Go With the Flow

I was reminded of my honeymoon this week, a white-water rafting trip punctuated by a horse back trip through the mountains with our gear. An awesome experience that I highly recommend. One of the lessons I have tried to hold on to from the experience was the simple mantra "go with the flow". If you’ve never white-water rafted, it is a unique experience. You spend 15 minutes with a guide who goes into great detail on the proper rowing technique, synchronized paddling, how to survive if you flip. He would, at each rapid, point out where we did not want to go, and strategies for navigating the rapid. What I noticed, after having been though it, and having gone solo in a white-water kayak three years before that, is that it is all an illusion. That we were having much (if any) impact on the trajectory of our over sized dingy was a façade ... the river was in charge. We could work with the river or against it, but there was no undoing what the river was up to. We could go with the flow, or exhaust ourselves trying to fight it. When you paddle this way, it’s a blast. If you struggle against it, most often you end up swimming.

Life is a lot like that river. We have an obligation to paddle. There is something about trying to make the life we want that requires a certain amount of effort. We go to school, we plan, we try to make good choices. Yet, so much of what occurs in our lives is unexpected, and often not associated with our paddling. Sometimes that’s nice, we float along enjoying the scenery. But sometimes it is whitewater ... turbulence. Our inclination seems to be to resist, to fight it. But life is easier when we work with the flow of whatever shows up than when we struggle against it. It is developing a synergy between the flow of life and our actions that makes the difference. Life has its own flow. "Resistance is futile."

• Do you put mental, physical, or emotional energy into resisting the existence of bad drivers, people who let you down, dwelling on the future or past?

• If your energy were only spent on paddling gently with the flow of your life, how would your experience of life be different emotionally, mentally, physically?

• How much more effective would your decisions, leadership, relationships be if you worked with what was in front of you rather than resisting your present circumstances?

The paddling required for a really rich, successful, meaningful life is much gentler than most people realize. The synergy of working with the flow of life (present circumstances) has every ounce of energy you put into your life be more powerful. That’s why you hear really successful people say, “The easier it gets, the easier it gets.” Learning to take it easy, and let go of resistance, is an important step toward allowing life to become easier and, ultimately, more meaningful and effective.