choices

Each morning, I commute from my home in Burlington to the office where I work in Toronto, and each morning, I pretty much follow the same routine.

Because the commute is about two hours each way (I need to catch two trains because of where the office is located), I tend to have a relaxing time on the first train.

This means settling back, reading a book, looking out the window, or just sitting there, eyes closed, listening to my iPod’s “Commute” list.

When the train pulls into Toronto, I sit patiently and wait for the other commuters to get off, then make my way through Union Station to get to the TTC (the municipal transit system).

Because I’ve waited until pretty much everyone else is off, the walk through Union can be pretty crowded, as commuters from other recently-arrived trains join the throng.

But it’s a price I’m willing to pay to avoid the crush of trying to access the stairs?from platform to station upon arrival.

This morning, though, I did things a little differently – and it was like a different world.

Seeing the Same but Alternative Universes

This morning, the train I take each day was delayed, which meant that there’d be more than the usual number of people getting on at the station before mine.

So, instead of wandering upstairs as usual (because it’s the Quiet Zone, and silence is encouraged, which I love), I decided to sit at the first seat just inside the door.

I could still relax, and actually stretch my feet out because of where the seat was located, and with my headphones on, I didn’t really hear the chatter of the morning commute.

It was when I reached Union Station that everything changed.

As the train pulled in, I stood up and waited at the door to get off. When the doors opened, it was a clear path to the stairs – no crowd, no pushing to get closer to the door, nothing.

Simply a short walk to the stairs and down I went.

When I entered Union Station itself, I wondered if the train had taken a detour to a little suburban station, it was so quiet!

Whereas normally I’m just part of a bigger crowd all trying to find our place in the goal of getting out without injury, this morning I maybe saw about 30 people between leaving the train and exiting the station onto Front Street.

Oh, I knew the crowd was still there – but now they were behind me, out of reach and out of my way. The difference was staggering.

Even when I exited onto Front Street, the difference continued.

No throbbing mass of people moving in one coordinated sardine can of walking. No bumping into strangers (or being bumped into). No angry looks as you nip in front of someone just to avoid being pushed along a direction you didn’t want to travel.

It was a weird experience. The surroundings were the same, but the interactions were anything but.

And it was glorious.

We Don’t Always Have to Be First, But Sometimes It’s Nice

Of course, once I hit the TTC, everything was back to normal, and the crush of the rush was on again. So much for my calm sojourn from the previous five minutes.

But riding the TTC to the office made me think of the early morning experience and what it meant in the bigger picture.

You see, often we leave all the movement to others, and we’ll just go along for the ride, happy to be involved.

• We see bloggers we want to emulate, so we post vacuous content that we think is like theirs, but in truth is a pointless exercise – because that blogger’s already done it.

• We see brands we want to ride the coattails of, so we come up with lazy content and advertising that’s a second-rate copy of what could have been.

• We see people on social networks sharing their perfect lives, and we try and compete in a competition that can never be won, because it’s a facade of what’s really their everyday lives.

In short, we don’t take the first step and enjoy that moment on our own and all that brings, because we’re so used to the so-called wisdom of the crowd and the places that might take us (but rarely does).

As actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein once said,

It’s a wonderful world. You can’t go backwards. You’re always moving forward. It’s the wonderful part about life. And that’s terrific.

How we choose to move forward is where we create the adventure.

We can go with the crowd and see where that takes us. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – I’ve yet to fail to make it to my office because of flowing with the crowd. I may be a little late, but I’ll get there.

Or, we can stand up once in a while and be the one that gets off the train first, and see what it’s like to lead.

The clarity. The wide open path ahead. The choice of taking steps A, B or C today, because no-one else has reached them yet.

We don’t always have to be first. But it’s nice to not have to worry about the crowd, and the direction it’s moving, now and again.

Try it sometime. You never know what might happen.