Mind The Gap

 Running around metro Dublin... on the train, off the train. Mind the Gap. To the tram, off the tram. Tap on, tap off. Mind the Gap. A week later and the message to mind the gap between the platform and the door opening tumbled around in my brain till the message stuck in my head like a locked laundry door. 

Every time you get off the train and must stretch over the gap to get to the platform, you leave where you were and head to where you're going. that gap between the train and the platform is serious. one wrong step, and you've hurt yourself. or, like the large gap at Tara Station, in Dublin, it can be so wide, you're hopping out, jumping across the gap.

We go about our lives daily, oblivious to the danger. How many times have we missed a disaster? 

It is easy to do something stupid...like break your toe running into a heavy lampstand. Unfortunately, inertia and gravity effect the best of us, and like the lady who complained that she had "fallen and I can't get up," it happens to the young, the old, and the in-between. I would know...I am that feckin' eejit who managed to run into a heavy lampstand.

I did not "mind the lampstand." I did not follow "safety first." I should have, like minding the gap, stopped and looked at what was in front of me. It is times like these that remind us that there is nothing so important that we need to forget what situation we are in...to get somewhere fast. 

And while there are situations that require quick thinking, it is instructive to remind ourselves that flying around like a seagull on steroids is not the best way to live life. 

I had forgotten the message from Irish Rail...Mind the Gap. I shall not...hopefully, forget again. Pray you step over the metal lampstand.