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Comment by nickjj | Hacker News Reader

I've been working remotely my whole life (freelance developer).

It's interesting how jaded I am of driving in general. There are certain intersections in my town where it's common to get stuck at a red light that lasts for minutes. Things like this put me on complete life tilt. All I think about is "how can anyone put up with this every day?". I'm no longer surprised why people go berserk out of no where.

I really don't know how people do it. Getting stuck in traffic or waiting on long red lights sucks the life out of you because it's such an utter waste of time. Maybe I'm just not used to it (I drive, but it's usually outside of rush hour), but man, I am pretty sure I couldn't exist in a world where I had to do the traffic grind daily.

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Yes - once you have full control of your time things like traffic and lineups drive you bonkers.

Honestly, one would think that 'less stress' and a more peaceable mindset give one more resilience in dealing with such things, but just the opposite.

To deal with traffic you almost have to 'give up' on the notion of doing something quickly and resign to the reality of it, which is what happens if you have to deal with it daily.

When working from home I avoid doing absolutely anything during rush hour.

To deal with traffic you almost have to 'give up' on the notion of doing something quickly and resign to the reality of it, which is what happens if you have to deal with it daily.

That's the only way to treat driving IMO. If you let yourself get upset at 'delays', you will drive rashly to make up for it, and eventually you will cause an accident.

Every time you get in a car you should expect delays, and expect dangerous driving from others.

"Honestly, one would think that 'less stress' and a more peaceable mindset give one more resilience in dealing with such things, but just the opposite."

That's one thing that stuck with me when I attended a class with a Buddhist teacher. He said meditation shouldn't make you more stress resilient but more aware of the damage stress causes so you avoid it.

> waiting on long red lights sucks the life out of you because it's such an utter waste of time

Weird... now that you mention this, I recall that during grad school when I had complete control over my time (and essentially worked remotely), I would get so angry sitting at red lights. Now that I have a corporate job, they no longer seem to bother me. Maybe you're on to something.

> Maybe you're on to something.

The reason it bothers me so much is that it makes me feel like I'm more so a slave to "the man" than I already am, even while being a freelancer.

Inefficient rules are in place by an unignorable authority who cares nothing about you other than to take your tax money every quarter (or go to prison / be homeless, neither of which are reasonable options). It's just a constant reminder to how little freedom most people have in today's world.

I don't think it would bother me as much if it were efficient. It's the compounding fact that as a whole we pay such a massive amount of $ towards taxes but we can't figure out how to make transportation suck less.

I use the time at traffic lights to do little stretching and twisting exercises in my seat. Rotating my wrists, punching, wiggling my ankles and hips. Basically the warmup exercises I need to feel healthy at 40, and a good use of dead time. I do neck and wrist twists when I'm on cruise control too.

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