In the self-actualised world of seizing the day and gathering rosebuds while ye may, there is many-an aspirational adage about things you should do once.
Growing or hunting your own complete meal is something everyone should experience once, it is said.
Setting a new physical challenge that is hard but not impossible promotes internal fortitude and increased confidence.
Finding a four-leaf clover, witnessing the Aurora Borealis or travelling alone overseas may not be on everyone’s bucket list, but such a list of similar onces is said to be nutrition for the soul.
As Quaker missionary Etienne de Grellet intoned in the 1800s, we only pass through this world once. Firsts and ‘onlys’ keep life exciting and throw up endeavours to stimulate the human spirit of adventure.
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But there are some things that should be done more than once.
Meeting the requirements needed to earn a driver’s licence is one.
Most of us got our ticket to ride at age 17 and have never been tested since. For some of us, that is a long time on the blacktop without having to demonstrate we know how many metres we can park from an intersection or how far we should hang back from the car in front.
It is more good luck than good management that more drivers don’t slip up. We know that stuffing up can be catastrophic not just for the person behind the wheel and we know that not every mishap results in an incident report.
Laws change alongside our improved road conditions and souped-up car technology. There are more of us on the road than ever and the rules have to be adapted to better handle the herd.
But the system relies on us to do our own updating, to stay current on the rules and to verify with reputable sources what social media contends. Experience shows that does not always work out very well.
Ignorance of the law is no defence.
The biggest brush-up on the rules most people get is when they supervise their offspring on the rightly prolonged journey to get their own licences.
Even then, rare is the driver who would claim to know it all from two decades earlier and can instruct their kid with authority on every aspect of driving.
Drivers should have to refresh and demonstrate they know the road rules every five or ten years. It makes good sense and would improve confidence in the environment on highways and byways for all road users.
The other one-off that should become a regular, regulated check is fitness tests for all those in professions that require mobility — such as the Queensland Police Service and nurses.
If a baddie can outrun a pursuing officer and a nurse finds reaching over a patient to turn on a switch a challenge, surely that is not an acceptable standard, not matter how long they have been in their jobs?
It should be a requirement for professional to regularly meet physical standards when public care and safety depends on it.
They say you only live once: YOLO.
But even that is incorrect, because you live every day.
The truism is that you only die once, but maybe YODO did not catch on with self-help focus groups.
Jane Stephens is a USC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The views expressed are her own.
