Lyft.

So, my last day of Lyft was Thursday, and needless to say, I was disappointed in the fact that on my last day, Thursday night, rates were up 500% because of the snow. Of course!(Disclaimer: I’m not being paid for this, nor is it going to be a completely positive review either.)
Here’s my review of Lyft’s Express Drive program, which is their connection they have with Hertz to allow people to rent cars to use for Lyft. And my review of my experience with Lyft in general. This will be a mashup review/blog post/corny weird thing, so I’ll be speaking from my mind and heart with this one, so it might be strange. Anyway, now that I’ve prepared you…
The base rate for a car is at a HIGHLY DISCOUNTED rate of $165/week. While that seems low already, they will offer to you the car for free if you give 65 or more rides per week (they take 25% of what you make, so they win either way). “Easy!” I thought! Maybe on average 2 or 3 rides per hour, I can easily get 10 rides in per day!
WRONG.
So I work full time at Aerotek, usually between 40 and 45 hours, and I thought a few extra hours per day couldn’t hurt. But there is a LOT of waiting around for people. I don’t know if the market is saturated in Portland with drivers now that it’s become such a popular thing, or what the reason was, but I was giving a ride, on average, once every 45 minutes to an hour.
Did I hit the target 65 rides? Kind of. Lyft’s week starts Monday at 5am, and I rented my car Thursday, so the car was split between 38 rides through to Monday, then another 27 by the return of my rental. It was easy getting in 38 over the weekend; 27 on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday? Not so much. Total: 49 rides. Total hours: 38, and 10 minutes. If you want to call Lyft work, then I guess I worked over 80 hours from Thursday to Wednesday. But I don’t consider it work, it’s just driving, and as all of you know, I love driving! So anyway, my car was free for those first four days.
Enough about the rental program. Now the experience that is Lyft.
Let’s jump back to a few weeks before when I was reading HORROR STORIES that happened to both passengers and drivers. Bribes, sexual assault, the numerous accidents. I’m thinking, okay, maybe this isn’t for me.
But, I faced my fears, and no, nothing bad happened the entire time. I met 49+ completely awesome people, and there’s nothing I love more than to share stories, experiences, and how we got to where we are. Talking about where we all came from, where we are, it really brings to mind, well what made me meet this person? How did all the events leading up to this moment come to us colliding in life? Crazy to think about, how the gears of life turn, and you meet someone awesome, whose gears are turning at the same rate as yours, at the same time, in the same place. And you connect. And you connect wonderfully.
When I first thought about moving to Portland, I was completely all for the idea. After I moved out here, and spent time here, and realized how different the culture and the people were, I felt like, this wasn’t my place. This actually wasn’t where I belonged.
But Lyft changed that, and I owe them everything.
It’s not just because of the people I picked up; it was the places to which they led me. I thought there was nothing to do in this city, and nothing to see, but I was entirely wrong. There’s so much to see and love and be grateful for. And I’m definitely grateful for having the opportunity to see so much of Portland that I didn’t even know existed. (That, and as close friends will know, I basically need a GPS just to get from my apartment to my car sitting right outside, so knowing my way around the city a little better feels great too.)
One last thing, and this has to do with the machine. The machine, that I’ve talked about so many times before, that if you’ve watched How I Met Your Mother a day in your life, you know what the machine is. The machine of life. The gears that turn. The things that you do that bring you to the next stage in life; some of which you control and some that you don’t. You can deny the ride or you can give it. And trust me, I wasn’t denying any part of what God had in store for me.
Every single person brought me to a new destination, where another person usually was, waiting to get to some other destination. And that trend continued all night long. And then, just think. Think of the path that was taken; this is just one path of an infinite number of paths that could have happened! Does anyone realize that if one small thing was change, if I went down this road instead, if I took a minute longer, if there’s extra traffic that holds us up, how much different life would be?! Your path would be completely different, so savor that path that you travel, because out of all the ones you could have taken, this was your path. This is the one that you were led on. And it is your life. That path is your life. And that’s what makes it special.
So, thank you Lyft. Thank you for the beautiful things I’ve seen, the beautiful people I’ve met, and the beautiful awakening I’ve been given. I owe you.