Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. – John Petit-Senn
I really wanted to borrow my friend Jim’s BMW motorcycle yesterday and go for a long ride. I called him on the way back from Minneapolis to make the arrangements and it was all set. But as I drove home, it occurred to me that this wasn’t a good time to go road riding. My daughter and wife Robbie are out in Oregon visiting my mother-in-law, who’s been having a rough time since her husband, Robbie’s dad, died a couple months ago. If something happened to me on the cycle, they’d have to cut short their trip and come home to tend to me… which would be a huge withdrawal on the emotional bank account of our marriage. I just decided that I didn’t need that. Robbie’s been through plenty lately with the kids’ and her own surgeries as well as her dad dying. Plus we now have a son on a fishing boat in Alaska for the summer, and she’s pretty worried about him.
It really didn’t feel like I was denying myself, like it has in the past. It felt more like a gift to my wife. And I felt a little grown up about it, too…. like I’d overcome my teenaged rebelliousness with a motorcycle.
So instead, I got on my old mountain bike and hit the bike trails through the Carleton Arb, all the way to the Waterford Bridge and back. It was a gorgeous evening, I hadn’t biked there in a while, and my legs were surprisingly strong. Like the saying says, it’s what I enjoyed that constituted my abundance.