Slow living and how traffic affects our lives

Today it's Sunday and we are back from Portugal, just one day ahead of time as we were planning to drive back today instead of yesterday. It is a long 10hr drive from the little village where we are purchasing our small farm to our house in the Barcelona metro area, this is a long weekend in Spain and the forecast shows it will be raining all day today in most of the country, so we evaluated the options and decided to travel back on Saturday.

First I want to thank @robben23 and @quintakatinka for their hospitality in letting us camp on their breathtaking farm. They've been here for more than five years now and I thought it was worth talking to them about Hive and helping to create their accounts so they can start posting. I encourage you to take a look at their accounts as they start publishing content, watching their videos is what made me discover this little village in Portugal and finally decide to purchase the farm. They also have a YouTube channel, but I also plan to teach them how to use @threespeak so they start posting their videos there.

This morning I was reflecting on how traffic affects our regular life for those of us living in big metro areas anywhere in the world. Yesterday, the weather forecast was a clear example of how we decided to change our plans and shorten our long weekend due to traffic.

If I had a way to add all the hours I have lost in my life in traffic jams, I would probably be amazed, I am sure is more than a couple of months. Add to that the time of the rest of the people trapped with me and you can have a quick estimation of how much time and money not just from many individuals but the whole world is suffering.

Whenever I have an appointment in town, I always set it up for mid-morning to avoid getting trapped in the early commuting traffic of the day. Last week, when we considering at what time we should leave the house to drive to Portugal, we ended up choosing 5 am, to give us time to leave the city and all its traffic behind and to enter Madrid, the other big metro area we cross in our way, around 11 am, when most of the traffic would be gone as people would be at work.

This summer I already experienced the calm and small density of this area of Portugal but it was our summer vacation, and you always are happy during vacation. This time was a short trip at the end of the summer and I definitely fell in love with the slow pace, the silence of the nights, and the "no rush" culture on top of many other things.

I may be getting old and working remotely for the past years may have changed my mind, but I would encourage you to think for a while, about how much of your regular day you spend commuting or doing short driving trips which take much longer than regular due to traffic, you may be amazed. If you are, it may be time to consider a change in your life.

To me, waking up in the morning and having this view, was priceless.