Those extra 15 minutes...

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Today I started for work 15 minutes earlier and what a difference it made to my day!!!

On a Monday the usual commute of 10 odd kilometres takes a little more than 50 minutes if I hit the peak hour traffic after 9 AM.  Today I started just 15 minutes earlier since the newspaper came late and it was quite an interesting experience. The beautiful Chennai weather helped to elevate my mood and I started my commute. Since there was no rush I settled down and started to enjoy the ride.

Driving was always therapeutic to me and years ago I used to go for night drives in Chennai to just chill out. The cool breeze on the face with the windows down (no convertibles here!!), good music (if available), empty roads make a wonderful cocktail that is savoured leisurely. Drive where the heart rather than the road leads and come back refreshed. Office commute was however devoid of all these and was a chore that got unbearable at times due to the traffic jams, idiot motorists and silly jaywalkers.

Today I had a great drive that lasted only 30 minutes; there was traffic but not enough to hold up movement. The first track on the radio was “Rasali” and that made the lovely morning even better. An uncluttered mind, cool breeze ensured that even two or three idiot motorists did not dampen my spirits; since I was driving at a leisurely speed I noticed the pedestrians waiting to cross, I stopped a few times to let them cross and saw to my surprise that other motorists also followed my lead. For this a few pedestrians actually expressed their thanks with a smile which is contagious and made me smile back at them.

I reached my office early in a good mood and I am ready to eat the frog of the day which I may have postponed had I come in with a bad mood. It is a good start to the day.

To sum up, we are in control of probably 10-20% of the sum total of things / events that happen during the day. If we can control what we can control our day will be a better one than one where we go with the flow. We cannot control the idiot motorists, the silly jaywalker, the chaotic traffic but we can control our responses to all of them. 

We can do something simple as start 15 minutes early…


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