If you are reading this post, you are most likely a cyclist. If you are a cyclist, you most likely have read this before:

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.”

Lance Armstrong

I have written a lot about pain on this blog, including these two posts:

https://alainlambert.ca/2012/05/11/i-hate-pain-as-much-as-the-next-guy/
https://alainlambert.ca/2014/05/11/what-we-call-exhaustion-isnt-the-inability-to-continue-its-giving-up/

The title of the second post has always resonated with me: “What we call exhaustion isn’t the inability to continue: it’s called giving up.” All cyclists have heard that little voice that suggests giving up: “This is so hard, I need to back off.”

Cycling is a really tough sport that allows participants of all abilities to test their physical and mental limits. When you are on a bike with other riders, you often get tested, as cycling truly is a test of the ability to survive. It doesn’t matter if you are on a ride with friends, a formal group ride, a Gran Fondo or a race, there is always someone screwing with you and pushing you harder that you’d like. There is always a moment where your brain goes into overdrive with self-doubt:

“I feel bad, but do I look strong?”

“I feel good, but do I look weak?”

“Why is the guy next to me not breathing as hard as I am?”

“If this guy attacks one more time, is he going to crack or am I going to crack?

“If I attack one more time, will I clear free of the group, or am I going to do myself in?”

And then you have the whole amateur and age thing going:

“Why am I doing this, I’m 55 years old and this isn’t my job.”

“This hurts too much, it would feel so much nicer lying on my couch right about now.”

And of course, once it is all over, this is what happens: we extensively analyze our power files, we recount every aspect of the ride with our friends, talk about how we felt, what we did wrong, where we could have done better, what we will do better next time and, more importantly, we consider having suffered as a badge of honour.

If we have coffee with friends after a group ride, our perspective on what happened during the ride evolves and our recollection of how hard the ride was is never as bad as when we lived it during the ride.

Once we get off the bike after a competitive event and get back to our daily routine, the importance of getting to the top of the last kicker in front of the group fades and doesn’t seem so important anymore.

No matter how we feel at any point on a bike ride, if we stop going hard, the pain will always stop.

In other words, nothing is permanent. Nothing remains forever, everything is passing, appearing and vanishing. This can all be best summarized in one word: impermanence. The definition of impermanence is ‘the state or fact of lasting for only a limited period of time’.

While the concept of impermanence is well understood by cyclists, I wonder how many cyclists apply it outside of cycling. I believe that one of the keys to enjoying a happy life is to live by that same principle in all aspects of life.

I heard someone one day say four words which changed my life for the better: “This too shall pass.” This concept comes from one of my favorite short stories:

“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 Sukkot 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 magic 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 a little taste of humility.
Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, 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 magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah.
He watched the grandfather 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 holiday of Sukkot with great festivity.
“Well, my friend,” said 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 began 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.”

From a man with wisdom

One of my kids recently went to a pretty breakup in a relationship. The best advice I could give my child is “this too shall pass.” I illustrated it by giving a specific example: “When I was your age, I had my heart broken by more than one girl, but now, I can’t even remember their names.”

I also reminded my child that before she met me, mom had a girl who died of SIDS at six-week-old. No one can possibly relate to how this must have felt. Forty years later, my wife is a happy person with six beautiful and loving children and five grandchildren; “this too did pass” I guess.

In June of 2018, I went from Arizona – where I was living at the time – to Montreal for a few days to renew a work visa. Things didn’t work out as planned. For the better part of the following year, I only saw my youngest daughter and son for a grand total of about ten days and I only saw my wife for the equivalent of three weeks. Now we are reunited, and the memory of the separation has started to fade….’this too will have passed’

So remember, next time you are doing a 20 minute full-out max effort on the bike, the pain is temporary. Next time life throws a big painful obstacle at you, and that little voice tells you “this is so hard”, don’t give up and keep moving forward because ‘this too shall pass’.