A Student Teaches Me That LIfe Is a Different Kind of Highway

My students had to present philosophical metaphors last week and a very smart girl explained that her take on life is like driving -- she said that we are all rolling along the road, some one way and some in the opposite direction, and we all share the road but we don't know exactly where the other cars are going -- they may even be going to the same address as us, but for a very different reason, or just using the same road -- and we may wave or give them the finger, but we don't fully understand them and what's going on inside that vehicle . . . and that parallels her view of other people, we don't know their full intentions or thoughts but we can see similarities and/or major contrasts in how they are moving and acting and this gives us clues to how they think and feel; this philosophy boggled my mind because when I am driving, I don't think of the other cars as human entities, I think of them as obstacles and I'm often angry and wondering What the hell are these people doing out here on the road? Don't they have jobs? Are they just driving around aimlessly to irritate me? Why are they taking up space on this planet? Why are they driving 34 miles an hour in the passing lane? and if I get caught in a traffic jam, I don't console myself with the fact that I'm surrounded by other conscious people who have wants and needs, and a desire to get places, instead I feel claustrophobic and oppressed and insane and want all the cars around me to be vaporized by alien lasers form space . . . but from here on in, I'm going to try to change (a little) and (occasionally) attempt to empathize with both other cars and other people.