This is what I learnt …..

” The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way in which we use them.” – Anonymous

Last night I was driving home with my younger daughter after her evening classes. She needed to go shopping to get things for her travel later next week. We tried to get to the nearby mall, which was on the other side of the road from our house.  The road was three lane with fast moving vehicles in both directions; there was no way I could cross across the lane and then turn left into the road that led to the mall.

As there were cars behind mine, I had to move forward in the extreme right lane and looked for a turn to the right to go back to the place where I could try to cut across the multiple lanes to get to the mall again. The road back led me through some deserted lanes through which I have perhaps not driven before- I can’t say.

I followed a big white Land Cruiser. It moved slowly almost purposefully. It looked like it was not going to let me pass it by. At a road bump, it abruptly stopped. The driver’s door opened and a young gentleman came out. He looked like he was approaching my car. Against my better judgment I opened the window. The man approached me, and without hesitation told me ” Switch off the light”. And he walked off.

Mystified, I looked at my daughter and she looked at me, equally wonderingly. What did he want ? Drive without my lights ? At night ?

Soon he moved out of the way, turned into a house and I went along the road. This time I got to the cutting on the road, could cross the three lane highway and make my way across to the mall, where we did our subdued shopping.

Through the night, I lay thinking about this incident. My approach to surprising incidents these days is , ” Thank you, God- Praise God”. I must confess – this time it was rather half-hearted but I did it repeatedly till I meant it.

This morning, the thoughts were once again harassing me. As usual, it was why did this happen to me ? What if he had attacked me ? What did I do ?

And then it struck me a few minutes after my daily meditation- I am not very proficient at night driving. I don’t use the headlights and the dim lights well- not having learnt driving at night from an expert. I have been learning from the few times I drove at night by myself. The young man was instructing me about how to dim light when driving, so that energy could be conserved or was teaching me how to drive better.

Immediately I felt better and have been feeling better throughout this day.

And then I chanced upon this inspiration – the difference between ” stumbling blocks” and ” stepping stones” is the way we use them or choose to look at them. Last night this experience was a stumbling block; today it is a stepping stone for me to become a better driver. 🙂