When I learned to drive, some of my teachers tended to repeat: “You are driving in the direction where you are looking.” But my other teachers told me it was incorrect. Yes, I will crash when my eyes are stuck on one object for a long time. But if my eyes don’t stick, I can drive almost 360 degrees from my view by changing the view angle constantly.
I’m a slow driver. I do not react so fast, and sometimes, I lack certainty. I took many additional lessons after receiving my driver’s license, and through practice, I didn’t do counter emergency driving, though. Most weren’t about hard skills: “Look how I amazing avoided emergencies,” but more about “how I helped emergencies not to happen at all.” Even within this context, there were many dangerous situations. I can’t avoid them all; I only reflect on and correct my mistakes.
These are not hard physical skills; they are awareness and psychology. First is recognizing dangerous patterns better. The second is to stay reasonable even in stressful situations without hazardous overreactions, which we will call emotional intelligence now (EQ). It is not fun to be right by the driving rules, insisting on them, and being in the hospital after this insisting. Stay calm, stay safe.
Awareness helps predict dangerous situations in the moving context. Context is changing permanently in the busy city. I break a bit when the problem becomes hotter to restore safety balance. When everything goes to hell, I break hard. Braking is solving the most dangerous situations. While breaking, I also have more time to react and reevaluate the situation. If danger passes, there is a big truck right after you. However, changing direction is even more dangerous.
Engineering differs; we create and organize how traffic should go, not only participate within. But broad look and watching for the current context, dangerous patterns recognition, and emotional intelligence work. Pushing the emergency brake is not for cowards only.
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I’m Alex, tech lead in Prestatech with experience from startups to middle-sized and big-tech companies. Loves to make effective and friendly team processes.
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