Why I Stopped Listening To Music In The Car
If you’re familiar with the metro Atlanta area, then you may understand the issue of sub/urban sprawl that we face here.
If you’re unfamiliar with Atlanta, then you may remember last year’s infamous “Snowpocalypse” incident that made national headlines:
Since that nightmare of a day, it’s disheartening to say that no headway has been made to reduce the number of single occupant vehicles on the road. There is also no viable long-term solution to this problem because the proposed solutions often involve too many moving components. So if you live OTP, or “Outside the Perimeter” of Interstate 285, then your only options are to drive, telecommute, or find a job outside of the city.
Here are some additional commuter statistics about ATL:
- Consistently ranked as one of the Top 10 most-congested metropolitan areas in the country.
- Has HOV lanes that provide real benefits to carpoolers.
- 50% of Atlantans drive 30 minutes or more as part of their daily commute.
- That time added up is equivalent of one work week per year.
Atlanta, we have a problem.
Ever since the day I got my driver’s license 13 years ago, I’ve listened to music from the minute I sat down in my car to the minute I got to my destination.
Back in March of this year, I got a new job and have been making the daily commute from Suwanee to Buckhead — with the occasional “Work From Home” day sprinkled in. For the most part, this pain has been tolerable with the help of music. However, after passing my seven month mark this week, I calculated the opportunity cost of my 50 mile/day commute out of curiosity. This ended up being a terrible, terrible mistake.
As soon as I quantified what commuting has truly cost me this year alone, I was immediately hit with a deep sense of regret. The mileage and money are of less concern to me than the time that I’ve sacrificed. Unlike mileage and money, our time is a finite commodity — one that we can never get back.
With those figures above swirling in my head, I grew more and more agitated by the lack of available options and music only amplified that frustration. I can not afford to move back to the city yet; It will be at least 4 more months before I’m back on my feet financially after experiencing startup failure.
Do I continue to commute and work from home when I can?
Do I quit my job and find one in the ‘burbs?
Call it serendipity or call it fate, but at the same time my Director of Marketing was asking for podcast recommendations as she was preparing for her flight to South Africa. Medium, coincidentally, happened to surface this article by Erik Bison Jacobson containing “60 Podcasts to Make You a Well-Rounded Entrepreneur.” I bookmarked it to send to her, but as I started reading the first few lines they instantly resonated with what I was going through:
Being an entrepreneur is hard.
Something that can help is spending your daily commute listening to a podcast that will teach you techniques and tools to improve your business and yourself.
Or they will just inspire and motivate you.
While I lost over 200 hours the past 7 months sitting in traffic and listening to music, I now realize that I could have also gained 200 additional hours of business knowledge to help with my personal growth.
It was simply a matter of changing perspective.
How many hours, days, weeks, or years of your life have you spent driving, on the subway, or walking to work?
For myself, it took me a few days to learn that this was a wake-up call; I could either continue to waste 1–2 valuable hours every day, or I could focus and invest that valuable time back into my own development by listening to podcasts or audiobooks.
The choice, for me, was easy.
My situation will naturally improve when I move back ITP or “Inside the Perimeter” four months from now, but the fact of the matter is that there will still be over a million people who commute into and out of the city every single day.
With every problem, though, there is an opportunity for someone to offer a solution — and one that people will pay for and use.
Surely someone (or something) can solve this commuter problem?
Enter: Ride
While watching Atlanta Tech Edge this morning and in the middle of writing this very post, I ironically heard about a new app called Ride that is intended to curb the mass transit problem.
The show’s host, Cara Kneer, interviewed Ride’s Director of Strategy & Operations, Kelly Behrend, who provided the commuter statistics about Atlanta that you saw in the opening paragraph.
Launched by Uber’s co-founder, Behrend says, “Ride is in the business of reinventing the commute. We’re a great technology and solution for people who deal with traffic every day on the way to work. Our focus is narrowing in on them and providing them a solution that matters and helps them alleviate the stress, the cost, and the time associated with our commute every single day.”
Essentially a carpooling app that matches drivers and riders using an intelligent algorithm, Ride is supposed to reduce the costs of the following effects of commuting:
- Money
- Carbon Emissions
- Time
In addition, if your company partners with Ride, they also offer flexibility through “Guaranteed Rides” where a concierge will “hook you up with a clean, ready-to-go car available at your work location to get you where you need to be — no hassle, no stress, no charge.”
Shut up and take my money.
After browsing their site, I put in my commute info and they quickly showed me what I could be saving annually:
As I mentioned before, I was in the middle of writing this and was going to say that if no one else is going to solve the commuter problem here in Atlanta, then I sure as Hell wanted to make that a long-term project. Instead, I luckily got to pivot this post while signing up for a potential solution.
I’ll let you know if it works out.
So, how about you?
If you’ve made it this far in my post today then I value your opinion.
- What do you think about Ride?
- What obstacles do you think Ride will face in adoption?
I just started listening to the EOFire podcast series by John Lee Dumas and am really enjoying it thus far.
- Do you have any podcast suggestions to add to my playlist?
- Do you have any podcast apps or sites that you would recommend?
Leave a response below and let me know what you’re thinking!
