This Too Shall Pass

I've been on plenty of long bike rides.  I think the longest distance I've ever traveled in a single day by bike is about 120 miles.  However, that was a mistake.  I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming years ago and a planned 100 mile day in the Tetons turned into 120 when my companions and I made a few wrong turns.  There was no such thing as GPS back then.  To give you an idea of just how difficult the riding was, as I pedaled my way up the relentless Teton Pass, a man passed me...jogging...  That was almost as humbling as riding up a 25% grade climb in a race a few years ago when my bike computer auto-paused because it didn't believe that I was moving anymore.

I traveled to Chicago last Thursday morning for a family celebration.  But before I could load up the car and head to the airport with my wife and kids, I had to complete a 3-hour training ride.  I've been on plenty 3-hour rides, but I'm pretty confident that this was my first 3-hour ride on my indoor, stationary bike trainer.  You can't overestimate the value of stop signs, traffic lights and hills.  These impediments to momentum force a cyclist to shift positions, stand, even take a foot of the pedal and wait.  3 hours on the trainer was mind butt-numbingly difficult.  I was scheduled to ride as a relatively easy pace, so I didn't tire physically.  But by hour two, everything from the waist down just hurt, which drove me out of my mind.  I would stand occasionally to adjust my position and stretch, but each time I did, my heart rate started to reach above the designated limit for the day.  No doubt rides like that help build aerobic endurance.  But they also develop mental fortitude.  And callouses. 

As 1 hour melted into 2, and 2 slowly gave way to 3, I remembered a story that is told of a man named Benaiah ben Yehoyada.

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for the autumn harvest festival, which gives you six months to find it."

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

"It has special powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister some added humility.

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the day before the autumn harvest festival, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem.  He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a special ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah.

He watched the elderly man take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

That night the entire city welcomed in the festiva with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said King Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled.

To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: Gimel, Zayin, Yud, which begin the words "Gam zeh ya'avor - This too shall pass."
At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

3 hours is a long time to sit upon my bike in my attic as I grew numb, but the story reminded me that it wouldn't be forever.  That was an important reminder for me.  Last week was a particularly high stress week for me.  I spent too many nights awake, tossing and turning, haunted by the anxiety of tasks incomplete and difficulties unresolved.  That long indoor session came at the perfect time to remind me that, no matter how difficult things become, "Gam zeh ya'avor - This too shall pass." 

In my business I'm far too aware that, truly, some things never do pass.  And while that may be so, the stress, the sting, the anxiety, the despair and the hurt to eventually give way to renewed hope...not to mention a fantastic sense of relief that comes from climbing down off a hard, skinny bike saddle!