The Morning Commute

One of the reasons I'm satisfied with my job at the moment is because of the small things. I like the people that I work with. The work is challenging. I get to spend more time with my kids (their day care is located in the same building where I work). But I have to say that the biggest benefit is the short commute: On a bad day, I only have to drive 10 minutes door-to-door. It's huge, especially when I think about the 2.5 hours I was on the train to and from Boston all those years. And that was just taking the train! Kevin Fanning describes what the Boston car commutes can feel like:

It’s unhealthy, sitting in traffic and wishing I’m anywhere else under the sun. What I’m doing is important to my family. What I’m doing is not worse than what so many other people do, for much less. But thinking about the clock of my life ticking away every day while I’m sitting there, just waiting to be somewhere else, I feel the gulf between my body (where I am) and brain (where I want to be) widening. The two growing further apart, until I’m only aware of the distance between them. Some mornings in the shower I hear voices left over from my dreams, and they seem to have strongly held opinions, but I have no idea what they’re saying. Sometimes at night when I am reading a book to my kids, I realize that we are halfway through the book, and my mouth has been saying the words, but I haven’t been paying attention to them whatsoever, and have in fact been thinking about something completely unrelated. I lose that time, even though I’m right there.

Not that i don't suffer from this lack of mindfulness, but it's been getting much better now that I'm not spending so much time just traveling to and from work. Pity the pour commuter's soul.