Carless

My New Year's resolution: to give up my car. I will donate it to a charity, and bike, walk, or bus to wherever I need to go. The advantages: helping the environment, saving money, improving my health by exercising more, and perhaps most importantly, find out if I have enough self-discipline to do it. Disadvantages: increased travel-time and reduced mobility. No late-night social events. Innability to give my friends rides, no large-bulk cargo hauling ability. My last attempt lasted two weeks. I am determined to make this second try last longer.

P.S.: This isn't entirely an intellectual decision. I have never liked this car, even though I've owned less appealing vehicles in the past, I just could never entirely befriend this one. Sorry, car. I guess that makes it in part an emotional decision.

Comments

Luna said…
Congratulations on your resolution! It is certainly a laudable goal. Only, I am wondering about your social life... living outside Seattle, it would be really hard for you to join me and our other friends for our usual gatherings.. Perhaps you could rent a car occasionally, maybe with those services where you can rent a vehicle by the hour. You would still save money, considering that you would cut the expenses of car registration, insurance and parking. If you accept advice from someone who lived a car-less life for a long time, I can tell you this: you will need to change your mindset from random trips decided at the last minute to a plan-ahead attitude. Start with memorizing the bus schedules (the last bus of the night is crucial!), and good luck!
7:30 AM
Al said…
Thanks for the advice, I think you're right, it requires a change of mindset. I know that I won't be going to Seattle as often, but like they saying goes: "you can't have the cake and eat it too"
2:28 AM
Luna said…
That's right. In my country they say "You can not have a full flask of wine and a drunk wife at the same time". It's funny! :-)
11:10 PM
Anonymous said…
In my culture, it would be "you can't have fish and bear's paws at the same time"! Isn't it funny things of value differ in cultures?
11:33 PM
Al said…
...I guess they haven't seen north american bears using their paws to catch salmon day after day ;-)

In my culture they say: "he wants both the pig and the 4 dollars"
2:43 AM
Anonymous said…
Hmm, 4 US dollars? That's a lot of money I guess ;-)
12:56 AM
Al said…
the idiom dates back to colonial times, so it's actually 0.40 XV century spanish dubloons. With inflation and adjusted exchange rate, it comes to about $4 US, this doesn't seem like much, but back in colonial times, gold currency had a much higher purchasing power. A further devaluation of swine comodities was induced as Alano de Greenspanoza, the Imperial Treasurer at the time, had steadily increased cattle interest rates to curb the rampant inflation due to unrestricted influx of colonial gold into the Iberian economy.
2:07 AM
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