Life’s a Stick Shift
My first - and currently only - experience driving a car with a manual transmission came a few years ago, when the crazy used car salesman was desperate to sell me a little Focus. He was in a unique position; he was forced to butter me up in an attempt to sell me the vehicle, while finding it necessary to be critical enough to save his own life. On the latter he succeeded; on the former, not so much.
[And I still chuckle when I think of the salesman, desperately gripping the handle above the door, telling me "You're doing great!" as I stalled out at a busy red light, and envisioning my poor dad stuck in the tiny backseat desperately praying for survival.]
And now my life is changing gears. My perspective is changing. I don’t need a job to get through law school - I need a career. I can’t choose a job on the basis of inherent coolness - I have to look to the future. My perspective is changing from years to decades.
I’m discovering that my life is not an automatic. And I’m very bad at driving stick. This little perspective shift has left my brain feeling stalled out from time to time, and has certainly caused a great variety of grinding noises as I try to get things moving again.
But this comfort I do have - even in a stick shift, once you get out on the highway, cruising is easy. It’s just the merging that’s hard. Once the course has been set, and the highway achieved, things get easier.
As someone much wittier than I once said–
Soon we’ll be out, amidst the cold world’s strife,
Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life…