The other night, while walking through the subway station on my way home from work, about to board another train, it occurred to me. How much time do I waste commuting? Every day, I walk through the same stations. I take the same boring walks to and from the train. I look at same faceless mass of folks in a slightly different configuration and most of the time I spend this time half-asleep, with my earphones blasting music in an attempt to half-heartedly convince myself that this is possibly a different experience than I had the day before.
On an average day, it takes me roughly an hour and ten minutes to an hour and twenty to get to work. If I get in the habit of listening to the same music several days in a row, I can hit the same spots right when my ipod hits the same songs as it did the day before. It’s calculated synchronicity.
There was a time a few years back when I lived in a different apartment, when I was walking back home and thought, “I feel like I spend too much of my life making this walk.” When you can do this with your eyes shut, it is hardly stimulating.
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| Photo by Allan Raible. |
The problem doesn’t really lie with commuting. The problem lies with all the mundane, repeated tasks we do on a daily basis. How much time do we spend preparing food? How much time do we spend watching television shows we only partly like? How much time to we spend not really being true to our dreams and ourselves? It’s the human existential crisis in action. For as short as life is, we sure do waste a lot of it.
If only we could spend our time running through the fields. If only we had more time to fall in love and to spend with our cherished loved ones. If only we had more time to create and make our unique marks on the world.
Modern society is wasting our time and squandering our potential. But we need to work. We need to eat. We need to make money. Even if repetition stifles the creative spirit.
The key is balancing the equation so you can create and live up to your societal obligations, while living up to your own creative potential. This means hard work all around. If you can make something unique in your spare time, maybe you’ll eventually break through the noise and be able to make it a full-time experience.
We must win the war against wasted time. So live life to the fullest. Smile more. Give more hugs. Tell the people you love that you love them as much as possible. Never lose sight of your self, your own wellbeing or the wellbeing of those that matter most to you. Multi-task like crazy. Keep yourself active and stimulated. Don’t be afraid to occasionally take a different route. Change is good. Think as much and as deeply as possible and figure out a way to make this life better for the others around you.
It is too easy to fall into patterns. There are times when you must resist doing so for your own good. If you succeed, maybe your actions will make someone else’s life slightly less repetitive.
