Taking the Training Wheels Off

The weekend before last, I had an extremely proud moment with my son. Daniel, who has been riding a bicycle with training wheels for almost two years now, finally summoned the courage to take off the training wheels and give it the old college try.

I had urged Daniel to begin the process of weening himself off the training wheels when my wife told me of a recent episode when he was out on a walk and bike with a neighbor and her daughter of about the same age as Daniel. The little girl, named Daniella, was biking without training wheels. Daniel, perhaps feeling a bit self-conscious, said, "I think I'm going to walk" and decided to walk his bike. My wife and the other mother tried to assure Daniel that it was perfectly okay to bike with training wheels, but I suspect that made him feel even worse.

So, I resolved to get Daniel on a path to training wheel independence. He was reluctant at first, worried that he was going to fall, but I was able to coax him into give it a try by letting him wear knee pads. I also tried to manage his own expectations. "Don't worry, Daniel," I assured him, "It might take a month or so, but in a week or so you'll be falling less and less. And then eventually, you won't be falling at all."

So I removed the training wheels and we made our way to the empty middle school parking lot a mere 50 yards away from our house. I walked along side with Daniel, clutching the handlebar of his bicycle to help give him balance as he wobbled while peddling. En route to the middle school parking lot, he fell - and assured me he was okay. We made it to the parking lot, and after doing about ten minutes worth of running-alongside-while-clutching-the-handlebars (a side note here: I was absolutely gassed trying to run as fast as he was biking while holding on to the wobbling bike with one arm) he told me that he didn't need me to hold on anymore.

So he did it by himself, and while he would occasionally bike into a wobbly spiral and crash, he was pretty much good to go. My wife and I were really impressed, and since then he's continued to visit the parking lot with us and practice his cycling sans training wheels. He has his wobbly moments, but he's a bona fide two-wheel bicyclist. And I'm a proud dad.

Something that dawned upon me was the life analogy of everything that Daniel went through. In our lives, we all have our own training wheels. These are things that we assume certain crutches are required in our life - these things might be luxuries that make our lives easier, or even addictions. It might be a refusal to move forward and upward in terms of our own spiritual maturity, occupational ability or life skills. We may be overly comfortable in a level of mediocrity that feels safe.

But when we leave that safety to aspire for something greater, it can be scary. We strive for something knowing that times of failure aren't only likely, they're pretty much inevitable. Most things worth aspiring for will encounter some degree of pain or failure, and that's something we need to accept. But when we decide to go for it, we (like Daniel on his two-wheeler) will encounter a deal of joy having reached the summit. For righteous, good and honorable things worth aspiring to, the removal of training wheels can bring a success well worth the occasional knee scrapes.