Life is Like Cycling

You must be coming across shitty "life-hack" posts on LinkedIn that look like this:

1. I learned Python in a month, here are 5 things that made this possible:
2. 10 simple ways to double your customer base in a month:
3. 15 habits Fortune 500 CEOs have that will reshape your life:

These are all empty words that are designed to steal your time, so that the creator of these posts will get more impression, clicks, and money off your time.

If you see any similar post, I suggest you to skip it. Why though?

Reason Why Life Hacks Don't Work

What all these posts share are 2 aspects:

1. A desirable goal
2. An easy way to achieve that goal

A desirable goal is a goal that requires huge effort and sacrifice by definition. Otherwise everybody would be able to achieve it and that wouldn't be desirable anymore. Simple supply and demand logic huh?

Hence, I believe big goals almost always requires great effort and there is no simple way to achieve that goal.

With some smart moves/ decisions you might be able to cut down the required effort by 10% or so, but you won't be able to halve the effort with simple tactics.

Otherwise, we can say that the goal is just an average goal if it can be achieved by lifehacks.

Which Brings Us To...

Today I went out for cycling along Arakawa River and pedaled to Kasai Rinkai Park.

While sweating through cycling, I saw people coming with their bikes from the opposite direction and they breezed past me. When I saw them, I felt discouraged, because here I was, struggling to maintain a certain speed while those guys seemed like they were going double my speed with no issues.

I know I'm not Tour de France material, but those guys also didn't seem that fit.

If you are the kind of person that believes in life hacks, then you might see this situation and think "Those guys are well-trained and fit so it's no wonder they are going this fast"

But I know that to be able to achieve that kind of mastery in cycling requires contunous effort, which I don't think many people can afford in Tokyo with their daily jobs. So there must be another reason why those guys went so fast.

There is much more simpler explanation for this cycling phenomenon.

Gone With The Wind

Along Arakawa river, if you are cycling towards the Kasai Rinkai Park (i.e. the sea) the wind will usually blow against you. This makes cycling hard even for experienced riders and reduces your speed significantly.

However, people coming from the opposite direction (i.e. going towards mountains) will experience the opposite phenomenon.

The wind will flow in the same direction, and it will push these cyclists enabling them to achieve high levels of speed.

So even if exact 2 people are cycling in opposite directions with same effort, there will be a big difference in their speed.

So What's Up With Cycling and Life?

In life, we look at successful people and think they have it so easy. What they do seem effortless. Then we wonder, whether we will ever be able to achieve such a state where things are flowing effortlessly and whatever we do turns into value instantly.

This is what came to my mind after seeing those people as they seemed to be cycling effortlessly. But you know that those people were being helped by the wind. And life is like a return cycling trip.

If you are average person (i.e. you didn't suffer hunger when you were child nor your dad wasn't a millionare), the first half of life will be like riding against the wind.

When we are young, we are working against the odds. We look at older successful people and wonder we'll ever be like them.

But what we don't know is there was a time where that successful person was also riding against the wind. He is now returning and going with the wind. He made it to the turning point, and now he deserves a smooth ride back home.

So, seeing those people should not discourage us. On the contrary, we should be more hopeful and excited about future, because there will be a turning point where we start the return trip and get help from the wind.

The question is, how many of us will be able to reach that turning point?

Because without reaching there, your efforts will vanish. So keep in mind that successful people were like us once upon a time. What made them successful is that they didn't yield to the wind and kept pushing.

Now, if you want to be one of them, you know what you are supposed to. Push hard on those pedals knowing that there will come a time where the wind will be behind you and you'll be unstoppable.

Hope you enjoyed images I took on today's cycling trip. Arakawa Riverside is beautiful, isn't it?