Recently on one of my school runs, a little silver sedan sped up behind me and overtook me on the right hand lane.
No biggie, ever since school has started back, I’m adjusting to sharing the road once again with other time-pressured drivers at peak-traffic times.
But in this case, the silver flash whizzed by so fast and so close, I felt and heard a gust of wind shake my car a little off balance. To give you some context, my car (like myself) is fairly larger than the average little silver bullet.
Afterwards, our car had only just started to breathe in our collective sigh of ‘Woah, wth was that?’ when we slowly sidled up to said silver flash now stopped at the red traffic light.
As it stood still and motionless, I couldn’t help but flippantly think, ‘Really? All of that whirlwind drama only to be cut off at the lights!’
But just then I noticed my kids side-eyeing the car warily and so I too started to really look at the car again, and as it sat there amongst the others in the queue, it dawned on me that out of all the cars there, ours was the only one with the prior knowledge of how fast this silver flash was raring to go.
Patiently lined up and blissfully unaware of silver flash’s need for speed, two courier drivers were chatting jovially, a young lady was applying last minute touches of her makeup for her corporate work face, whilst another school run minivan blasted the music from the same radio station we were listening to.
Through my children’s eyes, silver flash was like a wild bull ready to buck any of us off at any minute. And sure enough, when the lights turned green, it revved its engine a couple of times to get noticed and stayed on the bumper of the car in front of it until there was a small gap in the road, overtook again and then sped noisily off onto the nearby motorway.
It seems the perfect analogy of the folktale of the tortoise and the hare, but before I can say this, I’m distracted by the alarmed and confused looks on the faces of the couriers and makeup lady.
Although I personally felt that they were relatively unaffected, their eyes still followed the silver flash with the same side-eye wariness we too had only seconds before.👀
I think of how every day we often find ourselves interacting with or even standing alongside others who have pressing needs to have their life unfold in a certain way, shape or speed. Their exact reasons we may never come to know or understand, but since we share the road with them for a moment of that time, inevitably our journey is impacted.
I always remind my kids that every situation in life has a positive or negative lesson to teach us. Positive ways we’d like to emulate or negative examples we don’t want to repeat. Is there any way to help mitigate the repeat of negative ones? Of course there always is, but only so far as to the level of interaction we ourselves participate in and can feasibly control.
But like in the case of silver flash, we could only control how to veer away from being an obstacle in its very determined path. You can watch it zoom away much like you would the derailment of a train or in awe as if it was a silver version of DC’s Flash superhero.
I mean the perspective is entirely yours. The point is dear reader, if you feel you absolutely must, merely watch it pass you by. Just because you can name it, doesn’t mean you have to claim it.
So that the next time you feel a gust of wind cause you or your foundations to shake, or you endure the short sharp roar of noise, shattering your otherwise peacefully quiet journey, remember this, it should only be for a brief moment.
We may never truly ever come to know the cause for their haste, it could range from them being on the receiving end of some tragic news, perhaps they are excited for an important meeting delayed for years because of covid or (and this may or may not be a personal true story…ahem! Lol! )they might just need to visit a public toilet real quick!👀😂
Whatever the case may be, the important part is this, that we try to understand it merely as a part of someone else’s journey. Yes, we share the effects of it but this should only be in a relatively small way, we are not expected to take ownership of the whole leg of their race or stint.
If silver flash somehow was a visitor to your local area and was lost, and needed directions, then by all means interact and engage to help if you are able, but other than that let them run their course.
Most of the time dear reader, we view others as the silver flash and at other times we too can find ourselves playing that very same part.
Whichever one you are today, seek to understand your part the best you can and move accordingly. And if you can spare one more favour, please remember dear reader, that 9 times out of 10, the path of least resistance is proven more to always be the best one.
So whilst you make the right moves for you, try to let others do the same and we should all be able share this busy road we call life, so much more safely with so many better outcomes for us all✌🏼🥰
Truessenz 