It’s Okay to follow what’s working

Summary

The author uses a personal anecdote about an Uber ride to emphasize the importance of following established strategies and learning from others' experiences, particularly through reading.

Abstract

The article recounts the author's frustrating Uber trip, where the driver ignored the GPS's suggested route, leading to a much longer journey due to traffic. This experience serves as a metaphor for the tendency to reject proven methods in favor of unverified personal strategies, which can result in inefficiency and wasted time. The author draws a parallel between this and the importance of reading to gain insights from the successes and failures of others, arguing that historical and contemporary literature offers valuable lessons that remain relevant today. The author suggests that reading is akin to training for a battle, providing a "cheat code" to navigate life's challenges more effectively.

Opinions

The author believes that it's a common human flaw to discredit established methods due to ego or a desire to innovate, often leading to suboptimal outcomes.
Reading is presented as a crucial tool for personal and professional development, offering access to the accumulated wisdom of past generations.
The author opines that human behavior and challenges are consistent over time, making historical accounts in books pertinent to contemporary issues.
There is a view that ignoring the advice and experiences shared in literature is akin to entering a battle untrained, suggesting that such knowledge is essential for success.
Despite the driver's poor decision, the author chose to give a 5-star review, possibly indicating a belief in the value of empathy and understanding of human fallibility.

Reinventing your way sometimes gets you stuck

I took an Uber home today and I guess that’s how I got today’s article inspiration. The trip started and all was going well until the Google voice assistant directed the driver to use some other route. And the driver was laughing and saying that it’s not the best route and was mocking the app for not being accurate.

In all that, I was too tired to even say anything because all I wanted to do was to sleep because it had been a busy couple of days for me. So, going back home to finally rest was all that was in my mind. I didn’t take part in the conversation. I just sat there waiting.

As you might have it. He didn’t listen and took the route he thought was best and one thing the city of Lagos is popular for is traffic. As you might have it, we got stuck in traffic. And all the while, I was waiting for the app to say “I told you so”

To cut the long annoying story short, we spent 2 hours in what was supposed to be a 45 minutes trip. Why did this happen? The driver felt he knew better, so he did things his way.

Here’s what I took out of the whole scenario

At some point, we’ve all been guilty of discrediting what’s already working to do things our way and try to create a new path. This could be out of our ego or whatever you might call it but somehow, we just don’t follow what’s working.

I was too tired to even be bothered, but it was enough to get angry at, but I just kept quiet because it’s something we humans do — we like to follow what we believe is the best strategy.

I’m going to link this to reading. Living your life or running your business without reading and seeing how other people struggled and triumphed in their businesses is still the same thing the driver did. He took longer to get me home and that’s the same way it will take you longer to achieve your goals if you don’t read the works of others.

They’ve gone through what you’re going through today. Although it was in a different time, one thing is certain that they all dealt with human beings — not robots. So human behavior will remain the same from generation to generation.

Meaning you need to read those books to see how they overcame what you’re facing currently.

Living your life without books is like going into a battle without training. Boxers watch the past clips of their opponents before every fight to know what to expect. They try to see their weak and strong points to know how they can defeat their opponents.

Books and history are your clips. Books written in the 1950s are still very relevant today. While you read, you’ll notice that nothing has changed. Those things still relate to today’s world.

Nobody can tell the future, but the people who have lived before you and have experienced what you’re experiencing now have left clues for you to know what to expect from people and situations.

You have two options: To listen to them and live a better life or go your way and waste time — just like how the Uber driver made use of the route that was blocked.

Reading is a cheat code. Use it

Thank you for reading.

P.s. I still left him a 5-star review