Then, with the injury and God teaching me about idolatry and letting things go, I decided I had to take the initiative to sell my old bike, the one my friends knew was too big for me and hence had bought me my new one called Faith.
Friends were pretty darned sure I could fetch a good price for it, egging me to post it up for more than I had paid for it.
I did so. But somehow, it just didn't feel right. And I held on to it even longer.
Months later, I changed the price online to a lower one. Three hundred dollars, negotiable.
The boy who wanted my bike contacted me. I could sense his earnesty over the many text messages he sent to me, making great efforts to my place to view the bike. He was 16 years old.
"My bike is pretty whacked up, you know," I said. "Look at all these scars."
"Yea, more than 3000 kilometres in a year is quite a lot."
"Yup, it's my first bike, so I've fallen quite a bit on it. Crashed on my first race."
" Well, could you give me a discount?" he said.
"Like what?" I was expecting him to mark the price down far lower, then bargain upwards.
"$270."
My heart broke- he was such an earnest boy, I thought he could've made a hard bargain to $200. He knew this bike was whacked up. I was honest about the lousy brakes, the basic groupset, the number of times I crashed and fell on it. One of the spokes was even faulty. Still, he wanted it, without finding fault and making things difficult for me- even though he really was an experienced biker, biking since he was five.
"All these are small things," he said. "I can fix them or make adjustments, don't worry."
"Where'd you get your money from? You had to save?"
"I sold my old mountain bike. And I got some money for my birthday 5 days ago."
"You sold your bike for?"
"$200."
He put $200 in my hands, and asked if he could give it to me as a deposit, so he could pick it up and pass me the balance another day. It was most bizarre, but it felt truly right to say, "Can I charge you $200 for it. Like, take it as a belated birthday present or something-your birthday was 5 days ago, right? I don't know, just feel I'd really like for you to enjoy the bike for what it's worth."
"Wow. Thank you." He was kind of stunned. Then awkwardly, he stretched out his hand to give me a handshake.
He didn't realise, he had done me a bigger favor than I did him.
That bike money didn't mean much to me. He was studying, he had saved up, he was so earnest. He wasn't poor or anything, but I knew that extra saving meant more to him than a few extra dollars would to me. It was about letting go of material idols and possessions (the bike), of the enslavement to money (the thrill of getting a good deal), and of the need to ride.
Pastor Y said before, we should never try to make money out of someone else, especially when we know how much we had paid for the original- never mind if the other person was agreeable to the quoted high price.
"If this first bike means so much to you, why don't you keep it as a momento?" he asked.
"I've got only 2 legs, not 4, friend," I joked.
As I mulled over how money has usurped a part of each of us, and yet how few of us are willing to admit our greed, it made me conscious of our consumeristic, me-centric culture. I like. I try. I buy. We less often think twice when we're spending on ourselves, because unconsciously, we measure ourselves against the people around us, and surely, there are those better-off than us, those who spend more than us. I find myself unconsciously reminding myself that I hardly ever buy branded things and when I do buy from MANGO, it's always during a warehouse sale. I've never bought an item at TOPSHOP, Dorothy Perkins or Forever 21. Ever. (See how I try to justify myself, even here.)
But I buy things all the same, even when I already have enough tops, enough shirts, enough shoes. And then I find myself stinging on people. Calculating. How much of a discount should I give you, how good a deal can I clinch. As I was buying groceries for Uncle Z, my friend said to me, "Here, this brand is cheaper."
"No," I said. "Let's get something better."
Why should buying groceries for the disadvantaged always be a look-out for discount items? Why can't I spend the money I would use for that extra shirt on myself to buy something a little more decent for someone else who may not have the privilege to enjoy it?
I sound very noble for now, but only I know my consistent inconsistency.
So the boy came, very sportingly allowed me to take a picture of him and my last look at my first roadbicycle and wheeled him off. An hour later, another friend came to collect the bike-trainer he had lent me. (A bike trainer is a contraption one places on one's bike so one can do stationary cycling at home.) Now, I truly can't train anymore on my roadbike.
I went to an osteopath today for the newly discovered scoliosis they found and he said, "I'm not sure if you should ever return to doing triathlons." The tears just came. I couldn't stop them.
Thank you God, for teaching me to release my idols slowly, be they a possession or money or a hobby. Nothing else should take Your place.
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