Cycling – A Little Lesson

Let me tell you a really, really silly story from my childhood that taught me an unsought lesson that I still remember to this day.

When I was about 9 or 10, I wanted to learn to cycle and didn’t have a bicycle at the time. A friend of mine had one that was really tiny. She had had it for a long time.

I asked her if she could let me use her bicycle and help me learn to cycle. She agreed of course. So every evening, we went out and she helped me to learn.

Let me tell you when I was learning to cycle, I thought it was the hardest thing to do. I fell down and hurt myself so many times. That little cycle felt like the biggest challenge. It took me quite a few days to finally be able to ride her teeny-tiny bicycle comfortably without falling.

When I had finally learned to cycle, I asked my dad to buy me a bicycle. And the next day, we were in the shop buying my first-ever bicycle. It was pink, obviously.

It was a normal-sized bicycle. A bicycle for a 10-year-old. But way bigger than the cycle I had learned to ride. My feet could not touch the ground when I sat on it.

After buying it, I tried to ride it and I couldn’t. It was too heavy for me. And I thought I was just going to fall. We took the cycle home by walking it.

I was actually scared to ride it after seeing that my feet couldn’t touch the ground. What if I fell hard? I wasn’t excited to ride my first-ever bicycle. I was scared.

After a few hours, I had to do it. I had to try. I didn’t buy it to just let it sit, pretty pink 🙁 So I went out and gave it a shot.

I was constantly losing my balance and almost fell many times. I couldn’t ride it for more than a foot without losing my balance. It seemed like the biggest and heaviest cycle ever.

But of course, by the evening of that same day, I was able to ride it almost comfortably without falling. I had gotten used to the heaviness and size of the bicycle.

After some time, my friends came and I showed them my new bicycle and everybody took a ride, including my friend who had helped me learn to cycle. I told her to try my bicycle and I’d ride hers till then.

Now, here’s the lesson after this long pointless childhood story.

When I tried her cycle this time, it felt so easy compared to how it felt before trying my own cycle. It felt like the smoothest ride. A smooth ride on a little bicycle that I had gotten very used to riding, it felt. Maybe I can still remember the breeze on my face for a moment. 

It made me think – You should do more difficult things so that the easy things become even easier. Riding her teeny-tiny cycle was also damn difficult at first, but leveling up made it feel like a breeze, right? 

Life is a journey. The easy things will be difficult at first but only when you push yourself and succeed at them and try more difficult things, will the easy things become easier. 

We cannot jump to Z (read zee) without going through A, B, C………….:P

That’s all fellas, sweet and short! Take care.