The Truth About Commuting
There’s something poetic about
trains, whether it is not being quite as fast as an airplane, nor as
comfortable as a car, possessing a certain old-school feel or simply being able
to see everything pass you by in a split second.
Growing up, trains were somewhat of a
myth for me – never on time and always taking far too long to arrive anywhere. My reluctance towards trains had been sparked
by the fact that, by the age of 17, my only experience with them had been a
cross-country train that did actually take a whole day and smelled of chicken
soup. As any self-respecting 10 year-old I was very quick to pass judgement on
anything at the time so that is when I wrote off trains as a viable mode of
transportation.
This
summer, however, trains and I had to build a very solid relationship during my
1h30 commute to work. Commuting is hard. Commuting can drain every single spark
of energy your coffee might have built up in you that morning and it definitely
isn’t for everyone. There was hardly anything romantic about the fast train I
was on for 40 minutes every morning and back again every evening this summer.
There were, however, strange men sending obscurely sexual messages on even more
obscure mobile phone apps (who has the energy for that at 8am?) and people I
had briefly seen around the office but tried to avoid making eye contact with
before I had had my morning coffee.
Close to
the end of summer, just as I was feeling like my work life had completely taken over
my personal life, I decided to try an optimism lesson my mother had been trying
to teach my overly realistic self for ages – seeing the good in everything.
Instead of focusing on the early wake up call and the crowds I had to fight at
the train station I turned towards the 15-minute countryside walk to the office
and that romantic feel I used to always attribute to trains – and I filmed
everything. It’s strange how easy it is to be critical and unhappy whilst
letting great things pass you by, unnoticed. When you do stop and take a second
look around though, you might be surprised by the good side that was always
there but you were leaving behind by getting caught up in a routine.
That being
said, I would always recommend looking for the good in everything but always, always avoid any commute longer than
an hour – that makes everything a hell of a lot more difficult.
Enjoyed reading your poetic story about trains and commute. :) I agree I think there's something really neat about what trains symbolize and even in Japan, there were many people I knew personally that were obsessed with trains.
ReplyDeletexx
atsunamatsui.com
Please be careful writing things like this that are public and can be viewed by employers.
ReplyDeleteI'm really sorry, just noticed this comment had been sent to the spam folder. I'm sorry if you felt that my post should not be made public for employers to see but I would definitely not mind any employer seeing this. My article had nothing to do with any employer or job, only with the commute. I am sure many people would agree with me that commuting for so long is not pleasant irrespective of how much you love your job. The only conclusion to draw from it is that wherever I worked I wouldn't live that far away from work again haha.
DeleteThank you for the feedback, I hope I have explained my reasoning well enough and I apologise again for the late reply :)