Car Time
Are you a windows down or a windows up kind of person? Music on or off? Do you chat with the other individuals in the car, or do you prefer to keep mostly to yourself with books and earbuds? No matter how you pass the time, it’s almost a guarantee that you and I do have this in common: we spend a pretty significant amount of time in a car.
Try these facts on for size. According to one source, the average American spends 6% of their waking life in a car going from place to place. There are currently an estimated 4.12 million miles of road in the United States, about 222 million drivers, and the average driver makes an average of 2.24 trips each day (Steele, 2021). Basically what I’m trying to get at is that when you add it all up, the time we spend in a car ends up being a pretty significant chunk of our lives. With that in mind, it might not be a bad idea to take a second look at how we spend it.
Obviously the choices of what to do while traveling (as driver or passenger) in a vehicle are limited by the space you’re in. First, let’s emphasize the most important thing; you should NEVER be on a phone or looking at an electronic device while driving. It’s a bad, unsafe habit to develop. Instead, make a point to pull over into a parking lot if you need to read a text or check something. Outside of that, here are some ways to make that 6% of your life that much more meaningful.
Explore new musical artists instead of listening to the same old familiar ones. Check out a mix of cds from the local library if your car has a cd player in it or select a playlist you haven’t listened to before on Spotify or other music streaming services.
Record your thoughts. If you’re a passenger, write them down in a notebook. Take the opportunity to process some feelings or make a to-do list that tackles stuff you’ve been wanting to target for a while. If you’re the driver, set your phone to start recording a voice memo while you drive and hit stop whenever you arrive at your destination. You might be surprised what thoughts come to the surface if you let yourself speak freely without any audience to judge you.
Listen to audiobooks for fun or educational purposes. 6% of your life could add up to a lot of books. Which adds up to a lot of reading. This is one of my personal favorites for those longer roadtrips.
Watch the world around you intentionally and really take in what you observe.
Embrace the silence. Sometimes a deeply quiet car ride is just the sanctuary we all need.
Reference: Steele, L. (2021). How much time do American families spend in their cars? Fatherly. Retrieved from https://www.fatherly.com/gear/how-much-time-do-american-families-spend-in-their-cars/.
Challenges/Points:
On average, we spend 6% of our lives traveling in a car.
You can use the time in a car more intentionally if you plan ahead how to spend it.
Try processing your thoughts or feelings regularly in the car or listening to audiobooks that entertain or educate.
Questions:
How much time in a week do you think you spend in a car?
What’s something you often do to pass the time while traveling to and fro?
Is there one thing you’d like to try to start using car time for?
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