Some philosophical thought

Its funny, I do tend to believe there are forces at work in the universe that influence what goes on in our lives. I imagine these forces to form a fabric, like a great Ocean. You may be lucky enough to have been coasting through warm, tropical waters for most of your life, perhaps hitting the odd strong current or even hurricane, or you may have landed in the North Atlantic and had nothing but turbulent cold seas.

What made me think of this was that I have had a short spate of bad luck recently (a minor cold front) - my computer died; my external hard drive overheated; my new computer no longer fitted many of the leads I use; my new external hard drive refused to co-operate with my new computer; my favorite web site for downloading TV shows and Movies seemed to have banned me; I sprained my wrist and damaged my shoulder; there were some other persistent minor health issues, requiring unpleasant medication; the weather in Cozumel has been unseasonably bad and for some reason, although our hotel is at 80% we're making no money and I thought to myself - I'm in some type of negative current here. Then I thought what do you do when you're in the Ocean caught in a rip tide. You don't freak out and frantically swim against it - you'll just end up being pulled out into deep water. You relax and swim perpendicular to the current and out you pop into calm water again. So as I was beset by all of these minor issues, I decided not to get myself all wound up fighting against them, but let them slip out of my mind. I concentrated on running, yoga and meditation instead. Don't you know it - this week every little thing that was going wrong seems to have righted itself. New leads and hard drive will be arriving over the weekend, I seem to have returned to full health, my wrist is at full strength and my shoulder is almost better (indeed the injury has been a good thing as it has reminded me to be less reliant on my right arm - I'm now driving with my left).

It made me think of depression, you could view depression like being in an area of dead calm with no wind or current to carry you to the nearest harbor. This is a little harder to escape than a rip tide. You'll have a long and arduous swim with little sign of progress, but finally if you persist you'll make it to the shore.

Goodness knows what type of squall I had stumbled into during my years in New York, but I was definitely on a downward spiral. Perhaps a whirlpool spiraling out of control - again its no good grasping for the surface if you are caught in a whirlpool - you need to be smart and swim out of the side. Mine was a pretty big whirlpool and perhaps I also hit a few tropical storms.

What's my point? Well I think it is this: You are but one force and although you are somewhat in control of you life you are also navigating through forces which you don not control. In life you need to be alert because if you panic and flail around in a rip tide, you will most certainly end up in unkind seas. If you take no action when the wind falls from beneath your sails then you will stay in the doldrums. You need to recognize when life starts to carry you in a direction you don't like and take early affirmative action. My hope is that we have this amount of control over the fabric of the universe:)