Our own growth and development is a lot like crossing a river.
When we first arrive at the river bank, we stand there with a mixture of emotions at what exists in front of us.
Fear, doubt, courage, excitement, worry and everything else in between.
We think about what the journey is going to be like, sometimes delaying for great lengths of time, and deny ourselves the journey at first.
But eventually, there’s comes a decision to enter the water. We feel everything in that first moment. It can almost be a bit shocking at first.
But if we allow ourselves to just stand there for a bit – without running back to the shore – we get used to the water running over our toes. In time, we make many steps forward and continue the journey.
At some point, the water climbs up our calves, up our legs and even at points to our chest. We battle the current, do our best to keep our feet in contact with the rocky bed underneath us and manage keeping ourselves afloat.
Time after time we stub our toe, accidentally dunk ourselves, float a bit downstream and have to trek back up again. But we keep going. We can see the other side of the river and there’s no sense in turning back now. We must stay the course.
Eventually, we reach a point where the water begins to slow down again, it moves back down from our chest, to our waist, to our thighs, down to the calves and then as we climb the bank on the other side, we see the water trickling around our toes once again.
The end is similar to the beginning. But what has changed?
You.
You did what you didn’t think you could do before and the entire time you spent in the water fundamentally changed you down to your core.
You believed in something, had the courage to see it through, and now you walk up the river bank, completely out of the water, and move onwards to the next river in front of you somewhere along your path.
This is your journey.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project