Why you should have a long commute - The opportunity of commuting

It's wonderful that he's managing to use 2 hours of his day that would otherwise be unproductive and un-fun, but if he had those 2 hours at home, he could choose to do so many more things, including spending them with family or friends.

If you're the type of person who can't do anything productive or healthy unless forced into it, a forced commute could be helpful, I guess. If you have control of yourself and your destiny, a forced commute is a negative thing.

However, I don't think the author's argument should be taken as just that. He brings up the possibility of gaining something from a long commute, and that those benefits should be added to the equation. Because, to restate the obvious, there are opportunity costs if you choose to reduce the commute. Such as, buying a new house and/or living in a crappier neighborhood. Or, not getting that job at all.

So the equation is no longer: the cost of moving/having a lesser job vs. 10% of my life in a car.

But: the cost of moving/having a lesser job vs. 10% of my life in a car where I have the opportunity to enrich myself.

At my first job out of college, I was assigned to a small regional office in a bland suburb. I chose to live in a college town that was nearly an hour away. So I lost two hours of my life every weekday to driving, but I did do more "reading" than I have at any other point in my post-college life. And I made friends and had the kind of social life that I would've never had had I chose to live in the soulless suburban sprawl in which my cubicle was located.

For the rest of us being forced to sig in one place for an hour a day might give us an opportunity to tend to parts of ourselves that might otherwise be neglected in the rush of life. To a busy person taking 30minutes to sit in the kitchen, read the paper, and sip some coffee would appear as sloth and idleness but doing the same in a train car is nearly as pleasant and gives no opportunity for the evil optimizer in our heads to give us grief about it.

I was only working four days a week though, which made it tolerable. Commuting like that five days a week would have driven me mad.

So, just to get this straight, the answer to "A 20 minute, 40 mile commute to work costs you $125.000 and 1.3 years of work, over 10 years" is "I take the train and I listen to podcasts" ?

I see how he's trying to show a most positive side, but what he's doing is both moving the goal posts and a strawman argument.

Plus, shameless self-promotion.

For me, walking is by far the most pleasant way of commuting. Driving is way too stressful and eliminates the opportunity to multitask. If I bike, it pumps my energy level up too high, so it takes a while to calm down enough to get into the zone. Walking is the only way I can start doing productive work the instant I get to the office.

The huge advantage of the train is that you can work on the train if it isn't too crowded. That's a big if, but if it works and you have a cooperative boss, suddenly commuting time is no longer commuting time.

Author should be really lonely if listetning to random guys sounds like a good idea....

THIS IS NOT COMMUTING.

Commuting is getting in your car and sitting in traffic for two hours per day.