Back in August 2016 when I first arrived in Taiwan, I’ll never forget one of the first information sessions our training group had. Most of us were still battling sleep deprivation and jet lag, so we came with coffee in our hands and sleep still painted under our eyes. But nonetheless, we piled in, all twenty-five-ish of us, into the one room organized for lectures and performances. One of our trainers steps up to the front of the room, wide eyed and more awake than all of us put together.
“Driving in Taiwan is a lot like the food chain of the ocean,” she starts. Many of us look around at each other, confused as heck. Some of us chuckle because we don’t really know where she’s going with this. We’d seen the traffic in Taiwan. It was somewhere between crazy and manageable. Now, I’d like to say it’s manageable but still a little more chaotic than the robotic streets of North America, from what I’ve experienced back home.
“The buses are the sharks. You have to let them go, or else you’ll get hit. Same with the cars. But cars are still lower on the food chain than buses. Then you have the scooters, that are the smallest fish, but not as small as the pedestrians that have to navigate the crosswalks and avoid the chaos,” she tells us. Then a few of us nod. I remember thinking that this was probably just a silly metaphor for Taiwan traffic and that’s it. But after waiting nine months to get a scooter in my first year, and then a lot of driving and time spent away from home, I realize it holds more importance than that.
A lot of my adolescence I spent thinking I had to avoid the sharks. Which is true to a point. If you’re a minnow, you probably want to steer clear of the sharks for a little while. Until you grow and make yourself more of a force to be reckoned with. Life’s not like a food chain. At least not on the human side of things. We can and usually do find ourselves sliding up and down the totem pole. We have the power to ensure our own upward mobility. So if you don’t like your place as a minnow on the food chain, cool! That’s great. Just, do something about it and stop complaining about how small you feel compared to everyone else. Don’t pity yourself, push yourself to be better.
Life is a lot like learning to swim with the sharks. You have to watch what they do. See how they crush it at their own game. Take note of the little things they do everyday that allow them to be where you want to be. And then you mirror them. Mimic them. Learn from them. Anyone can be a mentor for you, as long as they can show you something you might not have known before. You implement what you learn, wait, adjust your plan, and start again. And soon, in no time, you’ll find yourself swimming among the sharks, not avoiding them.
