It’s not all about the glory but it helps

It’s not all about the glory.

But the seconds or minutes of glory that we sometimes get make all the other times bearable or even worthwhile.

Promise me you’ll do yourself a favor: Choose something that you feel is really important to accomplish. See it through to the very end no matter how hard it is. Revel in the glory of your accomplishment. Then remember that feeling when the hard times hit. You won’t regret it. I promise.

You don’t have to get gold in the Olympics or produce a number one hit single to feel the glory, by the way. Little things work too.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to make a two-tiered cake. Do it. And revel in the glory your kids will give you.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a language. Or get a degree in something. Or start a small business of your own.

Maybe you simply want to get fit and never thought for a second that you’d be able to run a whole ten kilometers.

The cycling fall that was bound to happen

It was bound to happen.

If I was going to traipse around the world, hiking, cycling, marathoning, and triathloning, I was bound to

The day after the fall, making our way to Amsterdam by train instead of bike.

hurt myself somehow.

It comes with the territory. You can take as many precautions and reduce the risks as much as possible, but you can’t prevent the inevitable.

Living life is a risk. Sitting in a moving vehicle is a risk. Heck, spending most of your time in a chair in front of a TV or a computer is even more of a long-term risk than any hiking, cycling, gyming or marathoning I might be doing. Do I need to remind you about obesity, diabetes, heart disease and all the other myriad risks of sedentary living?

What was bound to happen? My bike wheel got caught in a tram track—you know, those huge, menacing, gaping linear holes in the ground present in many modern European streets. I fell—my right arm outstretched—and as I hit the ground the first thing I was aware of was that my shoulder had popped out of its socket. The second thing I did was to look behind me and make sure I wasn’t in the way of cars (or an oncoming tram). I wasn’t. I slowly pulled myself up from my strewn position on the road in downtown Brussels and as I did, my shoulder slipped back into its socket.