Life and a Long Drive!!

I decided to add some spice and thunder to my otherwise peaceful existence.?Yes, I decided to enroll myself into a driving class.?Now, what’s so adventurous about it, you would wonder.?Oh well, for someone as direction dyslexic as me and not too great on motor skills, it definitely is.?Can’t tell you, how much I related to Taapsee Pannu’s character in Mission Mangal.

Very predictably, my driving tutor has been at his nerves’ end teaching me the swerves of the steering wheel, the difference between holding the clutch for a millimetre, for a second more, the different levels of brakes, at times the left and right directions too…. I have equally been clutching for my dear life as well as trying to save others on the road.?Those others, who, blissfully unaware of my driving skills, tend to walk right in the middle of the road, giving a deaf ear to my desperate honking.

Well…. All those dreaded moments have still given me many life lessons which I would like to carry on in life, irrespective of whether I continue driving or not.

1.??????Learn to control, not speed

As my driving instructor repeatedly tells me, learn to control your vehicle, pushing the accelerator and speeding away is what even a small kid can do.?Sure.?There is no point rushing around crazy with no direction and no goal.?Learn to be in control of your life, understand what needs to be done, when and how. Everything may not always go as per your plans, but be ready for that too.

2.??????Learn to keep the noise out, focus on what’s important

While you are learning to drive, you have people all around you giving you stares for pushing the brake too hard, not giving them space to go ahead or simply driving too slow on a narrow road.?They will keep talking and screaming and honking.?Sometimes, you may believe that they are honking at you, when they are actually not. Keep the noise out.?Focus on what you have to do, do not let their words and glares distract you. Sometimes, you may imagine they are talking about you, while they may simply be discussing the bad coffee. Keep calm, focus and eventually everything will work out.

3.??????It takes all kinds of people to make the world

While you have some good pedestrians on the road who will move aside as you honk and give you space to drive away, there are some who will treat the road as a footpath and not move till you are too close, honking away to glory.?They will not bat an eyelid, while you have sweated buckets.?Quite often, they may even glare angrily at you for having disturbed their peaceful walk.?It takes all kinds of people to make the world.?Deal with them calmly and move on.

4.??????It’s okay to make mistakes

A day when I was to slow down while going over a speed breaker, I braked too hard and stopped right on the speed breaker, the instructor glaring on one side and the auto guy on (who was just behind the car and almost rammed into it) glaring at me on the other side. Imagine poor me!! But I did learn that I had to hold the brake ever so lightly while on speed breakers. Sometimes your mistakes give you much bigger lessons than your best successes.?Leave behind the mistakes, but hold on to the learnings, as they say!

5.??????None of the days are same

However skillful a driver you may think you have become, each day presents a different situation and a different learning.?You need to use everything that you learnt and put it to use to tackle the situation. One day it could be the hairpin bend and how you maneuver it; second day could be a close brush with a pedestrian as he and you try to cross the road together; so on and on goes the list. Just like Life. Just when you think you know it all, it throws something unusual at you and let’s you learn.?

All in all, Life and a Long Drive have so much more in common, than you could ever know!!