I have my license to drive for about one and a half year now. Still I do not own a own car and I am not driving to school each and every day. There are two different kinds of opinions I experienced with this and this post is about the two.

One thing most people I know think of if it comes to cars, the license to drive them and the first time to own one is that they are no longer bond to their parents or public transport. They can drive wherever and whenever they want. One effect by that is: they turn 18 either already have their license or are currently trying to get it — and immediately after this they go and buy a car — some even get the car before the they are allowed to drive on their own. After having a car the next thing to do is to drive it, right? Well they do that. They got the car (are not earning any money) but drive to school every morning. Well I can understand that because most of those who do this have either some people to drive with (carpool like) and/or they would have to wait really long to get home by public transport.

Most of this arguments are correct and I understand them but maybe I need to describe my situation first. I already did this in a Linked List post titled Drive or Not to Drive but here again: I have a way to and from school which is with the train and takes about 45 minutes. Most of the days schools over at 2:35 PM which means I can not take the train at 2:41 PM because the way to the train-station is a bit to long to get down in under 6 minutes. So I end up waiting at school for about a hour and than drive home 45 minutes!

Isn’t that crazy?! What a waist of time! Why don’t you drive? You could lave about one and a half hour!

That should describe the looks I get if I tell someone. And they are right. It is kinda crazy and kinda unusual. Who wants to spend 2.5 hours of his day waiting or doing something useless? Well I do not think so. Sure I do complain about it often but most of the time I take it as a positive thing. I do not want to change it for numerous reasons. First of all I mostly enjoy the time. I take a book with me nearly every day and that 2.5 hours is the time I managed to read all the books I managed to read till now — which I never was able to manage to do. The hour in the morning often is great to be used to get some homework done or to study for a test or pop quiz. And one side effect is that I do harm the environment a little less.

But over all the most important aspect is that I slow down. I have time to think and concentrate. I have time to brainstorm ideas and lose my head about something I really like thinking about (or to make up some new ideas for blogposts). I would like to end this with a quote by James Shelley which I think puts it just right:

When I slowed down, I suddenly noticed that I was … living. When in a state of constant motion, the soul is often neglected for the other more “pressing” matters of life, that somehow serve as the ultimate distraction to recognizing your own, living consciousness. In other words, we’re too busy doing stuff to ever actually be alive.

~ James Shelley