Who Are You?

What do you do?

How often do you ask those sorts of questions? It’s just harmless small talk, right?

I’ve spent some time recently with a guy who’s paralyzed by his fear of that question. Details don’t matter, I’m just struck by his sense of how much we identify people with what they do. Or worse, what they’ve done.

One of the things I love about a bike tour is the way those things disappear. Everyone shows up with a bike and receives a team jersey. Everyone serves and sweats. For a week it’s just you and your bike, because your job, your neighborhood, the size of your house, your education, your bank account, the car you drive–all the stuff that matters so much in society–doesn’t matter much at all. Your fancy job title won’t get your bike up that steep hill, and what you’ve done in the past doesn’t matter when you and a teammate need to encourage each other on a long day.

I am not what I do for a living, and I am not my past. You aren’t, either.

We’re all just folks cranking our bikes down the same road. If we ride together, and dream together, we’ll have a much better chance to get where we want to go.

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