National 8 Track Tape Day is another fun holiday to celebrate, but for the sake of the younger readers, I feel obligated to supply a brief slide show to explain exactly what an 8-track tape is in relationship to the iPod.

When I was a teen, our family had a conversion van in the days before vans had any sort of video player. For some reason, this van had an 8-track player but no cassette deck and we owned exactly 1 8-track tape.

No offense to country and western fans across the nation, but we are R&B people. So during most of the 19 hour drive from Effingham, IL to visit family in Pittsburgh, PA we listened to our only tape over and over again.

An 8-track tape has a very annoying feature; it just keeps playing over and over and over and over until someone changes the track or ejects the tape. I still know every word to every Song on that blasted 8-track.

Most of us fall into an 8-track rut from time to time. We play the same songs in our lives over and over until we can’t remember how many times we have heard them. Every Monday looks the same, every Friday looks the same. We get so comfortable with the same songs that we don’t even mind after a while.

We lose the excitement in our lives because we have responsibilities. If we don’t get up at 6:00 and go to work, how will we survive? We have to pick up the kids from soccer practice at 6:00 or else how will they get home? Responsible adults live 8-track lives because their families depend on it.

We get so used to the same songs, that we forget to change the tape or even change the tracks on the tape we have every once in a while.

Maybe we are afraid that we will not like the songs on the new tape.

Sometimes we don’t even realize that we are playing the same tape repeatedly. We have become so accustomed to the songs that we almost don’t even notice them anymore, but we can sing every word in our sleep.

We don’t think we have the luxury of recording over the old songs because our lives don’t seem to work that way. We have so many responsibilities that we keep playing the same 8 tracks over and over each day.

I have been working so hard at my day job as well as on my business that my life had become an 8-track tape. I hadn’t been out socially for months. My kitchen table looked like an explosion of paper and books and the cobwebs had begun an all-out assault on every corner of my house.

Guess what I did? I popped the tape out. I did not even turn my computer on all weekend. I went out to the Comedy Club with new friends and had a great time. I threw papers away, cleaned up the cobwebs and even shampooed the carpet.

The world did not fall apart. I am not starving to death and my business will somehow survive.

I have over 1000 messages in my inbox, tons of blog comments to respond to, dozens of new Twitter followers and new Facebook friends and a web page that needs updating as a result.

They will all get taken care of eventually.

Right now, I have some new songs on my iPod to listen to (if I could only get those things to stay in my ears.)

Related articles

• Of vinyl records and 8-track tapes (thepomoblog.com)
• Getting Out of a Rut and Onto the Middle Path (overtlysimple.wordpress.com)
• the rut (lightofmylantern.wordpress.com)
• Ruts and Other Distractions (themanintheyellowhat.wordpress.com)
• Accepting that you’re in a rut… (liveyourpositivelife.com)
• Rut: A Grave with Both Ends Kicked Out (lifepointcoaching.wordpress.com)
• Dealing with a rut. (brazilianjiujitsustateofmind.org)
• How to bust out of your rut (cbsnews.com)
• Getting Out of Your Negative Ruts (lifebrook.wordpress.com)