Truth Bomb Tuesday: There are different ways of moving in the world. Be like a boat.
You know what the problem with the world today is?
Is that we spend too much time driving cars and not enough time driving boats.
There. I said it. Come at me rev-heads.
This isn’t just because getting out on a boat is a much lovelier experience, which it is.
It’s because boats and cars required to totally different approaches to driving – two totally different paradigms – and most of us are stuck in the wrong paradigm.
Cars drive from the front. You sit at the front of the vehicle, and when you turn the steering wheel it’s the front wheels the turn.
You drive cars from the front.
Boats on the other hand – think of a tinny if you haven’t spent much time on boats – are driven from the back.
The propeller is at the back of the vehicle, And more often than not, you’re steering the boat from the back half of it.
Now this might not sound like a big distinction, but I think it does make a big difference.
I mean, imagine you are walking around on a large open space like a basketball court. Now imagine what it’s like to be “forward driven.” How does it feel to walk in a forward-driven manner?
When I imagine it, I’m leaning forward, my neck out. I’m trying to anticipate where I’m going, I’m trying to get in front of my momentum. I’m moving like a hungry snake.
Now imagine that you’re “back driven.” What does that feel like?
To me it feels like I’m laid-back, and I’m letting the world come to me. I turn and then let my momentum carry me forward. I’m resting back in my momentum.
Do you see / feel the difference?
To me it feels like that when we are forward driven, we are a bit snatchy at the world. We’re holding things a bit too tightly. We are forcing things a bit too much. Our minds are running ahead of us, trying to navigate our problems before we get to them.
And spending time thinking about problems that aren’t actually problems yet is kind of the definition of anxiety.
When we are back driven on the other hand, we are letting the world come to us. We are still choosing our trajectory, but we are letting the experience come to us. We are letting the moment arrive before we try to deal with it.
And this I think encapsulates nicely one of the big challenges of our time. That’s the discipline of letting the world come to you, rather than rushing out to meet it.
And that’s why I think it’s a shame that the great majority of us don’t spend any time at all messing around on boats.
It gives us a really useful paradigm for moving in the world, and it’s a paradigm worth mastering.
DB.