Friday, October 13, 2017

I am being managed!

I am being managed!

It was shocking to discover. Not. Of course I am being managed. Mr Tsa has long been impressed with my abilities to burn through his bike repairs. I stretch chains faster than anyone, destroy front brakes faster than anyone, and log more miles than an antelope. So when I show up at his shop to rent a bike for the month, of course he is gonna manage me. He has 10 years of experience fixing my wear and tear on bikes. 

He started laughing when I showed up today. He said, "even I did not think you would be back for repairs this quick." I mean I have only put 400 measly kilometers on the bike these five days. But he happily told me why I was riding this bike, rather than one of his fancy bikes - he knew he was gonna have to fix it three or four times this month. And now it is as good as new. I mean I can't help it if it rains all the time nor that the mountains are so steep.

This is only one example of me being managed. I could tell you ways that my wife, my dad, my neighbors are all managing me. You are being managed too!

So the question is not if I am being managed, the question that is important is WHY am I being managed?? There are bad reasons for being managed, like you are a problem child, or like you are a bad attitude poisoning everything in your wake, or you horriblize everyone you talk about, or you only see the bad in everything, etc etc.

And there are great reasons for being managed, like I am a stud on a bicycle and yet Mr Tsa needs to make a profit. And reasons like I also bring great value to the lives of my wife, dad and neighbors, and so they manage me to keep things humming along. These are the calculations that we all make in order to keep things in the best possible balance, and to make sure that we raise boundaries against damage to ourselves and those we care about and those we interact with every day.