Letting Go – Day 7
It requires patience, perseverance, and the ability to learn from your mistakes. It requires flexibility and the ability to let go of the waves that don’t quite make the grade, sometimes before they happen, sometimes halfway through. There will always be another one. There are troughs and there are crests: that is the nature of life, and of surfing. Letting the waves roll past you while you’re finding the perfect spot, blasting through the big ones that break too soon, and finally, being rewarded with the one that carries you for a while, to wherever you may end up.
Letting go of any particular destination, any particular way of getting there and any time limit are pretty important in surfing. You can’t predict the next big wave; you just have to sit for a while and learn to read the signs. Let go of defining your falls as failures and instead think about how it has taught you a different way to balance, or move, or stand. Let go of trying to steer your board to a certain spot, and instead let your instincts and the wave itself guide you. Let go of needing to be anywhere, and enjoy playing in the magnificence of that powerful force of nature.
And remember, you are a part of that powerful force. The same energy that flows through the waves, flows through each of us. Find a way to harness it for forward momentum and let go of the need to control its flow. It’s time to learn to surf.
