Jeff

It’s been one of those things that I’d always liked to be able to do – as far back as I can remember. About 15 months ago I finally took the plunge and got my motorcycle licence.

In Australia we have to hold a learners’ permit for a minumum of 3 months, during which time we have a number of restrictions attached to the permit. The biggie is that the motorcycle must not have an engine capacity greater than 250cc! I passed my motorcycle licence on 1 Dec 06, and as the permit restrictions are for 12 months, I only recently (ie. 2 Dec 07) could legally upgrade my motorcycle.

To cut a long story short, for a variety of reasons I decided to buy a Yamaha YZF R1 1000cc sports motorcycle (I ride purely for recreation only)! To say this is a big step up is an understatement! But WOW, this bike is absolutely awesome.

I’ve only been riding the R1 for just over a month and I am absolutely loving it! So to my 2nd ‘thing’, I want to be an excellent motorcycle rider. To this end, I would like to do a couple of advance rider courses and maybe some lap days at a local race track.

Where to start? Well, let’s just acknowledge we all wear our own ‘masks’ which we present ourselves to the world! These masks may take many forms and in themselves are a very useful and necessary thing for us to do. However, do we really know who we ‘authentically’ are?

Over the past 10 years I’ve experienced highs and lows in my life (the lows have been really low!). About 5 years ago though I had my own epiphany in relation to my parents and my upbringing. Since then I have been making great inroads into finding my authentic self.

I have always wondered why people ‘hide’ behind masks! I realise why we do (to protect ourselves mostly), but I couldn’t quite grasp why we can’t reveal our authentic selves more often – especially to people we love and who love us! One would think in such intimate circumstances it would okay to remove our masks, but even then it is not easy for many people to do that. Moreover, some people feel threatened, intimidated and even vulnerable if someone else removes their mask to them!

So, what’s my point? I guess it’s mainly about finding and being my authentic self – that part of me that has been locked away and hidden behind the ‘masks’ that I created to protect myself in life!

I now feel so much freer, believe in myself and life more, have enormous amounts of energy and feel even more passionate about life. I’m still ‘a work in progress’ (aren’t we all) and life will always need to be managed, but I encourage everyone to find and be their authentic self – you won’t believe how great it feels!