut, but it is with some things. And ANYTHING can produce a rut.

I was watching MythBusters the other day and watched as Kari, Grant and Tori tried to use dental floss to break out of jail. Of course you think right away, 'no way, now how, no chance.' But after hours and days of running that floss across the steel bar, you could see a noticeable rut! Of course the method of flossing was mechanized and there was a ton of control over the experiment, but it still proved plausible. Amazing. A dental floss rut in a steel bar.

I just got a new computer for my birthday and the transferring of data and music and learning the new system has been very time-consuming. I find my normal daily activities suffering and my children eating lunch at 1:00... all because of this particular rut I have gotten myself into. Thankfully, I am almost done with the music transferring, and the data transfer will commence upon the weekend, so that there is less time-killing during the weekday.

But this all got me thinking along the lines of ruts and how useful or useless they can be in our lives. It seems the things we can fall into that are not beneficial are the things that are made of the softest substance--easily rutted. And the things we should be happy to fall into habits with are made of steel--and we only have some dental floss to make the impression.

There is one thing MythBusters has taught me: it IS plausible. It takes hard work, determination and precision to make those ruts, but it CAN be done.

So this is my new goal: to make dental floss ruts in steel bars. Doing useful and productive things with a lasting result. And not the things that eat up my time with no lasting fruit.

Dental floss ruts in steel bars.