I know you snippeteers have been here ... one of your first activities or tasks of the day gets off to a bad start. Your temper flares, you feel frustrated, your tolerance level plummets, you may or may not yell at the closest person or animal next to you. And if this happens before your first cup of coffee, LOOKOUT WORLD! Your thoughts turn dark:
"Oh, so THIS is the kind of day
I'm gonna have, huh???"
On Wednesday, Hubs and I took our bikes to a local Florida park to ride around their trail through the serene woods, with glimpses of the lake (and alligators!) through the trees and small squirrels romping on the paved path.
In our driveway as we struggled to nestle our bikes into the back of his truck without tangling them, it took us a few frustrating tries - and a few irritable words (one of us may have yelled, YOU'RE GONNA BREAK MY BIKE!!) before we were on our way.
At the park, we unload, strap Lupini into his pup carrier on the back of my turquoise bike, and Hubs immediately pedals off. However, my front tire refused to move; it felt as if its brake was stuck. A nice man walking by stopped to help, but we couldn't figure out the issue. At this point, I'm sweaty from hurling bikes around on an 84-degree day, frustrated that my bike was fine yesterday, why not today, Lupini is barking at passing dogs, I'm miffed how Hubs obliviously pedaled away, and I really just wanna go on a bike ride, wah wah wah.
Hubs eventually returns after noticing I wasn't behind him, only to hear me whining that my bike won't move and I don't know what's wrong, more frustration, yadda-yadda-yeah-yeah-blah-blah. He offers to take it to our nearby friendly bike shop to fix it, so we reload the bikes - without yelling - and zip over to David's Cycle World a few miles away.
I was NOT EVEN THROUGH THE DOOR of the bike shop when Mark the bike dude looks at my struggling bike, and says, "Your handlebars need to be turned a full circle." AHA! Somehow while struggling to load the bikes, I had turned the handlebars all the way around, causing the brake cables to pull taut, which prevented the front tire from rolling. Totally easy quick fix. Mark rocks. (And I feel like a stooge.)
We were back at the park 10 minutes later and enjoyed a beautiful morning in nature pedaling along. (And the path was snakeless - yay!) I knew the whole day did not have to be ruined because of a dumb weeny bike problem. I was confident it would pan out smoothly. Ride on.
Snippeteers, just because one tiny annoyance happens first thing in your day, does not mean that is the absolute agenda for the next 12 hours ... unless you want it that way. Unless you "stay in it" versus sucking it up.
WE are in control. WE decide:
1) how to react (positively, negatively, neutrally)
2) if we're going to allow a tiny 5-minute annoyance to ruin the entire day
3) to correct - or continue - our attitude
It doesn't have to be a bad day after all. You decide!
