For anybody that drives a vehicle regularly, or even for those who have played Mario Kart, you know that when something gets on your windshield, it makes it harder to drive.
Yes, technically, you can still drive, but you're now putting yourself and every other driver around you at risk.
I remember when I was younger, I would play Mario Kart all the time, and every time my car was inked on, I would have to drive a lot slower, and even then, I was crashing into the walls and running into obstacles that I could normally easily avoid with a clean windshield. I always thought that it was better to keep driving and just take the risk of running into things, rather than wait for the ink to take its sweet time to fade from my windshield.
The same kind of concept goes for driving in real life. When something happens to your windshield, whether it's a bird doing what birds do to cars, a rocketing the windshield and causing it to crack, snow covering it, honestly, the list could go on.
If something happens to your windshield, small or big, it affects the way that you navigate to wherever you're trying to go. Whatever is going on on the outside, affects what's going on on the inside.
In this analogy, the windshield is our perspective of life. The things that happen to the windshield are the not-so-great things that happen in our life.
Whether we want it to happen or not, the things that happen in our lives have a major impact on how we perceive the world around us. If your windshield gets covered in snow, you can't just continue to drive and act like nothing happened.
I mean, you could try, but you're a lot more likely to run into things.
When difficult things happen in our lives, and we ignore them, or we don't take care of them properly, it negatively impacts the way that we view the world, which in turn impacts the way that we interact with the world.
I know I've done this plenty of times, where I would be at school, and someone would say something rude to me, so I would spend the rest of that day feeling targeted by everyone.
Every time someone would even look in my direction, I would assume that they were thinking horrible things about me. Not only that, I would also be rude to other people because it made me feel like I was in control.
But I didn't realize that there were better methods to feeling in control. And not just feeling it, but truly being in control.
The first method is using our metaphorical window wipers. The whole purpose of window wipers is to remove the things that are blocking our vision, whether it's light snow or rain.
This could be someone honking at you while you're driving, a friend canceling plans that you were really looking forward to, getting a bad grade on an assignment that you worked hard on, the little frustrations in life.
Whatever they are, they still prevent you from being able to see. They don't destroy the windshield completely, but they still affect how we are able to see.
In order to have control, to turn on the windshield wipers, the first part of the equation is to acknowledge what the situation is, to acknowledge the raindrops or light snow on the windshield.
For instance, when someone yells at me, my first instinct is to yell back at them. But that would just be the equivalent of me getting mad at the windshield for having rain on it, but not actually doing anything to fix it.
So instead of reacting, instead of feeding into it, I have to pause long enough to actually see what's on my windshield. Because here's the thing, control isn't loud. Control doesn't slam doors or raise its voice or prove a point.
Control is quiet. It's the moment where everything in you wants to snap back, but you don't. It's the split second where your emotions are screaming and you choose to listen, but not obey.
That's your windshield wiper. That's you saying, okay, something just hit me. Let me clear it before I keep going.
And it sounds simple. It really does. But it's not easy.
Because sometimes the rain isn't just rain. Sometimes it's not just someone being rude. Sometimes it's not just a bad grade.
Sometimes it's not just canceled plans. Sometimes it's deeper than that. Sometimes it's years of things building up on your windshield, layer after layer after layer, until you don't even remember what it feels like to see clearly anymore.
And that's where people get stuck. Because if you've been driving with a dirty windshield for long enough, it starts to feel normal. You start thinking, this is just how life looks.
You start believing, everyone is probably against me. You start assuming, nothing ever works out anyway. But that's not reality.
That's just what it looks like through a distorted lens. And the dangerous part is, you start making decisions based on that distorted view. You start pulling away from people who might actually care about you.
You start reacting defensively when no one was attacking you. You start sabotaging things before they even have the chance to be good. Not because you're broken, but because you're driving blind.
And nobody taught you to stop and clean the windshield. Nobody said, hey, before you keep going, maybe check what you're looking through. So, you just keep driving, faster sometimes.
Because weirdly enough, when we can't see clearly, we don't always slow down. We speed up, we distract ourselves, we fill our schedules, we stay busy, we avoid silence. Because silence forces you to look at the windshield.
And a lot of people don't want to do that. But here's the truth. Whether you look at it or not, it's still there.
Ignoring it doesn't clean it, avoiding it doesn't fix it, and pretending it's not affecting you doesn't make you any safer. It just makes the crash more likely. And I know that sounds intense, but think about it.
How many times have you reacted to something and later thought, why did I act like that? How many times have you taken something personally and later realized that it probably wasn't even about you?
