Uber, GPS, Prayer?
I love to travel. I love trains, airplanes, cars, airports, buses or even horses. I took a horse to go from point A to point B once. It was a very short ride, thank God!
I have been in the people business for quite sometime. I had a cafe with 40 seats, good coffee and great food. In total it was 22 years of restaurant business. I had one in Manhattan for 15 years and one in New Jersey for 3 years and prior to be a owner I worked for a few different places.
I choose to be an Uber driver what comes as no surprise due to my passion for travelling while exploring what to do next in life.
It has been very refreshing to drive people around. I see different types of faces from different cultural backgrounds, ages, and social economics. For the most part my car turns into a therapy office in which some of the time I am the therapist or I become the entertainer or the one that encourages the kid going for his senior year in college and lots of students loans to pay back. I said: Don’t worry, everything will work out. Other times I am the one encouraged listening to people stories.
I would love to share 3 things that I noticed while driving myself and others around.
Most of my life I drove without GPS. I am a good driver with a good sense of direction but as a Uber driver it is imperative to follow a navigation system, since time and distance is at the stake affecting the fare but also I seek to be efficient and comfortable.
The navigation system brought to light something about my personality. I am not use to have “people” telling me what to do. I like to be in control. For while I could not concentrate on what “she” the GPS was telling me. I constantly tried to anticipate what she was going to tell me, jumping the gun and turning before the time or worst yet, I was terrified lacking trust “on her”. I just didn’t trust that “she” was going to talk when I needed her to.
My first 3 weeks was nothing but a nightmare. Until I literally heard God telling me: that’s exactly what you do to me. You are constantly running ahead of me or inadvertently allowing my voice to be overshadowed by your anxiety or fear that I will not speak”.
I learned to enjoy and to trust the GPS and for the most part “she” does a good job. In fact, a great job. There are times I have no idea where I am.
1) Learn to trust and to calm down having faith that things always works out. A few percentage of my riders want to control my driving by telling me where to go and how to go to the point that hinders my ability to relax and do the job well.
Ultimately, I am the driver and the rider needs to relax. In one particular instance the gentleman insisted on telling me that Waze” is the only God. I told him, I also use Waze and I would be happy to have it on a speaker phone so that he could hear the instructions. He wouldn’t have it. He send me in all different crazy ways in order to get to NYC 3 minutes faster. He made my driving hell. In order to avoid “any” traffic he choose to go via unsafe areas. At times we need to enjoy the ride and not spend ever minute trying to micro manage everything.
2) I pick on riders anxieties or their inability to accept where they are at that particular moment. I had one customer jumping into the car telling me: I am late. I need to be at the airport in 30 min and my previous car service never showed up. I calmly said: We are 40-45 min away from Newark. I will do my best to get you there as fast as possible but be assured that some of it is in my hands but some of it is in God’s hands. Pray.
Where we are, is where we are. The airport is 45 minutes away without traffic and to wish to get there in 30 minutes is not realistic. Sometimes we need to accept where we are in life. It is what it is. There are situations or circumstances we will not change.
3) Since starting to drive for Uber I have learned to work with GPS. I have learned to read customers body languages and pay attention to their needs. I have learned about my own finickiness or weakness. When I am tired I get very frustrate and irritable, what translates into not been a good idea to drive others. God forbid someone try to micro manage my drive at that time. Smiles.
I can only encourage you to learn about yourself, that’s the key to grow and to be transformed keeping in mind that trust is part of our day to day life.
We trust the cook in a restaurant will cook our food without spitting on it or we trust that the chair we seat will not break. We trust that our coffee is brewed well when we stop at Starbucks. We apply trust all day long. We trust our e mails will get there or that our phones will store our contacts. It is time for us trust that prayer does work and that things will always work out and if doesn’t it is not the end of the world nor does it mean our prayers didn’t get answered. Yes, some of our prayer will go unanswered but many are stuck in traffic getting to us a little later. Please sit back and enjoy the ride,
Be blessed,
P. S – the 30 min gentleman did text me saying thanks, he made into his airplane on time.
#mother #Newjersey #financialfreedom #GPS #Uber #trust #lessonsoflife #teaching #faith #positivethinking #motivation #ski #travel #driver #Prayer #journey #teenagers #humanbehavior #money #nyc #profession #collegedegree #family #Jesus #achievements #Patriots