Describe a time someone gave you good advice

I'd like to talk about an advice that my driving instructor gave me. His name is Abu Karim, he is about sixty years old, and he taught driving in Beirut for maybe thirty years. He is very calm person, which is good, because the traffic in Beirut is crazy.

His advice was very simple: look where you want to go, not at the thing you are afraid to hit. At first I didn't understand what he means, because I thought, of course I look at the road.

He gave me this advice because of a problem I had. Our streets are very narrow, and there are cars parked on both sides. Every time I passed a parked car, I was looking at it because I was scared to touch it, and without noticing, my car was moving closer and closer to it. One day I nearly hit a car mirror, and he stopped me and explained me that your hands follow your eyes.

It helped me very much. After I started to look at the space in front of me, my driving became much more smooth, and I passed my test in the first try. And now I use the same idea in other situations, for example in exams, I try to focus on the answer and not on the clock.

The best piece of advice I've ever been given came from my driving instructor, Abu Karim. He's in his sixties and has been teaching people to drive in Beirut for about thirty years, which tells you a lot about his nerves, because Beirut traffic is notoriously chaotic.

What he told me was deceptively simple: look where you want to go, not at what you're trying to avoid. The first time he said it, I didn't really get it. I thought, well, obviously I'm looking at the road.

The reason he said it was a habit I'd developed without realising. A lot of our streets are extremely narrow, with cars parked bumper to bumper in both sides, and whenever I passed one, I'd stare at it because I was terrified of scraping it. The problem was that my car kept drifting towards whatever I was staring at. One afternoon I came within a few centimetres of clipping someone's wing mirror, and he made me pull over and explained that your hands automatically follow your eyes.

Once I'd trained myself to look at the gap ahead instead, my driving improved almost overnight, and I passed my test on the first attempt. But what's interesting is that I've started applying it to other things too. In exams, for instance, I used to keep glancing at the clock and panicking, so now I make a point of focusing on the question in front of me, and I'm sure it's helped my results.

The most useful advice I've ever had came from an unlikely source: my driving instructor in Beirut, a man everyone calls Abu Karim. He's somewhere in his sixties and has spent three decades teaching nervous teenagers to survive the city's traffic, which is a kind of chaos you have to experience to believe, so he's developed the patience of a saint.

The advice itself was just one sentence: look where you want to go, not at what you're afraid of hitting. When he first said it, it struck me as almost too obvious to be worth saying.

He said it because he'd spotted a habit I wasn't aware of. Many of the streets in my neighbourhood are barely wide enough for one car, with vehicles parked nose to tail on both sides, and every time I squeezed past one, I'd fix my eyes on it, terrified of leaving a scratch. Of course, the car would drift exactly where I was looking. After I'd come within a whisker of taking off someone's wing mirror, he had me pull over, and he explained, very calmly, that your hands follow your eyes whether you want them to or not.

Once I'd trained myself to look at the gap rather than the obstacle, everything fell into place, and I passed my test first time. But the advice has turned out to have a much wider application. I used to freeze in exams whenever I noticed how little time was left, and now, when that happens, I deliberately bring my attention back to the question in front of me. It's become a sort of personal motto: focus on the way through, not on the thing in your way.