There has been serial fuel scarcity in Abuja which started late last year caused by different factors and not all fuel stations have been dispensing fuel in Abuja, so you will always meet a large queue of cars in any of the fuel stations that have fuel to dispense, some times, some cars will queue up at the fuel station overnight.
I noticed that when there is orderliness and all cars queue up and wait for their turn, the line moves faster but when everybody is struggling to enter the filling station at once and buy their own fuel first, disorganizing the queue and causing disorderliness, things always go on a standstill.
Whenever I watch from afar and witness this I always ask myself why are people always in a haste or lack the patience to wait for their turn?. The usual answer will be that the person is in a hurry or rushing over to catch up on something or running late on something and wants to quickly get his thing done and move away.
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But the truth is when you rush or hurry to save time you may end up wasting more time than you were trying to save.
Back to my filling station scenario; I was watching two men the other day struggling head to head who to enter the filling station first and get fuel with the reason that they are both in a hurry, they ended up ramming their cars into each other , that resulted in them to come down from their cars and engage in a fist fight. Unfortunately, they ended up wasting more time than they were trying to save because we that patiently queued up and waited for our turn purchased our fuel and left them there, hours later as I was driving back, I still saw their cars parked there.
This is exactly what happens in big cities where there is huge traffic. You will find out that most of the traffic gridlock is caused by people who claim to be in a hurry, hence refusing to wait or give chance to other vehicles that have the right of way. When you do not wait and you block the road thereby causing a traffic jam, you will spend more time in traffic and waste extra time than the time you are trying to save.
Most of the fatal accidents that happen on highways are caused by over-speeding. When you ask those who engage in over-speeding their reason, the primary reason they give is that they are in a hurry and want to catch up with time but they forget that they are risking their lives in the quest to save time. If you have an accident due to over speeding you will waste extra time trying to sort out the accident, that is if you even survive the accident.
Some people also drive against traffic lights and break traffic rules just because they are in a hurry and want to catch up with time, but the funny thing is if you are caught by traffic wardens you will be delayed and made to pay a fine for the offense and that time you were rushing to save will be wasted.
Anytime you want to engage in an irrational behavior just because you are in a hurry, ask yourself if it is worth it, pause and think of what might possibly go wrong in the quest of you trying to save time then you will notice that it is not worth it.
One of the key ways to not always be in a hurry is to plan your day properly and fix your schedules. Leave your house earlier and then you won’t be driving like a thief being chased by police risking your life and risking the lives of other road users just because you want to catch up with time.