These thoughts are from the days when I used to commute every weekend between Boston and Newyork.I would just wait till the clock smiled 5pm at me and I would run for a cab to take me to Newyork Penn station at 32nd St. I would take the Acela Express Amtrak train.The train is extremely comfortable ,luxurious( the ticket made a big hole in my pocket) and more importantly ..FAST.

I would settle down , have my ticket checked ,and then rush for the Pantry.

I am a fairly observant person.If I meet someone I can recall many days later what he or she wore ,what time it was and so on.I would look around the coach . I am always amazed by the number of people who ,no-sooner has their ticket been checked, would pull out their laptops and start typing furiously.

The other gadgets would be a Ipod ,dangling from their ears, their cell phone hands free set,and probably even a pager. These people would not look up from the laptops sometimes for more than a hour,completed engrossed in "WORK"

When I see such people, I get a huge complex.I feel I am not working hard enough.I am least interested in switching on a laptop and "working" during travel. The days work alone leaves my pea -sized brain so tired ,and combined with the rhythmic swaying of the train, I doze of almost immediately.Or days when I am not very sleepy, I just stare out of the windows looking at the awesome route. If you have not been on this route ,believe me, when the train passes through Connecticut, the breathking views and the slowly setting sun creates the most blissful environment you could be in.There are lovely rivers and houses with white picket fences , and boats and sea gulls.I travel that route so often,but I am never bored by it Each time seems equally memorable.

So I wonder ,do the people typing away at their laptops ,never notice this beauty?Or is it that we are all very WIRED UP these days? We work long hours and are accessible all the time via internet and cell phones.Shouldn't travel be a time to relax and let you mind rest?

How much more competitive are we gonna get?Shouldn't there be some personal time where you are not accessible and can devote your self to something other than work ? Or just to gain back the energies that are sapped away with long hours and stress?

The more I analyse how the careers of most of the people I know , are shaping the more I am concerned about what lies in the future.We need to step back a bit and understand that pursuit of perfection sometimes ends as an abuse of your own self.

At the end of the day it's just work and life is much more than.