Spare Wheel, A Biography
Act 1 – The role of a Spare Wheel
Having a spare wheel in a car is quite useful in an emergency situation.
It becomes of an extreme importance when one of the main tyres gets punctured and the driver is stranded in a remote place.
In the UK 🇬🇧, the spare wheel is typically smaller in size and of different colour, making it easily identifiable, one that is easy to discriminate and then treated differently, not just by the driver, but also by others.
Although the spare wheel is convenient and safe, keep in mind that its sole purpose is to bring the driver to the closest service station or to the first available time when the spare wheel may be changed. When it is on, the driver is aware that the car needs to be driven slowly than the normal speed.
Most of the time, the spare wheel lies dormant and plays no part, wasting the all-important space of the car.
The spare wheel may play a significant role at critical moments, but hardly anyone checks its condition until it is needed.
It is required by law to carry a spare wheel in order to protect other drivers and reduce traffic jams caused by vehicle breakdowns, which may be one of the reasons why drivers keep a spare wheel, i.e. by force rather than choice.
Act 2 – Your Role as a Spare Wheel
The question is, do you have a spare wheel? More importantly, are you a spare wheel in someone’s life?
How does one tell if they are the spare wheel in a relationship?
If you are in a relation where you always take the initiative to manage and nurture it, i.e. it is one-sided and the other is disinterested, or if the other person always tend to dominate in the relation. The litmus test would be to step back and pause, e.g. stop initiating conversations and organising meet-ups, and if you feel drifted after a while and realise that it was always you who needed the other person but not vice versa, you’ve been a spare wheel in their lives.
And if you are wondering, “why this has happened to you of all the people?, then maybe the answer lies in one of my previous write-up, Mind The Gap.
My advice to my girls, if they ever come across this article:
“It is better to be an old car’s main-wheel rather than a posh car’s spare wheel“.
Bhavin Shukla 
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