My Day Starts Downhill

When we had a car, and thus, another transportation option, I could quickly think of reasons why I couldn't bike to work on that day even if I had planned to do so. It could be: I woke up late or I haven't prepared my bags for the ride or I haven't had time to make lunch or it's either breakfast or biking and there would definitely not be any hanging out on the front porch listening to the song birds while drinking coffee. No, not if I had to "prepare" for the long haul to work.

Now that we have made a choice to limit our options, the excuses are all just a bunch of noise. It is kind of like when you are going through a spell of depression and each daily task appears to you as a crazy and impossible feat and then you have a fantastic talk with a friend, go for a walk or read some wise, witty and powerful words, and the depression passes and those tasks that challenged you so much just days before become simple, even interesting again.

This is the difference between having the car and stating, "It would be great if I rode my bike more or used public transportation instead of driving," and really just going for it. The excuses, like the negative voice during a period of depression, ceases to control the perception of the moment and the trajectory of your decision making.

Bike with Sunrise

These days, I don't do extra hours of planning just to make sure I am prepared for the ride and the road downhill to work. I simply treat it as I did my car. I don't wake extra early, so I can get lunch made and breakfast eaten, I wake around the same time and still have time to sip coffee on our morning side porch. It was, in a way, a matter of changing my mind around biking...

Now, I am not saying that depression is as simple as changing one's mind. But, the days when one's mind is clear and one's soul feels whole again --those are the days that can help save one's life-- when one realizes the gap between one's thoughts and one's reality. Similarly, now that we have made this particular choice, we realize that the excuses around biking when having a car (a choice), were just that, excuses...they were not real.