Conditioning

It is hard to unlearn near death lessons. My close encounter with an Australian BMW erased a life-time of conditioning and replaced it with the simple instinct to always look right before stepping off the curb.

Here in Israel, however, cars drive on the right side of the street. I need to relearn old habits: look left !

Speaking of left and right, both Hebrew and Arabic are read and written from right to left. Books open from left to right. I watched a woman ahead of me at the check out signing her credit card receipt, backwards. I had to restrain myself from intervening! It just didn’t seem right!

Condi- tioning. Important life lesson. Especially when trying to understand the complexity of cultures and traditions so different lived in such proximity.