Life lesson | Experience | Reflection
Feeling Stuck in Life?
Break free and make your own wave
Life has grown circular and a pond-like, no ripples, just same reflections over and over again.
I ask ‘Is this what life will always be?’ I could feel the weight of stagnation down on my shoulders.
“I haven’t seen you around much,” my friend, Alex, remarked over coffee.
“Everything okay?”
‘Yeah, stuck. Like you’re on a treadmill, you know?’ ‘I suppose so. What do you think?’ Alex mulled for a moment. ‘Look, it’s all about motivation. If at first you don’t succeed…’
Then he stopped suddenly. ‘What do you think God expects!’
‘The purpose of life isn’t some grandiose objective we’re supposed to achieve. It’s what God can achieve through us. He gives everyone their mission, which can be as small as a grain or as big as a boulder.’
‘A boulder!’ I said.
‘Aren’t you being a little ambitious?’ Alex chuckled.
‘Hey, Alex, it could happen.’ ‘Ha ha, I suppose so.’ ‘Watch it or your head will roll.’ ‘You, you mean.’ ‘Yeah. But why not? God … has a sense of humor.’
‘Now, that’s a thought.’ I added a bit of spin to my statement to emulate my high-spirited friend. I wanted to imitate his cheerful cadence, and his enigmatic wink — as if he knew more than he was willing to reveal.
‘You see, people either walk or they don’t walk. There’s no in-between. You do what you’ve been assigned and that’s it.’ ‘Yes, I understand.’ ‘At the end, it’s all burned away anyway. This life is a mere flicker, dust in the wind.’
He popped his head, shifted closer. ‘You don’t want to do that?’ Alex looked worried. ‘Maybe it’s time to. Try something different.’
I lay there staring at the ceiling the night after and thought: ‘Maybe I’m not ready. Maybe I can’t do it.’ Then I thought: ‘It’s quiet in here. It’s quieter than the club. My mind is quiet.’
The next weekend, I decided to change it up. I headed down for a spur-of-the-moment beach holiday, my lungs greedily swallowing in the sea salt air.
The vastness of the ocean before me made my problems seem infinitesimal.
So when I got home from beach I made a promise to myself. No more waiting for life: I would create my own ripples. And then, steadily but surely, the white noise receded.
“Hey, you seem different,” Alex noted during our next coffee catch-up. “Did something change?”
Let’s just say I’m going with the flow,’ I said, grinning. I felt less weighed down than I had in months.
Life is too short to stand still. It’s okay to feel adrift sometimes; we’re human after all. But it’s never too late to make waves and set your sail to a new course.
Let’s sail and say goodbye to the harbor. The adventure of life awaits.
