Summations

This month has been a 20,000 mile flying month unfortunately. Back and forth across the ocean, urgencies and need driving me around like a bad chauffeur. But well practiced at this as I am, I make the best of each challenge and each day. At least as I fly over the Atlantic I get some blessed silence in my life. Not required to speak (nor listen) to anyone. Evidently I got the last seat on these last two flights, which at least explains the high price, not to mention that I purchased this flight about 7 hours before departure! Mom and dad have an emergency, 24 hours later I am at their house, travel worn and stained, but here nevertheless, from a quarter globe away.

This ability to live at the speed of sound is something one must guard against. Especially people like me, mobiles, who travel to another country each week for work. Steady dependable systems of work, relationships and structure prevent the worst elements of such a life, from overtaking you. As I was just reading this week on the hbr blog site, in a 75 year study that Harvard did, good relationships make life the healthiest and richest it can possibly be. So I stop and write one of my top 10 buds. I call one up on google hangouts, I FaceTime with another. I take one out to dinner when they show up in my town. I have coffee with another. I go drinking with yet another. I have to consciously and intentionally maintain this critical web of relationships, so that flying doesn't become my epitaph on my tombstone - "Here lies a man who flew everywhere, but had no friends." Or some sick moniker like that. Who wants that to be the definition of their life??

Instead we want the summation of our lives to read, "Here lies a man who changed the world, invested in many, loved well, gave generously, lived with his hands open, transparent and kind to all, someone to imitate." Or something along that gist, as I am no poet. We all want to matter.

A violent shift in worlds

I knew I was back in my element within moments of arriving in Istanbul. Having just left the placid cow pastures of Northeast Georgia, the slam-packed Istanbul airport was a jarring impact to the senses. You can hardly walk at a normal pace through the airport as there are so many people, and from every point in the world where East would meet West.

I headed out onto the terrance where I promptly fell into an extended conversation with an East Indian, a Bulgarian, and myself of course an American who lives in Macedonia - all within the confines of the Istanbul airport. Our conversations covered African countries (which one’s were the most dangerous at the moment and which ones were the best business environments), skiing, spicy foods (which even the East Indian admitted Thailand holds the Gold Medal), to marathons, to diving to cave diving, to banking and insurance (the East Indian who goes by the name Samil, is a banker) to engineering and communications (which covered Alex the Bulgarian’s expertise), to non-profits and leadership and cultures.

The scope of the conversations reflects the world I was made for, and after nine weeks in the USA (and ridiculous conversations about Dump Trump and Hell no Hillary), it was a shot of pure adrenaline to my psyche and soul. There is so so much more to the world that we live in, than the cows mooing at one another over barbed-wire fences. Its good to be home.

Lesson One. - Never undervalue you already have

A bed. Beds are underrated wonder mechanisms! They hold and support you in so many loving ways, even the bad ones. But they are under-cherished, under-considered, under-appreciated items that every single person reading this has . . . and I know this because I was one of you, until I rode across America on my bicycle.

Then it was eight complete solid weeks of camping, i. e. sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor with nothing between you and the cold cold floor except a one inch thermarest air mattress, that is, if it remains inflated all the night long. While indoors, it is truly still camping. Trust me. I am now an authority on this. Can you actually sleep in a sleeping bag on a thermarest for eight weeks? Actually yes, but not well, nor deeply, nor comfortably, unless you are also eight years old. Never undervalue your bed.

A shower. A shower is truly a marvel. In the last 48 hours I have literally taken seven showers. I finally feel clean for the first time in eight weeks. I wish I were still in the shower instead of on this airplane! Showers have the power to change your perspective, attitude, feelings, outlook, futures, present, memories - they are the wonder drug! Taking a shower with 20 other guys, in some of the moldiest, dirtiest, fungi-infested, stopped-up-drains, no water pressure, no lights sometimes, even in a baptistery once!, horror movie kinds of places for eight weeks, gives one a deeply spiritual appreciation for a modern shower that all of us have in our personal homes.

Showers that have hot water, and showers that have knobs from which we can call on that hot water to come-to-me experiences. Instead we had showers where you have to hold a "button" in, under pressure, sometimes under extreme pressure, in order for the water to trickle out. Try washing hair with one hand! Hey, trying washing anything with one hand while holding "the button!" Try wetting your bar of soap and rolling it around in your hand (singular), while holding "the button." It will invariably shoot across the scum infested floor to the other side of the shower directly under someone else's feet who is also trying to accomplish the same feat. Never undervalue your shower.

