Mountain biking for fun and relief? Or not?

Mountain biking for fun and relief? Or not?

Like other hobby’s and sports mountain biking is a good way to relive the stress of your work and life issues…

The more mountain biking in your life the greater the relief… to a certain point… because when you get more involved and serious about mountain biking you become more likely to have your emotions involved…Getting worried about races…being angry if races don’t turn out well… feeling the needing to have the newest and best technology all the time… needing to ride a least x amount of miles a week to stay fast… ect ect ect

So instead of being a way to relive stress and the burdens of life, cycling can cause stress if ambitions to achieve mountain biking goals go beyond a certain point...Its hard to point out exactly where that point is...Its probably different for different people... but a possible indicator is if when trying to achieve mountain biking goals it feels stressful like a job… when you feel your worth is directly linked to how well you perform on a bike… when in the pursuit of accomplishing your goals leads to neglecting other aspects of your life…when worrying and nit picking details about riding takes up an obsessively large portion of your days…

Its just like the guys who get too serious about world of war craft...

The reasons why you are doing the activity in the first place can become lost… clouded by the blind motivation to accomplish goals (or in the case of world for war craft… the need to complete quests).

My conclusion… I believe less emphasis should be on accomplishing specific goals and more should be put on fulfilling the reasons you started started riding in the first place... for me that's fun and relief (sometimes transportation and/or socializing) could be different for others.