What happens when a laid back, unfocused, unambitious, "I-don't-know-where-I'm-going-and-am-in-no-hurry-to-get-there" person gets into the driver's seat? Initially there is this immense sense of freedom, of control. Of finally being able to direct the course of your life, of being able to do exactly what you want to. You go superfast when you feel like it and stop in the middle of nowhere when you don't. You stop to smell every flower, to splash around in every pond, to gaze at every sunset. You experience everything you missed when someone else in a hurry was driving and you were just a hitchhiker they picked up. Pretty soon though, the distractions start to rule. You stop to smell even those flowers that make you sneeze every time you get anywhere near them. You splash around in the slimest of ponds. And you stop to look at the sun set even though you see no beauty in it anymore. What is the use of freedom, you ask yourself, if you use it do the same things that you did when you were not free? And then one day you stop driving - you don't see the point. If you don't have to get anywhere in particular, this place is as good as any. You see other cars zipping by, and you tell yourself they are fools. They don't know how to live.
One day, you are so bored of just existing, you get into the car. Just to do something different. Cruise along aimlessly for some time. The driver of a speeding car looks at you and laughs. And you get angry. Do you think I cant drive faster, you yell. I don't want to. I am more in control than you will ever be. But he has sped off. You decide to catch up with him, just to show him you can. And that one thought drives you. You speed up the car. You are a little rusty, but it all starts to come back. Habit takes over and very soon you are driving faster than you've done in months. You don't see the flowers. Or the ponds. You don't even know how many times the sun has set since you started to drive.
You do catch up with him in the end. As you pass him he waves at you, the wave intended as a salute and taken as one. The sunset never seemed as beautiful as it does that night.
You are glad to be back on the road again, glad to have your life back. You just hope, as you watch the last rays of the sun disappear, that you are not one of those people who need to be driven.