Needing to stop off en route to a friend’s home, I was grateful to meet an amiable taxi driver who did not object to a quick detour and short wait. My companion went inside to purchase some items and I had time to hear his tale.

“I came from Pakistan twenty years ago. I got my MBA here, had a good business, got married, then things went bad. The business failed, my marriage failed. Now I drive a cab, but I am healthy, thank God, and happy.”

The man in his forties would intermittently look at me in the rearview mirror, but mostly gazed straight ahead.
“My father’s first business was selling fruit from a cart. He asked if he could park his cart in front of a store. Soon, he bought that store and then a few more. He was a very successful man. He had a wife, ten children. All of us went to school. My father was very strict and I came here to be free. But I remember the things he told me.”You make a decision and you stick with it. If it turns out that it’s not the right decision, then you make it right.” After my father died the family lost everything. There was the politics, the violence, hard times. I was already here. But they are okay now. Not like before, but okay.”

“I’ll start another business some day. I am sure.” he added.

We were soon setting off and arriving at our destination. We wished each other well.

I thanked him for his kindness and sharing his father’s sound advice.