Who’s driving your car?

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Food for thought about who or what is controlling the direction of your life.

I think we can all agree that while sitting in the driving seat of a car, you’re in a position to drive that car and only that car. You physically cannot be in two driving seats operating the steering wheels of two separate cars. Our own lives are our cars, and we sit in the driving seat.

Why, then, do we find ourselves obsessing over someone’s else’s car? We constantly take on the burden of worrying about the repairs that need to be done on someone else’s car, and whether they paint it blue or white. Even more dangerously, we can find ourselves seating in the passenger seat of our own car, or worse, in the back seat! (the ghetto). 

As you can only drive one car at a time, surely it make sense to drive yours. To state the obvious: you cannot drive anyone else’s car because it’s theirs to drive, even if you think they could drive it better. If they crash, that’s their responsibility, and all you can do is help them pick up the pieces, sort out their insurance, and maybe give them lifts every now and again. However, they’ll need to get back in their own car eventually, because their own road needs to be travelled regardless and you’ll probably need to take a different road.

Most importantly, we shouldn’t let anyone else drive our cars for us. Arriving at a destination that we didn’t want to be at can only be blamed on the person driving because they drove, but we must also take time to look at how they got in the driving seat in the first place. If we were in the driving seat, and I mean really in it, in control, no one else would be able to take over. 

Are you driving your car?

We can sometimes find ourselves being disgruntled and dissatisfied about the destinations we find ourselves in. We complain that someone gave us the wrong directions, but we don’t take the action to find the correct way. We also express annoyance about that one person who borrowed our car and never gave it back, or they ran it down. However, we fail to recognise that we never asked for it back. We hide behind being polite, and not wanting to cause discomfort for people when the truth of the matter is that we’re scared to drive again.

So, who’s driving your car?

Our car might also be run down. We keep driving in spite of the sound it makes when you accelerate or change the gear. ‘I’m sure it’s fine’ we lie to ourselves, hoping the problem will just go away. We’re scared to look under the hood and know what the damage is.

There’s beauty in acknowledging that we haven’t been driving ourselves, or properly maintaining the car though. It means that we get to learn how to drive and maintain our car again, with the hope of finding a new joy in it. There is an opportunity to start again and explore all the routes available to you. So, choose a destination, buckle up and just take that drive.