We Are Not Wave-Makers
We Are Wave Riders 🌊
Dear friend,
We can't control the waves... but we can waste our life trying.
I've spent a lot of energy trying to make waves where there weren’t any waves. Maybe this is part of the entrepreneurial spirit. Maybe it's part of leadership — seeing what could be, and taking steps toward that vision. But I’m sensing that for me it has had more to do with distrust. Maybe it’s not about making waves at all...
“If I didn't make the wave, it must not be a good wave.”
At some point during my life, I learned that waves made by others are not to be trusted. That waves in general are unsafe. I learned to distrust waves, and my distrust led me where distrust tends to lead: into isolation.
If others' waves are unsafe — if all waves are unsafe — it's best to stay out of the water.
Distrust and isolation lead to more distrust and isolation.
Have you ever scheduled a date with a friend, but the closer the date gets, the more you're tempted to cancel? You start to feel a little sick. Everything begins working against it. You end up going on the date, and you have a wonderful time. You leave feeling renewed and grateful, and you wonder why you ever considered canceling. Next time, you have a much easier time committing to your date.
Trust takes practice. The more you practice, the easier it gets.
We have to learn to trust the waves of life. We can't control them. And life is full of them. Life is made of them. Look at nature. Look at biology. Look at sound. Everything is made of waves!
The more we isolate ourselves from the discomfort of trusting life’s waves, the more we separate from life itself.
Life takes practice.
There is one type of wave I don’t have trouble trusting — these are the waves I make myself. If it’s my idea, if I’m causing it, I can trust it. This may be why I spend so much energy trying to make waves.
I have spent a lot of my life in what feels like a swimming pool. I splash and thrash, trying to create a sense of movement. But no matter how hard or how long I thrash, within seconds of stopping, it is as if I never tried. The water is still. My efforts to make waves lead to nothing. Only exhaustion.
Even worse than the exhaustion is a sinking feeling of loneliness.
Distrust leads to isolation. Naturally. If I'm unwilling to face the uncertainty of the waves of life, my only choice is to leave the ocean and find a safe pool where I am the sole wave-maker.
When I'm in the ocean, I feel the overwhelming reality that I am not in control. The ocean is big. Nothing I do makes much of a difference in the ocean. No matter how hard I thrash about, I barely even move the surface of it. When I stop thrashing, it's like I was never there. Life is the same.
It can feel discouraging when all our thrashing amounts to nothing. It can feel terrifying when our attempts to change or control life’s waves do nothing. But when we realize that our role was never to make waves in the first place, we are free.
The waves of life are incomprehensible to us. They come from a depth that we cannot understand. Each wave carries more power than a lifetime of our thrashing...
We can stop trying to make waves, and enjoy them.
It does not serve us to hide from the waves — that leads to isolation. It does not serve us to try to control the waves — that leads to exhaustion. And it does not serve us to try to make the waves — that leads to discouragement. But riding the waves can be fun and exciting!
Fear and excitement feel the same in our body — the difference is in how we interpret that feeling.
One person is deathly afraid of heights while the other loves to skydive — they both feel the same feelings. The difference is how each decides to believe about the feeling.
It's all about trust. We never had control. Can we embrace the truth, and decide to view the uncontrollable, infinite nature of life as exciting? Or will we spend our precious energy trying to control or create the waves?
Today, waves will come. Instead of trying to control them, let’s choose to ride them — to enjoythem.
We are not wave-makers. We are wave-riders.
—Nathan
Originally posted at: https://nathanpeterson.net/waves/