If Loving Another Was Driving

You’re in a car, driving down a road.

Other cars move around you. For anyone who commutes to work, this should be an easy metaphor.

You look over and feel the desire to connect with another driver. In that moment, one of the most compelling, elaborate, and intricate possibilities in the universe begins.

For every car we successfully connect with, there is a line of cars at a red light that we never reach.

I could call that failure, but failure is not the right word.

I do not believe in failure.

Only growth.

Connecting with another car is simple in this metaphor. You enter the lane beside them and match their speed. Suddenly, what was once four wheels and an engine rushing past your mirror becomes a smile. A beautiful face. Two eyes revealing an even more beautiful soul.

Yet when we try to connect with someone in life, at work, or at home, what should feel like cruise control becomes an elaborate web spun by a black widow.

It does not have to be that way.

Continue the driving metaphor, and connection becomes much simpler.

Start by setting your cruise control to their speed.

Say hello. Stay between the lines. Match their combustion.

If they do not hit the gas or slam on the brakes, you have already done something extraordinary. What was once an endless road driven alone is now a road shared with another person.

But eventually, you become familiar.

At some point, driving side by side stops offering anything new. You become two cars traveling in the same direction, together only because neither has changed speed.

That is when you press the gas.

The car beside you will do one of two things.

It will speed up with you.

Or it will disappear into your rear-view mirror.

We hope for the first, but the second may be more likely.

That is not failure.

It is information.

You pressed the gas, and the other driver did not follow. You now have a choice.

Slow down, and they are still beside you.

Keep accelerating, and what began as a one-mile-per-hour difference eventually becomes a football field between you.

When you slow down, do not honk your horn.

Do not ask whether their gas pedal is broken. Do not interrogate them about the pothole two miles back.

Set your cruise control.

Match their speed.

Reconnect with the driver.

Then try again.

This time, ease into the pedal. Let the acceleration feel like an invitation rather than a demand.

More often than not, they may begin moving with you.

Why?

Because you have been here before.

The first time, the gas pedal represented fear. Now they have traveled this stretch of road with you. They know that the last attempt did not end in a crash. When they slowed down, you did not punish them, abandon them, or force them to accelerate.

You returned to their speed.

Now they can trust you when you press the gas.

You have connected with another driver.

Together, you move toward your destinations. You challenge each other. You navigate traffic together. You laugh at the potholes. You learn when to accelerate, when to coast, and when to slow down.

And this lasts until it does not.

When it does not, I still do not believe in failure.

Only growth.

Match their speed.

Ease onto the brake.

Reconnect with the driver.

Build enough trust that the next time fear tells them to slam on the brakes, love gives them the courage to press the gas.