Drivin’ a Cab
No, I didn’t get a new job although it probably wouldn’t be bad money if I did.
So what do I mean by drivin’ a cab? Well, two days in a row now while I’ve been getting ready for work I’ve turned on HBO and caught the same part of the movie Collateral.
The scene, which is my favorite part of the movie, speaks volumes to me. In the movie, Max (Jamie Foxx’s character) drives a cab but always talks about starting his own limo company someday.
Towards the end of the movie, Vincent (Tom Cruise’s character) berates Max by saying:
Someday, someday my dream will come. One night you’ll wake up and you’ll discover it never happened. It’s all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old. It didn’t happen, and it never will because you were never going to do it anyway. You’ll push it into memory, then zone out in your barcalounger, being hypnotized by daytime TV for the rest of your life. Don’t you talk to me about murder. All it ever took was a down payment on a Lincoln Town Car, and that girl…you can’t even call that girl. What the fuck are you still doing driving a cab?
How many of us are still driving a cab? How many of us are not doing something we want to because we’re afraid of risk? Are we gonna wake up one day and wonder what the hell happened? Why didn’t I do that when I could have? Calling that girl, starting that company, writing that book, what is it that we’re so afraid of?
I know I don’t want to live like that. So every once and a while when I feel like I’m slipping into status quo, I pop in the movie and remind myself that I should be “driving a Town car instead of a cab.”
