call me weird, call me not normal, call me whatever you want, but i like driving. i don’t know why, but i do. i do it quite a bit too. whether it’s working with dad driving at least 100 miles whenever i work with him, driving home, driving to games, or whatever – i just like it.

driving is a time where you can do a lot of things. i don’t put make up on or shave or anything like that, but i do all the other things. it’s when i listen to music way too loud. i catch up on church services that i’ve missed because i was out of town. i pray. a lot. i think even more.

my freshman year of college at surry community college i had an english professor that told us to take the last thirty minutes of class, go somewhere on campus, watch something, and write about it. i got in my car, drove to the edge of campus, and parked facing toward the main road outside of campus. i sat there and just watched all of the cars that went by. in the paper i wrote after watching everything, i wrote:

as i sat there watching all the cars pass by, i realized that every single person in every single car had their own lives. they all had their own problems, and they all had their own fears. suddenly, after coming to this realization, i concluded that im not the only person with “stuff” going on. every one of these cars that passed by, some filled with hungry students, one with a mom taking her daughter to the doctor, and some with a single student going home for the day, were all filled with their own, individual problems, and many of those problems were the same ones that filled my car as well.

since that day, i’ve done this on a regular basis. the other day i got to class early and decided to eat my breakfast in my car before going inside the building. i sat there watching all of the people walking into work or into school. yeah, i know it was just me people watching and there’s no big deal about people watching, but when you think of it in the context i mentioned, it gets even more fun.

i know i’ve likely written about something like this before. i also know this wasn’t really the best thing i’ve written in here. it’s just been a while since i’ve written (seminary level old testament intensives take up quite a bit of time) and i really wanted to write just to release a little bit.

next time you go somewhere, whether it’s the store, school, work, or wherever, take a second to look around at the people around you. watch them for a second or two. you’ll notice that chances are, someone’s day is worse than yours. someone is feeling a little more sick than you are. when you see this person, smile at them. maybe even wave at them. tell them to have a good day. we’ve all been in the place where we were having the worst day of anyone in the store. we’ve been the sickest person in class. remember how much that one person that said something cheered you up, even if it was for only five seconds? try being that person sometime. loving people starts with a simple act of love.

with all that being said, i have class in eight hours and should’ve been asleep two hours ago. the hurricanes just decided they needed to go into overtime and threw off the entire night. they won so being tired tomorrow is worth it.

say your prayers and take your vitamins.

have a nice day.

-jonathan