I recently got away for a few days with my wife to a tropical location where we relaxed on the beach.  When you come from a snowy place sometimes you just need a little sunshine and ocean in the middle of a long winter.  I found myself floating in the calm ocean with my snorkeling mask and snorkel on, just floating facedown in the water as the small waves pushed me around lazily.  It felt so good to just float and not think about anything and not worry about where I was or what my body was doing. I was just existing there in the water, going wherever the water wanted me to.  As I let the stress of life and the worries that I so often carry slowly wash off of me, I felt so good and it was so easy to just keep floating. Then, slowly, I came to the realization that we can often live our lives just like that, just floating in the vast ocean of this life. We often let the world and even those around us just carry us wherever they want to go.

We let the day to day fill our lives and can often begin to live aimless lives with no direction. Get ready for work/school, get through the day, figure out what’s for dinner, watch tv to try to relax in the evening, do whatever your friends are doing, follow trends on social media, it can go on and on.  Then we go to sleep and when we get up in the morning, we do it all over again. Where are we going? What should we be doing in life? What is our direction? How should we be acting and treating others? Depending on what happens during the day, our moods can quickly switch from good to bad or the other way around.  News of certain events can radically change the way our day or week goes, and can even throw us off track for months at a time.

On the last day of our trip, I got back in the water with my goggles and floated one last time before we went home.  There was a big difference though between day one and that day. The wind was whipping and the waves were enormous. Whereas on the first day I was being lazily tossed and pushed by the waves, and that day I was being battered and smashed by the waves. Almost like the waves wanted to destroy me, wanted to hurt me. It certainly did not feel nearly as good as day one, and I even got pelted by some rocks being pushed by the waves and one wave smashed my goggles off my face and actually washed the contacts out of my eyes.

The point I am trying to make is that it may be easy to aimlessly navigate your way through life when everything is going well and things are easy.  However, when the waves of life get bigger and more powerful, when trouble hits or unplanned things happen, it can make it very hard to manage life and navigate through troubles or even stay afloat when you are floating through life aimlessly without a plan or direction in mind.  

There is so much more to this life than just the situations you are going through and the troubles you are facing.  Every one of us is destined for greatness and we just need to step into that reality, step into the life that is waiting for us.  So join me in the journey and let’s work on this together, let’s figure out a life raft for you to get through today and then maybe a boat with a motor so we can intentionally navigate through this world and become the best version of ourselves that we can be.  Just like all of us, I struggle with many things in life and I would love to share them as well as my experiences and wisdom with you and work together to help us all figure out how to do this life better, how to be better people and how to make the best of what we have here and now.  Journeys are always better together so let’s get on this one and find our true.