Weekend Motivation 131

I’m lucky to live on the ocean both when I was little and now. For a few years when I didn’t I went to visit it often. It was only a 15 minute drive outside the little town I went to university. Driving by the coast was the perfect way to clear my head. If you’ve been lucky enough to spend some time at the sea side you’ve probably noticed it never looks exactly the same way twice. Okay, that might be a bit of hyperbole but the changes it’s capable of are pretty mind blowing. Our view isn’t cluttered with anything at all it’s wide open and vast which mean exactly what we’re looking at never really changes. At the same time it changes so much. There must be hundreds of colors of blue, dozens of grays and greens and even the odd pink or purple hue some days. It’s cape-able of perfect mirrored stillness and 10 foot swells. Sometimes there are white caps and others just a pounding shore break. The crest of the ways can be a few inches or a few feet tall and they can be perfectly regular or totally disorganized. Some times for days at a time they break and crest exactly the same and other days like today the ocean seems totally different every time you look at it.

For all those changes it’s also incredibly consistent. It rarely strays below the low tide mark or the high tide line save for the occasional surge and even then not by more than a meter or so. And the waves, no matter how still the day are always there. Those waves have saved many a sailor as they always point the way to shore. You can tell when the wind is picking up from the line off shore and often which direction it’s blowing from.

If you’ve lived on the coast for any time you’ll also know the power of the ocean. It can rip apart a 40 ton wharf in an instant, make a road look like it’s been hit by an earthquake or tow an able swimmer out to sea. It’s not all bad though it provides us with so much food, holds up impossibly heavy structures and well, feeds you soul. A lot of the ocean’s power comes from two things its flexibility and its consistency. If you think about it that’s a pretty good metaphor for finding power in your own life. Whatever challenges you are facing, even this year’s training season, if you strive to stay flexible when life throws something unexpected your way and consistent you can conquer whatever your hear desires!