Finally a toilet. And of course we DID have a toilet in every place we stayed. The part you have to appreciate is that most often it was a single equal opportunity throne, to be shared with 20 other guys. Electronics were immediately banned, as were all reading materials! And trying to keep the girls from hijacking your single throne was almost impossible! Unless it happened to be one of those wonderful places where the door would not lock and the stall had no door! Assuming your place even had a stall surrounding the throne!

And while we did have a toilet, there was no, absolutely none, zero, nada, privacy ever. Imagine brushing your teeth each morning to the music of others on the throne! Imagine the hope of toilet paper which might not do you permanent damage when used. Number 10 grade sandpaper would have been kinder! Imagine never having enough TIME to finish your business, because there was only one throne and 20 guys. It's like being on the golf course and having someone constantly hurry your every shot! Never undervalue your toilet/privacy.

Never undervalue what you already have. Take some time and appreciate what you already have. Be grateful, thankful, and overwhelmed by how good you have it!

Grit?

Today was a beautiful 80 mile ride day through Ohio, on rural roads, light traffic, low humidity, and ok, we did have a headwind, but that was just a wonderful cooling breeze as far as I was concerned, although there was a great deal of whining about it from the other riders that came in after me. Today is a blog about consistency.

All my life I have gotten to where I am going, by consistency. What is phenomenally disappointing is the amount of jealousy and resentment that this has caused in so many people. Riding across America has just been a repeating story-within-a-story of what I have experienced my whole life. We have been riding on this 3500 mile ride for over seven weeks now, and the whining and complaining (jealousy) about my "speed" and "how fast I am" is just ludicrous. First of all I am riding the heaviest bike of all riders on the entire ride - the one and only mountain bike. Most people's entire bicycle weigh less than my front RockShox fork weighs! Try pushing that up the Rocky Mountains! Secondly I am a chronically weight challenged, middle-age grandfather of three. Come on people, look at the facts here!

Today is a perfect example of most days out on the route. I start off slow and steady to get my old bones warmed up and the blood flowing (which seems to take longer each and every day!). I am often at the end of the long line of riders, but sometimes I start in the middle and occasional near the front. But today is the example we are using - I started 12th out of 29 riders. At the end of 10 miles I was 9th out of 29 riders. By the time we reached the first rest stop at the 20 mile marker I was 7th out of 26 riders (because we had 3 drop out for the day at this point) By the time we reached the second rest stop at the 40 mile marker I was 4th out of 26 riders. By the time we reach the third rest stop at the 60 mile marker I was 2nd. And then at the end of the 80 mile ride I was first. Typical day. I was as surprised as always. It is called consistency, faithfulness, stubbornness, grit, focus, tenacity, determination, luck or stupidity - depending on what your point of view is and what kind of person you want to be.

Every single person can choose to ride at the exact same speed as me. They ALL have better equipment, they all have the same tools or better, many of them have youth on their side as well, and they all have excuses. I wonder what would happen if I did not stop to take pictures along the way?? My one and only point here is that consistency can produce astonishing and unexpected results over and over again. It is the story of my life. Try it and don't waver, and be amazed.

Your real face

An early early Sunday morning at Starbucks, getting a legit coffee and hot breakfast (compared to the breakfast cereals I have had to eat these last seven weeks). Sitting in a soft chair, soaking up some atmosphere and peace before heading back to the biking group, and the pain of group dynamics. I had never realized how much of an introvert I can be . . . don't laugh, because it is a big enough adjustment without you laughing at me! And yes I have snickered about this quite a bit over the last month, as the realization has come to me.

Is it possible that I have been forced into a public persona that oozes charisma and energy and extrovertism and all that exhausting group leadership stuff all these years? Is it possible that this is what I thought a pastor/missionary/leader had to be? Is it possible that this is not very much me at all??  Whoa!! 

Does anyone else find the effort to speak out loud, especially early in the morning, to be excruciating, almost beyond possibility? Do you find that not entering into every fight or conversation (ala Joe Callaway) to be freeing? Do you wish that there was a lot more silence and quiet in the world? Do you find you can impact and lead indirectly just as well, perhaps even better than from the front? Do you wish frequently that the idiots would shut up? 

Then perhaps, maybe, perchance, your real face is something other than you have practiced for 50 years.