Every. Single. Day. Over an hour every day of boring, stressful and unnerving braking-and-barely-accelerating driving. Traffic is the place where energetic people come to die and ambitious people stay to kill. If you could only rush through rush hour!
We feel your pain. No, really. Every single day, we feel your pain. In bumper to bumper traffic, we’re checking Google maps as often as Canadians check the weather. So, we wanted to ease your pain with a creative and fun Traffic Survival Guide that’ll help you use the time you spend in traffic:
Audio Books: You have a variety of genres and topics to choose from. For those of you who feel like readings words on paper is an assault on your brain, this is a great option to keep entertained – Even better when the narrator’s voice makes you feel like you’re in heaven [very important].
Learn a new language: How many languages do you know? How many do you wish you knew? What’s your excuse? No time – right? Well, download a podcast or buy one of those ‘Learn a new language’ CDs and play it in your car [It won’t be lame when you’re rolling off Russian phrases at meetings, son]. Imagine the number of languages people commuting from Sharjah to Dubai would learn in a year!
Laugh it off: This is one of the most effective ways to make sure the stress doesn’t get to you. Download podcasts or buy the audio discs of stand-up comedians to be that ‘crazy’ person in traffic laughing to themself.
Be creative or compassionate: Our Editor shared a story of what she does in traffic to relax sometimes, saying she looks at all the frustrated faces around her and plays the story game – giving each driver a personality. Other times, she wonders if there would be less traffic if people simply understood that we’re all in this together [so don’t cut in front of me, *****!]. If you’re observant and you look around, you’ll find a million things to inspire you.
Voice Note To-Do Lists: For all you Type-A personalities out there, these minutes in a jam will probably have you tugging at your hair. Relax.. You can used this time to make sure the rest of your time is spent effectively. Record to-do lists on your phone and make sure Siri stays busy filling your calendar in. The audio commands are there for this very reason.
Catch up: Use your time in traffic to call and catch up with friends and family (ONLY ON HANDS-FREE OF COURSE)! That hour will pass by quick and you’ll save yourself the frustration of waiting for the car in front of you to mooooove. Please don’t text or call without hands-free or Bluetooth while driving; it is very dangerous and punishable by law. On a lighter note, if you don’t want phone bills as tall as Burj Khalifa, you may want to invest in a data plan and communicate through voice notes [Yay, Whatsapp]!
The idea is to stay calm.
Traffic, my friends, is a way of life here. It’s mundane and instead of fighting it, we should just accept and prepare for it. Carry food, water and take deep breathes [or leave work early, or don’t try to head to work after 6am or home before 8:30pm, or take ByPass Road, or get an apartment near your workplace, or move to the countryside and give this life up].
Stay calm, fellow drivers, and be compassionate – We’re all in a rush to get somewhere.