It's Not A Race

This morning's commute was a breeze. I'm lucky, though. It's about forty minutes of travel along the country roads of Monmouth County, NJ, where there are farms, horse tracks, and roadside stands that sell fresh blueberries in season. Three out of four seasons, it's the nicest commute you could have. During winter, your top speed in bad weather is very nearly your top speed in good weather. Getting there and back takes just about the same time no matter the season.

Yet there remain people who've got to get "there", wherever "there" is, faster than anyone else who's going anywhere else.

That's the person I used to be. Not content to simply get to where I was going in one piece, I had to outrace...something. Other people. Sometimes even myself. Mostly, though, I was racing against my notion of punctuality, which went something like this: "I got where I was going really quickly once, so I'm sure it'll take that amount of time every time I go there." 

I'd speed a lot. I'd curse out others on the road a lot. I'd cut people off a lot. I'd get caught behind some slowpoke a lot. I'd stress out a lot, worrying about how other drivers would react to what I was planning, especially if they happened to be police officers. I'd do a lot of dumb things a lot.

I'd be late a lot.

Somewhere along the line, I finally realized it wasn't a race. I started thinking of my car less as my rickety chariot of instant teleportation (which it could never be) and more as my self-maintained conveyance. It would only go at or near the speed limit. It had a well-defined track to travel in (even if that track was imaginary.)

It was now kind of like the People Mover at Disney World. Ambling along at a constant, reasonable speed, it now gave ample opportunity to see whatever sights happened to pop up alongside it. It didn't cut people off, because it couldn't. It didn't speed, because it wouldn't. There wasn't any cussing out of other drivers as long as they stayed in their "track" and I in mine. "Slowpokes" were less slow because I wasn't trying to speed past them. The only stress was in watching the other drivers make their moves rather than spending so much effort plotting mine. Speed traps weren't traps anymore.

Paradox: I wasn't late anymore.