Greetings beautiful people. I find January to be my favourite month. Its when things settle after the busyness of the festive season, and for me personally it’s when I have a break! Here in the Cape the days are beautiful and long, and the sun lasts well into the evening just like The Shire, from Lord of the Rings. I have recently taken up Mountain Biking and spend a couple of hours in all this beautiful nature that surrounds us.
The other day I had a very interesting adventure. As I took my usual morning jaunt up into the mountains on my Bike, smelling the beautiful fresh country air, and generally doing my best to appreciate the moment although I do also drift into thought and forget the present moment. It was in one of these “lost in thought” moments that I suddenly noticed there was a rather large rock on the path ahead and I found myself fixated on it as I was doing my best to avoid it. The strangest thing happened. I could not seem to get out of its way, no matter how much time and space I had to maneuver around it. The rock certainly was not going to budge for me, as rocks I find are pretty solid!
In short, the rock got the better of me, and well…I discovered what it was to experience a coddiwomple viz. to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination. Except for the mud covering the one side of my body and a few scratches I got off lightly. The bike however was a little worse off with a few broken spokes and a burst tire. I pushed the bike into town sheepishly with passersby glancing at my obvious disposition and took it to our local bike shop to be fixed still covered in mud. The shop owner looked at me and asked what happened. I explained that no matter how much I tried to avoid the rock I seemed to be destined to join it.
And so, my dear friends, I received a wonderful lesson about cycling. He explained that when cycling, one should not focus on the obstacles, but focus on the flow of movement around the obstacles otherwise we will end up hitting that which we intend to avoid. Apparently, this is common knowledge amongst the cyclists and now I had joined them in this new profound knowledge which I intended to apply into wisdom the next time I went cycling.
This reminded of a story that I read in Viktor Frankl’s best seller – “Mans Search for Meaning”. It is titled Death In Tehran.
“A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Tehran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Tehran,” said Death.”
Both stories for me are about fear. That sometimes we can be our own worst enemies and that the focus on avoiding our fears on our respective journeys will indeed lead us to creating that which we fear. Now when I cycle I notice the obstacles, and I let go of my compulsion to focus on them, instead I focus more on the path or flow that I wish to travel, enjoying the excitement of the journey, staying present to the moment, paying attention to feeling the air brush past me, hearing the sounds of the tires against the soil, noticing my breath and the movements of my body, taking in the beauty around me and simply enjoying the fact that there are no ordinary moments…and most importantly trusting that in the present moment I have all the capabilities to be in the flow if I let it come to me, no matter what. And yes, some things are inevitable on the journey over time, a flat tire, another rock might jump out at me, or I might get lost, I will make these mistakes and more, but I will get back on the bike and keep going knowing better.
And so it goes with life I feel, yet I will let you, dear reader, decide for yourself if this is so.
With Love
Colin and the DGT Team