Deceptively safe

I love whitewater. I love metaphor. And I love using whitewater as metaphor for life. One term that has been dancing inside the gray matter lately is the term "eddy".

If you have never paddled before, and eddy is like a little oasis along your journey down the river. A place you can pull over to rest, think about your next move in the middle of a large rapid, or take a little "smoke" break in some cases. Eddies are circular. They usually lie behind large rocks and what keeps you safe and sounds in them is the water circulating around in it. Thus holding you in. Overall eddies are very comfortable places to be. Calm within the storm.

But eddies can be bad places if you stay there to long. You can relax too much. Let your guard down. Even let that four letter F word creep into your mind.

"Gosh that rapid looks scary down there. What if I screw up. What if I die? What if I look really stupid in front of those girls hanging out on that rock?"

So we stay in the eddy a little longer than expected to battle with our thoughts until we are completely paralyzed.

Eddies can represent lots of things in our lives. Jobs, places we live, relationships(or lack of one). While many times they feel comfortable to be in, we realize that we are in the middle of a large river and that there is a goal or much larger purpose to make it to. A destiny maybe. We end up sitting by and watching all the other people paddling by, successfully navigating the waters. But for some reason we sit back in fear that we won't be able to. We forget that we had the strength and skill to make it this far into the river of life. That maybe we've gone over larger rapids successfully than the one before us.

But if you have ever paddled, you know to get out of an eddy, it's deceptively simple. It takes one stroke to cross that line into the current. One single powerful stroke and you are back in the mix. And the rewards are exhilarating.

Think about it, what kayaker have you ever known to brag to their friends about staying in an eddy all day?