Fear and Negativity: Don’t even think about it
Sun, May 11, 2008 Before I posted my last piece about the Australian road rage incident, I faced a dilemma; should I post the story or not. Most times, I shy away from posting negative articles.
However, I decided to go ahead, because I knew others would run with the story anyway. I felt that bringing a story like this, involving high profile riders, to public attention might cause others to think twice about the seriousness of doing something similar.
It was never my intention to strike fear into cyclists. Fear is one of the basic instincts we share with all creatures of this earth. Fear of death or injury ensures survival of the various species.
Politicians and the media play on this primal instinct to benefit their own ends, with negative advertising and negative reporting. However, I see a difference between reporting something that actually happened, as opposed to discussing what could happen. The media does this all too often.
Do you remember Y2K and how all kinds of terrible things would happen at the stroke of midnight on January 1st. 2000. That time and date came and went and nothing happened, and the media moved on to find other items to scare us.
Whatever happened to the Bird Flu? Did it suddenly disappear, or did they find a miracle cure? Because a few short years ago we were all going to catch this terrible disease, old people and children would die from it. It was spread by birds and mosquitoes, those little critters are everywhere.
I quit watching the news on TV because it is so negative and depressing, and the terrible thing is it is not news. At worst, it is fiction; at its best, it is irrelevant issues grossly exaggerated and blown out of all proportion.
I get the news I need from the Internet; and I often see the same negativity there; however, I can be selective in what I read.
The problem is, being constantly fed a diet of fear and negativity; it creeps into people's lives and their everyday thinking. We speculate on the worst that could happen.
I see it on the various bike forums and blogs, where cyclists recall the near misses, and their run-ins with aggressive drivers. The problem is, the person posting is re-living the event, and causing others to re-live their bad experiences. We cannot erase bad events that have happened in the past, but we can learn from them and move on.
Is it any wonder that some, who would ride a bike, are afraid to ride on the road? A person might wonder why anyone rides there at all, if it is that bad. The truth is it is not that bad, if you look at the situation from a more positive viewpoint.
A few years ago, lived a wise and holy man from India named Sri Nisargadatta. During the 1970s he gave interviews with anyone who cared to sit with him and ask questions. These interviews were recorded, then translated into English, and published in a book called “I am that.”
Many times throughout the book he is asked, “How do you feel about all the wars, death and destruction around the world, and what about all the disease and suffering?" He would always answer, “This is in your world, not mine.”
On the surface this seems a somewhat uncaring attitude, however, I can understand this answer, having just read an online post by a cyclist. The writer asks why the hatred from other road users, why do they scream abuse at him, throw trash at him, and try to run him off the road?
The cyclist is from another state in the south, not far from South Carolina where I live. How different can drivers be, between the two states? Yet none of these terrible experiences he relates, ever happen to me. Like Sri Nisargadatta I could answer, “This is in your world, not mine."
The difference is, when I set out for a bike ride I do so with a positive attitude and I am not expecting the worst will happen. I go riding with the attitude that most people on the road a simply a cross section of the population and for the most part are inherently, good, decent people. Only a tiny minority are criminally inclined, and malicious.
We all know that many drivers are inattentive, however, they are not inattentive 100% of the time, so the chances of them being distracted at the precise moment they pass me is remote. In other words, the odds of my not being hit are far greater than being hit, so why should I dwell on the thought that that a slight possibility might occur.
Most successful people believe in the power of positive thinking; the problem is negative thoughts are just as powerful. We attract to ourselves whatever we hold in our thoughts. A person riding a bike with the attitude that all drivers are morons will attract the behavior they expect.
It is natural to have negative thoughts and to fear the worst, not only are we bombarded with negativity from the media, we get it constantly from work colleagues and those around us; plus as previously mentioned, fear is a basic instinct.
However, as humans we are capable of rationalizing, and do not need to live our lives in constant fear. We are all freethinking spirits and we do not have to dwell on the negative.
Something else I have learned; the things that annoy me as I go through life have a tendency to keep repeating. I try to recognize these re-occurring annoyances, observe them as such, but try not to get angry. After doing this a few times, the annoyance stops re-occurring.
If bad experiences are happening to you every time you ride, realize these bad incidents involve different people. The only common denominator in these totally random incidents is you.
There is a tendency to find whatever we look for. If we look for the worst in people, this is most likely what we will find. Turn that around and realize that there are more good people in this world than bad.
