Made for the Outdoors

September 29, 2024

As I continued to take stock of the entire chain of events over the last several years, it dawned me just how obsessed we are as a modern society about safety and comfort. That means, among many things, staying indoors wherever and whenever possible. It really is a tragedy, especially for me. We were not made for this.

All it took was several hours on a 'working Sunday' riding the bike outside of Shanghai province on a beautiful day to realize the value of what it means to be outdoors. As a side note, China does what are called 'adjusted working days', that is working on weekends to make up for stat holidays. That's a whole other discussion.

The ride wasn't terribly exciting, but it was outdoors and away from work that mattered. Don't ask how I managed to get out of this working weekend arrangemente.

While riding, my mind went back to Jim and his latest string of pathetic messages. He wrote back saying that his excuse for not picking up the money I sent him was due to a power outage. I nearly lost my mind. I told him, "I live in China and routinely travel on my bike in the developing world in nearby Asian countries. Seldom if ever do we experience a power outage. And you're telling me in a first world country that this happened? Let's just say it did, ok then, why didn't you just go to another Western Union to receive the money? There are literally dozens in your area."

After that, the latest excuse he said was the weather. Apparently it was raining.

I kept an eye on the transfer and did see that eventually he picked up the money. Good for him, but by that point I had already given up on him.

After this, I sent him a message that I was going to block him on social media and not talk to him anymore nor help further. Besides all those excuses he gave for not wanting to help himself really, he then posted to me a picture of him lying down on the bed INSIDE THE HOUSE with his dog. This was after weeks of him making excuses for not wanting to take action on an emergency that was within his power to solve.

What he had was not anxiety, it was laziness. That picture was the final straw that caused me to lose my patience.

So my final message to him was this: "Your actions tell me you that aren't treating this whole thing as an emergency. Moreover, I can see that you don't want my help. You read my messages but you don't reply. I have better things to do with my time. My life is very busy. Not only did you delay for so long to pick up money that I sent to help, you made excuses and never thanked me. You came up with all these reasons why you couldn't move 4km from your house to pick it up.

Maybe all those Shanghai lockdown stories I told you went over your head, but we were literally prisoners in our house for two months back then. Here you are choosing to stay inside like a voluntary lockdown. Don't you get it? Your ex-wife is literally threating to kick you out of the house. I'm offering you some ideas and solutions to help, then you shoot them all down without trying. Your attitude reminds of all those people who try to talk me out of making money in the market by telling me all the reasons it won't work. And these people don't even try or take risks to begin with, just like you.

If you don't make things happen, then you won't get anywhere. This conversation is also going nowhere as far as I'm concerned, so I'm afraid will have to block you just like your ex-partner."

Honestly you have to make it happen. If you don't, well the evidence is all in front of me.

A nice stop for food at the midpoint, about 45km into this ride. This was where I also sent all those messages above.

After making some really good distance on this ride, I turned around and started heading back.

I felt like a jerk for what I did, but this really set something off. There was nothing more infuriating to see a grown man acting like this. Here he was, a man, supposed to be made for the outdoors. A man supposed to have a warrior spirit, a fighter, an entrepeneur, someone who makes things happen, someone who takes risks, and someone who sees setbacks as setups. As a man, he needs to put his foot down and not allow his partner to manipulate and control him like this to the point of emasculation.

What we saw with Jim was the complete opposite: a grown baby on voluntary lockdown in his house curled up with a dog. I felt sorry for him at first as he truly was a victim of circumstance, but he lacked the resolve to turn this around. Instead, he interalized this as a victim identity.

By blocking him we'll never know the outcome to his story. It ends on a cliffhanger in that sense. Maybe he will turn things around against all odds and later on follow my advice. But I seriously doubt it.

Maybe this whole thing happened as a reminder that nobody is really better than anyone else, and that others are mirrors of ourselves. Jim's tragedy had echoes of my own case. I was reminded once again that I needed to keep my own action going, and I decided to book another online appointment with the legendary life coach in Dubai who had helped me earlier.

This bike ride in the outdoors was clearly what I was supposed to be doing. As I kept on riding I realized just how little time we actually spend outdoors and how important it is. Modern society has forced us indoors with an almost zero threshold for risk. The pandemic was all the proof we needed.

Speaking of indoors, most of those houses are empty.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0