A Basic Responsibility

To me, a person’s most basic responsibility is to him/herself. You owe it to yourself to be a good person, to be happy, to work towards reaching your goals, and more importantly, to stay alive. The gift of life is the greatest of all, one that no one can give you except for the Almighty. Sure, medicine field is advancing with each day and perhaps human cloning will be possible soon (is it already?), but at the end of the day, it is God that gives you life.

Therefore, I find it appalling that some people can be very reckless with their own lives. I’m talking about road users who take uncalculated risks, zig-zagging their way across the road and thus forcing others to protect their lives on their behalf. Why should you shift your responsibility to stay alive to some strangers who might not even care whether you live for another day? Where is the rationale of risking a limb, or worse, your life, just so that you could reach your destination earlier? I know time is very important for everyone, especially us city folks, but is it necessary to risk your entire life just for a timesaving of 15 minutes or so? Don’t this people look at the bigger picture? Surely it does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out, unless those road users are very happy to die a mati katak (pointless) death.

In my travel to work, I encounter these people every day. Very often, I am forced to press the brake hard to avoid accidents. I shall not mention here the exponentially growing number of expletives in my vocabulary since I started driving to work about one and a half years ago. I tried honking before but discovered that it didn’t work, so now I’m channelling out my anger with words that I don’t dare mutter in the presence of another human being.

I don’t know to what extent other drivers share my predicament. I know that we are all in the same boat, but my end of the boat seems to be in more choppy water. Is it because I’m a woman with a small car that those insane road users think that I would be a very considerate driver, and even if it turns out that I’m not, chances are in an accident, may car (and I) will not inflict much harm on them?

To the guilty parties, please re-evaluate your priorities in life. Please stop being selfish. You might not give a **** about other road users, but you owe it to yourself to stay alive with all limbs intact. Even if you feel that you don’t deserve to be alive, please think of your loved ones, your family, your friends, your pet or whatever it is that motivate you to continue living.

If that does not work, you need to see a shrink to sort things out off the road. If you cannot afford to see one, I can offer you my service FOC. Just stop bugging me on the road, please.