I try to fill my mind with good positive thoughts before I even set out on a ride; I have no control over the thoughts and actions of others, only those of my own.
I don't worry if negative thoughts slip back in, because I know they will. I am conscious of these thoughts and replace them with a positive one. A positive thought will always cancel out a negative one, as surely as light will overcome darkness, and good will overcome bad.
If you are skeptical, try it anyway; what have you got to lose? Just your bad experiences.
Reader Comments (18)
My favourite thing to do to people when they say things like 'you make me so angry' is to respond with 'you choose to feel angry'. Often it annoys them further but it is very true.
-Kelly
"Consider then overcome fear!"
(Life is too short for self-doubt.)
Question:
Are you related to Mr. Alexander Moulton of Moulton Development LTD. a bicycle ware innovator?
Patent review identified him.
Aside, Tim at MASI is recovering from a BAD track incident.
Because when it happens (and it will) on a bike, you always come off second best.
IMO, we owe it to ourselves and each other to try and change the situation.
I do feel it's important to acknowledge unpleasant information about our world, so we can accurately assess our situation and do something about it.
Jack
For the first time, last year, I was hit by a "silly" driver. Since I've been riding for 25 years now, those are pretty good stats.
Riding your bike is safer than walking down basement stairs.
A couple weeks ago there was a 60+ year old triathlete swimming just off shore with a group in Solana Beach Ca., which is near where I live. As you probably read he was killed by a great white shark. Beaches were closed for a couple days and then everyone went back in the water. It's hard to keep a cyclist off a bike and a surfer off a board!
Positive thinking is like religion in the sense that it doesn't absolve us from taking appropriate measures that are available to us. It's fine to think positive, but it won't prevent you from being thrown from you car in an accident if you don't buckle up. Neither positive thinking nor praying will prevent a heart attack if someone is careless about their health. And neither will prevent you from getting a disabling concussion or worse if you happen to fall on your head.
In the old days, about which I'm qualified to talk about unfortunately, we didn't wear a helmet, but then, there were no helmets to wear, and when there were, they weren't very practical. But that's not the case today. Practical, extremely light, well-ventilated helmets are readily available and affordable, so it would not make sense not to take advantage of them. It's kind of the same as wearing lycra. It exists, and so people who ride road bikes wear it so they can be both more efficient and more comfortable.
For the recalcitrants and the misguided libertarians, do whatever you want. I may need another kidney transplant some day. The supply doesn't meet demand partly because of better safety in all kinds of activities. The best kidneys usually come from brain injuries, but there just aren't as many of those as there used to be.
Why didn't any thing happen at the stroke of midnight and Dec. 31, 1999? Well, because my wife, and thousands of other coders, went through system code, line by line, for months before that date. That's why. Line by line. Late nights, long hours. Line by line. Fixing problems that WERE there and WOULD have caused problems.
So while you continue to spread the lie that there was no problem because nothing happened, realize that people and organizations recognized that there was going to be a problem and took steps to mitigate the problem.
That's why nothing (much) happened, not because the media was wrong.
I've read your thoughtful posts for awhile now and enjoy them immensely. You are right that being positive will make for a better experience. I don't think it 'protects' or diverts bad events in any real way. What being positive about a ride gives you is a perspective that defends you from seeing every event/circumstance as being about you or confirmation that someone/thing is out to get you.
Drivers take all kinds of lines when driveing. Some favor the left side of the lane, some right. Others get target fixation when passing and tha draws them into a slightly closer pass than I might like, but barring a secondary (yelling) overt act (and I've received some too) being positive allows me to stay comfortable on the bike.
That out look is different than filtering the media or thinking that thinking positive will protect you. Yeah the network news is trash, it's all entertainment now, but looking for just the stuff you are comfortable with on the net to stay informed means you will miss other important items. Being disturbed/upset is a good thing in small doses. It keeps us alert.
I'm with mh the Y2K bugs could have caused a lot of damage and may still bite us in some way. The software company I worked for basically took a 12 month hit on income to be sure everything, including the macros we got from other vendors (like IBM) were right and we just did library automation software.
As a new national election cycle winds up there will be a lot more fear mongering and loathing coming our way, passivity doesn't make it go away.
BTW This past one was 30 minutes after leaving one of my worse days at work. I'm thinking I was in the "bring it on" mode.