Stay Positive

Be your own champion

Posted on by fantomwriter

While watching a documentary on the band Queen, they spoke about the songs, “We will rock you” and “We are the champions”. Both songs are now used at the end of major sporting events. There will only be one champion. One winner.

But in life, this is not always the case. Being number 1 is not something we all strive for in our lives. It’s not that we want to be at the bottom of the barrel, but we don’t feel the need to prove ourselves to anyone else.

The only person we need to better is ourselves. In sports, or at work, I do my best and that’s what gets me out of bed every morning. On the bike I chase down my PBs and strive to break one every time I get on the track. At work, it’s the same, I strive to do better than I did the day before. Sometimes easier said than done.

The only way to be a winner in life is to be honest with oneself. If we can do this on a daily basis we will continue to move in the right direction. It’s the moment we begin to lie to ourselves that everything is OK, then we head down the rabbit hole and never find our way out.

If we want to be a champion, we need to look deep into our own lives and not try to work out anyone else’s life. Our own life is complicated enough without delving into another’s life.

It’s high time to delve into what we really want, and what will make us a champion of our own life. Don’t wait another moment as tomorrow may never come.

Life choices

Posted on by fantomwriter

From the moment we wake up from our deep slumber, to the time we crawl back into our well made bed after a long day, we are forced to make multiple choices.

Some of these daily choices are as simple as what to have for breakfast. And for most people this choice is rather simple. Breakfast can be toast, cereal or just coffee. Personally, I get by with coffee until lunchtime, so I have one less choice to make. Then there is the tougher choice. What do we wear for the day? Jeans and tshirt work for me most days, but that’s not for everyone.

But these choices, as tough as we think they are, pale in comparison to some other choices we are faced with, and the descion we make can impact our lives, and the lives of people around us.

So as I sit here in the hospital waiting room once again in preparation for another operation, I need to make a very tough choice once I have fully recovered. Do I go back to road cycling and possibly be collected by another car, and this time, not live to tell that tale. Or do I stay on the bike path tracks and trails?

I keep getting told how truly lucky i am that I lived through a cycling accident involving a car and my carbon fiber road bike. I guess luck did play a part, and there was also lots of bad luck. But that’s in the past and I try not to dwell on it. Well, at least most of the time I don’t.

Once I recover from this operation, I need to think long abd hard if I will continue road cycling, or head back to riding tracks and trails to stay away from cars. Trucks and buses.

I know many people will say the choice is simple, get off the roads as it’s so much safer. Yes, in some ways it is, less cars and trucks and no angry cyclist hating motorists to hurl abuse and other objects at me as I ride past them.

But riding tracks and trails takes away part of the freedom road cycling offers. If I wanted to head north at a set of lights I could, or I could go whichever way I felt like heading.

On a bike trail, the options are fewer, so part of the freedom is taken away. Not that i can’t use different paths to ride on, it just takes away the one thing road bike had always offered me. Complete freedom.

In the past few months I have ridden some glorious tracks and trails. Some were easy, and in the last week i have discovered some tracks that have left me gasping for breath half way up. That’s all part of cycling.

After the operation I will have time to contemplate my future cycling routes. But right now, that seems like an eternity away.

A year is a long time

Posted on by fantomwriter



A year equals 365 days.

A year equals 8760 hours

A year equals 525600 minutes

A year equals 31,536,000 seconds.

All it took was one of those seconds to change my life forever.

With a long and painful year behind me, I can now begin to look forward and set a few new targets as the last of my operations are done and dusted.

When people discover I had a major incident with a car while cycling, i get the standard response of how lucky I really am.

In some ways this makes sense, I am still able to walk and have full function of all my limbs and only with some pain on a daily basis. But yes, I am alive and have managed to get back on the bike and continue with my life in a way I would have wanted.

But, if I had been really ‘lucky’ I would have never been hit by a motorist who was not paying attention to the roads in front of him. I would have never suffered the effects of a broken back and other painful injuries.

Luck has not been the biggest factor in getting back on my feet and eventually back on the bike. Persistence may have had a huge part to play, and the fact I find it rather difficult to accept help, even when I should was another factor.

Unlucky is probably the best way to describe the situation I ended up in. Broken and feeling very sorry for myself at the best of times. Not that giving up was ever an option, even though I have to admit there were times where it was one step forward and two steps back.

Having to go through two separate procedure, shoulder and then my hand, which I was told was fine. I guess the surgeon got that one wrong. So after 11 months, I had surgery to repair my thumb, and the rehab begins from scratch.

So all I can do from this point forward is look forward to a time where I can be happy with my condition and the joys I have ahead in my life.

A second can sometimes be the longest time in a person’s life.

