Week 2-4: Eat Pray Love is #BetterByBicycle (Part 3)

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Love

If you have seen the film Eat Pray Love, then you know that Liz met his future husband by getting into an accident while riding a bicycle. Now that's not what makes love better by bicycle okay? That's a horrible way to meet anyone for that matter. In this accident, it was the motorist's (Felipe) fault and if you are following Gilbert's works or life, *spoiler alert* then you know that their marriage had fallen apart after some time. Whatever their reasons were, I'm sure they have nothing to do bicycles or automobiles. 

                                

Having said that, can I just say that romantic love is highly overrated? Here you'd think she finally had her happy ending, finding the love of her life, as her friend Ketut had foretold, and then 10 years later, they part ways. I blame all the fairy tales and the countless amount of literary materials dedicated to romantic love that made a lot of us fell into a somewhat distorted expectations that somewhere, somehow, someday, a perfect person will fill a void in our lives and would address every existential question we ever have. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not being cynical about love because I do believe that it's one of the most exhilarating experience in life, but of course you have to take into consideration the complexities of life, human nature and emotions. Love is a double edge sword, it may also be the most excruciating experience for some. Sometimes we are too focused on this type of love that the very idea of being single for life seems like a forlorn state. It's not! What I really want to say is, yes, love is an essential ingredient of a happy life. But I'm not just referring to romantic love, I meant to include all the other forms of love - love of family, friends, neighbors, pets, plants. So yes, love in general. 

And how does bicycle make love better? Well it's just simple, cycling with a loved one whether it's with a romantic partner, family, friend, can foster healthy relationship. For one thing,  cycling, just like other forms of exercises boosts neuronal activity, elevating the levels oxytocin, also known as the love hormone. It is known to facilitate birth contraction and lactation, but this neurotransmitter also functions as regulator of our emotional responses and pro-social behaviors, including trust, empathy, gazing, positive memories, processing of bonding cues, and positive communication.  

Sweet couple commuting by bike 💓

I must admit, I originally intended to post popular dating spots in my town that that are best reached by bicycle because aside from the benefit that I mentioned above, the vehicle parking situation in these spots are very discouraging. I changed my mind because I wanted to dispel the hype on romantic love and instead channel my thoughts on one of the most important kind of love - self love. Sometimes, in the process of loving other people, we tend to forget loving ourselves. Oftentimes, in our effort to please the people important to us, we become a person we didn't want to be. Looking back, I realize that when we forget our very self, we are setting our relationship (both with ourselves and other people) up for failure. When this happens, the first thing we need to fix, more than anything else, would be ourselves. Now you're just gonna have to take my word on this because I've been through a lot, a great way to deal with a broken self and restart the journey of self love is, you guess it - cycling!

The bicycle is the quintessential symbol of freedom

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