It’s important to practice skills you don’t want to lose.
 

I used to drive all the time.  In fact, in my early twenties I drove cross-country twice by myself.  Driving never used to bother me.

But somewhere along the line I fell out of the habit and now driving scares me.  I will do just about anything to avoid it.  I get behind the wheel maybe once a year.

How does someone get out of the habit of driving?  Well, I managed it by 1) marrying someone who preferred to drive, and 2) living in an urban area where public transportation is readily available.

The topic came up recently and my mother assessed the situation this way:  “You’ve lost your confidence.”  I hated the sound of that, but I had to admit that it was true.

I tried to explain that it was mostly that I had racked up a few truly awful experiences behind the wheel.  I told her about the time I had been driving through town (long after I had stopped driving on a daily basis) and a car pulled in front of me so the driver could roll down his window and yell at me from something I had done.  I have rarely been subjected to such a torrent of hatefulness.  I guess when I started crying, he realized I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I had done to upset him.  “Didn’t you see me?” he barked.  All I could manage was a slow shake of my head side to side.  “Well, you should be more careful next time.”  I assured him quietly that I would.  I didn’t drive for a long time after that.

I also reminded her of the time that I had driven down to her house for a visit and the car had broken down on the way.  A cop stopped and helped me.  He even drove me the last few miles to my mom’s house.  But still, it was awful.

Those experiences and others have turned me off of driving.  Problem is, I need to be able to drive.  It’s a skill I need to retain for emergencies.  So, I think what I have to do is practice driving, just drive somewhere once a month or so to keep in the habit.  I think that the only way to lessen the impact of the bad experiences behind the wheel is to store up some good and/or neutral experiences.  That will drive the percentage of bad experiences down.

I have also realized that staying in the habit is important in several areas of my life.  It doesn’t just apply to driving; it also applies to writing and church-going.  If I slack off on writing, I begin to doubt my abilities as a writer.  And when I stopped going to church regularly, every week I didn’t go made it that much harder to return.  I’m not sure I would have been able to walk into a new church that first time if my mother hadn’t gone with me.  Now, I feel fine about going every Sunday.  Also, I find that if I let myself get out of the habit of exercising and eating right, it’s very hard to get back into it.

I’ve read that whenever we do something, a path is created in our brains and that the more often we do it, the easier and faster the path becomes.  It certainly seems that without frequent travel on the trail, weeds grow over the path and create resistance.  So, I try to make time to practice the skills, the activities, that I need to keep in my life.