Ten miles. Six on I-55 Southbound. Two on MO-74, then a little more than one on West End, and less than a mile on Linden. It’s the distance from my house to work. If you are in a hurry? Don’t get behind me. I’m that guy. I drive the speed limit. I’m not in a hurry. I will get there when I get there.

So here we are, Thursday morning, and I’m needing to change lanes a mile before Exit 95. The car next to me, a four-door Lincoln Corsair driven by a middle-aged woman, is doing just over the speed limit. Dressed with style, a few gold bracelets shining in the early sunlight. Maybe she’s doing seventy-three. Or seventy-four. I speed up just enough to get in front of her, signal, and merge into her lane. All while checking my mirrors.

See, I’m always looking in my mirrors. It’s this problem I have. I seriously don’t trust other drivers. So I watched her throw up both hands, screaming at me through her windshield. I couldn’t hear her, but I figured it wasn’t good. And I laughed because I was trying to figure out what my offense was. The lane change? The signal? The audacity of getting in front of her before she, too, exited Interstate 55 Southbound? Maybe all three.

I laughed, waved at her, and kept driving.

One thing I know about trying to go faster than everyone else. It doesn’t just happen on the highway.

In elementary school, I was the one people came to for advice. I’m not sure why. It’s not like I had lots of friends who valued my opinion. But something about the way I sat still made them think I had answers. So I gave them. Every time. Someone would tell me their problem, and before they finished talking, I was already ahead of them. I listened just long enough to find the problem, and then I handed them what I thought would fix it.

They came back. It didn’t work, they’d tell me.

When they came back, they were ready to beat the crap out of me. I was twelve. Or thirteen. And I had been giving advice like I knew something. Fun fact. I didn’t.

So I stopped. Not the listening. I never stopped listening. But I stopped giving these people a play-by-play solution. For a while, I got in the habit of saying, “Well, if I were you, this is what I would do. But I’m not sure that’s the right answer for you.” I thought that would take the heat off me. But it didn’t. After a few times of that, I stopped that too. I learned to hold it. Sit with what they gave me and let it stay where it was. Theirs.

That was the first hard thing I ever taught myself. Staying in my lane.

People tell me I’d be a great counselor. I laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because the idea is laughable. I married a great counselor. Her name is Alissa, and she sits and listens to people every day at work, sometimes hearing stuff that would break most people. She processes it and gives them tools when she believes they are ready. She doesn’t rush ahead of them. That’s the job.

I’d be terrible in her chair.

Here’s what I would do: Someone would sit down across from me and start talking about the ‘thing’ that wakes her up at 2:48 in the morning. He left his dishes in the sink. His laundry is in piles. Everywhere. He refuses to pick up after himself. Sure, I’d listen, lean in. And then I would tell her how she could fix him. I’d get there before she did. I always do. Because staying behind someone, trusting them to find it on their own, letting them drive, that has never come easy for me.

That’s not the job. The job is to let her find the solution inside herself. To let her get there at her own speed.

I watched the woman in the Corsair the rest of the drive. She was tucked behind a semi, boxed in by three other cars. She finally found an opening and sped right by me, probably still angry. I don’t know how fast she was going. Fast enough to matter.

I turned right at the last stoplight. Her Corsair was already there, stopped. Waiting for the light to change so she could turn left on West End. Waiting for the same red light.

We got there at the exact same time. One of us with high blood pressure. One without.

The light turned green.

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More Five Minute Observations:

Leave It Alone — On the hardest kind of restraint.

Noticing — What changes when you pay attention without trying to change anything.

The Gardener. He Knows. — Some people don’t need your help. They need you to trust them.

Stickability — Why some things stay with you and most don’t.