PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Since I started school I have always heard someone say: practice makes perfect. It felt as if I was taking part in a conditioning session; the more they said it to me, the more I would do it.

Writing and reading when done frequently improve and that is a fact that I can testify to. (Or at least are shown in studies). However, I am going to talk about other activities where this saying fits: driving.

Every morning I hit the road at 6:15 am to drive a 12k route. There are times when I take the highway, but there are others that I follow  the indications from the voice on my Google Maps app. (Just a parenthesis here. I loathe the voice on my Google Maps app. It reminds me of something that I cannot put in words. So you might be thinking: Just change it. Ok, that might be the case, but I really do not know how to do that and in reality, I do not have the time for that at the moment. Time. That is a whole text in itself. I will leave that for another day.) It usually takes me between 25 and 35 minutes to arrive at work. Some drives are nice and smooth, others are just stop and go.

         This morning I was peacefully driving and singing a tune when all od a sudden from nowhere this huge monster car was tailgating me to speed up on a 50kph road. Mind you, I was going 50; 51 at the most.

         I started to ponder on why at such an early hour that drive (couldn´t tell if the driver was a man or a woman, young or old. The windows were tinted) was provoking me into breaking the law. Why was that driver trying to make my blood boil on purpose? Did the driver of the monster car wake up and set tailgating as a to-do thing on his list first thing this morning?

         Alright, so we need to put ourselves in other people´s shoes. (That´s what is in nowadays. To be honest, I try to do this regularly, but it really is not as easy as it sounds.) Therefore, I tried on his shoes and decided that maybe the driver was really late for work and if he got there late he might lose his job. Another possibility was that he was off to the hospital so see someone who was about to depart. Or perhaps he just needed to get to the nearest gas station to take a leak.  Whatever the reason was, the monster-car driver was getting on my nerves, so I simply let him pass me.

         As he was passing me, another car changed lanes and they almost collided. In my car I screamed: Karma is a Biatch ! (Don´t like to use foul language, but it was very appropriate at the time.) Horns honked and a few words were exchanged between the drivers. The monster-car motorist rolled down his window and yelled: learn how to drive a-hole!

         With that being said, I wondered whether the other car driver was used to driving in this traffic hell every day. I started to think that the answer to that question was no. But then, another question popped into my mind: If you drive in chaotic traffic every day, the traffic flows well because you practice every day. On a daily basis you drive together with the same drivers. You learn how to change lanes in a witty way as not to bother the flow. You get the gist of it.

 On the other hand, if you do not have this practice, you tend to mess it up once you are out there. You drive slow. You can cause accidents, bumper to bumper traffic, rage in other drivers and traffic jams.

         In a nutshell, practice makes perfect even when it comes to driving in hectic traffic.

Written March 27, 2019 ( just a morning thought)

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