Day 4: Beauty in Traffic ... what?!

Those who know me - at all - know that I despise traffic. I don't know how so many people can calmly drive through Denver's rush hour without a care in the world. I admire them. And I'm not one of them.

I've gotten past my anxiety and extreme irritability for the most part. It's not that I'm the person weaving in and out of lanes spending all my energy to get a half second ahead of everyone else. And unlike some people, I do pride myself on maintaining a few unspoken laws of courtesy on the road. It's just that I have a hard time looking at sitting in traffic as anything but a complete waste of time. So it's not easy to have a positive outlook while I'm stuck, feeling claustrophobic and as if I'm going nowhere fast. To make it even worse, there unfortunately are a lot of people who feel it's their right to be an idiot and piss everyone else off by nearly getting in an accident every other car ... and ironically they don't realize that they, too, are going nowhere fast.

Lately though, I've had small moments of enlightenment while on the road. I've been able to see traffic through a unique perspective and realize that it's actually incredibly similar to life. "Traffic" is like a living organism. Have you ever noticed how some days it seems as though everyone on the road is in a bad mood or everyone seems to be a terrible driver all at once? There are some people who are content with going a steady speed and keeping distance between themselves and the person in front of them (and might I add - they're NOT in the fast lane). There are those who are polite and let people in. There are others who can easily forgive when someone else is a jerk and refrain from honking or cursing. Then there are some who feel superior to everyone else - they may decide that they deserve to speed past everyone and then hold up traffic in the off-ramp because now they need to get over and merge into stopped traffic. 

Obviously I drive too much. I really, truly from the bottom of my heart do not want to care about this stuff. But it's such a huge part of my life that it's hard not too. So I just do my best to stay relaxed and make sure I'm the kind of driver I'd like others to be. And every once in awhile, doing this allows me to be open in taking in true beauty around me. 

Like the sunset tonight. If anyone else was lucky enough to see the sun setting over the Rocky Mountains a little past 5 today, you know what I'm talking about. It was breathtaking. Absolutely stunning. We have some pretty extraordinary sunsets in Colorado and I felt so lucky to be able to enjoy this one - right smack in the middle of rush hour. And of course the timing couldn't have been better. I was merging from I-25 to 6th so for one moment I was going East and I saw this beautiful reflection shimmer across the city skyline. Then I came around and headed West and got to drive, literally, off into the sunset. And for the next 10 minutes or so, it just kept getting more and more staggering. In fact, I wondered for a moment how I could even keep my focus on driving when there was such a magnificent site ahead of me. 


It became clear to me that this was a moving reminder from the Universe that there are always moments around us filled with beauty and infinite love. But first, we need to be open to taking them in. 

Photo found on http://analogengineering.com/elevenmile/lake_shots/