23/07/2015
~Diary Entry~
First off, just a little background information on the rapport I had with Taxi drivers
(feel free to scroll half-way down this page to where I actually begin my blog topic). As you have read in my previous diary entry: Diary: ‘Ants’ – you would have read that I took the taxi to work frequently. I would chat with the taxi drivers every morning; I knew pretty much all of them within a month. There were a couple of drivers who I got to know very well; their daily routine, their family life, their projects, their passions (although I did not know any of the drivers’ names…besides John).
I really feel the need to point out some of these awesome people here – after all, you go into a conversation to learn something or to be surprised:
-John adored Thailand, he was in a rave in Thailand where he ended up being on TV, he teaches English whenever he has students over (he is a home host provider), oh, and he taught me a bit of Morse code in return for teaching him Cantonese. He had a black belt in Judo and worked in the Navy, also, he has a son in Thailand.
-One driver really love to bowl (not bowling), this guy bowls routinely and has competed in competitions – now he just bowls for fun, occasionally competitively. He also have one of those nodding-dog thing on his car dashboard. Such a friendly guy.
-One driver is donating money to the RSPCA and have a wicked sense of humour.
-This other driver was renovating a house for his disabled son as a surprise – I really adore this little man; he was wise and sees reason, him and his wife sounds like a dream team. They are very clever people…he is like a granddad which I never knew…or will never have.
Although these people are all different, they all had the same response whenever I asked what types of ‘customers’ they have had; there were some unsettling stories and it does not help that there are no dividers within the taxi – so, the occurring thoughts between the drivers were that they are thankful for when they are able to come home safely from this job. A lot were thankful that they are still alive and breathing in general.
*******************Now, this is when the actual blog will begin*********************
So, there was this Albanian Taxi driver who really liked to talk to his customers, I secretly have an instant off-day once I get into his car. Now, this guy is a good person, but his communication style can offend a lot of people (I found that I can be just as blunt as him, he had definitely seen me suppressing my ‘resting b*tch face’ a few times)…but he still talked to me.
One morning, this guy was telling me about a book that he was writing and he wanted it to be based on ‘life lessons’ (damn, he beat me to it haha!). Anyways, you should know that previously, this driver and I have had other meaningful, philosophical talks; to the point that he had to ask me my age (I was 22). He thought I looked older because of the way I talked and the way I held myself as a person; he wouldn’t tell me how old he thought I was because he said that he was being diplomatic haha~ I told him that I wouldn’t be mad even if he said I was 60, he did not tell me in the end.
Anyways, so, he wanted my thoughts about life, honestly, this early in the morning and having to talk about deep stuff again…I am drained, so I took my sweet a$$ time to think – he was getting impatient so he said that if I can come up with 5 life lessons then I will get £1 off my taxi fare. Game on.
This is easy, it is the re-wording of my thoughts that was hard – plus, a lot of my outlook on life are so blunt and true that it is not ear-friendly/ human-friendly; nonetheless, I came up with 5 lessons.
The 5 lessons:
- Never stop learning;
- Get on with life – (I could not think of any others that was human friendly or generic), so he took my silence and asked, “what if a loved one died or you became gravely ill etc, how do you deal with it?”. I replied, “I don’t, I just get on with it, if it happens it happens. The world is not going to stop for you, there will be no spotlight shining on you for the world to see your pain. Come on, there are 7billion+ people out there, you are not the only one”. He just replied that this was a very intelligent answer.
- In life, there is always regret – He said that this ‘saying’ was very powerful, he even went silent and repeated this phrase over and over again; he wrote it down on a notebook in the end;
- What are you working for – I told him that I will blog about this topic for when I do start blogging: here it is! Human Needs; Strip It All Back
- Always be yourself – we all got haters after all.
There we have it (finally), the time I ‘gave’ lessons from the back of a Taxi. Random diary entry maybe but it was a morning filled with deep thoughts and since this driver learned something, maybe you, as my reader will take something away from this – or if I clarified some of your thoughts, that is good too =^-^=
Geomeun Goyangi
INTJ:Break-The-Chain 