Commuting erodes the soul.

Oh, not right away, not so as you'd notice after the first day, or even the first week, but over time. As you deal with the shovers, and the people taking up an extra seat for their bag, and the people who stand right in front of the doors when you're trying to get off the train (both inside and outside), and the cumulative hours of just standing in the train wishing desperately you were somewhere else. Slowly but surely, your soul is eroded, and eventually you become one of Them. A Commuter.

You start shoving with the rest, because there's no other way you can get a seat. You start pushing your way off the train because you can't stand to be in there a second longer than you have to. It's every man for himself and to hell with the rest of them.

I only really realised this today, when I allowed someone to get off the train in front of me and realised that this simple piece of courtesy had become the exception. So I'm going to try and remember to do that more often. It may only be the equivalent of a sticking plaster over a sucking chest wound, but sometimes that precious extra little slice of time is enough to save a life. As Paul Daniels was so fond of telling us, Every Second Counts.