Column by Tim Riley

There are few things on earth more frustrating than being stuck in traffic. One short slowdown can easily make someone believe they are the only competent driver left on earth. Luckily, these maddening instances do have a silver lining. A gridlocked street forces a driver to stop the endless grind of their day. As a result, they can be alone with just their thoughts. And for that reason, these normally miserable experiences can become the most important part of one’s day.

One of the most common causes of traffic slowdown is when local schools let out for the day. Nothing is quite as fun as a gaggle of buses clogging two-lane roads while small children ramble about everywhere. For the frustrated driver though, there is much to learn from observing this chaos.

As a kid, life is very easily compartmentalized. The distinction between work and play can be very neatly drawn. There is predictable balance to how one spends his or her time. All responsibility is carefully delegated out in manageable portions. The hyperactive kid annoying the traffic worker knows that when he gets home, the only thing standing between him and Guitar Hero is his math homework and some vacuuming.

By the time one has become a seasoned college student though, these demarcations have completely fallen apart. While one’s freedom has obviously increased exponentially, the innumerable problems of the world have accompanied it. Attempting to properly categorize one’s time in an average day into clear grouping becomes laughable. While the old worries about tests and quizzes still remain, it sometimes barely even registers compared to the other confounding issues of the day.

Growing up, kids will hear a speech about being responsible approximately 4 million times; however, the quality of one’s responsibility at this age is often judged based on stringent requirements such as, “make your bed.” Despite never quite mastering this, as one edges closer to the end of their collegiate experience, the number and difficulty of things asked of a person continues to expand. Ignoring the demands of class, life becomes about jobs to work, meetings to attend and bills to pay. One begins to understand why everyone is told growing up to enjoy your childhood.

The sacrifices required of a sixth grader usually amount to not getting to play football in the backyard on a weekday because they need to read Harry Potter for class. What one surrenders as they get older is not nearly so simple. There is often enough to be done that a person could work 24 hours, seven days a week and still feel they are falling behind. So in order to just tread water, one must sacrifice legitimate amounts of time with his or her friends, family and hobbies to the monster that is responsibility. When time spent cursing Lexington city planning is the most relaxing moment of the day, one wonders if it has all gone too far.

In that moment though, remembering how those very same kids spend their time can salvage a sufferable life. They have no choice but to spend their day at school, so they make the best of it. They embrace the people around them in class, sneak in fun whenever they can and talk to their friends even when it means they may get in trouble. Kids learn to deal with the extreme, monotonous boredom of the average school day through many years of exposure to it. With that in mind, what seems insurmountable today may simply be something that just needs some adjustment time.

The journey through college changes people. Because of the choices people make and the duties they must perform, it is impossible for them to just hold fast. Whatever place a person reaches during their time at school, they create a unique situation that they alone must deal with. By taking the lessons of the school kids though, it is clear that these new burdens of life do not have to consume your existence.

Life only devolves into an endless march from task to task if one refuses to find enjoyment while engaged in them. While a traffic jam may seem to ruin one’s day, sometimes a person gets lucky and it becomes vastly more important than the very reason they are traveling to begin with.