The sight of a dirty truck, loaded down with an assortment of rusty metal objects and black, oil-laced fumes pouring out the exhaust pipe, is fairly common across Africa. To be caught behind one in a traffic jam is no one’s idea of pleasure.
I happened to overhear two drivers discussing this very situation. The first driver asserted that whenever he found himself caught behind one, he would make every attempt to get out of the predicament, even riskily weaving through packed traffic lanes to get away.
But the second driver had a very different outlook. He said that whenever he happened to find himself behind one of those trucks, he would roll up his windows and stay put behind the mammoth in front of him. Experience, he said, taught him that when the light at the intersection hit green and the chorus of horns and jostling of vehicles erupted, the massive truck would sound out its loud, penetrating horn and forge its way through the traffic, its size and speed charting a path through the confusion. All the second driver had to do was stick close behind it and follow.
While each of us knows that being stuck with a problem is annoying, unpleasant, and sometimes downright frustrating, it may be that very difficulty which will end up charting a new path for you and helping propel you faster down the road of life.
Text courtesy of Activated magazine. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
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