The Aardvark Blog

Don't Sweat the How Stuff
13/04/2025

This morning driving into work in my increasingly filthy Skoda Yeti, I had one of those moments of revelation that are not often given to us.

Having had rather a prolonged discussion with Ethel over the breakfast table as to the events of the upcoming week, I left home somewhat later than I had intended and not long after I picked up another Yeti driving quite slowly and proceeded to drive behind it for a few miles.

Having gone through a couple of villages I finally found a safe overtaking spot and moved out to overtake. My fellow Yeti driver immediately sped up to over 60 Mph and before long I realised that I would not be able to overtake them safely.

I therefore pulled back behind them and after a concerted amount of mumbling and tut-tutting followed them for a few more miles to the next village. It was after they had turned off that I had my moment of revelation.

Actually notwithstanding my feelings of annoyance, I had actually attained my goal. After my aborted overtaking manoeuvre the other vehicle had then sped up for the rest of the time that they were in front of me. My actual goal in trying to overtake them had not really been to get in front of the other car, but to be able to drive faster and get to work on time. And in that I had succeeded.

And that led me to think of how often we confuse our goals, and in doing so often miss opportunities to get what we really want. This is not surprising in a way, as our lizard brains often mistake the shiny for the thing of real value. It feels good to be driving an open road with no other vehicle in front of you, but unless you are only out for a pleasure drive, your real goal is to get to your destination safely and on time.

In a week in which the world has been holding its breath as financial markets gyrate more than a Westminster MP trying to get the speaker's attention during Prime Minister's questions (why has nobody ever put the weird bobbing to music - may I suggest the Blue Danube  to an artfully slowed down video?), I think that the reason for the confusion within the US administration is that they have never really identified their goal. If their goal is to seek to equalise trade in manufactured goods and raw materials between the US and other countries, there are a whole raft of ways to do that, that do not lead to macro-economic turmoil.

But one doesn't have to go to the political realm to see the importance of this observation. In our own lives we are often faced with situations where our feelings have been hurt or an interaction has not gone as we would wish, and we not unreasonably look for an apology or a formal acknowledgement from the person or organisation that we feel has wronged us. But in seeking that we are usually concentrating too much on the rabbit and not enough on the magician.

Hearing the signal for the noise is always hard, particularly when our emotions are the noise. But as I drove into the car park on the stroke of 9am this morning, I could not help but smile at the thought of the unknown driver who had provided me with such a valuable life lesson.