Love, Life and Puppy Dog Tales

"Fear is not real.  It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me.  Danger is very real.  But fear is a choice." (Will Smith -as Cypher Raige -After Earth) My first post in August at the beginning of my bike riding journey talked about my fears. Other posts I have created since then have reiterated those fears and identified new ones. It seems as though a new fear has cropped up for me time and again.  I remember being a kid and being seemingly unafraid of anything.  As I grew up, fears started to creep in. With fear comes obstacles.  If I am afraid of doing or experiencing it, I don't try.  I freeze in place. Colonel Chris Hadfield has a phenomenal Ted Talk about fear.  He was an astronaut that flew space shuttle missions to the the International Space Station.   He talked about facing, and overcoming, your fears.  Experiencing them, sometimes over and over again, to get past the fear.  His example, initially, was about spiders

13 weeks 57 Rides 412.6 miles All those weeks. All those rides. All those miles. And I almost didn't finish today's ride. I didn't think I could. I wanted to give up. We were on a new trail.  New is my nemesis.  Today was no different. I spent the first couple of miles looking at the new surroundings and being in awe.  I spent the next couple of miles enjoying the ride and the trail. Then I realized that, for the most part, we were going down hill.   You know that saying, what goes up must come down? It works in reverse too. For the next couple of miles I agonized over the idea that I would have to go UP hill to get back to the truck as this was not a loop trail.  I was terrified over the idea that I didn't know where this trail went and how much more of it was down hill,  which translated into so much more up hill to ride back. At one point I was nearly in hysterical tears - what did I get myself into?   I thought about how I could g