Make every second count as you may not get the next one

Darkness

Posted on by fantomwriter

When the sun finally sets in the horizon, we are eventually shrouded in darkness, but there are times in our lives we can also be in the dark when the sun shines and it’s the middle of the day. There is no need for the moon to be out for us to feel as if we are in the dark, or in a dark place.

There will always be a time when we feel as if the walls around us are closing in and the light that’s shining bright is quickly fading, turning into darkness. It is in this situation, we feel as if there is nothing we can do, or no one we can turn to. But thats so very untrue.

There is always a friend close at hand who will drop what they have and stop by for a chat. Even a quick call to a mate is better than sitting in a room as the walls close in and darkness fills every crevice of your mind.

Even though we think we are in full control of our minds most of the time, we all do have a momentary lapse of reason. This may be for an hour, a day, or even a week. But this doesn’t mean we will never be back in control of how we feel and how we see ourselves.

Whilst we are in that dark space, our outlook on life is somewhat skewed and things tend to seem worse than they really are. But once we rise up and see the day of light, our perception changes in an instant.

The hardest part of falling into the darkness is not knowing how long the dark shroud will cloak us, and our minds. Time and friendship is what will help us see the light, and both are freely available to all of us, we just need to look around to see we are truly wanted and loved.

Never give up hope when darkness clouds you.

It is what it is.

Posted on by fantomwriter

We all have a time in our lives when we desperately want things to be different. Sometimes very different.

The situation we are in may have been our own stupid fault, or at other times, the situation was out of our control and can’t be changed, no matter what we do.

These are the times we need to understand the choices we have; live with the situation, or adapt so that we can continue living our lives and not stress out about the unchangeable.

The full stop at the end of ‘It is what it is.’ means that’s it, and the final option for that particular scenario. It doesn’t mean you have to like it, but other things can be changed to compensate for the unchangeable.

Many of us are trapped inside a box and need to think outside of it to make our lives better, physically, mentally and emotionally.

When we eventually think outside the box, not only does our outlook change, so does our life.

It all comes back to change, and how we let it impact our lives, go with the flow or sit in the same place and grow moss. And growing moss just doesn’t sound very appealing to me in anyway whatsoever.

I know that change doesn’t come easily to many people, and I’m one of those people who hates change. But to live a better and live a stress free life,  I have had to learn to change and to adapt.

The dinasours never adapted, and we all know what happosned to them. Let’s not follow in their huge footstep and adapt so we can continue living.

Make a few changes and see the difference it can make. It can’t hurt.

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone 

Posted on by fantomwriter


Every day we get out of bed and expect everything to be the same. Even if not exactly the same, something that resembles what we had and what was around the previous day, the previous month or even the previous year.

It takes a major event to change the way we are or the way we see and things. To see that things have changed dramatically and we had no say in what occurred. We have had something taken away from us without our consent.

The ‘thing’ taken away from us may not necessarily be a physical item, one which we were able to hold in our hands and look at, and feel when we needed.

It’s sometimes easy enough to head down to the local mall and pick up a replacement of what was taken. And if the local shops don’t have what we want, there is always internet shopping. That has all we want, and so much more.


And then there are times that what is taken away from us is either in our mind, or part of our spirit. And these are the things that are difficult or near impossible to replace or replicate. No shopping mall or internet bargain basement can help us replace what has been taken away.

This is the time in our lives when we need to dig deep and pull out all stops to at least try and get back what’s long gone. This may take a day, a month, a year. Or longer still.


Personally, I hate knowing and feeling I am missing something that I always had, and something I worked hard to get and maintain.

But in the past nine months my fitness level has slipped to a point where I hate the person who put me in this position. Not that I had a choice in the matter. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So now it’s a long uphill battle to get back to where I once was. Some days I can see where I am heading as clear as daylight. And other days the waters are murky and the uphill battle is a physical and mental struggle.


I know there is no quick fix and what I need to do will take more time than I want to allow, but, this is another choice I have little say in. Even with daily rahab it’s tough going. And this is where I will do all I can to regain my lost ‘thing’. No matter what! 

This song just makes sense. Enjoy. 

Big Wheel Turning

Posted on by fantomwriter


Once the wheel stops turning, we are left at a standstill. It’s then at that point we begin to sit in one place and the rut sets in.

Like anything in life, once it stops, it collects moss, the same as a rolling stone that has stopped turning.


So it’s up to us to make sure that big wheel of life keeps turning. Without our drive and motivation we will end up the same as the moss covered stone. And that’s something we really don’t want, because frogs sit on stones covered in moss.

But staying motivated isn’t as easy as flicking a switch and turning on a light. It takes effort, and at times, lots of it. And this is when we need to dig deep and prove to ourselves we really want what’s sitting just out of arms reach.


There are different approaches when searching for motivation, but in the end, no matter how we dredge it up, it gets us there in the end.

Stay strong and positive. Your motivation is there, it’s just hiding amongst the layers of wrapping that comes with life.