Who’s In Front of You?

My husband and I unloaded our bikes off my bike rack in the midst of a busy Sunday morning Whiting Ranch Wilderness parking lot. I’m very fortunate to ride during the week when the trails don’t mirror the 405 freeway and creatures of this suburban surrounded wilderness can sustain their instinct for survival.

Our tires exchange asphalt to dirt and wind our way on this narrow trail through the trees over the mud and into the park. I’ve been riding a mountain bike for many years and during that time I’ve learned to tackle pretty much any kind of terrain. This occurs by trial and error and if you’re wise enough to ask, through the instruction of others who have gone ahead.

The park has a plethora of challenges and the recent rains irrigated the main trail with sand as a result from the eroding foothills. You know the difficulty of walking or running in the sand let alone pedaling through it with a 25-pound bicycle. There is no defined path you just need to look at the other end of the sandy area and pedal steady keeping your weight off your front wheel.

The first time I attempted this, I didn’t necessarily have the skills, I followed the lead of the rider in front of me. I trusted them because I knew that they had successfully traveled through it before.

Now we are about to ride through the sand and in front of us are a number of riders. Knowing what I need to do, I instead followed behind another rider not knowing of her skills or stamina. The sand’s instability and its sinking ability arouse your heart and you pedal feeling motionless. We’re almost to the end and the rider in front of me surrenders to exhaustion and falls over.

My eyes were fixed on her failure and moments later; I too surrendered to my weak flesh. Why? I knew what to do! I chose to follow someone’s direction that was not steering me toward success. I watched someone else fail and lost that confidence to succeed.

Don’t we all do that at times? We choose to follow other people even though we know it’s not moving us forward or worse yet, it’s leading toward failure. We become victim of their toxicity, which paralyzes us to move forward. Their nay saying comments trap us; they are afraid to change and succeed so they don’t want us to succeed.

We can become complacent to where we are in life and merely exist. We just sit in the sand and allow it to suck us in. Who are you following? Who’s successfully carved out a path for you to follow straight to your mountaintop?