Driving is Therapeutic…
Driving : A pleasure on the highway
Driving
Life is evil. Every day, every moment, stress stares at us in different forms. Sometimes it’s office issues, sometimes personal finance, at times our health, family, kids, and whatnot. It seems the entire universe is conspiring against us for no real reason. All they want is to test us on how we deal with the situation. Sometimes we take it head-on, sometimes we duck, and at times, we just live with it. However, there is one more thing we can do… drive and release the stress built up within.
I love driving
I love driving when I am stressed. No, not with the intent of exploding my frustration on someone through road rage, but to drive slowly listening to soft melodies, enjoying the scenery around, and finding unexplainable pleasure in simple things of life. This helps me de-stress and get the focus back on the everyday chores of life.
The mental weight gets lifted and I prepare myself for few more days of mundanity until driving calls me back again. When I drive slowly, I see people rushing past me in a hurry to reach somewhere, nowhere. Everyone seems to be jostling for space on the road, honking, jumping lanes without any heed to traffic laws. Was life better in yesteryear when this urban chaos wasn’t a part of our lifestyle? A parallel can be drawn with the life of a cell phone. It gets charged to 100% and then slowly gets discharged until it needs charging again. Similar is the case of our lives.
Car driving
I like driving on a full moon night from Gurgaon to Faridabad. The freshly tarred four-lane highway connecting twin cities always enlightens my mood. At night, the traffic is usually thin and the air is cool. Soft music playing in the car soothes the stressed nerves, while XUV’s dim blue cabin lights calm the anxiety. The moon is a constant companion and at a few stretches, it appears directly in the front owing to the contours of the road. The soft white moonlight brightens up the road and my mood. The scenery around is fantastic though it appears eerie bathed in white light. With my favorite Jagjit Singh crooning mellifluously in the background, I slowly find my solace back. Driving eases the stress out, nerves go calm, a feeling of contentment prevails.
It is then when the verses of Bhagavad Gita reverberate in my mind saying “You came empty-handed, and you will leave empty-handed“. When my mood betters further, the verse change to “Whatever happened, happened for the good. Whatever is happening, is happening for the good. Whatever will happen, will also happen for the good.” With this, I know, its time to return back home as I am fully charged up to tackle the pressures of life, for the time being. Full moon and bad mood would be back soon and so would be my solo drive on Gurgaon-Faridabad highway.
Indeed, Driving is Therapeutic.
