What a Broken Bike Taught Me About Life
The things we stop maintaining quietly stop being part of our life.
Reading time: 3 minutes
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“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” — Socrates
I am writing this the same day I finally walked into that bike store, five months later than I should have, and more relieved than I expected.
When I came out of the bike store with the collection slip in my hand, I was smiling.
In the last five months I looked at my broken bike in my apartment every single day and told myself I should go to the bike store. Somehow I never did. There was always an excuse. No time because of work, running, writing. Bad weather so I would not need it anyway. But it bothered me because I knew it was never really about the bike.
It was about my life. The bike was a symbol sitting in my apartment every day, waiting for me to be honest about what it represented.
During those five months dust started to collect on the seat and the wheel. I looked at it daily and the answer in my mind was always the same. Yes, I am going to go to the bike store. Soon.
This is how shrinking starts.
There is always a last time you do something, accompanied by the quiet assumption that you will do it again. You stop going to the gym because you need new shoes first, and then somehow you never go back. You stop seeing the friends you used to see every week because life got busy, and you keep meaning to message them, but a year and a half passes and the closeness you remember is now just a memory you have not updated.
One thing stops, then another follows, and then you look around and realize the dust is sitting everywhere. Your life has become so small it is mostly just work and television in the evening. But when someone at work asks how you spend your time, you still tell them about the gym, the travel, the friends. Because in your mind that is still who you are.
For five months I was still the guy who rides a bike. The fit one who cycles to the gym instead of taking the bus. I told people I love cycling with a small uncomfortable thought in the back of my mind that I really should go to the bike store.
The truth is I had started lying to myself.
I practice enough awareness in my daily life to eventually notice the unspoken conflict. Something felt off and I felt uncomfortable enough that I had to look at it honestly. When I did, I knew it was about procrastination and about what happens when you let procrastination make your decisions for you.
You might think I am being dramatic about a bicycle. But this is always how it starts. You stop doing something in your thirties or forties, you blink, and suddenly you are sixty seven and have not ridden a bike in decades but still think of yourself as someone who just needs to go to the bike store.
Many people lose themselves exactly this way. A small problem becomes a blocker, the well-oiled system stops, one hobby disappears then another, and life gets smaller and smaller until everything they loved exists only as a memory of who they used to be. It really bothers me because it is completely avoidable, which is exactly why looking at that bike every day made me so uncomfortable. The weather was beautiful outside and I could have been the person I remembered.
When I came out of the bike store smiling, it was not because the bike would be fixed. It was because I had said no to the shrinking. I had noticed the drift, named it, and done something about it before it became permanent. They also need to fix the brakes which will cost more than I expected. I did not hesitate for a second because that cost felt like nothing compared to what it represented.
On Monday I get the bike back and my life will be a little richer for it.
Awareness is not about grand transformations. It is about noticing the small shifts before they become irreversible. The dust collecting, the excuses multiplying, the gap between who you are and who you keep telling yourself you will be again soon.
What in your life is broken and collecting dust right now?
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I don't have the words to say how much this helped me out. Or at least encourages me. I have to help myself out. Out of these walls. Thank you for the encouragement to push. I'm gonna push and push even if it seems nothing is happening. How does the story go? If you push on a wall over and over and over, but it never moves, you still have gained muscle 💪
You're right, its not just about the bike. I’m a cyclist. I have…too many bikes but ride regularly. But me, I am a professional procrastinator. I have every reason you can think of to put it off until…another day. Long overdue renovations, replies to emails. We get used to the way it is after a while and becomes the norm. The unfinished wall, the bike is really just decor…really, it is.
I’m glad you got the bike in for repair. I was worried about it.
It isn't about the bike, its about our life.
Thanks again David.