The day I hopped into a cab with Alain De Botton.
In a cab, out of a cab, into the airport and onto a plane. Phone off, iPad off, laptop off then sit for a bit followed by iPhone on, iPad on and laptop on. In a cab out of a cab through the hotel lobby to finally open your hotel room door.
Now I feel extremely lucky to be able to travel for work and get to see different parts of this amazing country as apart of my job whilst doing work that I love. But after a while the airports, planes and taxi’s can all feel the same. Until sometimes out of nowhere you can be totally shocked.
Being quite a social person I quite enjoying talking to new people, but these days more than ever most cab drivers are either talking to someone else on the phone or listening to the radio etc. So it took me by complete surprise when my taxi trip to the airport felt more like a philosophy lesson than going from a to b. I had to do a double-check that I hadn’t just hopped in with Alain De Botton.
I turn to my cab driver and say domestic airport please and sort of slump into my chair after a busy and productive day. The driver turns to and asks me to sum up my day in three words. Straight away this conversation is different to nearly every other one I’ve had with a cab driver this year. I quickly blurted out ‘Good, Long & Busy.’
He takes a second to think about it and then hits me with this. “Good is an ok answer. It’s not the best answer you could have given but good is definitely better than bad. Busy and long means you are both wanted and important. Which means your organisation needs you, which is good for someone so young. All of that means you have job security. Which means you can pay your bills. So you should be happy.”
I was now sitting up straight in my seat and taking this all in as the Sydney CBD was fading into the distance. Who would have thought that all that could be taken from something as simple as my 3 word summary of my day. Something as simple as a one minute conversation completely changed my whole afternoon and rather than having a nap or reading a magazine on the way home I found myself writing away full of inspiration.
So after reading this ask yourself how you sum up your day in 3 words and what would you take from it?
Damon Klotz 
2 Responses to “The day I hopped into a cab with Alain De Botton.”
What a great post! My three words are: blessed, pumped and itchy. Blessed because of everything the Lord has placed before me. Pumped because it is another beautiful day in the world around me. Itchy because, even though the world is beautiful, some kind of allergy has left me rashy and itchy. I hope you run into more insightful cabbies! Have a great day!
Thanks for the comment Tere! Here’s hoping that we both find little bits of inspiration every day!