For the past eight years I’ve lived in Georgia, I would say conservatively, I spend at least two minutes a day, four days a week, stuck at the traffic light at the intersection of Johnson Ferry and Roswell Road.
So, I finally decided to do the math. 2 minutes x 4 days x 52 weeks x 8 years. The total was 3,328 minutes. There are 1,440 minutes in any given day. This means that since moving here, I’ve spent nearly 2.3 total days of my life stuck at that traffic light.
At first, this reality aggravated me immensely (it’s probably the reason I sat down to calculate this in the first place).
But then, I thought about why we have traffic lights in the first place.
Lots of people need to get to where they are going. This world wasn’t created just for me. This world was created for all of us to share together.
It’s funny how frequently kids complain that “life isn’t fair”. What they are actually asking is (to paraphrase a great Calvin and Hobbes cartoon) “how come life isn’t ever unfair in my favor?”
I hate that intersection. But maybe, having to wait at that traffic light every day for two minutes is God’s way of reminding me to take a moment see fairness in the world.
For that, I am grateful today.
