I am convinced someone moved New Jersey and the 5 boroughs, all further apart!
Does this resonate with you?
Is it taking you longer to get everywhere; even with the super duper, extra brilliant, highly informed, navigating systems?!
For instance, you set out from Manhattan to the Five Towns and you might as well have taken a flight to Boston. And back again!!! A good deal of the time a 45-minute drive is over a 2-hour journey, at best!
Some people want to claim it’s all that traffic these days. But come on, it’s every time! Isn’t there ever a time of the day that cars are actually parked and remaining stationery somewhere?
Alternatively, people say there are just so many more cars on the road. What did they do – give birth?
No, I’m convinced that some bored group of people went out in the middle of the night and started stretching bridges and roads. And making the distances greater. It is the only plausible theory!
Now, before you start thinking that this is a completely ridiculously thought, stop and think? When was the last time anyone went out with a tape measure and verified that the distances are the same as they used to be!
We know computers and technology can make errors. We cannot depend on our speedometers or odometers, cell phones, or laptops. These are all being controlled from some remote location. What do they know of the real here and now. They are often stuck in some virtual processing space or binary calculating system.
I’m just saying, you can’t be positive things haven’t been changed, just when we least expected it.
Does this sound like all the extra time on the road is getting to me?
Well, I think it’s kind of getting to everyone!!!
And what is there to do about it?
Sure, we plug in our Waze or Google maps and hope that traveling over some random hills and dales, or through some funky neighborhoods, will get us to our destination a lot quicker.
But honestly, is that always working for you? Sometimes making all those twists and turns is more anxiety provoking then just sitting in the traffic.
And -Sometimes the guiding voice goes into a delay mode and you find yourself flipping out, as the road ahead shows that you are approaching an exit. And you’re wondering if the one you just passed was yours. Other times, that voice hunkers down and repeats an instruction so incessantly that you feel like throwing her right out of the car window. And then there’s the most dreaded experience. That voice that suddenly decides to turn off completely, just when you were totally depending on it. And you think for this kind of silent treatment- I might as well have had my angry mate sitting right here next to me as my navigator.
Sure, I know there is that little gadget that can hold your cell phone up and display the directions so you are less dependent on the voice. But, who actually has one of those? Especially, one that doesn’t do a constant nose dive off the front window. Anyway, even when you do have the gadget attached, who can understand those contorted fine lines that are directing you? After all, there you are driving on a giant 5 lane highway not the tiny little snake path displayed on the screen.
So, what I’m asking is that whoever decided to stretch the road out, can you please go out there and roll it up a bit. Especially, now that the summer is here. I’d much rather spend more time stretched out in the sunshine then sitting in the squishy little car seat behind the sun visor!
There’s of course always accepting the trusty alternative – you get what you get and you don’t get upset!!
Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach. She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com