Get Up

 Gun's Quote:

"Get up!"

-Great Prince of the Forest

I wasn't going to get out of chronological order writing these, but one of the biggest reasons I bought a motorcycle was exactly and precisely because of what happened on Wednesday.

Well-intentioned friends and riders alike both tried to warn me that dropping a motorcycle is an inevitable experience, akin to babies falling over when they first start learning to walk. They'll be going along just fine on two feet, and then wobble and fall down, seemingly for no reason. I plan, as I always do, (and should) to have a safe, fun and accident-free experience every time I ride. I do not expect to crash or fall down. (To do so would technically be an ANT... Jumping to Conclusions)

It got to the point to where I didn't think it WOULD happen, and that these fellow riders were wrong, because I've been riding all Summer without an incident. We call this arrogance.

On Wednesday, I dropped it. We call this Humility.

I'm sitting at a stop light. I'm stopped. I'm used to letting off of the front break, (right hand) holding the bike stopped with the rear break (right foot) and holding in the clutch (left hand) because bikes are manual. I didn't realize how steep the hill was I was on, and the amount of pressure I was applying to the rear break wasn't enough. The bike rolled forward, maybe two or three inches, and that's all it took.

Because my left hand was on the clutch and my right hand was dangling on the side, the handlebars turned left, leaning the bike to the left. My left leg is down holding everything up, but moving forward those two or three inches was enough to put enough bend in my knee that I didn't have the strength to hold up the weight of a bike now falling over to the left.

Down she went. Slowly, controlled, but down nonetheless.

Of course, there's traffic behind me. Pretty sure there are women in the car right behind me watching this all play out. Nice.

They teach you in Motorcycle Safety Class how to properly pick up your downed bike. I walked over to the side, butt towards bike, crouched down, grabbed a handlebar with one hand and grabbed the frame with the other and basically performed a reverse deadlift. Back up.

The next thing you have to do is get off to the side of the road. Check for damage, leaking fluids and, of course, check yourself for damage and leaking fluids. (Or, maybe even some solids of the brown variety...)

I knew I had no injuries, (controlled fall) but the bike's gear shifter was bent. I couldn't get it back in to gear. So, I ended up calling my roommate who came to my rescue with my toolbox to bend the shifter back in to place.

The only thing that was really hurt or damaged was my ego.

At this point in my life, I have become tremendously cynical. Long gone is my idealism that my being an engineer could help the planet/environment/carbon footprint, etc. The vast majority of the time I see rich white men building themselves buildings with Italian marble tile to impress clients and boost their image, but with no regard for environmental stewardship. That's below them. I legitimately sat in a meeting one time with a CEO of a local Kansas City software company who refused to allocate the money in the construction budget for a recycling bin section in the large, elegant break room cabinetry. "If it's not going to help me sell more software, I don't care about it," he said.

Long gone is naivety that youth ministry will ALWAYS produce strong, faithful Catholics. Youth ministry has also produced adults who have no faith at all, don't follow their faith or who are not being there for their families, the poor, the underserved and the abused or neglected. I've encountered far more Christians-in-name-only than authentic Christians.

Long gone are the hopes that Boys State will ALWAYS produce quality statesmen. There are plenty of guys who show up for a week of fun, with no intention of using the experience beyond having a good time with the boys.

We, as a nation, have completely failed in our response to the Coronavirus, international Terrorism in the form of the Taliban and protection of the innocent, unborn, refugee, uneducated and impoverished. At least the roads are well-paved.

We are all human, all have flaws, and all fall short of who we could be, but watching shortcoming after shortcoming was really getting to me.

Intrinsic trust or naïve, Utopian expectations aren't always a good thing, but neither is assuming that what you do doesn't matter or that you have no ability whatsoever to make a difference in the world. That kind of attitude leads to giving up and giving in.

It was an attitude that was creeping in, and it was time to dispel it. It was time to start whipping cynicism's butt. How?

By picking my bike up off of the street, people staring at me from their cars the entire time.

Riding a bike is hard. Picking one up and getting back on it is harder. I needed an experience where I could remind myself that quitting isn't an option and that giving up wasn't on the table.

Why buy a bike? I needed to re-teach myself to get up.

...and that's why it's a Gun's Quote!!

Avoidance

 Gun's Quote:

"Avoidance is the best short-term strategy to escape conflict, and the best long-term strategy to ensure suffering."

-Brendon Burchard

...So why the reaction?

Anybody who knows me at all knows I don't use 4-letter words. There isn't a need to dive into this; just know that if I'm swearing, it's because I'm emotionally charged up. It takes quite a bit.

