Part 3: No Car? No Worries!

Not owning a car is a beautiful thing!

A practitioner does not usually own a vehicle! Owning a vehicle has its own benefits. However, NOT owning a vehicle offers the following benefits to the Practitioner.

1.  By not using a vehicle, the practitioner saves the environment from his | her share of air and sound pollution, every day. And, the cumulative benefit to the environment, accrued throughout the entire life of the Practitioner, is so huge and glorious that the Practitioner really feels highly satisfied with the fact that something substantially good was done to the current generation and the subsequent generations of mankind. Every kilo of pollution not added to the environment goes really a long way in making human life better. This contribution by the Practitioner to the society is indeed invaluable. This is the very theme of this whole business:

"Let me help people breathe a little better air, let me help my children and grandchildren breathe a little better air, let me help the children and grandchildren of the people who pollute air, breathe a little better air, whether I am still around or not."

2.  A Practitioner, on a busy Monday morning, does not have to get frustrated in the long queue at the Gas Station | Petrol Pump | Fueling Station waiting for the Practitioner’s turn! That’s quite a relief.

3.  Since there is no vehicle, in question, there is no vehicle-insurance, of course. Since there is no vehicle-insurance, there are no renewals required. And, there is no forgetting about the renewal-dates and are no missed premiums. That’s a lot of apparently unnecessary worries taken out of human life!

4.  Practitioner’s vehicle never meets with an accident. For, there is no vehicle that he or she, usually, owns. Accidents are so common. And, those happen so frequently over the life of a vehicle and life of the owner. A series of events usually follow an accident. In case the vehicle is brand new, it is a shocking event for the owner when the vehicle meets its first accident and loses it good looks partially or fully! Then, it is also the time to engage with the owner of the other vehicle if the accident happened between two vehicles! That may involve police | some money payment (penalties | compensation), Lawyer, Court of Law, Insurance Company, Repair Station – the list is not really short! And, accidents are life-threatening too. What is more valuable than life? A professional drives presumably does the job well. That's THE work for the driver. And, you are in safer hands, probably, while you are not driving and thoughts around your work still continue to cloud your mind and attention.

5.  Other not-so-pleasant experiences that the Practitioner gets an opportunity to stay away from are:

 i. Routine servicing of the vehicle.

 ii. Oil Change

 iii. Tire, Tube, Parts replacement…. The list is long!

6.  Unless the Practitioner is really fond of driving in crowded roads and disgusting traffic conditions, the Practitioner thanks himself or herself as he (she) need not drive, at all, in a typical city! A Practitioner usually hires a vehicle or uses public transportation in case of a definite need. The Practitioner manages those situations (where the Practitioner needs a vehicle anyway to travel) by planning in advance and sometimes by just using the most suitable option(s) available.

7.  No parking-space or parking-lot is required! So, that comes with the flexibility, for the Practitioner, to reside in a house that does not have a parking-lot or space, in case required.

How is it managed? A Lean Living Practitioner tries really hard to find a residential accommodation at a really strategic location (by spending more money and putting in substantial search-efforts) so that not only the workplace, but also, all the critical and important services (+ utilities) are nearby.

Lean Living does not encourage owning a vehicle if it is possible for one to live life normally and meet all the regular local travel (commute) related needs. It is really easy if reasonably good arrangements of public-transport are available. It is really fun if grocers and vegetable-vendors are located nearby so that the Practitioner loves just to walk to get grocery and vegetables. And, anyway, in many (and, most of the) cases, schools have got school-buses and hospitals have got ambulance service. At least, they are supposed to have. So, the Practitioner and his (her) family are covered there, in more cases than not. 

Well, the case made here is just to present the idea. I do not claim that every bit of it has a perfect alignment with the realities of the real world. The idea and the message are important here. NEXT >>

Part 3: No Car? No Worries! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.