Proving Impossible Wrong
February 27, 2013 - Author: KishaLynn Elliott
It’s true!
Have you ever thought something was impossible, only to be proven wrong? Here’s an example from my life:
I didn’t learn to drive until I was 19. My aunt gave me 6 driving lessons during the summer of 1999 in Columbus, OH, then I took my driver’s test, barely passing.
Two weeks later I was in LA attending Occidental College on a domestic exchange program. I had landed an internship and a film production company which required me to drive one hour each way every Monday from Eagle Rock to Santa Monica, on Los Angeles’ worst freeways:
Imagine trying to figure this out after only 6 driving lessons
The 405, the 10, and the 110. A brand new friend in my dorm offered me his car to use.
The first day I was to report to work was also the first time I had ever driven in a vehicle by myself, was only my 8th time behind the wheel at all, and my aunt had NEVER taken me on the freeway during my lessons. Now here I was alone, with printed directions 2 pages and 5 freeways long. I just knew I would die, crash, or both. I crept up to the 1st on-ramp, took a deep breath, hit the gas and merged into traffic.
It was the scariest thing I ever experienced.
I took the wrong freeways. I went south when I was supposed to go North. East instead of west. I either missed exits because I didn’t know how to use the signs to determine when and where to merge, or kept accidentally exiting the freeway trying to stay in the “slow lane”. People LAID on their horns at me. I swerved that car like it was doing the Dougie. The tires screeched every time I stopped. In fact, my only saving grace was the infamous LA bumper to bumper traffic, where at least things were moving slowly enough to figure things out, or were altogether stopped, allowing me to look at the printed directions.
Thank God for the traffic–it was my only chance to slow down and breathe!
I didn’t think it would EVER be possible for me to get comfortable behind the wheel. After Day 1 on the internship, I broke down and cried in my dorm room, partly because I was relieved to be alive and back on campus, and partly because I was terrified to have to do it again the following Monday and every Monday after. My brain was saying “This is impossible, you have to quit the internship.” My heart said “This is possible. You’ve proven it all ready by doing it once. Just keep going. It will get easier.”
I did and it did. That internship taught me two things–that I am NOT destined to work in Hollywood, and how to drive…on the freeway. I inwardly giggle about it now every time I’m behind the wheel of Billie, my convertible. It’s a stick shift–another “impossibility” I overcame years later.
Now anytime I’m faced with the challenge of learning something new, and am failing so miserably at the onset that it seems impossible, I just remember the 405, and power forward anyway.
How will you prove impossible wrong in your life? Please comment and let me know.
Just keep steering!
Neil Kremer / Foter.com / CC BY-ND LA freeways
Photo credit: JefferyTurner / Foter.com / CC BY
Photo credit: meghannash / Foter.com / CC BY
Clotee Pridgen Allochuku / Foter.com / CC BY
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