There was real debate as to whether I should post the actual words in last week's post. I'm not a fan of them, but I ultimately settled on saying exactly what I said because, well, I wanted to paint the picture of how I reacted. I was completely shocked. I was emotional. I was jarred.

But why?

Understand that I had been dealing with ANTs for years by that point. There were some NASTY ones. Many of the ANTs I had been telling myself were deeply personal, highly toxic lies I had been buying for the majority of my lifetime. Some thoughts took months to discuss with Bill to get to a resolution. When you buy in to something, even if that something is a lie, it isn't simply dismissed. Watch any of a plethora of YouTube videos of people finding out they were adopted and their parents aren't their biological parents. Watch people finding out their spouse has been unfaithful. Watch parents learning that their children had been abused by caretakers. Hell, watch kids finding out Santa Claus isn't real. These people are undergoing real trauma. When you think something is one way and you find out it isn't, you go into shock and you get very defensive.

What was it about these ANTs that stirred me up so much? Was it because they had been there for so long? Was it because I didn't notice them for more than a decade? Looking back in hindsight, I think it probably had more to do with the "Challenge" portion:

ANT: "I'd kill myself on that thing."

Cognitive Distortion: Jumping to Conclusions

Challenge: You have no idea what would happen if you rode a motorcycle. Death is a possibility, but it is a very, very small one and impossible if you don't ride at all.

Well, that Challenge sucks. The Challenge renders the ANT Null and Void because I don't ride. That's great, but it doesn't answer what WOULD happen if I DID ride. Curiosity would ensue.

ANT: "I could never ride one."

Cognitive Distortion: Jumping to Conclusions

Challenge: You could learn.

Ha! Why would I want to do that? There's no way I could learn how to ride a motorcycle. I don't have one, don't know anybody who does, and why would I spend large sums of money on something that I wouldn't know how to ride that might end up killing me?

That produced another ANT:

"There's no way I could learn how to ride a motorcycle."

Cognitive Distortion: Jumping to Conclusions

Challenge: You have learned hundreds, if not thousands, of individual skills, talents and abilities. You have continuously demonstrated the ability to endure through difficulty and hardship and reach your goals. If you wanted to do this, you could.

Now that presents a real problem. I could learn. But I don't want to. I think. Maybe. But actually, I kinda do. What would it be like? Would I like it? I think I would, but what if I didn't? Then I'm out tons of money. What if I never learned and always wondered "What If?" No, wait... WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!

...

This is the part of the series where we get to talk about what to do when you don't like the Challenge portion of the ANT. You should never do this, of course, but, of course, I did. If you don't want to challenge your ANTs, you reinforce your ANTs. This is precisely the opposite of what you should be doing and isn't helpful in any way whatsoever. That said, some people, myself included, would rather live with their ANTs than risk challenging them, because to do so would result in some sort of an existential crisis. It's the same shock as above; when you are tied to a lie, you would rather reinforce the lie than know the truth. Knowing the truth requires you to change. People don't want to do that.

Treating Depression requires you to change. That's why so many people don't do it.

I jumped to YouTube. I would search for videos - often very gruesome - of motorcycle wrecks. I would see how people would end up badly hurt, screaming in agony, sometime limbs impaled or severed. There would be head trauma, bleeding out and compound fractures.

I had to reinforce that a motorcycle was dangerous, deadly and NOT something I wanted to pursue. I HAD to make sure my ANTs were right and my challenges were wrong. I HAD to avoid them, and to avoid them, I had to reinforce them so that they were unchallengeable.

...Of course, you know, it didn't end up that way...

...and that's why it's a Gun's Quote!!

The Bad "B," "H," and "S"-Words

 Gun's Quote:

"...I'm bored."

-Me

I am a firm believer that the greatest gift we have is life. Without getting in to too much philosophy behind that idea, understand that there is no guarantee you will survive the day. I live in Kansas; A tornado may blow my house away tomorrow. A drunk driver can rear-end me into oncoming traffic. I might be at a ball game and a mass shooter shows up and I'm shot. Of course, living in a pandemic, we all know somebody who has had their life altered - or lost - by this terrible disease. We all just assume that we fall asleep and wake up the next morning, and those of us with general good health and youth quickly forget that may not be the case.

Having this belief, I'm very much a busybody, feeling like I need to be "doing something" at every moment of every day. Frankly, the attitude was quite unhealthy at points in life and got me in trouble on more than one occasion. I would over commit, over volunteer, or simply stretch myself too thin. While I wanted to "make the most out of every moment," you can (and I did) take it too far.

