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Driving More Calmly: Thinking of Fellow Commuters as "We"

By Mina Hamilton, reprinted with permission

This is another piece from Mina Hamilton's great book of Serenity to Go: Calming Techniques for Your Hectic Life.* Think of the last time you were stuck in traffic and fumming under the collar as you read a way to calm your over-worked, agitated nerves.

[* NOTE: By clicking on the title and buying this book from Amazon.com, you help support LPO.]

It's happening to you. More and more often, your temper is flaring up on the highway. And the traffic seems to be getting steadily worse. That's because it is worse. Just look at the math. The number of registered vehicles has doubled since 1970. Yet the total number of miles of new road has grown by just 6 percent. That's with over $98 billion per year being spent on maintaining old and constructing new highways. The battle is being lost. No matter how many miles of interstate crush forests and pave over meadows, highway construction can't keep up with all those automobiles tumbling off assembly lines.

The solution to insane traffic in Bangkok? Drive between 2 and 4 AM! You may not be thrilled by this middle-of-the-night option. Why not transform your increasingly agitated feelings towards all the other folk cluttering up the interstate? Practice 'We.'

Do this one a few times off of the highway. Try it on a weekend in a quiet place in your home. Imagine you're in a traffic jam. As far ahead of you as you can see, shining metal and brake lights going on and off. Cars racked up like the parking lot at the Super Bowl. A sea of stationary hunks of metal. For Pete's sake, you could walk to work on the roofs of these cars.

Just thinking about this scenario may make you get hot under the collar. Take some long, deep breaths. Now take a moment to think about the people inside those metal boxes. What about all those examples of living, breathing humanity? The folk, who, along with you, are equally responsible for clogging up the highways.

Now imagine yourself on one of your morning commutes. What do you have in common with your fellow drivers? Focus on some of the aspects of their lives that you share. Just like you, they all just got up. Were they up in the night comforting a kid with a broken arm? Did they propose to their girlfriend at 1:00 a.m.? No telling what emotional roller coasters kept them up to the wee hours.

On a typical workday, your own morning can be pretty hectic. Draw on your own experience to imagine what makes your fellow drivers irritable. A faucet handle falling off in the shower? A teenager whining through breakfast?

Those folks sitting in boxes of tank-like steel are vulnerable humans. Startlingly unique individuals. If you encountered them innocently walking down the street, you'd never dream of cursing them out. Keep on breathing. It's a new skill to think about your fellow commuters with a little sympathy and concern.

Something else you all share: You're not too fond of your commute. You dislike traffic jams. You hate bad drivers. You get angry when people endanger your life. You think you're a better driver than most other people on the road. Odd isn't it? Everybody firmly believes the other guy is a lousy driver. Whose perception is off? Yours? Or theirs?

It could be that they, whoever they are, are excellent drivers. But sometimes they do something dim-witted. You might ask yourself, "Have I ever done something stupid on the highway?"

Keep breathing. What would happen if you started thinking about your fellow commuters as "we?" Me and them together. We. Of course you already do this. You're a nice, thoughtful person. Your rational mind is quite happy to think about other drivers with considerable tolerance. In your gut, it's another matter. Grrrr. They get in your way. Make you late for work. Blah-blah.

Breathe. Whatever your story is, everybody else out there has his or her story. Their story is just as urgent, fascinating, compelling as yours -- at least, to them.

Your commuting pals are all fundamentally kind people. They worry when their spouses, children, and friends are unhappy or ill. They want the best education for their kids. They want to live a long, productive life. In short, you have oodles in common with those perfect strangers on the highway.

Sure, some folks out there you might not choose for your best friend. Others are selfish or even crooks. Some are terrible drivers. Most are just plain folk. Going to work, going home. Going to work, going home. Just like you, prone to an occasional error of judgment.

As you sit comfortably in your home make a commitment regarding your next commute. Decide to let go of behavior that will separate and divide you from the 'we' of your fellow travelers. Dispense with switching from lane to lane. Forget glaring in the rear view mirror. Give up mouthing or muttering insults. And keep a safe, comfortable distance from the car in front of you.

After you've practiced thinking about your commuters in a new way while sitting in your home, take your skills out onto the interstate. On your first few sallies forth, expect to get irritated. You've been grumbling at the drivers of automobiles around you for years and your feelings won't change immediately. If you get angry, notice your anger. "Oh, there I go, getting angry." Then let your upset drift off into the cosmos.

Patiently re-focus on the people inside the cars. Living, breathing fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, lovers, friends to somebody. Everybody connected in a web of relationships. Folk sharing your humanity. We. Traveling together down the same highway, the same river of life.

— © Copyright 2001, Mina Hamilton