Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Lessons from the Ocean

I saw a great bumper sticker the other day. It read
"Everything I needed to learn I learned from the Ocean".
I love that it got me thinking and pushed me to try to
better understand what lessons I'd learned and if they
were actually sufficient. Here are just a few that I've come
with. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you've learned.

1) Be curious, look around, and take it all in. The ocean holds
so much if we just look. It can tell you the wind direction, the
swell direction, the tide. It can show you where it is safe to be
and where danger lurks. You can see fish, birds, and amazing
colors and hews.

2) Things change constantly. The ocean is never the same and
it can change in an instant. I'm sure you can attest to that. How
often have you missed a great surf session because the wind switched
or the tide changed. How many time have you seen tranquility turn
into stormy chaos?

3) We are pretty insignificant in the big picture. The vastness of
the ocean can humble even the biggest ego-maniacal narcissist. Oft
times even the problems we feel are great aren't really very large
in the big picture.

4) You can't control the ocean all you can control is you in the ocean
if you learn how and try hard. You have to learn to go with the flow,
let the current take you and not waste energy fighting against the
things you can't win against. Learning to relax and go with it is a key
life lesson.

5) You have to respect the ocean you can't dump on it or in it without
some adverse consequences. The Gulf oil catastrophe is teaching that
to us as I write as are the 5 gyres. What we do is having an impact now.

6) The ocean can be a source of the greatest pleasure and the can also
be a source of pain and sorrow.

I'm sure that I've only scratched the surface, no pun intended. What
lessons has our mother ocean taught you?


1 comment:

Stray Cat said...

Patience. Definitely patience. Also, acceptance. Like you wrote, we need to recognize those things not in our control and let them go. Surfing is humbling for me. No room for complacency!