If a pepper seller can do it, why can’t I?
This was the question I kept asking myself at a point in my life when I was learning how to drive.
After spending over a year in Zamfara and then moving closer to home, I had just resumed work at a place about 30 minutes’ drive from home on a good day. Around the same time, I was given a car to ease my commute.
The only problem? I couldn’t drive.
To make matters even more interesting, the car was a manual transmission.
The upside, however, was my mum. She worked at the same place and happened to be a superb driver. In fact, she had been driving long before the legal age of 18. Under her supervision, I began driving her to work, with her calmly coaching from the passenger seat.
Anyone who has driven a manual car can relate to those embarrassing moments when the car jerks or worse, stalls right in the middle of the road. To spice things up further, taxi drivers in Abeokuta were particularly blessed in abundance with a lack of patience.
One day, while driving back from work, we ran into serious traffic (holdup, as we call it). Things were going smoothly. I was braking gently and regulating my speed with the gear in neutral. Then suddenly, we started climbing a hill and I realised the car was rolling backwards.
At first, I thought, Is this a dream? Can someone wake me up?
I turned to my mum for help. Despite her calm reassurance and instructions, I just couldn’t get the car to move forward. Instead, it kept rolling back, and I was seconds away from hitting the car behind us, whose driver was probably panicking too.
I gave up. I pulled the handbrake and asked my mum to take over.
I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even step out of the car. I couldn’t bear the thought of people identifying me as that terrible driver. I quietly climbed into the back seat to hide my face, wondering how on earth I would ever master driving.
And then it hit me:
If pepper sellers and the most “illiterate” of persons can do this, why can’t I?
This isn’t difficult.
No disrespect at all to pepper sellers or illiterate persons. But sometimes in life, strength comes from such honest comparisons.
You may be standing before a step that looks daunting and frightening. But sometimes, the encouragement you need is to realise that very ordinary people, people with fewer resources than you, have taken that step and succeeded.
If they can do it, why can’t you?
This isn’t to make anyone feel pompous. Rather, it’s a reminder that whatever you are currently overthinking or overanalysing, someone somewhere, less equipped than you, has already started.
Fortune, they say, favours the brave.
I’ll end with this Bible verse:
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.” 2Timothy 1:7
Have an amazing weekend.
FOLLOW US ON:
1 thought on “Audacity”
Strength comes from honest comparison.