{"id":30899,"date":"2017-02-21T11:50:01","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T16:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=30899"},"modified":"2017-02-21T11:50:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T16:50:01","slug":"commuting-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2017\/02\/21\/commuting-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Commuting Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It's a metaphor. Picture via Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nI always seem to have epiphanies about my life and my career when I\u2019m doing mundane things. When I\u2019m in the shower, washing dishes, or cooking, my thoughts start wandering, and I end up coming up with all sorts of ideas. Most of them are terrible, or weird, but sometimes, they actually lead to relevant insights.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nApparently, this isn\u2019t just my own overactive brain; \u201cboring activities\u201d can actually lead to epiphanies<\/a>, because simple tasks allow your brain to wander.\r\n\r\nDuring my morning commute to school, when I was squished against a bunch of grumpy strangers on a packed vehicle, I started thinking about how much I hate commuting. From getting up hours before I actually have to go to class, to dealing with overcrowded conditions during rush hour, there are numerous reasons why I dislike commuting.\r\n\r\nThis got me thinking: there is no way I can spend the rest of my professional life commuting from a long distance.\r\n\r\nThis may seem like an arbitrary or high-maintenance factor in choosing a future career, but, for me, commuting is inefficient and inconvenient, can sometimes be expensive, and\u2014at least for me\u2014does take away part of the experience of being a student at U of T. I think I would be happier and more satisfied in a job closer to wherever I end up living.\r\n\r\nI was thinking about all this while a sick person coughed directly on me, and while I listened to an impatient baby crying from somewhere on the vehicle.\r\n\r\nMy \u201cshower thoughts\u201d\u2014or, in this case, \u201ccommuting thoughts\u201d\u2014then digressed into the sacrifices I would be willing to make for career opportunities. Sure, commuting is a pain, but what if it was the only way I could work at my dream job?\r\n\r\nWhile I do think I wouldn\u2019t let distance get in the way of me achieving my goals or working in a fulfilling career, I also think it\u2019s important to consider how your job affects your personal life, especially in the long-term.\r\n\r\nFor example, right now, commuting sometimes leaves me feeling drained and a bit distanced from my friends and peers living closer to campus, but it also allows me to attend U of T. I don\u2019t plan on transferring schools because of the distance anytime soon, but then again, I won\u2019t be a student at U of T forever.\r\n\r\nI didn\u2019t come up with a final answer during my commute; I guess this is one of those decisions you can only make once the situation actually arises.\r\n\r\nAt this point in my commuting journey, I was probably being pushed by a bunch of impatient people trying to exit the vehicle.\r\n\r\nMy mind started to wander again, and I realized that\u2014in choosing a future career or job\u2014I probably wouldn\u2019t like to work in environments that mimic commuting. For example, jobs that involve repetitive tasks, involve sitting down or standing up in the same place for extended amounts of time, or involve tired and irritated strangers.\r\n\r\nI didn\u2019t realize I had spent my entire commute thinking about how my commute would affect my future career decisions until I reached my destination. I wouldn\u2019t exactly call my \u201ccommuting thoughts\u201d epiphanies, but they did lead to some valuable insights into the sacrifices and decisions I might have to make when choosing a career. Maybe I\u2019ll have my next big epiphany on my next commute.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\"Motion-blurred<\/a>
It's a metaphor. Picture via Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nI always seem to have epiphanies about my life and my career when I\u2019m doing mundane things. When I\u2019m in the shower, washing dishes, or cooking, my thoughts start wandering, and I end up coming up with all sorts of ideas. Most of them are terrible, or weird, but sometimes, they actually lead to relevant insights.\r\n\r\n
Continue reading “Commuting Thoughts”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7206],"tags":[329,233,23821],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30901,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30899\/revisions\/30901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}