On Two Hour Journey to Work
For the past two and a half years, I have been living at a walking distance of about 500 meters (about 540 yards) from my office. It had been time-saving, but I never appreciated the time it saved.
From the next month, I am moving to a different team that is in a different office. The new office is about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the place I am currently staying. I live in a room in a shared, rented apartment, and I am free to find a new place closer to the new office. But I have not yet found a decent place there, and I am not very hopeful of finding one either. The area has construction work going on everywhere, and the traffic condition and crowd are horrible.
So, the only option I have is to stay at my current place and travel to work. I cannot ride my bike or take a cab due to the peak traffic during office hours. So my best option is to take public transport.
I have traveled to that area using public transport as I was looking for a place to stay, and here are some facts about the journey:
1. I’ll have to take two trains (metro) and one bus to reach the office
2. It will take about 2 hours to reach the office
3. It will be crowded, so I will be standing
Here are a few ideas I could come up with to utilize my time and to avoid getting tired.
- Make it interesting: Just standing in a train or a bus is not something that should make me physically tired. However, if I start feeling bored, I am sure to feel tired. I will have to find ways to keep myself busy and keep the journey interesting.
- Listen to Music: I can listen to music to keep me from getting bored, but I don’t think it will be the best utilization of time. Also, I cannot walk in a crowded place with music playing on my earphones (the time when I have to switch the trains and catch the bus)
- Listen to Audiobooks: As I won’t have the luxury to sit, reading a book is out of the picture. I can keep some audiobooks on my phone to better utilize the time. Again, I am not sure how much of it I’ll be able to understand or absorb as I am standing in a crowded train, making sure I am near the door as my station approaches.
- Listen to Podcasts: This could be included in the last point, but at least the podcasts I listen to are easier to understand and absorb than an audiobook.
(please comment other stuff I can listen to. I could only think of Music, Audiobooks and Podcasts) - Think: With a total of four hours at my hand when my hands are busy holding on to the grab rails or grab handles, my mind will be free to find something I recently read but could not get enough time to think about it.
- Meditate: I know this sounds absurd, especially when we think of meditation as something to be done in a silent place, sitting undisturbed in Buddha pose. But I remember reading somewhere that all you need to meditate is be aware of your breath and your thoughts. I believe I will be able to do both of these while traveling. (Do let me know if you think there is a downside of it)
- Relax: Again it sounds counterintuitive, but I think I can relax my mind, eyes, face muscles etc.
I will have to find time to ride my motorcycle, go to the gym, and of course read and write. I don’t think I was doing a good job of it without the four-hour travel every day either.
I will always have the option to move to a place closer to the office, and until I do, I will get chance to put all the philosophy about enjoying the journey into practice every working day 😅.
This brings me to the end of this blog. This post is unlike most of my post, it feels like something that I could not fit in a page of my journal and wanted to share.
Thanks for reading.
Let me know if you enjoyed reading it and if you have some suggestions for me.
