Pull in your oars

There's something about sitting next to rushing water; listening to the sound of it, watching it move constantly, incessantly, moving always yet also staying the same. You can look at the water, and the banks of the river look the same, the width and breadth of it never moving, the container keeping its shape but the contents are never the same.

As we go through life, we think that we need to change our course, and change the direction, and change who we are or where we are or what we're doing. But the truth is, the boundaries of our life can be the same and stay the same- we can live in the same house and work at the same job and have the same friends - and our life will still continue to move each day- the contents always changing, the reality always turning. We don't have to do anything to move it. We don't have do take a great leap or make a great discovery, we can just pull in our oars and rush along with the river of life and see where it takes us.

We can pull in our oars and we can stop fighting and we can stop trying to traverse paths we think we should wander. We can stop struggling and instead start living. We should decide that we may not know what direction our life is going in, but for right now, and in this moment, it can be ok. We may not have the great love of our life, we may not have the job of our dreams, we may not have money or children or perfect hair, we may be two sizes too big or too small, but right where we are, and right as we are, is the truth; is the reality. There is no fighting against that current. There is no changing where we are today.

But there is the possibility of tomorrow. And there is the possibility that as the rivers run, so will our lives and as the water churns and turns, so do the circumstances of our lives. And we can still live it and we can still wonder and we can still hold our breath and try to see what's around the next corner. But we need not swim upstream and we need not forge a new destiny with our bare hands, we need instead pull in our oars and let out a breath and let go of the tension and glide downstream.

After all, this is the life.

- a

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