Driving Lesson

I don’t have a natural talent in driving, but I am most happy being in the driver’s seat than in the comfort of the passenger’s. It took a long while before I learn how to make a manual-transmission car move, and I am still a work in progress. The foot works, the hand movements remain to be activities I need to master; figuring out the eternal relationship of clutch, brake, and accelerator is still part of the lecture while parking correctly is the next lesson.

I admire people who have the innate ability to drive as they make driving look so easy. (Sigh!) It is quite depressing that I am still not good despite my efforts to learn. This scenario is quite new to me; I am accustomed to learn fast while in the classroom. In the classroom. Oh gee, but we are talking about roads, and avenues, and highways here.

I enrolled in a driving school, I learned few basic moves but hubby continued to train me afterward. He said they did not teach the right tactics. I know it is hard for him to go through the agony of teaching a newbie, and I can always catch him irked because I just could not do everything he instructs!

See it this way, he has a Ph.D. in driving while I am a preschooler. So just imagine how hard it is for him to adjust and reach my level. I completely commend him for his attempt to teach me. The degree of patience he needs to gather each time I drive is a real test of our marriage(!).

But even I want to kick myself when shifting the wrong gear! This driving effort is making me realize other things than just steering the wheel and pressing the clutch. Humility and determination are common words but they are really hard to apply when stubbornness gets in the way. Laugh at your mistake is not really laughable. Practice is not easy when laziness is easier. It will take time makes me feel like forever!

Exploring a completely fresh skill is difficult! I feel like the lone person having this issue and I am struggling. Until Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, unknowingly poke me when she wrote a sentence in her novel, a portion when she was frustrated studying the Italian language—”you must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new”.

Okay then, let me try to be polite.