Episode 069 - Who's Driving Your Bus?

Hear The Thesis

The Thursday Thesis  - 12/10/2017

There are three types of people:

The first type of people are those who drive the bus – the action-takers and leaders. These folks decide to take control of their lives, grab the steering wheel and get that bus pointed in the direction it has to go. Then they show up every day and make sure that the bus is sticking to the designated route. After all, buses don’t just go for a random drive once in a while – they have a route and a timetable.

The second type of person is the passengers on the bus – the followers. These folks ride along with the people who are driving, paying the bus-fare and admiring the scenery, content to go wherever they are taken by the people who are driving and deciding on the destination.

And the third type of people is under the bus – the great majority of folks who never have a plan, have zero direction, and are flopped on the sofa eating junk food whilst vegging-out on brain-numbing TV and the manufactured hyper-reality of “celebrity culture”.

Psychology tells us that one of the secrets of happiness is a sense of control, a feeling of being able to direct our own lives. The more autonomy and control we have, the better we tend to feel.

Consumer society spoon-feeds us the happy-meal solutions to our manufactured needs, then instantly implants the next need to be pursued: all with instant gratification and almost no effort or thought.

That’s why the people who are in pursuit of their magnificent dreams and ambitions tend to be the happiest – they are driving their bus. Whilst others look on and marvel at how hard they drive, how diligently they turn the steering-wheel and how long their working hours are, the bus-drivers of destiny ring the bell and drop the clutch.

Do something, today, to take the wheel of your own bus: make a plan, read a book, turn off the media claptrap and figure out where you want your bus to go. If the bus you are on is not already heading in that direction, you’d better start thinking about changing buses or having a word with the driver about changing routes.

And if you realise that you are under the bus, then today might just be the beginning of a different life.

You choose, one way or another: even if you do nothing, that’s still a choice.

Ding-Ding!

© Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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