How many times have you pushed someone away because you assumed that they were going to leave anyway? That's not random. That's not you being too much.
That's your windshield talking. That's everything that's built up, shaping how you interpret the world. So the goal isn't to never have anything hit your windshield.
That's impossible. Life is going to happen. People are going to disappoint you.
Things are going to go wrong. You will get hit with rain. You will get hit with snow.
Sometimes you'll get hit with things that fell way bigger than that. The goal is not perfection. The goal is awareness.
The goal is catching it early, turning on the wipers before it turns into a storm.
And sometimes, yeah, the wipers aren't enough. Sometimes it's not light rain. Sometimes it's a crack in the windchill.
Something that doesn't just blur your vision, it distorts it completely. And wipers won't fix that. You can't just wipe away deeper things like betrayal, loss, trauma, or long-term self-doubt.
That's when you have to pull over. And I think that's the part people struggle with the most, because pulling over feels like falling behind. It feels like stopping when everyone else is still moving.
It feels like weakness, but it's not. It's actually one of the strongest things that you can do, because it's you choosing safety over speed. It's you saying, I care more about where I'm going than how fast I get there.
And that takes self-awareness. That takes honesty. That takes courage.
Because pulling over means you have to sit with it. You have to actually look at the crack. You have to admit that something affected you.
You have to stop pretending that you're fine when you're not, and I know that's uncomfortable. I know it's easier to just keep going, but if you don't fix that crack, it spreads.
And eventually, it doesn't matter how strong of a driver you are, you won't be able to see at all.
So what does pulling over actually look like? It's different for everyone. Sometimes it's talking to someone you trust.
Sometimes it's journaling. Sometimes it's sitting in your car in silence for a few minutes instead of immediately distracting yourself. Sometimes it's going to therapy.
Sometimes it's just admitting to yourself, yeah, that actually hurt me, and not minimizing it. Not brushing it off, not turning it into a joke, just letting it be real.
Because the more honest you are about what's on your windshield, the easier it is to clear it. And here's something else that's important. You don't have to wait until everything is perfectly clear to keep going.
You just have to make sure you can see enough. Enough to stay in your lane. Enough to avoid hitting people.
Enough to not hurt yourself or others in the process. Because progress doesn't require perfection, it requires clarity, even partial clarity. And that's where grace comes in.
Giving yourself grace when you don't handle things perfectly. Giving yourself grace when you realize your windshield has been dirty for a while. Giving yourself grace when you have to slow down or pull over.
Because this isn't about being flawless. It's about being intentional. It's about choosing awareness over autopilot, because autopilot is dangerous when your windshield is dirty.
Autopilot is how you end up repeating the same patterns over and over again. Same reactions, same assumptions, same outcomes, different day.
And if you've ever felt stuck like that, like you're living the same experience in different forms, there's a good chance it's not your life that's the problem. It's the way you're seeing it. And that's not meant to be an insult.
That's actually empowering, or at least supposed to be empowering. Because if the problem was the entire world, you'd have no control. What if the problem is your perspective?
That's something you can work with. That's something you can shift. That's something you can clean.
Slowly, patiently, consistently.
And over time, things start to look different. Not because the world suddenly became perfect, but because you're finally seeing it clearly. You start realizing not everyone is against you.
You start noticing the good moments you used to miss. You start responding instead of reacting. You start feeling more grounded, more in control, more like yourself.
And the best part, you don't have to force it. Clarity doesn't have to be forced. It happens naturally, when you take care of what's in front of you.
When you stop ignoring what's on your windshield. When you stop blaming the road for what's actually on the glass. And yeah, there will still be days when something hits your windshield out of nowhere.
There will still be moments that catch you off guard. You're human, that's part of it. But now, you'll know what to do.
You won't just keep driving blindly, you'll notice it. You'll pause, you'll clear it, and you'll keep going on purpose. Not out of panic, not out of habit, but with intention.
And that changes everything.
So if there's anything I want you to take from this, it's this, you are not a bad driver. You are not incapable, you are not too sensitive, you are overreacting for no reason.
You've just had things at your windshield, and you haven't always been shown how to deal with them. But now you do.
So, the next time something happens, something small, something big, anything in between, before you react, before you assume, before you let it shape your entire day, just ask yourself, what's on my windshield right now?
And then, do something about it. Turn on the wipers, slow down, or if you need to, pull over, clean it, take your time. And when you're ready, get back on the road, because your life isn't meant to be lived through a distorted lens.
It's meant to be experienced clearly, fully, intentionally. And you deserve to see where you're going. So clean your windshield, and drive like you can actually see.