Silence on the Radio

Continuing with the newfound initiative to try things that I do not usually do, this morning I decided to slightly change my morning routine by not listening to the radio during my morning commute from the northwest valley to US Airways' corporate headquarters in Tempe.  To put this change into perspective, let me describe my usual morning routine:

-       Wake up at 5:00am; hit snooze a couple of times; actually leave my bed around 5:15am (fifteen minutes)

-       Take Bruno (my French bulldog) for a walk (five to ten minutes)

-       Eat Breakfast and feed Bruno (ten to fifteen minutes)

-       Get dressed for work (five minutes)

-       Take Bruno for a second walk (ten to fifteen minutes)

-       Pour a cup of coffee into a travel mug (one minute)

-       Get in the car and drive to Tempe (one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes)

Although each step is equally important in order to prepare for a workday, the actual commute takes up the majority of time of my morning routine.  Furthermore, it must be noted that I- like most working Americans- am not very fond of a long commute.  Ideally, I would live very close to where I work and would ride my bike to and from work everyday.  Unfortunately, this is not the case, so I make the best of a bad situation by listening to a mix sports talk radio, NPR, and top forty radio during my morning drive.

In the spirit of trying unexpected things and implementing some of the lessons from our readings, I decided to forgo the radio portion of today’s commute.  This morning is was just me, my car, and a fresh cup of mediocre coffee.

At first it was refreshing to experience a new version of a something that is almost always quite mundane.  Thanks to a hot cup of Maxwell House coffee I was my usual alert morning self, only this time I wasn’t focused in on the news stories of Morning Edition or the Arizona sports talk of Doug & Wolf.  Rather, I was noticing the people and activities that were going on all around me.  The construction workers already at work on road work in Glendale, the astoundingly diverse group of other commuters that I shared the road with, and the beautiful sight of the valley’s mountain skyline as the sun rose, just to name a few.  The same sights that undoubtedly surrounded me every other day on my way to work, but that I never took the time to notice or appreciate.  Not listening to the radio turned out to be an eye opening experience.

However, it must be noted that my commute is in fact over an hour long.  Although all of these “new” sights were refreshing and interesting at first, the delight of the experience wore off about the same time I hit the giant Spencer’s sign on I-17, or about half an hour into my commute. I know that Michael Ray stresses that I “pay attention,” but I could only watch so many people flying by me in the HOV lane before I surrendered to the poison of the latest hit music.  Nonetheless, the first half of my commute was a needed reminder to pay attention to the things going on around me; that even the most ordinary activities can stimulate questioning and creative thinking.