{"id":4371,"date":"2014-03-24T17:55:58","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T17:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blogs\/cycle-toward-the-law-of-attraction-2\/"},"modified":"2017-07-25T10:21:19","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T14:21:19","slug":"cycle-toward-the-law-of-attraction-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/cycle-toward-the-law-of-attraction-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycle toward the Law of Attraction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo: Copyright AECOM by David Lloyd.<\/em><\/p>\n

I gave my best friend, Sarah, the book The Power<\/em> for Christmas. Yesterday she emailed me saying that “if it only does one thing \u2013\u00a0to make me grateful with my lot \u2013\u00a0then that\u2019s enough for me.”<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve read The Power<\/em>, you know it says that “like attracts like” and that “what you give out you receive back.” Some would say it\u2019s about being grateful, and I agree. It\u2019s why I write in my gratitude diary every night.<\/p>\n

Last week was a terrible week for cycling in Australia. Last Sunday, a car collided with a bunch of cyclists in Sydney, and an Adelaide woman died from injuries sustained after a collision with a car.<\/p>\n

The next day, video footage was released in which a cyclist in Brisbane was hit from behind by a car. On Tuesday, a Melbourne taxi passenger opened a door in the path of a cyclist.<\/p>\n

The list goes on, but I\u2019ll stop the negative stories right here and simply ask, is Australia cycling against the Law of Attraction?<\/p>\n

I think both cyclist and car drivers are.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had it with this car driver vs. cyclist war. The more I see, the less I like. It leaves my head spinning and my heart screaming and it\u2019s undoing all the good work that many of us are doing to encourage riding a bicycle as just one step to help cut the Aussie obesity epidemic. As Jamie Oliver says, Australia is now fourth in the list of the unhealthiest places on planet earth.<\/p>\n

Right now Australia has two problems.<\/p>\n

Firstly, too much negativity. As The Power<\/em>\u00a0says, negativity creates negativity, which creates a vicious cycle of anger and resentment. Take my Facebook friend John. He likes to tell Council exactly what he thinks. But what it really means is that Council is diverted into solving John\u2019s endless dissatisfaction and grievances.<\/p>\n

As a nation we\u2019re so angry that we never stop and think about how to solve the actual problems. If we really want things to change \u2013 for cyclists and for car drivers \u2013 we have to do the slow and difficult work to identify the real problems. Wouldn\u2019t it be great if people like John were part of the solution rather than just shouting about the problems?<\/p>\n

Secondly, like it or not, Australia will never be like Copenhagen or Amsterdam. Our land use planning is completely wrong for cycling. The Australian Dream was \u2013 and maybe still is \u2013 space: a big house, a big backyard, and space for lots of cars. Everyone copied everyone else and so now Australia is full of big houses. Normal is driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for to get to the job you need to pay for the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it. As Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said at my Australian Citizenship ceremony last week, “We need to respect each other and we need to leave the hatred behind.”<\/p>\n

Now, he wasn\u2019t talking directly about cycling, but he\u2019s right. Cyclists need to respect car drivers and car drivers need to accept that cycling is a valid mode of transport.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s start cycling towards the Law of Attraction.<\/p>\n