Waves

You are standing in the ocean, at least waist deep, maybe a little deeper. Your back is to the shore and you are watching the waves coming in toward you. You’re looking for the wave that you’re going to body surf into shore. It’s got to be a big enough wave. It has to break at the right spot. There will be smaller waves hitting you while you wait. They push you and test your balance. There will be waves that break too early or too late. When you’re standing in the water you might get a great wave at just the right spot and jump at just the right time and ride the wave all the way into shore. That’s so much fun. And there are a lot of waves that you jump for and miss.

You might not be trying to body surf. You’re just in the water. There are days when the waves are big and you’re getting pounded. You dive under one as it crashes towards you. Then you pop up out of the water and the next big wave is already on you and you’re smashed. There are days when the big waves just keep rolling in and you have to always be ready. There are days when the water is calm and even if you aren’t paying attention the waves won’t knock you down.

You might be standing there watching a huge wave far out rolling toward you. It’s not even near you yet but you’re thinking about it. You’re feeling anxious about it even though that wave might break before it ever gets to you.

Sometimes the water is calm enough to just float around on your back feeling the little ups and downs of the waves. The water may be warm or chilly. It may be too cold to even go swimming. Maybe you are standing on the sand where the water slides up to meet the land just watching the waves come in. Just listening to the sounds the water makes. Your feet just got wet. That wave came up the sand farther than the others. Or it’s so windy that the spray from the waves is hitting you in the face.

These waves are the circumstances that we come across in our daily lives. The obstacles that pop up, the chores and to dos, the traffic, whether the computer is working, the snow storm…it’s all as unpredictable as those waves. We are always needing to navigate circumstances that are out of our control. Some things that come up are small, some are big. Some things are easier to deal with than others. We can laugh at ourselves when our feet get wet and take a step back or we can get angry. Either way are feet are wet. We can worry about that something that might not even happen or we can remain calm and wait and see. We can try to ride the waves or we can try to stand against them. Riding them is more fun and less work.