Some of the most interesting stories come from taxi cab drivers. You’ll never know who’s going to be taking you to your next destination. You wonder about their story; who are they and why are they there? What did they do before and where do you see themselves after.
I’ve been in a cab where the driver has a Ph.D in Immunology, got into real estate, and was driven to his current profession when the economy tanked. I’ve spoken to a father from Nigeria supporting his family after moving through different states, someone who’s opinions, by calling them anti-Semetic, is tame, and a die-hard Manny Pacquiao fan, the biggest I’ve ever met. But there was one that I still recall vividly.
A few years ago, I was at Las Vegas, and in a cab ride, a conversation struck. He was telling me about his life before, how he use to make music; commercial jingles in fact. He remembers a night meeting a woman at a bar whom he wanted to buy a drink for. However, being a poor musician at the time, he wasn’t able to, so she had to buy him one. They went back to his place and the next day he received a check for one of his songs, $20,000. He took her out on a three-day trip, everything paid and provided for. He never mentioned what happened to her after.
When we really stop and consider it, the people we pass, the people we make judgment on, the people we overlook, order food from, hang up on, cut off on the road; each has their own story. It’s not whether we can pass judgement or not, but whether we give the credence to the validity of another story, a story of its own soul and prescription.
Now, ask yourself, have you ever thought of your own story? When I moved home, I was cleaning through and sort old stacks of paper that have collected through the years. I came across a letter my fifth grade teacher wrote to me. Deciding to write back, I put the ink to paper and started writing about everything that has happened in the past 13 years: high school, college, work life, who I was, who I became, what my values are, where I see myself going; in a sense, I was writing her my story, and halfway through writing it, I was feeling like I was writing to myself.
It occurred to me then that these opportunities of reflection and humility are rare, yet vital. Sights have always been set to what we have yet to achieved, rather than what we have. The instantaneousness of our attention span has, in a sense, shifted our timeline to think of what’s coming that what is. So what is our present? A collection of results from our past? A barometer in the direction we’re heading in the future? Or maybe it’s just a perpetual blank page, with a willing quill to write the story.
