The Man on the Bicycle

There once was a middle-aged man who started biking the roads in my town. Night and day, hot or cold weather he was out there grinding away on his two wheeled red bike. He wore a navy bandana around his sweaty head and he had blue eyes that looked like the ocean, when you got up close and looked into them.

I said to a friend, ‘I bet that man’s doctor told him he has heart disease and hasn’t got long to live. He’s out making himself healthy so he will stay alive.’

The man biked constantly for many months. He became known as The Man On The Bicycle.

One day he was biking past the grammar school, pushing the pedals with his long feet and maybe looking at little pink clouds in the sky.

A lady in a gray minivan, after dropping off her child, backed up without looking behind her. She ran over and killed the man on the red bicycle. Squashed him sideways right on the edge of the road. His body made a modest plunking sound.

She was eating an orange.

I told my friend, “I bet The Bicycle Man died exactly when the doctor expected him to die of heart disease.”

I was exactly correct.

The town paper reported. ‘Our town’s Bicycle Man began biking when his doctor told him he had terminal heart disease. He took up strenuous exercise to prevent his death. He said he was cured.'

'His family,’ the article said, 'shook their heads and wondered out loud. They marveled that their loved one's heart had recovered but still…. that he had died at the time the doctor had said he would.'

I paused when I read the article, and wondered a bit, myself.

The Bicycle Man appeared to have died on a 'set expiration date’. The only difference was instead of being sick, suffering and being depressed about his health… he lived and died healthy and hopefully happy!

The Bicycle Man exemplifies what I’ve seen sometimes with people…they die when they’re 'supposed' to but, with the right choices they can sometimes die healthy and happy.

The Bicycle Man may have thought his heart disease was a bad thing. He may have thought it was his terrible luck, that he was doomed, that things couldn’t get any worse, although perhaps his life hadn’t been going so well for awhile, anyway.

The newspaper didn’t say.

Maybe he was struck by inspiration and changed his mind about his situation?

The newspaper didn’t say.

When ‘bad’ things happen to us, some of us may think that ‘bad’ things will continue to happen. We become downcast. We flirt with or have an affair with depression and despair. We pout. 'Why me?' we may say. We stomp our pudgy feet. We whine. We give up.

Maybe you've been influenced and distracted by your life in the hard lane lately? It helps to remember that most things eventually lighten up and we sail or stumble into the clear, again.

Everything changes.

I happen to think, just like The Bicycle Man showed, that everyone's time to die may indeed be set. ’There’s a time to be born and a time to die.’ A timer goes off in each life.

What we do in between birth and death…. with whatever is handed to us is I think, an Adventure! How we react to these Adventures is up to us.

The Bicycle Man changed his dour mood and made his Health Adventure a different kind of Adventure, different than what the doctor had laid out for him.

I believe in doing whatever is possible to change or avert the things we think are ‘bad’ but I also think whatever we’re doing to make things better or more to our liking..is part of The Plan.

What Plan?

We may have some leeway with choices in our life but the Really Big Things, like life and death? Ummm…Maybe we have wiggle room but no real control. And maybe we have none, or very little control over most or many things?

Once we give up thinking that ‘bad' is bad and that we actually have total Control over our lives, life is much easier and more bearable.

As The Beings told me, 'We are all God. Everything is God'.
They said ‘Let Go and Let God,’ meaning… that you as God have a Plan For Your Life. You set the Plan up. Let it unfold. Be at Peace with Your Plan. You know what you’re doing.

And, like the Bicycle Man you can have fun with and have a good life within your Plan…. however it goes. Or not. Your choice.

Venus The Medium is available for Private Readings on Phone or Skype. She also gives Free Readings on the 'Dear Venus' Show.