NO stressor pops a vein quite like driving in the metro, where a supposed dance of courtesy is actually a shoving match of aggression and a game of inches.
The combustible mix of hours-long traffic crawls and not a few boneheaded drivers and pedestrians can turn even the nicest person into a honking bird-flipper. One time, I was riding an Uber (R.I.P.) and a PUV cut us so badly that I knew for sure we would get hit. We didn’t—barely.
I don’t know how to speak Latin but at that moment, I think I fluently spoke its curses out of rage. I waited for my driver to join me for a duet, but he just sat there, stone-faced as he was before the whole incident.
“Hayaan niyo na, sir,” he said to me, with a voice as soft as cotton. “Ganyan po talaga ’yang mga ’yan.”
His composure caught me off-guard. Other people would’ve certainly lost it from a close call out of sheer stupidity—I did—but not my driver. He let the whole thing pass and proceeded like nothing happened.
He said he’d been driving for so long that he has learned to accept the simple fact that there are drivers who shouldn’t be on the road, and that spending time and energy thinking about them will get no one anywhere.
“Wala naman din po kasing mangyayari, sir, pag inisip natin sila,” he said. “Tayo lang po ang talo.”
What he said, of course, is nothing new. It’s almost one of those clichéd parent-y advices that are easy forget and hard to apply when the situation arises.
But having witnessed the exact moment when my driver walked the talked, his words have become an indelible lesson.
His approach serves as the prime example of the saying “Choose your battles.” Life will never,
ever be depleted of challenges to be hurled at us. There’s always one in every second that drops, and in every turn we take, from the trivial to the consequential. It’s up to us how we deal with them—if we ever have to, that is.
It’s easy to mistake bravery for foolishness, particularly in this context, where we are reminded that not all battles are worth the fight. Sometimes, victory can be attained by simply walking away, stone-faced and all.
* * *
Really?
I turned a year older the other day. But more than the bump in age, I’d also like to believe that my eyes grew wider and my mind more aware about the funny dynamics of this world.
Allow me to introduce a new junction in this space where I’ll protest about the things my parents haven’t been totally honest with me about as a kid. Like, say, how money really does makes the world go ’round!
Think of this as a complain corner.
Let’s start with politics, because of course.
The campaign period for local elections is here, and you know what that means: A forest-worth of paper wasted on poorly designed posters and unauthorized-use-of-mainstream-hits-as-campaign-jingles earaches.
Just when I thought “Despacito” had ran its course in torturing my poor soul, my off-duty slumber was cut short this past weekend by a remix of the song featuring an inaudible name and the words “Para Konsehal.” The source of my misery was blaring from speakers across the street, which was too far for my flying slippers to reach.
First off, I wrong to think that that song couldn’t be any more annoying. Second, something needs to be done about campaign jingles. Do we really expect candidates to be elected on account of LSS? Really?