Throw Away Your Self-Help Books. Get a Bike.
How riding can return you to yourself
Wellness means dealing with both psyche and physicality. The two are not different. After years of spiritual and therapeutic experiment, I can offer one simple life change that can prove that to you — and dramatically improve all facets of your life.
Get a bike. Nothing fancy, it can be any old clunker (and is probably better that way). And bike everywhere possible: to work, home, shopping (you’ve heard of a backpack right?). And do so wherever you live and in every kind of season and weather.*
Wear a helmet. Use lights (a must at night). And look sharp. It will change your life.
Part of what makes us weak, conventional, slovenly, boring, and typical is that we persuade ourselves that we must use certain mechanisms to get through life, generally those that everybody else uses and that we are conditioned to use by convention. In matters of transit that often means a car. Hence, we grow accustomed to ready warmth, dryness, door-to-door convenience, and digital music or radio noise. (Have you noticed how many people leave on their radio permanently, even making guest passengers speak over it?)
In winters, many people warm their cars before entering them as though even a few minutes of less- than-optimal…
