Will you take an Ola/Uber or a bus ride?

An Uber or an Ola drops you where you wish to be – with larger convenience but an auto (or a bus) guides you through the journey making you more conscious of the journey – the one you have taken for yourself to reach Point B from Point A. But is life all about As and Bs? Are milestones too important? Or a ride full of experiences more appreciated? Well to each his own!

I have always wondered what is more important – the journey or the destination? Generally I don’t think life has answers to our questions in black and white. But, here I think it does.

A few months ago, I was travelling out of the city and it so happened that I had to take bus and auto ride multiple times. It didn’t hit me till I came back to the city turf  and booked another Uber ride as usual I would do. I was amused by the difference in the process of fetching and completing the rides via two very different mediums. They both did the same job of moving me from Point A to Point B but the difference lied in how did they do that.

Art By – Akriti Arora

While booking a ride via Uber, I took out my phone, opened the app, entered the destination after confirming the Pick-up point. And Boom! the driver was there at the doorstep in a few minutes to move me from one place to the other. However in making a ride via the bus or an auto, I would attempt many hits or misses in identifying the driver or the bus which will move in the direction as I would want to. While I identify the same, I would negotiate the prices for the ride. Once I board the same, I will be fully aware throughout the journey so as to not cross the destination point and get down at the right spot. This would make me more aware of the surroundings and the journey that I took from starting point to the destination.

Can you read the last para again?

Doesn’t it seem like very much the story of our lives? In all phases of life we are attempting to make a move from one point to another. In certain ways, we define goals for ourselves and make strides along the way to reach/achieve our goal. But every moment is a constant struggle between achieving the goal on time and not caring about the journey enough. And when we reach the destination, which we would because of our such focused approach, we set ourselves up for another ride.

In this process what we keep doing is focusing on As and Bs of life and not caring or bothering enough about what’s happening around us. Not having a rendezvous with the realities of life. And that’s the case when we reach our destinations, we take only pride without any humility in that achievement. That’s the reason why we are neither happy nor content with our own accomplishments. Rather it becomes a Level-up game in the journey called life where you are missing entirely on the journey part of it but focusing only on the milestones.

In reality, our life is like booking a bus or an auto ride where we negotiate with our strengths and weaknesses. We identify the comfort and the discomfort levels. Life is not about just reaching places or destinations because in doing so we chose to ignore similar stories like ours, we refuse to learn from the mistakes of others, we ignore the hardships that others would have faced in reaching the same destination. And in doing so we fail to carve ourselves. Because we have decided to ignore any external factor responsible for our success or failure for that matter, we also end up attributing the entire credit and discredit to our own self. That is wrong. We end up being harsh on ourselves. But that is not how life was (is) designed to be.

Wasn’t life meant to understand your role in the larger schema of things? Wasn’t life supposed to be enjoyed and lived – like really lived? Wasn’t life meant to be a part of being somebody’s else life and making others a part of our lives? Wasn’t life supposed to teach you a few lessons and learn from you – a few? Wouldn’t life be better if it is a melody of highs and lows? Wouldn’t it make more sense if we would realise and understand that we could be somebody’s Sonder too? Wouldn’t life be a lot better and beautiful if we could put Ubuntu and Meraki together in it?

Ubuntu meaning I am because we are

Meraki means heart and soul put together in what we do

But all of that would happen only when we chose to interact with life – the journey from birth to death rather than just moving from one milestone to another. At last after all, we should remember milestones always remain the same, it is the people who traversed those roads and made a difference were remembered. But that happened because they bothered about the journey, they chose to interact with life and various aligned or misaligned elements (read companions) along the journey and more importantly they let others (things or persons) be a part of their lives and themselves be a part of somebody else’s.

So, while it is fantastic to book an Ola/Uber ride in day-to-day life, in the journey called life – it would be great to assume ourselves on a bus ride being more cognizant and aware of what passes us, and touches us and brushes our lives. It is important to take note of the understated, oblivion and something that is just there but unnoticed. And importantly dwell in the beauty of what is the journey itself!

Hence thebuswindow. The journey does matter!