Planes, trains and buses are essential to get us from place to another. Every trip has feelings attached to it, created by the person making the trip and your attitude to the trip and can have a big impact on the outcome of your trip.
I commute approximately 1 1/2 hours each way to get to work, sometimes more depending on my train connections. It’s my choice. I could drive but it would take me a similar amount of time depending on the time of day. The reasons I choose the train are:
- I walk to the station—includes my daily exercise
- It’s reliable—most of the time.
- Half the price of driving
- Less stressful. I don’t have to watch the traffic and predict other drivers behaviour.
- I can be productive—write, read or blog—I wrote half my book on the train in 45 minute sections.
- I can sleep. Every afternoon I find the train rocking automatically puts me to sleep and I wake refreshed, even if I only slept for 10 minutes.
- No parking hassles.
- No damage or wear and tear on my car that I left safely parked on my driveway. In some cases also lower car insurance premiums.
- There is always something welcoming about looking out the carriage window each morning while travelling across the Sydney Harbour bridge and saying “good morning” to the Sydney Opera House. It puts me in a good mood.
Last year, we were in Ghangzhou and were excited to be able to explore the city like locals by train. The previous year in Nanjing, we couldn’t get into the train station, let alone work out how to buy a ticket or know where we wanted to go—so we left stressed and defeated, happy to breath fresh air. We just made alternate plans. Ghangzhou’s train system was different. We could choose where we wanted to go, work out the closest train station and go. Easy. We even took ourselves to and from the airport with luggage. It was a sense of freedom for us. While in Ghangzhou my favourite was catching the People Mover—an automated train. This train had no driver and moves people—lots of them—between the main stations in Central Ghangzhou. It was a weird experience but it worked.
Next time you are at the airport, train station or bus stop and need to wait, experiment with focusing on being grateful that you can use public transport to get you to where you want to go and that you are going somewhere. Find alternate ways to occupy your mind and time will appear to travel faster and you will arrive more refreshed.
Remember the old saying “A watched pot never boils.” In my experience this can be true for the planes, trains and buses we are willing to come.
View from the Automated Train