A Day's Hard Cycling

For Twelve days this Christmas we decided to publish twelve stories. These stories are metaphors told by participants on our NLP Practitioner Course as part of their weekend on Metaphor, Milton and Changing and Adapting.

Most of these people thought they couldn’t write a story, in fact some of them start the weekend muttering ‘I can’t do this’ – well enjoy........

Want to stop avoding difficult tasks

One cyclist liked to take the easy options and avoid hard tasks and activities, always looking for shortcuts. The other one loved to tackle challenges head on.

One day they cycled away from a busy city into the country site and stopped at the foot of a big hill.

One cyclist instantly wanted to tackle the hill and reach the top. He knew it would be hard work but he still wanted to do it. The other cyclist wasn’t so enthusiastic. “Hey, look there!” he said “there’s a perfectly good path round the side of the hill. That would be much easier than cycling to the top!”

However the first cyclist wouldn’t be swayed. “I know it will be hard work” he said “but think of the view from the top!”

Being a hot day, the second cyclist thought it would be too hard to cycle uphill, so he decided to take the easier route round the side of the hill.

The two cyclists went their separate ways. One labouring to reach to the top of the hill, the other taking the easier route round the side.

After cycling for most of the day, the easy route cyclist reached the other side of the hill where he agreed to meet with his friend. As he leaned his bike up against a fence post and was removing his helmet, he heard coming from the hill top path a “whooping” sound. He turned round to see his friend flying down the hill.

“Wooo... that was amazing!” shouted his friend. “What a view!  It was hard work on the way up but the ride down was totally worth it! How was your cycle?” he asked the easy route cyclist.

“It was ok” he replied, though deep down he was envious of his friend.  At first his route had seemed the better of the two as it required less work. However in the end there was something missing, there was no reward for his day’s cycling. He wished he had worked that little bit harder and tackled the hill. Then he would have enjoyed those amazing views, exciting ride down and would have had a sense of achievement.

It goes to show that by taking the easiest route in life doesn’t always reap the greatest benefits.