the whims of the sea

27th birthday edition

I turned 27 today. 

If I had to distill the last year into one word, it would probably be “eventful.”

I did a few things that would have probably surprised 25-year-old me. 

And I did a lot of things that definitely surprised my parents (and some of my friends). 

I booked more one-way tickets to Asia 48 hours in advance, had more jobs, took more road trips across the country, and spent more time in rural Idaho sitting with my eyes closed in a room full of strangers than most people who know me likely would have expected.

And while it’s been fun to look back on what I did over the course of the last year, it’s been much more interesting to reflect on why I did those things.

Four years ago, I wrote my inaugural birthday essay about building boats in which I posed the question: “If you have an old wooden boat and slowly you replace pieces of wood until every piece has been replaced is it a new boat or is it the same boat?”

Today I pose a different nautically-themed question: “Is a wooden boat without a rudder anything more than glorified driftwood?”

If we each think of ourselves as the captains of our respective boats, sitting atop the surface of the water, it is easy to imagine the impact that the tides might have on where we end up over the days, weeks, months, years, and decades.

Without a rudder, we are entirely at the whims of the sea. 

You can’t direct a boat that doesn’t have a rudder. You can only sit in it while it drifts.

You can’t be the captain of a boat that doesn’t have a rudder. You can only be a passenger.

I think it’s common to mistake drifting for sailing.

I know that I did for most of my life.

When we’re younger, our boats do not yet have rudders. And why would they? What use is a steering mechanism if we don’t yet have any idea of what we want to steer towards?

For most of my life, drifting had been a perfectly suitable navigation strategy. I let external forces (mainly other people) dictate my direction. And I rarely questioned it. Why would I have? Most of the other boats were drifting right alongside me. It seemed safe enough.

But there often comes a time when we realize that there actually is something we want to steer towards. 

A time when we realize that we would rather try to navigate towards that “something” (even if it means risking failure) than take a path in which we are guaranteed to arrive safely at a destination that does not excite us.

And as soon as that time comes, drifting is no longer a viable strategy.

The moment we find that “something” we want to steer towards, we have a decision to make. 

We can either continue to drift and hope that we end up there. Or we can build a rudder for our boat and do everything in our power to make sure that we end up there.

We all come into this world with infinite opportunities and a finite amount of time to explore them. What ultimately dictates the quality of our lives is how we choose to spend that time. 

Before this year, I had spent the majority of my time drifting.

When we’re young, drifting is inevitable. As we get older, it becomes a choice.

The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, it will tell you.

Rudders change our boats’ trajectories by harnessing resistance. And the thing about resistance is that it can feel scary. Especially when all we’ve known until then is being carried along by the waves. 

In a sea full of drifters, using our rudders often means separating from the pack, leaving us isolated, even if only temporarily. 

People (who will on average be well-intentioned) will tell us that it is risky (or even foolish) to resist the tide.

This can be hard to hear. What if they’re right? What if we fail?

It is impossible to live without failing unless we live so cautiously that we might as well not have lived at all—in which case, we fail by default.

I decided this year that I would rather risk failure than guarantee mediocrity.

I refuse to spend any more of my days drifting.

This was (without a doubt) one of the hardest years of my life. But it was also one of the best.

Thank you to everyone who helped make it so special. I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.

This was the year that I found my rudder. 

I don’t know exactly where I’ll use it to steer myself.

But steer myself I will.

Which is all to say, I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.