Revving the Engine
September 2, 2010
I was walking down Spadina Rd. last week when some kind of cool car wipped past me. I immediately turned my head and commented to the friend I was with how nice I thought the car was. He said to me "oh, you must be a car guy". It made me stop and think because actually I've never considered myself to be a car guy. In some ways though, I guess he's right. I mean, I like the look of high end cars. I like the details - how the leather is trimmed, what the dash is decorated with, how much chrome is on the car. I even like some of the manly things about cars - how they small and how they sound. I have this fantasy of finding a place where I can test drive several high end cars for an hour or two on a closed track at high speeds. I guess I am kind of a car guy...just revving the engine gets my blood boiling! I was thinking today though how silly that is. You know what the reality is? I HATE driving. Ask my wife. Any time we get in the car I get annoyed. It's not just the traffic of the GTA either...I kind of always have hated driving. Some people like the travel time on trips - I hate it. Something about being an achiever and a futurist keeps me from enjoying the pointless moments of travel - I just want to be there. NOW. So why, in heavens name, should I be interested in ANY car? I don't like being in them, I don't drive THAT much; it's totally impractical for me to want such a car. I've come to believe that when I'm lusting after nice cars it's only the excitement of owning said car that I want, not what the car will actually do for me. If I allowed the sexiness of those cars to overcome me I could waste a lot of energy trying to get the money to buy one of those cars and I can gaurantee that for me I would wind up dissapointed 'cause I had wasted so much time and resources. I think sometimes people and organizations get like this too. Not about cars but about certain acheivements. They're attracted to the excitement of achievement, the roar of the engine so to speak, and don't stop to think whether that achievement is actually what they need to be pursuing. I think one of the great hazards of being a leader is how easy it can be to be lured into pursuing the excitement of building something bigger rather than building something better and more beneficial to the world we live in. The roar of the engine in my 2001 Ford Escape is the only roar I want. With it, I get to focus my attention on what really matters. That sound is far more exciting to me these days.
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