… or how to paddle your own canoe

 

From my view, one of the underlying themes of living untucked is one of self-determination… of practicing the art of calling one’s own shots in life.

Not always easy, but a worthy goal.

It can be hard to do with that constant surplus of outside influence. But when you’re free to choose, a lot of that urgency-driven stress dissolves away.

Let me be clear from the get-go on this discussion. Self-determination is not meant to be a selfish act. If you’re looking for the best results you can achieve, you’ll find them through sharing your blessings and by serving others.

It’s one of those put your oxygen mask on first things.

I recently read a post on gapingvoid.com which talked briefly about self-determination and gave a pretty clear illustration of what it means—

What is self-determination? Basically, it means that it’s better to paddles one’s own canoe, than to wait around to be invited onto somebody else’s yacht.”

Do you know anyone with a yacht? I actually do, but I’ve never been invited aboard.

Hey, look at me, I’ve got a yacht!” – Yacht Guy

“Pick me, pick me!”— Far Too Many People

I’m not holding out for an invitation… it’s just not my style. I guess you’d say I’m more of a paddle-my-canoe kind of guy.

Gapingvoid was also quick to point out the downside, because if you’re being realistic, there has to be one, right?

The downside is, of course, having to travel on your own steam. There’s no conveyor belt, there’s no rocket engine. There’s just you, and “just you” takes forever.”

It got me thinking, however… Is something you do on your own steam unattractive? Is something that takes forever inherently bad? I’m not so sure it is.

I’ll just go ahead and say it, “No, it’s not. Not at all.”

There’s a recurring theme in many of the posts I’ve read lately around the idea of a journey, or a process. It’s nothing new. I remember once having a poster about life being a journey rather than a destination. It might have been nice if more of it had sunk-in at the time.

It’s a growing process. A building process.

I’ve got to address this “just you” thing, though. I don’t believe the suggestion is to go it alone. To travel alone. To paddle your canoe alone. How much fun would that be?

Bear in mind, not everyone will willingly jump into a canoe and start paddling. Invite them along anyway.

When it’s just you, on your own steam… taking forever… making the journey… making that the purpose. It could get lonely. Bring along your friends and family and it’s even better.

That’s what self-determination is. You, calling the shots. You, writing the story.

But, yours and mine can mesh together.

Or, you could hang around waiting for the next season on Netflix to see how the story turns out, based on how someone else wrote it.

Ponder all of that for a moment, then contrast that notion with…

(small leap warning, bear with me…)

We humans are living in a hopeless time-warp. Our minds have a serious aversion to existing in the present moment. We may be sitting at dinner with our family, but our mind keeps jumping forward to that meeting we have at the office tomorrow, or to last week, when we had that big fight with our significant other. We live a split existence; our body is in the present moment, but our mind is either in the past or future.” —Mike Sturm on MikeSturm.net

It’s either the past or the future. Not the here and now. Definitely not the journey. At least that’s where he says we humans get stuck.

With that simple paragraph, I was able to connect a couple of very important dots. Mindfulness and being present…

When I read about mindfulness, I kind of get it. And they always give you a pass…

It can take years to be able to practice true mindfulness”

Years? Okay… don’t have to worry about that right now. Onward to being present. 

Being present is much closer to what it sounds like. When I read Mike Strum’s quote above it was one of those aha moments that had previously eluded me.

Being present is that point that resides exactly between living in the past or in the future. That point where what has happened doesn’t matter and what might happen in the future also doesn’t matter.

The canoe-paddling, if you will, becomes an endless series of present moments. Moments better than those you left in your wake, and more important than those to come. At least for now.

At some point, the self-determination part comes down to this… it’s up to you.

You get to choose.

 

What do you think? Can we call out own shots?

 

Thank you for being part of the LifeUntucked community. If you enjoyed this post, do me a favor and share it with a friend. I owe you one…

See you next Wednesday…