Bike Riding is like life?
I have enjoyed bike riding since I quite young, I am not sure but my first two-wheeler was when I was living in Quesnel, and I will guess I was 6 or 7 years old.
The bike was a bit large for me and I got on and off at first by climbing some steps at my home and climbing on, then pushing off and wobbled until I got up some speed. That was a bit of problem, as you might imagine, because if I stopped anytime, I had to find something to climb up on to get back in the saddle, so to speak.
As I recall, the newspaper boy, who was also a neighbour, taught me to get on my bike like you saddle a horse. I would place my left foot on the pedal, push off and swing my leg over. At first there were some falls, and this is why I say life is like bike riding.
In life, most of us has experienced some spills, it’s a normal part of life. When I was teaching my son to ride a bike, I told him – Everyone falls down on a bike 50 times, so when you fall, just cross it off the fifty and get back on.” I have never heard him complain about falls, and he is an excellent rider.
This morning I went for my morning ride. My little city is nestled between two lakes, Okanagan and Skaha lakes, and so I rode north to the farthest lake, about a relaxed 20 minute ride, zigzagged about a little and rode along the lakefront and then headed south to Skaha lake by riding down the opposite side of the valley.
As I rode past a church this morning it had a sign out front that read “ Conflict is unavoidable, Combat is optional”.
As I kept on going south and eventually rode along Skaha lake I wondered if perhaps this was a thought I could share with my kind readers.
Perhaps if life is like cycling, then those conflicts which are part of cycling are unavoidable and are almost to be expected, and then forgotten about. Some of our falls will be quickly forgotten, some may result in road rash, and picking gravel out and wearing a bandage; but those also heal and in time seldomly recalled.
Now here I am uncertain what the metaphor for combat should be. Your ideas are welcome, I think it might be if we should try to react to life’s expected falls with grace, and not expect our lives to be bump free and all smooth sailing. Instead our response to the odd spills needs to be accepting, not a violent reaction.
We all fall and we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, check for serious damage and go forward and enjoy the rest of our ride. We never know when it will be our last chance to enjoy the breezes on our faces.
August 3, 2019 – Skaha Lake
I thought this quote from 
In my experience, dealing with kidney disease since the early 1980’s, and other events over my lifetime- I can honestly share I tried to avoid resentment, and anger about my health. I was aware to realize that my feelings were oblivious to the other party and I was simply preventing myself from enjoying life. 
Allan stopped singing, an impossibly huge grin on his face. Seizing the moment, despite his normal hesitancy, he exited his car and circled behind to approach her driver door.
Life and Random Thinking 