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My fiancée and I took my mum out today for Mother’s Day. We visited a botanic gardens up in the hills which was beautiful, then grabbed some lunch at a bakery. It was a nice day.

We all had a good chuckle at the botanic gardens… People’s laziness never ceases to amaze me. They make all the effort to pack half of their house in their car, along with their kids and then spend the time driving for an hour or so to a nice botanic gardens.

Presumably people go to these places to “escape”, yet when they get there they seem to flock like sheep. Everyone tries to score a park as close to the gardens as possible, then after five or so laps finally concede defeat and park the extra fifty metres away. Being such a busy day at the park there was never going to be a chance that someone would get a close park, but they always try.

After parking they get everything out the car, and everyone in the family loads up with things to carry. It’s time to find a “spot” – they walk to the closest place that they possibly can to sit down and have their lunch. Because so many people think like that, they end up “escaping” to a park where they are surrounded by others that are also “escaping”. Yet they are surrounded by others that they were trying to escape from in the first place. Insanity!

My fiancée said to mum at one stage “I can’t get over these people, not walking five more minutes to get to the nice spots that we go to. Although I suppose it’s good so those areas are free for us!”. Too true.

I really love not being lazy. Today gave me the biggest boost just walking around the gardens. The air was freezing but it just smelt so clean and fresh. Walking around to the much quieter areas the three of us had a good chance for a catch up and could actually talk without others being around. Good times.

So after being on a bit of a downer yesterday with my “don’t know what to believe in” mood, I got a massive dose of perspective last night.

Leaving work, I decided to ride the long way home to put a smile back on my face. The whole way home I was riding into a head wind which is fairly normal for the ride home. Usually I get about half way home and want to give up, but for some reason yesterday I just powered through the whole ride. While I was tired, I think I was enjoying the challenge for a change.

The problems of my day had been solved, or at least I’d been distracted by the awesome ride home.

My mum also rides to and from work, and we are currently living with her. After having tea with my fiancee, it was dark outside and it had just turned 7 o’clock, although not normal, mum still wasn’t home from work. I went out the front to look down the street to see if she was coming, and as soon as I opened the door she arrived. I threw a smart remark at her as I usually do – she works far too hard and always ends up riding home in the dark, without decent enough lighting (despite me giving her the appropriate lights last year). She didn’t respond like she usually does though. She was hurt.

Sure enough, she had clipped a gutter on the way home that she didn’t see and went over the handlebars, cutting her lip and chin. Obviously in shock, she didn’t realise it was a major injury and rode the rest of the way home.

After being hand balled by the medical system for a while she had the wound cleaned and it was obvious that the cut had gone right through to her jaw. For someone that had such a serious cut, she was coping really well. I was fine at first but after a while felt really tense, like I did when my fiancee was very sick earlier on in the year. My chest was tight and I just thought about the possibilities of what could happen here. My fiancee, some months later is fine, and I’m yet to find out what will happen with mum. Now that I have a clearer head it’s obvious that she will be fine, but she’ll be nursing a fairly serious cut for a while.

At around 10:30pm, I went home to pick up some clothes for her as she was staying the night. Half way home I came across a major car crash. By the looks of it, a car had ran a red light and t-boned another car at speed. Flashing lights everywhere, the bit that struck me as scary was the fact that a police officer was holding a small child. Not a good sign!

It was enough to make me think, “why do I worry?”. I’m not the sort of person that is just going to ignore untruths or corruption, but I can’t let this stuff stop me from living my life.

Last night put me in check. The game of life can be over well and truly before you know it, so we need to enjoy our lives while we can.

When I was a kid I was always competitive. I competed in athletics and always wanted to win. Back then I think it was just because I was given the opportunity to compete in an event, and as far as I knew, you only ever competed to come first.

Through the later school years and a year or so after leaving school, I was finding my place in life. It was hard to see mates getting handouts from their parents while I had to work my ass off to get anything, and even then I couldn’t compete in their world.

Nowadays though, I see that everything I’ve been through has taught me some serious lessons. Small lessons like appreciation for money, but more importantly knowing what is actually important to me.

Time after time back in the day, I’d be annoyed that I didn’t have something that one of my mates had, when in reality although it would be nice to have, it wasn’t really that important. (Eg. a mate gets a nice new skateboard from his parents, but I can’t afford one so I don’t get one – in reality I was never into skating anyway). Nowadays, it’s financially a lot easier for me to buy something just because the next person has bought it, in “keeping up appearances”. I used to do this, but now I’m over it – as far as I see it, it’s just another form of competition.

Buying a nicer car, renovating the house or moving to a more upmarket suburb. Even just the places that you go out to dinner. It’s fine when you’re making the choices for yourself, but it’s crazy if you’re just doing something for first place in the game of life.

I know a couple that live well outside of their means, just to try and keep up with the rest of their family. The whole family competes constantly. Houses, cars, TV’s, computers, and now children. You name it, they’ll all try and outdo each other. It’s sad really, because when they actually want to do something, they can’t afford it or don’t have the time, because they commit so much of their resources to their competitive lifestyle. They end up living someone else’s life and not the life that they truly want to live.

I had a (cross country) mountain bike race on yesterday. My first race since last year and in a higher class than before. It was a real challenge for me, but I realised a lot of things while I was racing. A fair few of them unrelated to this post (things about technique, etc) but most importantly that I wasn’t really that interested in winning. I’m more of an “I wonder how fast I am” racer. It’s a personal challenge more than anything else for me. Sometimes when it comes to sport I wonder if I should try and be more competitive, but really, why? For the kudos of other people? I just want to go out and ride, and do the best that I can. If my best is first place, great, if it’s 20th, fine. I came 7th on the weekend.

I’m happy with where I’m at. Sure, a bit of competition in sport is healthy, but to me not being too competitive in life means staying true to what you actually want, rather than living a life of competition between friends, family and colleagues. It means you can live the life that you want, not what others want you to live. I couldn’t think of a better way to live really..