Hey guys! I didn't lose this post after all. Have to count those small blessings in life. Since I have recovered something I thought I lost I shall not delete it because it shows the different paths my mind took when there was a temporary "blackout".
Yesterday morning after I dropped my son off for work, I turned my bike towards the neighbourhood newsstand. On the way, I heard a sound kicked in inside the gearbox.
It was a noise that I have heard before - about five or six years ago. It forbode that something is seriously wrong with the internal mechanism. The bike could hardly moved but nevertheless I managed to coax it back to my house at snail's pace.
I soon discovered that the gearbox has suffered a terminal attack of some kind. So I pushed it to the nearest motorshop. Upon closer examination, the mechanic told me that one of the gearbox's part had broken.
I left it at the shop and went home. A couple of hours later, I walked back to the shop in the afternoon sun. This story is not about my bike but what happens when a person has to "leave" his normal mode of transport and rely on the only kind of built-in transport he was born with - his legs.
Anyway, a few hours later, I was walking back to the shop after finding out all the repairs have been done. While I was travelling along on my two legs, I began to notice things I barely cast a glance on the hundreds of occasions when I rode through the same route.
I "see" people's gardens and how neatly they kept them. I gazed with amazement how magnificent the trees that lined the road leading to my destination. I also noticed the chickens and little animals that ran, crawled or scurried across the different pathways.
I would have continued to miss all these very ordinary things in my neighbourhood if I had not been forced to walk. This time at a very much slower pace.
This is the thing about life. Most of the time, we live on the "fast forward" mode, just like our TV remote. We tend to punch the "FF" button. Hence, we miss the "little bits" that can make our life more meaningful.
Perhaps it's time, we slow down a little and frequently hit the "play" mode. This way, we will not miss the other "parts" which are equally important. I found out on many occasions that if I take a leisurely stroll through any spot, I tend to see more.
Thus, yesterday I learnt that sometimes it takes a "breakdown" of sorts to compel me to re-align my priorities. Isn't that a bit silly? Why should we wait for frustrating events to take place in our lives before we slow down. We ought to go slow most of the time. That doesn't mean we have to cause a "traffic jam", but to take a breather now and then.
If we have all the time to stand and stare, we will learn some important things like my idle conversations with the youthful mechanic taught me more about bikes of other makes in one single afternoon, than all the browsing of literature on bikes in the library. Nothing like learning first hand on the most reliable bike on the road.
Just ask the mechanic, and he will tell you which model of what make gives the most problems for bikers. Not forgetting how to save costs on repairs, too.
No, I don't wish my bike breaks down often but when it does, I take the opportunity to learn as much as possible from the people I am "forced" to encounter.
P.S. Walking builds up stamina, too and it's good for the heart, I was told. So it's a win-win situation.
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