Whenever finding excuses....look inwards

Last Sunday morning I want for another drive with a few more friends at Kuala Klawang. As I would do after every drive, I would review some of the dashcam footage to see how was my driving and what is there to improve.

Let me first say that I am not that fast a driver, compared to many of my peers. Some drives are more frustrating than others, due to a myriad of factors. As many drivers might, I often look for excuses and most of the time I point to my car being a limiting factor for my driving.

Fortunately, I am grounded by the fact that there are friends around me that drives crappier cars way faster than me. Recently I was shown a video of a friend driving a bone stock Perodua Viva 4-speed automatic mated to a 1.0 liter 3-potter, and practically shitted on a 2.0l Toyota Corolla at the Batangkali backroads.

For those who don't know what is a Perodua Viva - it is a 60 bhp city famously known to handle like a boat. And this friend of mine, who was driving this car for the first time (the car belonged to another friend), left the Corolla so far behind that at the twistier sections the Corolla could barely see his tail lamps.

A Perodua Viva. Image credit :  Ilya Plekhanov @ Wikipedia.org / Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0

This has inspired me to reflect upon my own performance before blaming my car, road conditions or whatever possible excuse, and decided to improve my driving instead of spending more money on my car.

There is a life lesson to be learned here. Too often, when we fall short of expectations, we blame others instead of looking inward and see what we could've done better ourselves, relying too much on external factors to work in our favor when we should've went that extra mile to perform a bit better.

This is something I will continue to practice in other aspects of my life (the self-reflection, not blaming others). Now where can I get a decent condition used Perodua Viva hmmm....