If you’re like me, you spend a good deal of time trying to get somewhere. Lots of somewheres, probably. Trying to get to work early. Gunning to get home again. Getting to that dentist appointment on time. Rushing to the grocery store for a few things. Errands, club meetings, committees, activities. Always someplace to go. Someplace to be.

But the more time I spend on the road, the more I’m coming to see that these commutes from one place to another are not parentheses in my life. They’re not filler. Not the in-between-the-real-stuff stuff. Rather, they’re just as much a part of life as the destinations.

Think about it. What if it’s not where we’re heading, but where we are, and who we are, at that moment in time when traffic is crawling and the clock is ticking, that are important? What if it matters how we act and react on that journey? What if those impersonal cars and trucks were being driven by other human beings on their own journeys? I’m saying “what if”, but you know what I’m really saying, don’t you? We’ve forgotten about patience and what it can teach us. We’ve forgotten how to be while we wait in traffic or sit in a waiting room or stand in a checkout line. And we (I) need to remind ourselves (myself) to see these moments as the stuff of life, maybe as a test of character, definitely as the real journey. And sometimes life will even use these moments to surprise us.