...But boredom? No. Never. I would NEVER, EVER allow myself to be bored. That, in my mind, was one of the worst possible things that could befall the human condition. To have this precious gift of life wasted by not knowing what to do or how to spend your time was an abomination that I couldn't comprehend. There was always something to do, be it work, leisure, sleep, prayer, whatever. To do nothing was horrific.

So, to sit in Bill's office, discussing The Plateau, and trying to find words to describe it, I probably spent at least a month (if not a little longer) avoiding the word altogether. To admit that I was bored was to admit not just that I was wasting the gift of life, but that I was violating one of my deepest, most principled values.

"Maybe you need a Hobby," he said.

Oh God. The "H"-word.

On and off, well-intentioned family and friends discussed the "H"-word with me. I quickly dismissed it. I didn't need something else to occupy my time, collect dust or otherwise spend my money on. It wasn't that I didn't already have plenty to do; it was that I was no longer experiencing joy doing what I was doing. Things that used to be fun, weren't. Things that used to be rewarding, weren't. Things that used to make me happy, weren't. So, to me, a "Hobby" was the last thing I needed. What I NEEDED was to find the joy in the things I was doing again. I didn't want to change them, I just wanted to change how I FELT about them.

"And how do you intend to do that?" Bill asked, with that smirk that he has when he knows he has defeated my logical reasoning.

If you want the outputs to be different, you must change the inputs. This implied two very important things:

1. The inputs (job, volunteering, friend group, etc.) were actually changing. I had to admit that I didn't enjoy certain things any longer because the people I was hanging out with, working with or volunteering with were different.
2. If the inputs were different now than they once were, I either needed to find new inputs (The "Hobby") or change the current inputs. (Different job, different volunteering, different friends, etc.)

I wanted none of the above. I wanted to go back to the way things used to be.

"All or Nothing Thinking."

Dammit.

...

I picked five hobbies to try:

1. Playing Guitar: This one just wasn't fun for me. Could I learn it? Maybe... the learning curve was steep and there was going to be a LONG time before I saw myself enjoying it. I didn't think I had the patience and the little tunes I did manage to crank out made me feel "Meh."
2. Singing: Some friends and family are in choir. They all seem to enjoy it. That said, I didn't like the idea of singing lessons, and I sure as hell wasn't going to show up to choir practice without having any idea of whether or not I could even hold a tune. That, and I have this rather odd self-consciousness about my voice.
3. Golf: Oh hell no. Too much money, ridiculously high frustration, I'm not naturally gifted with fine-motor skills anyway, and you'll get a sunburn. Let's spend a bunch of money on a sport that you'll suck at for years and probably still suck at in years. No wonder people get drunk playing this thing. It's basically masochism.
4. Disc Golf: Better. At least it costed way less, although I did feel guilty when I lost one of my friend's discs because I didn't own any and he let me borrow his. Still, getting frustrated with not getting the disc where I wanted it to go was going to keep me from enjoying this one long-term. I did like being outside, though...
5. Java: I actually enrolled in an online Java class. I took a programming class in college and enjoyed it, but nothing could prepare me for this learning curve. I have NEVER struggled in a class like that before. I could not figure out Java to save my life. It's rare that I take a class and feel genuinely dumb, but this was one of those times.

It was pretty dejecting to try the above and come up flat. It was a diverse list, something that I thought at the very least would point me in a direction. Aside from the fact that I liked being outside, I had nothing.

I was bored, and I had no idea what to do.

Of course, I had an interest in motorcycles, but that's all it was: An interest. Perhaps it was a curiosity. They were cool. The people on them were cool. I thought this since at least high school. One of my fraternity brothers had a bike. It was cool. He was cool. I went on a Colorado hiking trip last summer. There were a bunch of bikers parked at the continental divide. They were cool, too.

After seeing one go by, however, I would always say to myself, "I could never ride one. I'd kill myself on that thing."

"I could never ride one, my mother would flip out."

"I could never ride one..."

I don't remember when it happened, I just remember that it did. Years had gone by with those statements unchecked. Suddenly, abruptly, without warning, my CBT Alarm Bell went off:

OH. SHIT. THAT'S AN AUTOMATIC NEGATIVE THOUGHT!

I found myself staring down the throat of an ANT that had been attacking me for years. This time, though, was different. How have I been missing this all this time?

ANT: "I could never ride a motorcycle."

Cognitive Distortion: Jumping to Conclusions

Challenge: ...

I stared at the spreadsheet, the "Challenge" column empty. I'm sitting there, staring, shaking, with shivers going up and down my spine, because the only way that ANT was going to get challenged was with the following statement:

"You could learn."

OH.

SHIT.

...and that's why it's a Gun's Quote!!