Opinion: Heeding inner voice best for everyone

The thing I was being warned about was my standing in the garage in my underwear getting something out of my car. On the face of it, this shouldn’t have been so bad. I had just gotten out of the shower and remembered something in the car I needed. No big deal. The garage door was closed.

To fully understand the ominous message from the voice, you need to know that my wife was away but expected back at any moment, meaning I was in the garage wearing only underwear while someone with access to a garage opener could open the garage door at any moment. I heeded the voice and was safely inside before the door opened, saving the world from a glimpse of me in my boxer shorts.

The incident reminded me that there are many times when we should respond when the inner voice suggests that we really shouldn’t be doing.

When driving on a highway, you may be tempted to drive over the posted speed limit. The enticement to speed is so great, our inner voices may have several occasions to speak up. If the speed limit is 70 mph, and you drive 70, cars will zip by you as though you’re standing still. Trucks and cars will get behind you, intent on forcing you to drive at the speed they want you to drive. Of course, you know that if you speed up to 80 mph, traffic will still fly by. If they can’t get around you, they will angrily hover near your back bumper at a scary speed.

The speed limit is established by experts who know more about traffic safety than you or the drivers who exceed them. Before yielding to temptation and putting the pedal to metal, listen to the inner voice saying you really shouldn’t be doing this.

More driving advice: Listen to the inner voice that kicks in when folks drive off without buckling the seatbelt or making the decision to rush through the traffic signal as it turns red.

It should have been an inner voice moment for one man at a roadside service station. I couldn’t help but hear the conversation between the customer ahead of me and the cashier. The customer had gassed up what must have been a large, gas-guzzling vehicle. I heard him mention eight miles per gallon of gasoline, which at that time and place was priced just under $3 per gallon.

Adding to the human melodrama of paying a gargantuan tab for gas, the man also bought a carton of cigarettes costing about $26. I couldn’t help but overhear that the bill exceeded $100. Gasoline and cigarettes, two items once so cheap that virtually anyone could afford them, are now extravagantly priced. I couldn’t help but imagine his inner voice asking if he really should be doing this.

In the post-Sept. 11 era, I can think of nothing higher on the list of things the inner voice should warn against than bringing explosive items aboard a commercial airliner. Apparently, that’s not true for everyone. Case in point: the recent incident where one Howard Fish packed a stick of dynamite in his luggage checked on a plane in Argentina bound for Houston. Where was his inner voice when it was needed?

It was eventually determined that Fish wasn’t a terrorist. He claimed to work in mining and that he often handled explosives.

If dynamite was a part of his work, why did he feel the need to bring his work home with him? An odd souvenir, indeed.

The major concern U.S. officials had about this event was that Argentine officials allowed a stick of dynamite to be placed aboard a plane heading for America.

In this case, it was no harm, no foul.

As for me, the older I get the more likely I am to heed the warnings of my inner voice.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.