Motorcycles and life

The other morning I was riding my motorcycle to work, as I do every day I can, and I was thinking about how much my ride to work resembles life. Yes, I have lots of time to think during my hour ride to work and hour and a half ride home every day with just me in my helmet…no cell phones, no calls, no emails, no texts…completely disconnected from technology…completely disconnected from everything except my thoughts.

My ride to work isn’t necessarily the most difficult, but there are moments where I wish the road was smoother, the hills weren’t so steep, or there weren’t so many obstacles in my path…just as in life.

Hills: We all face ups and downs in life. Some feel like mountains, while others feel like small hills. As I was going up one particularly steep hill I found myself coaching my motorcycle saying, “Come on girl, we both know you can take this hill. We’ve got this!” First of all, yes, I was talking to my bike…what rational, sane human being doesn’t talk to inanimate objects? Second, we do this in life, too…at least we should. We need coaching from others, but more importantly, we need coaching from ourselves to get us over these mountains and hills.

Pot holes, bumps in the road, rough terrain: We all face times where we feel like we’re on rocky ground. Sometimes it’s at work, other times it’s in our relationships. We feel like the road could give way at any time, that as we try to ride along we keep hitting these holes and bumps in the road and even slippery gravel at times. We have to remember that as we travel on this uneven, and seemingly harmful, terrain, that we will make it to the other side, hopefully unscathed.

Cars and trucks: Sometimes we face larger obstacles that just plain get in our way. Sometimes these obstacles get in front of us and do everything they can to slow us down, to hinder our abilities to get to that next green light where it looks like smooth sailing from there. Sometimes these obstacles cut us off, right in the middle of the road, and bring us to a sudden halt. Hopefully we don’t run into these obstacles during our travel. But, if we do, then we have to get up, dust ourselves off, and keep on going.

Heavy traffic: There are times in our life where we feel like everything around us is slowing us down, not allowing us to go as fast as we would like, is creating a stop and go environment for us. All we want to do is get to our destination, but we can’t go very fast. It becomes frustrating and irritating. We have to learn how to swerve in and out of traffic to help us get to our destination a bit faster, but safely!

Wide open, smooth roads: These are the best kind! Little to no traffic, a smooth road to ride on, few obstacles, no hills to climb…definitely ideal conditions. This is what we all want in our lives. We want to be able to get to our goal with the fewest hazards, obstacles, and slowing as possible. As we move along we feel better and better about ourselves and we are able to move so much smoother and faster.

Just remember that as we ride through life we are all subject to every one of these conditions. And remember that each one of these conditions, even the wide open roads, is temporary. We will constantly need to coach ourselves to help move us along, we need to pass each obstacle carefully as to not have to find that obstacle again down the road, and we need to continuously remind ourselves of our destination and how great it will feel to finally get there.

Have you found a way to successfully avoid the hazardous conditions out there? 

This post can also be found on my other blog at: http://www.kristymlopez.com/2012/06/motorcycles-and-life/