I have a long commute to work – 41.3 miles, to be exact. Several years ago my husband and I decided that we wanted to live in the country, away from the long lines of traffic lights, where it might take 20 minutes to drive 2 miles. So we moved away from the cookie-cutter neighborhoods of suburbia to the rural countryside just north of Cumming, Georgia. That was while I was still in school. Just before I graduated I was offered a job at my Alma Mater, Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. My first two thoughts upon the job offer were: 1. Yeah! I’ve got a job! and 2. Damn, that commute is gonna suck. And it does. It really, really sucks. Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the nation, and I get to enjoy it 5 days a week. On a good day with no traffic (like a weekend) the drive takes 50 minutes. Most days it takes me and hour and 15 minutes, one way. My record for longest commute is 3 1/2 hours round trip on one particularly bad day. So, yeah, I spend a lot of time in the car.

Like most things in my life, I try to look on the bright side and I’ve found that there are some hidden benefits to a long commute:

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