But is it true that that train only passes once?

I told the train that only passes once in a lifetime, “No thanks! I have comfortable shoes and good legs. I'll walk.”

Then I told the second, the third, the fourth…

And I even repeated it to the first one when he came back.

Well, I've been wondering that too. Is it true? Or is it one of those phrases that's been repeated for so long that no one's stopped to check it anymore?

The train that "only passes once"“

Someone, at a certain point in history, decided that this phrase was a universal truth. An imperative. Almost a moral obligation.

Get in. Now. Or you'll regret it.

Too bad no one tells you where that train is going. The destination is written in small letters, in letters you can't read from the platform, and the conductor is always suspiciously hasty. Urgency, as we know, is the best friend of decisions you would never have made calmly.

What does "the train only passes once" really mean? It means someone wants you to stop asking questions and get moving. Now. Without thinking too much.

Me instead I'm thinking about it. It's a flaw, they say. Oh well.

Once on the train, the train decides for you

The point no one likes to hear is this: climbing isn't freedom. It's delegation.

You delegate the time, the route, the stops. And your travel companions—these you don't even choose. Maybe you find yourself sitting next to someone who smells or farts, and there's nothing you can do about it. You're there, stuck between the window and its olfactory existence, watching a landscape you didn't choose pass by, toward a destination that seemed bright from the sidewalk, and now, you don't know, maybe it still is, maybe not.

And if something goes wrong? Wait until the next stop. If there is one.

Walk

In the meantime I'm walking.

I breathe real air—not the conditioned, slightly stale air of the train car. I change directions whenever I like. I turn back without asking permission. I stop in front of something that intrigues me, even if it wasn't on the itinerary, even if it leads nowhere useful.

Sometimes I meet people. People who also walk, in their own shoes, in their own directions. And every now and then we walk a stretch together, without tickets, without schedules.

I'm in no hurry. I don't have a destination to reach by the next stop.

Maybe it's just that I'm made that way. Maybe it's that... slowness, in the end, it's not laziness — it's the luxury of realizing where you are while you're there.

So

Some trains in life are truly worth taking. Close your eyes and let yourself go.

But you have to be in the right frame of mind, and with the right people, otherwise the trip becomes a nightmare.

And I want to sit wherever I want!

And if the guy next to me stinks, I want to at least be able to get up.

Have you ever regretted a train you didn't take? Or discovered that the road was already the destination?