Optimum Motion or Motion in Opposition

Have you ever been a front, or for that matter, back seat passenger in a vehicle when the driver was driving a great deal faster than you were accustomed to going while riding in a car? The turns were way too quick, the stops were last minute and the acceleration just well...seemed to accelerate. And all the while your every muscle was taunt as a piano string as you had at least one foot about to push a hole through the floorboard where you were practically standing on the imaginary brake in an attempt to slow the vehicle down.

Okay. We’ve all been there. And, I’m sure too that we’ve all had an experience or two on the opposite end of the above scenario. We have been passengers in a car when the driver was driving so slow it was, not only painfully uncomfortable and irritating, it was downright scary. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, it might have also been quite embarrassing (especially for the kids).

Every single person has their own set tolerance levels wherein is considered an optimum level of speed or motion. That is to say, if the rate of motion begins to exceed the optimum range the person becomes, in some way, uncomfortable. But it can get much worse than just being uncomfortable. If the motion begins to accelerate further and further beyond what is considered by the individual to be optimum, then the person can become extremely agitated, ill, or even violent. The same holds true when going in the other direction from the optimum i.e., getting progressively slower.

Whenever a person encounters another person who is not moving within their optimum band of speed tolerances then that person will be compelled to speed the other person up so as to be in their range or, if the person is moving, what they consider, is too fast, they will be compelled to slow that person down so as to fit within their optimum range of motion tolerances.

So here it is in a nutshell. If you happen to be with another person or group that are going slower than you they will attempt anything and everything to slow you down. If they, on the other hand, are moving faster than you they will be doing everything they can to get you to speed up. All manners of arguments, hostilities, injury, and in extreme situations, even murder and war, can and will likely spring forth into manifestation out of this lack of parity between what is considered the optimum level of speed.

I once read a story about this therapist who was well aware of this phenomenon regarding mismatched tolerances in motion. He had this man come to him for help. This man was having an awful time with his wife. She was driving him nuts and they were at each other constantly. It was a certainty that they were headed for divorce court if something didn’t change pronto. The therapist, after setting up a few covert experiments, had determined what this guy considered to be the optimum level of motion. He had also observed that the man’s wife, for the most part, matched her husband’s considered motion tolerances. Except, there was on thing about the wife that violated the man's set band of optimum motion. The wife had long hair and they happened to live in an area in the Southwest where the wind blew to some degree almost every day. The wind would blow the wife’s long hair and this hair being constantly blown and swirled about by the wind far exceeded the level of motion the husband could tolerate. The therapist met with the man’s wife and convinced her to cut her hair shorter so the wind wouldn’t be able to blow it so dramatically. As soon as she got her hair cut and kept it from being constantly blown about by the wind the man began to calm down in his behavior. The problem was solved. As a result, the husband rapidly went back into harmony with his wife.

Of course, in the story above the husband and wife were completely unaware of what was at the root of their escalating antagonism with one another but they each had generated many erroneous reasons to explain why they were not getting along. Their "reasons", though, being false, never served to move them toward any kind of resolution. Indeed, their "reasons" did just the opposite.

Examples of optimum motion or motion in opposition are not difficult to find. Indeed, they are abundant! Who do you want to speed up?  Who do you want to slow down?  Who is trying to get you to move faster?  Who is trying to get you to go slower?  Wherever there is missmatched motion there is a "rub." Understanding the basis of the "rub" one can then better manage it.