Life’s Sweet in the Passenger Seat

My wife loves the old song Passenger Seat by SHeDAISY, especially the lyric: “Life’s sweet in the passenger seat.” Even with her Audi S4 six‑speed (we both love manual), she often defers to me driving when we’re together. Thankfully, I love to drive—more than 20,000 miles annually for work, plus vacations, road trips, errands, and date night adventures.

Truth be told, I don’t enjoy being in the passenger seat, and the back seat makes me a little dizzy. But Amy is comfortable letting me take the wheel. Sometimes she even falls asleep while I’m driving. I don’t mind—in fact, I often suggest it, even on short drives. The key is trust. If she didn’t trust me implicitly, she would never rest. I always reassure her: “If I get tired, I’ll let you know.”

Not everyone sees it this way. For some, the rule is: “If I’m driving, I have to stay awake, so you should stay awake too.” But for us, trust flows both ways. On long trips, I can ask Amy to drive, and I rest knowing she’s fully capable. That’s the beauty of trust—it’s reciprocal.

Trust is the foundation of every successful relationship—marriage, family, work, community. It’s about making and keeping commitments to others and to ourselves.

Stephen M. R. Covey captures it well in The Speed of Trust:

“Simply put, trust means confidence. The opposite of trust—distrust—is suspicion. When you trust people, you have confidence in their integrity and in their abilities. When you distrust people, you are suspicious of their integrity, their agenda, and their capabilities.”

Trustworthy people still make mistakes. The difference is that they own them, resolve them, and rebuild trust. That’s what makes trust enduring.

So, here’s the challenge: Who do you trust implicitly? And who trusts you the same way?

Trust is both given and earned. It’s built through consistency, ownership, and integrity. When trust is present, life really is “sweet in the passenger seat.”

And when my time here is done, I hope those closest to me will say: “Mike loved his wife and family, loved Jesus, and he was trustworthy.” I’ll take those words.