Failure, Success, and Driving Tests
Sometimes I feel like I know failure a little too personally these days. You know how you have that one friend whom, for some reason, you know their exact shoe size, the last book they read and the entire backstory of the massive poo they had two days ago? Yeah, that's Failure to me. She's my new toxic bestie, in my face a little too often recently, and it's become wildly uncomfortably frustrating to deal with her. I mean, it’s hard to throw her off - Failure hangs around whether you want it to or not, and you can’t exactly tell her to leave until Success stumbles your way.
I can't believe I'm being so dramatic about a driving test.
Let me set the scene - it's my 18th birthday, and while most other 18th birthdays are spent throwing extravagant parties or going out to karaoke or tasting alcohol for the first time, my 18th birthday was mostly spent at driving school, under the sudden gusts of rain that would appear and disappear to their whim, sitting in a freezing cold car, windows down and praying that I didn't accidentally cross the yellow line. My driving instructor told me I was lucky to get my birthday as the test date - it would mean I had some extra luck. And I did, at first, when my RPM (Routine Pemeriksaan Kendreraan, which is basically checking the outside of your car) and RSM (Routine Sebelum Memandu, which is checking everything you can reach from the driver’s seat) both went well - I was worried I would miss out something, but thankfully I didn’t. Then I went for the circuit test, for which I was terrified of my three-point turn, knowing that slightly going over the yellow barrier would be an automatic fail. But hey, I managed that too!
Then the road test. KPP03. Test Jalan Raya. Whatever you may call it. I knew my Route A and Route B like the back of my hand. I was confident. I did breathing exercises, and I listened to calming music. I texted my mom and told her I loved her. I was ready.
I barely lasted a minute.
White lines. For a week, all I could see were white lines. When I went to sleep, brushed my teeth, took the train to work, at my lunch - white lines. Stupid white lines. I had braked too late and my tyre was just barely touching it - and straightaway I was told to exit the vehicle and driven back to the school like a sad puppy being scolded for peeing on the carpet. White lines, in my opinion, absolutely suck. No one else on the road seemed to listen to them - at nearly every traffic light, at least three out of four cars would be way over the line, much much more than I was even close to - but I do it and get an instant fail?
But it's fine. Life's fine. Life goes on. You give half your salary to your mom because retaking this test is not exactly cheap but it's fine. Not like you needed the money anyway. Your test gets rescheduled - great! Another chance to make things right! You wait patiently for it, go early in the morning aaaaaand you fail again. This time it was not as depressing - my examiner at least let me finish the route before turning and telling me he was going to fail me because I went over the speed limit in a school zone - which, honestly, fair enough. Until I asked him if there were any other reasons, and he just shrugged. I’ve heard stories of people nearly crashing their cars and still managing to pass, meanwhile me, now having to resit a third time, wanting to dig a pit and lie in it for the rest of my life.
Same, SpongeBob, same.
So yeah, me and Failure have been unwitting besties for the last what, five months or so? She's been getting on my nerves, but so far it seems I can't get rid of her until I find where Success has been hiding from me all this time. You learn a lot from toxic friendships, I feel (cough cough, speaking from experience), and since my mom always said you should reflect after a mistake, here goes: I don't think failing this test is what’s causing me to be this upset (authors note: the author was having a nice little cry before typing this out). It's a lot of things, honestly. A lot of much bigger and more important things that I've been trying to get through, only to be met with disappointment and rejection at every turn. In the New King James Version of the Bible, patience is referred to as long-suffering. This is an absolutely fantastic name that wholeheartedly captures the essence of patience - it's just plain suffering, and suffering, and suffering and then getting another chance, messing it up again, and going back to suffering. When you’re stuck in this loop, it almost seems like there’s no way things get better- though, for all our sakes, I hope this isn’t true, and that there’s a rainbow coming after the storm.
I have also learnt how important getting a driving licence is to adulthood. Aside from my mom, there's no one else with one in the family, so if we ever need to go somewhere we need to rely on her. Getting a driving licence would mean I could help her out, driving to the grocery store or to church or even to taekwondo class. Both times I failed my driving test, the first thing I could think about is how much it sucks that another two weeks will go by wasted when I could have been letting her rest at home and easing her responsibilities.
One final thing I learned is how easy it is to fail. Not saying I didn't struggle, didn't try my best and work hard - I did! But small mistakes can cost you everything so quickly. It's like climbing up a mountain - Success is reaching the top, and Failure is accidentally falling off a cliff on the way. It's so sudden and unexpected. You wake up again at the bottom and think, man, I really have to do that all over again? It's so easy to make a mistake, and so difficult to succeed, especially in a world that seems hell-bent on making us suffer (capitalism, amirite). People make mistakes all the time without realizing it until it’s too late, so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it. No one can be perfect, we can only strive to do our best. Sometimes things won’t work out simply because things didn’t work out, and that’s okay.
To anyone who’s reading who has also failed their driving test for the second time in a row, or to those of us stuck in the cycle of long-suffering, here’s an inspirational Winston Churchill Quote my mom sent me when I texted her about failing the test: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” I’ll keep pushing forward, even though at this point I’m a little fed up of driving in white Proton Axia’s, and I hope the same for all of you. This is not the end of my life - putting things in perspective, passing my driving test is going to seem like a silly little worry once I’ve got my license in hand. In the meantime, I’ve just got to be patient, and hope things work out in the end.
Let's hope third time’s the charm, huh?
Me finally getting my driver's licence (age-accurate gif) Thanks for reading!
Talk to you later, world.
Yours Truly, Joy.
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