Always Look Where You Want To Go

 "Mike, don't look at the wall or the traffic cones, rather look where you want to go. That is the trick to riding a motorcycle. Don't look at the obstacle you want to avoid but at the clear path you want to take."

That is what my riding instructor said all throughout my learning to ride a motorcycle.

Today, I think it is true for riding through life itself. 

Everyday we are flooded with images and news of what is not going well for us or around us. There are too many things we want to avoid and steer clear off, but not everyone puts in the conscious effort to focus on where they want to go and not what they want to avoid.

As a friend, I want to share with you that important lesson I got from my instructor. At first, it sounded like a childish way of forcing me to act differently. I thought that no expert rider sees a pothole right on his path and takes his gaze away from it. That is not how we drive cars and I was sure that to avoid a pothole one needed to keep his eyes on it rather than away from it. But the more I ride, the more I find out that as unconventional as it sounds, it is actually the only way to ride a motorcycle.

You see a corner you want to take, you look beyond the corner. You see a path you want to take, you don't look at the cars you want to avoid but at that path between that truck on the right and the bus on the left as that is the way to ride between them.

I strongly believe that we should go through life with the same approach. If you want to go to Canada, don't look at all the roadblocks in front of you but have your gaze on the path you hope to take. If you want to enjoy Nigeria, then don't feast on the bad news streaming out daily rather set your face on the goodness you desire. If you want to marry a great person, then don't come up with why they don't exist, but set your mind at ease and open to finding him/her. If you want to have a great career don't let the stories of how hard it is be your daily meal rather let the inspiration from those already living that dream work life be your constant meal. 

If you love comparing, there will always be people doing more with less than you have and people doing less with more than you have. You can choose to beat yourself up and kill all joy on your way to getting to where you want to go, or you can choose to ignore the pressures and focus solely on where you want to go. Soak in the beauty around you, enjoy the journey, feel the breeze, let the gyrations flow through your body and open your senses. Sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination, don't let the obstacles ruin your ride.