Commuting – Doing the Right Thing vs. Doing the Normal Thing
For the past eight years, I have commuted to work. Sometimes on the highway, sometimes on the subway and sometimes on the back-streets on somebody’s used bike. Something about it used to feel very ‘pure’. When I first started working and used to party a lot , I felt that no matter what crazy thing I had done the previous night – at least I was ‘good’ for dragging myself out of bed with stingy eyes, grasping a clean skirt and button-down shirt, slipping my feet into uncomfortable shoes and forcing myself to go to work.
In the car I would go, sitting in traffic with all of the other ‘good’ workers and picking up my coffee walking past reception and putting my head down to do some reporting, meeting, planning or whatever else was in the cards for that day.
Today, I still commute but it isn’t colored with the same sense of mission. I have done research, and I didn’t have to go far to get it. Commuting isn’t good for the environment (as I see in the yellow cloud that arches over Toronto). Commuting isn’t good for people’s health (particularly in the area of weight-gain and back problems – workers with long commutes also have considerably more stress.) Commuting isn’t necessary to get a lot of the work done in today’s economy (ie. most of us are not factory workers so there is no need to sit at a ’station’ to work). Actually, time spent working instead of commuting would be time better spent.
I read that sprawling bureaucracies were one result of the advent of air conditioning. The common practice of commuting is likely a result of (relatively) low fuel costs vs. the cheaper price of suburban land. I sense change coming as filling the tank of my little VW Golf tops $55. So, now my thinking has changed profoundly. I think that commuting is considered "normal"… but it shouldn’t be considered "right". "Right" and "normal" are terms that are frequently jumbled. I wonder what would happen if we all did the "pure" thing and stayed home from work 
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