sundayscribblings

When I was in the driving school some years back, I remembered my teacher telling me how to handle curves in the road. Before coming to Japan to study in the university, I have never imagined learning how to drive in my entire life. I never even knew one day I’d be able to buy a car and most of all, drive it. Curves and parking was my weakness, along with uphills since I learned to drive in a stick, not automatic.

The instructor would always say, when approaching a curve on the road, there are three things to remember: approach slowly (slow down the current speed), proceed cautiously and exit safely. Driving too fast will might throw you off the road because of centrifugal force.

I dread coming to a curve and thought, why didn’t people just make all straight roads and make life simpler?

Same goes with our lives. Every once in a while, things go unpredictably wrong, plans jumbled up a bit. Life curves are the bumps in the middle of an otherwise smooth, straight road and the words of my driving instructor echoes inside my head: slow down, be cautious and get out of the curve safely/wisely. In other words, don’t panic and think of a plan B (slow down), execute the plan to solve the problem (being cautious) and get yourself out of the problem with minimal damage (safely/wisely).

The road in our journey called life are not all straight roads, there are curves and even dark tunnels along the way. But with careful, cautious and safe steering of our wheel, we can arrive there safely and wiser… and maybe discovering a lot more colorful view at the end of the curve.

This writing exercise is fueled by the writing prompt “curve” at Sunday Scribblings.