Benefits of public transport - Become more patient

Photo by loop_oh

This post is part of a series of posts about the benefits of public transport.

Granted, the first weeks of taking the bus can get a little bit hard. You miss the bus and have to wait for the next one. Your bus is late, and you have to wait longer than expected. Such things always made me angry, and on some days I thought about giving up on public transport and use my car again. But I decided to go on, and today I'm glad I did.

Missing the bus is annoying. But after some time I recognized I couldn't do anything about it. So why waste any energy on being angry? I now try to make the best of this time. There are so much things I can do on my commute, missing the bus simply gets me some extra time. I'll be at the office soon enough, working for hours - some minutes of waiting won't make much of a difference. In fact, there are days when I'm glad when it takes a little bit longer. That's when I got a really thrilling book from the library...

Not only did I become more patient on my commute, I'm now more patient in any situation. I've been pretty impatient some years ago, but my daily commute with the bus showed me that getting nervous about a lost minute won't change anything. And it definitely won't get any better when I get angry...

Benefits of public transport - More time

Photo by tallkev

This post is part of a series of posts about the benefits of public transport.

We have already learned that using public transport can make your life more stress-free. As soon as you enter the bus, you no longer need to care about traffic and all the stress it adds to your life.

This brings us straight to another benefit of public transport: You've got more time for yourself. This may sound a little bit strange because we all tend to think that we have got to get to work as fast as possible. But have you ever asked yourself why you need to get there so fast? Because the time you spend in your car is - for the most part - lost time. You have to concentrate on the traffic. The only thing you can do is listen to the radio, unless you're one of those careless people who think it's safe to read the newspaper and make a phonecall while driving a car.

When you're using public transport, you can do a lot more things...

• You can read a book or a newspaper - didn't you always want to read more?
• You can plan your day, with the pen you always carry with you.
• You can listen to music, audiobooks or podcasts (even video!)
• You can play games on a portable gaming console
• You can make phonecalls without risking your life
• You can talk with other people
  
• You can take a nap on your way home after a hard day at the office. Try that in your car..

So, why not use your time more productive? You'd be reading the newspaper anyway, why not combine it with your commute?