The small road in front of my house had a bunch dug up trenches. They looked like an inverted speed breaker. The hump of the road goes down in the ground instead of coming up. Happens when there is wiring to be laid.

Whenever I had to go out, I would have two choices – Go through the road, very slowly, risk damage to vehicle, get injured. Or, take a different, longer route.

Both these choices wasted my time and sometimes my money. A drive that should take two minutes became five minutes. Any food order delivery would take more time than needed.

If you multiply the extra time by all the people living on the road and all the days, it becomes a huge amount of wasted time!

These things make living unpleasant, and expensive as well.

But today, I saw that they had filled the holes with tar. I could drive smoothly without stopping. This may seem like a small thing, but for those two minutes, I couldn’t think of anything else!

No more taking the longer route, no more telling the taxi driver to take a different route because of the road. No more excessive damage to my vehicle!

This is how fixing problems create positive value for the world. This will save a lot of time, money, and even the hassle for people living around the road. Think of all the shareholder value we can generate now (and contribute to the GDP). All for the one time cost of labour + tar.

Granted, they had dug up the road earlier for some reason. And this tar filling may not last forever. But for the next few months, it will be wonderful.

It’s strange how fixing even the smallest things can make our daily life much better.

Trenches filled with tar