FORGIVE ME FOR getting perhaps a little too personal, but I think it is the only way to sufficiently explain the subject matter. You see, over the course of the past year or so, I have been having some health problems, both physical and mental. Nothing terribly serious, but I was having random bouts of depression, temper flare-ups and suffering from an inability to concentrate. In addition, twice last year I wound up in hospitals with symptoms of a heart attack. As it turned out, I did not have heart trouble at all, but was experiencing something called “stress angina.” At least, that was the doctors’ best guess each time, both being while I was on the road far from home.
After getting back home this year, I finally submitted to my wife’s constant nagging and went to see my personal physician about the matter. After a series of tests, he sent me to a cardiologist who had another battery of tests performed before advising me that he didn’t think I had any real physical problem, but rather physical symptoms prompted by my state of mind. I thought it rather kind of him not to say it was caused by my “mental health,” but I think we both knew that was what he really meant. Anyway, he wanted to refer me for “counseling.”
I believe most of you will understand when I say that to those of us in my generation, the very idea of seeing a mental health professional carries a negative connotation. When I was younger, it was a pretty commonly held belief that if you needed counseling, you were obviously unbalanced, if not downright crazy. In fact, some of you might remember the case of Senator Tom Eagleton from my home state of Missouri, who was a vice-presidential candidate in the early 70’s. When it was revealed that he had seen a therapist for help with bouts of depression, he was almost immediately shunned by his party and withdrew from the ticket. Such was the stigma.
Despite my misgivings, I knew something needed to be done, and began visiting a therapist who, by the way, turned out to be a really interesting guy with whom I enjoy having long conversations. So, with all that preamble out of the way to explain how I came to where I am now, here comes the part I find interesting:
Though my therapist emphasizes that we are still in the preliminary stages of treatment and diagnosis, he gave me something to think about before our next session—something that went more or less like this: “It would seem that you are one of those rare and lucky individuals who has managed to turn something you love into what you do for a living. That can be a great thing, but in my business, we find it can also create problems that you might never have considered. For most of your life, your only form of rest and relaxation has been riding a motorcycle. It was both your emotional release and your escape from the stresses of both your work and personal life. But now, even though you are riding more than ever before—doing the thing you love most—at the same time you are actually in a work environment. While you are riding, you are testing new products or bikes and making mental notes on them. You are leading a tour group, or scouting new routes, sights and restaurants for your tours. You are looking for photo opportunities for magazine articles, or even mentally writing articles about your experiences, environment or whatever you encounter along the way. And unless I’m mistaken, you are often doing two or three of these things at the same time, virtually every time you are out on your bike. What you have done is to almost completely eliminate, or to at least overshadow, the original reasons you used to ride and replaced them with things you do to earn money. Am I right?”
I must admit I sat stunned for several moments while this sunk in. My first reaction was to disagree completely. To me, he was attacking my whole life. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize he really was correct. I tried to think of the last time I had gone riding just for the sheer joy of riding, and quite honestly I couldn’t come up with a single instance. Sure, I had just taken a nice ride out in the desert a few days earlier, which at the time I had considered a nice little getaway from the office, but looking back I realized that I had been testing both a new GPS system and a new remote-controlled video camera. I had ridden roads specifically chosen for how the scenery would look in videos, and how difficult they might be for the GPS to navigate. I had made several stops along the way to record notes for a magazine piece. I had also stopped to measure the tread depth and mark down the mileage for an evaluation on the rear tire I was running, and had purposely ventured far into the desert to evaluate the useability of a new smartphone link that was supposed to pick up Pandora radio and forward it into my helmet headset.
After I got home from the therapist’s office, I sat down and looked at the ride calendar I keep on the wall of my office. I counted 22 scheduled rides I had gone on since the beginning of the year. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a single one that hadn’t in some way been tied to one or another of my various enterprises. I have always liked to think that I’m pretty good at introspection and self-evaluation, so I was shocked that such a simple revelation had never even occurred to me.
Last week I left home alone on the bike at 0600 on Tuesday morning. I told my wife I had no idea where I was going or when I would return. We had discussed the therapist’s evaluation, and she understood. For the next three and a half days, I tried to ride for the simple enjoyment of just riding. I put away the GPS and camera, turned off the cell phone and tried to turn off my brain. I can’t say I was completely successful as I caught myself a few times looking for photo opportunities or considering whether that quaint little restaurant I just found could accommodate a tour group, but for the most part, I think I succeeded in just enjoying the solitude of the ride. It felt good.
I realize that my situation is not going to apply to most of you reading this, but I wonder if, at least in some small way, it might not be the same affliction experienced when one becomes too heavily-involved in a motorcycle club or charity? Does almost all of your riding involve doing or planning something for your club or charity? Are you unknowingly applying stressors to an activity that was once your stress reliever?
You might want to think about it.
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