A Lesson My Father Taught Me Before Life Tested Me
Author’s Note
The moments described here are not borrowed lessons or imagined scenes.
They were lived – slowly, imperfectly, and at a cost.
If the story offers clarity, you may take the understanding without having to travel the same road.
1985.
My father ran a small store a few kilometres away from our home. Every night, after he closed the shutters, I would cycle with him back home, two bicycles moving quietly through the darkness.
There were hardly any streetlights then. Very few vehicles. Just the road, the sound of our tyres, and long stretches of black ahead.
My father always kept me on his left side, between him and the edge of the road.
If a vehicle came from the opposite direction, he would gently guide me closer.
Before my first few night rides, he warned me about something specific.
“When the vehicle passes,” he said, “its light will blind you for a moment.
After that, everything ahead will go dark.
Don’t panic. Keep riding. Your eyes will adjust.”
At that age, I thought he was teaching me how to ride a bicycle at night.
I didn’t realise he was preparing me for life.
When Light Becomes Deceptive
Years later, I moved abroad.
For the first time, money felt easy. Income was steady. Confidence grew. Life looked bright.
That phase felt exactly like those headlights on the road, powerful, reassuring, almost intoxicating.
What I didn’t notice then was the same danger my father had warned me about as a child:
Light can blur your vision.
I didn’t prepare deeply enough for uncertainty.
I didn’t plan for disruptions like financial, legal, and emotional.
I assumed the brightness would continue.
Then life changed direction. The light passed. And suddenly, I was facing darkness again, but this time not on a village road, but in my own life.
Riding Without the One Who Warned Me
When the real darkness arrived, financial setbacks, broken structures, the need to rebuild, my father was no longer there.
There was no bicycle riding beside me this time. No calm voice reminding me that my eyes would adjust. Only memory, and choice.
I could quit, or I could keep moving, trusting what he had taught me long before I understood it.
Seeing Clearly, Even in the Dark
Clarity in action—doing what must be done without being blinded by attachment to outcomes.
Not chasing light, not fearing darkness, just moving forward with awareness.
Darkness, I realised, is not the problem, but unpreparedness is.
When we mistake brightness for permanence, we lose the ability to see when conditions change.
Failure is often not an end, but a temporary defeat, revealing gaps in planning, discipline, or awareness.
My financial setbacks were not punishments; they were signals.
Just like the darkness after a passing vehicle, they were moments demanding calm, adjustment, and continued movement, not panic.
What the Road Taught Me
That childhood road taught me three things I only understood decades later:
- Bright phases can blind you if you don’t prepare beyond them
- Darkness is inevitable, but it doesn’t mean the road ends
- Progress belongs to those who keep moving, even when visibility is low
Whenever uncertainty appears, I remember that night ride in 1985. Two bicycles, a steady presence beside me, and a warning given long before it was needed.
The light will pass. If darkness follows, I keep riding with clarity.
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