One thing I love to do in my free time is ride my motorcycles. It’s a hobby born out of this pandemic we’ve been facing for the better part of two years. As a father who shares custody, I found myself often alone and isolated, unable to go to most of my favorite places because they were closed down temporarily as a precaution. I had decided that I needed a hobby to occupy myself and I immediately thought about getting a motorcycle. It’s something I could do alone (socially-distanced), without entering into any establishments. It could occupy my idle time and clear my thoughts. I had no idea how much the latter would be true.
I soon found that the best remedy for my anxiety and tendency to focus on negative thoughts was to get in some “road therapy.” I started slowly by only riding in my neighborhood and getting to know the ins and outs of riding the motorcycle. I took the necessary class to get my license updated, and in time, I was on the main roads, exploring the rural landscape in the surrounding areas of my town. There really is something quite free about getting out in the open air and riding, something you can’t fully understand unless you experience it for yourself.
One of the first lessons I learned in riding was that you have to lean into the curves. When you are approaching a turn, the proper move isn’t to turn your handlebars, although you do slightly. The main thing that gets you through the curve is literally leaning in the direction you want to go. It’s a critical part of getting anywhere that isn’t perfectly straight.
Recently, I was out for a ride and I was thinking about how much better I had gotten at taking turns. It was no longer my instinct to press on the brakes as I approached a curve, but rather to lean. That was kind of scary for me at first. Initially, you think you’re going to fall if you lean, but you’re actually more likely to crash if you don’t. I had learned this, and I had really improved in my confidence when it came to leaning into the curves. It struck me as I was thinking about this that I have also in recent months become better at leaning into life’s curves.
The road of life isn’t perfectly straight. It’s going to throw us curves, and at times really wind in all sorts of directions. That can be scary, but we can handle it. We just have to lean into the curves. What do I mean by that? Well, we can’t control what happens to us in life, we can only control how we react to it. Whether its how we react to unexpected change, or to new information, we have a choice. We can get scared, maybe angry, blame other people or things, or we can accept that what has happened has happened. What is is. And lean into it. That doesn’t mean we have to like it or endorse it, so to speak. But we can do our best to make the most with what we have to work with.
There are different factors that have led to me doing a better job leaning into life’s curves that I would have maybe a couple of years ago. You could say that the pandemic put some things into perspective for me. One thing that has helped me along the way is reliance on God. An increasing trust in Him has made me worry less and accept more, knowing that I’m doing what I can and not trying to sweat the stuff I have no control over. This spills over into the Stoic philosophy as well. The Stoic philosophers talk a great deal about accepting what is and focusing only on what you can control. You don’t have to have an opinion about everything. You don’t even have to have feelings about everything. Of course, it’s ok to have emotions, so long as you are in control of them and they aren’t in control of you. That’s the main point I take from the Stoics. And it aligns with my Christian worldview.
So, when life sends me curves on this path, I’ve decided to lean into them. It can be scary, but with practice it becomes easier and the benefits of doing so become more and more clear.