Parallel lives

My usual commute takes around 40 minutes. Last Monday it took 3 hours.

Whilst sat on the motorway with my engine off, reading and eating chocolate, I kept a close eye on Twitter for updates. My first thought was one of gratefulness that technology could keep me so immediately informed. I could '@' those caught in the jam around me and enter into a united spirit of sharing information. I then began to notice that the same technology that was keeping me so usefully up-to-date, was also a potential cause of the impatientness I observed in the tweets.

"I hate the M25"

"Stupid drivers making me late again"

"What a great way to start a Monday morning"

There was barely any sense of the reality going on around them. No acknowledgement that the reason we were all gridlocked was because an air ambulance had to land. No compassion for the family of the person that, as I later found out, was declared dead at the scene. No realisation that our lives are part of an infinite network of people living parallel lives, and that being stuck in traffic is such a small frustration in comparison to the absolute distress that the friends and family of the casualty will currently be living through.

I was quietly content that morning, arriving at work un-flustered despite my record long commute. Because in the grand scheme of things, my long journey and late arrival at work made little impact on those around me. In stark contrast, the events of that morning, in someone else's life, changed their world forever.

Parallel lives, worth bearing in mind when we need a little perspective.