Saying no to a ride with someone who’s not safe to drive can feel dramatic. It isn’t. It’s smart.
RESILIENCE
WHAT THIS MEANS
The social cost is immediate and specific, and the risk is invisible until it is not. That asymmetry is what makes it feel dramatic: you can picture the car going quiet and somebody calling you precious, and you cannot picture the thing that does not happen because you got out. Awkward is a very small price next to what is on the other side of it.
Set it up before the night rather than during it. Money kept for a taxi, one number you can call at any hour, and a flat sentence ready: not with you, thanks.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Have you ever got in a car you knew was unsafe?
MORE IN COURAGE & RISK
- Plenty of rodeo kids start with mutton busting, riding sheep at five. Big courage usually begins as small, silly…
- Moving to a new city alone is scary for a few weeks. Never trying can be regretted for decades.
- Asking someone to dance is a thirty-second risk. Sitting out the whole night is a three-hour one.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.