THE DAILY ANNOYANCE

At least once every day I get annoyed with daily life and start to grumble. Mostly it is about things that cannot be changed (like the weather) or are difficult to change (like the general condition of the road); seldom about people, although objectively seen people are the most worthy subject of complaining and grumbling. Badly used energy!

Of course I know that grumbling turns inwards and I only hurt myself, but it sometimes feels good to let frustration out. There my blog comes in; what a perfect way to whine! I will try to give it a positive turn to announce what I am doing about it (I try ...)

Today it was a beautiful day and I decided to take my bike to go to my course in Leiden. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing head on (first annoyance). One way it is 15 kilometers, so easily done in one hour. But then it starts: bicycle lanes that are blocked by delivery vans, traffic lights that some to last twice as long for bicycles as for cars, road works in which cars are offered convenient diversion but bicycles have to look after themselves, bumpy rides on uneven paving stones (the earphones of my Ipod were falling out every five minutes), pedestrians who are not paying attention and so on and on.

Holland is a bicycle country and we are lucky to have an extensive network of bicycle lanes. But even on a beautiful day like today the roads are crowded by cars; is it in all cases really necessary to take the car? I imagine it is laziness or busy schedules that for the majority are the reasons to drive; what about thinking green (or is this a typical new years' resolution?).

OK; that is the frustration. What can I do about it? Not much I am afraid; I am politically active, but I have switched my working group from transport to democracy and management (oops ...). The only thing I can do is to stop complaining and just enjoy the beautiful day. What the others do is their concern; they will feel it financially (ha!) and they got the traffic jams. And I could buy more convenient earphones. If I have got the money that is ....