Day 6: 7 20- reasoning

Of all the challenges that come with riding the bus, the most difficult for me is getting people to understand why I ride the bus.   My reasons for riding the bus are three-fold:

1.  Because I can.
2.  Environmental consciousness: Some of our buses are green, but in addition I'm keeping one car off the road and taking advantage of a system already in place.
3.  The schedule fits my own.

I am riding the bus even though I can still afford gas money.  I am riding the bus even though I have a car that runs perfectly fine (well as fine as a car with 107,000 miles on it).

Most of my coworkers and friends assume there is a reason for me riding the bus, something more substantial than I am riding the bus to ride the bus.  One co-worker asked me question after question trying to figure out what the deeper reason was for me riding the bus.  Is it expense? Is your car broken?  But why?  Why?

Now that am I bus rider, I have found a million other reasons to ride the bus.  It changes my perspective. I get to glance out a window or read a book on the way to work. I see and interact with people I would have never crossed paths with before.   It changes my stress levels. When I drive I am frustrated driving behind a bus, but when I am on the bus, I hardly notice the stops. I have a few more minutes a day to read, stare out a window, smile at strangers.  It's off my beaten path. My days are different now, the days I ride the bus I walk over a mile to and from the stops.  I plan  my days out better, I have to plan out my weeks better.

There are certainly some down sides to riding the bus, but the one reason everyone seems to gravitate towards is lack of freedom.  Yes, I am essentially stuck at work during the day and yes I am tied to the predetermined schedules, but that doesn't bother me at all.  There isn't anywhere that I would normally go that the bus can't take me.

The reasons to me are clear, if not understood by most.