You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
—Henry David Thoreau
Every wave? I don’t think so!
I’ve been listening to Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, and the trick to surfing is to pick waves that are challenging enough so you can fully immerse yourself in the experience but not so overwhelming they scare you out of your wits. Or hurt/kill you.
The fellow in the second picture is no doubt capable of handling his wave. I wouldn’t even do well on the one in the first picture.
However, it is a good analogy for life. Don’t fight life, develop our skills so we can stay open and immersed in the experience even when it’s challenging. Oh, yeah, it’s also best to keep our egos out of the way. As Lauren Hill, a woman surfer, says,
And that’s one of surfing’s lifelong gifts: you will be humbled.
Leaving surfing aside for a moment (I can barely balance on an earth ground standing still skateboard), I have never understood the expression “keep our egos out”. How is that possible considering that we all, best case scenario, do have an ego. I’d be dead worried if I didn’t have an ego. Who would I be? A nonentity?
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It’s not that complicated. It just means doing things because you love them/believe in them and don’t worry about making mistakes/looking foolish.
I was never very good at surfing (literally). The waves in the Gulf off Galveston weren’t very good for it — and I don’t think I had the talent.
I definitely wouldn’t have the talent. I’ve never tried it on a surfboard but did some body surfing the few months I lived in La Jolla, CA. That didn’t take much talent.
When I was young enough to go bathing in the sea and lived on the coast, we did not have surf boards but simply floated in with the waves. Sometimes, we got hurt but that was during the time when such things were normal process of growing up, like riding bicycles without helmets on and falling off! I don’t think that I will be able to wade into the sea with my hips being in the condition that they are in now. Ego? Thank God for that. It advices me to keep out of the surf!
I’m not sure that’s ego, to me it’s just common sense!
I love the idea of the sea. being near it. even living near it the few times I have.
looking at it ~ smelling it ~ feeling the spray ~ playing in the shallows and the little lapping waves on the shore.
but being IN IT! like those surfers … or for that matter out in the middle of it on a big ship even … no thank you.
I think about what wayne dyer said about the ego and our need to always be right.
“if you have the choice of being right or being kind … always choose kind.”
except I doubt he meant we have to become a doormat either.
a fine line there.
I’ve ever understood the need to be right. Being proven wrong just means you’ve learned something. I like the concept of beginner’s mind — having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and freedom from preconceptions when approaching anything.
I’ll pass on that one…
Me too!