Ocean/Risk

Ocean/Risk

This past weekend I stayed at a sea side retreat.

The hotel is a beautiful landscape that sits upon a cliff, the vast ocean as far as the eye can see is roaring below.

At night it felt truly magical. The pitch darkness in the beyond. A few hotel lights lit up the edge of the cliff, so that you could still make out the white of the crashing waves break against the jagged rocks.

Even during a relatively calm night, the waves still feel like the ocean is always at storm. It’s amazing that something so powerful in nature, so vast and consuming, can make you feel such at ease. I sat on our balcony and let the sound and smell of the tides lull me into a meditative state.

That’s when I had another few thoughts on risk. And what taking risks in life is all about.

Centuries worth of humans had stood at similar shorelines, unable to grasp the magnitude of what was laid out in front of them. Even without the full understanding of the ocean and it’s depths, and it’s ability to destroy, they must have had a sense of the power behind it.

How could anyone not feel a bit small standing near a relentless rumble of water? One can feel the force of the ocean by the sounds and vibrations it makes.

They must have seen storms where the waves rise above your heads and it looked like an impossible thing to conquer.

But they must also have stood along the shorelines on days when the ocean was inviting and flat. And the clouds broke just a way over the horizon where beams of light came pouring down to kiss the edge of the water, and it looked like God was tempting them to see what this world is all about.

And brave souls then took the leap of faith. Humans took the ultimate risk. Exploring the unknown.

The ocean is such a reflection of life. We can usually always see the horizon in front of us. How the next few weeks will look. But everything beyond that seems unimaginable.

There will be days/weeks/months where life seems calm and the risks you know you need to take seem plausible. But then a storm will come, and just like the violent waves make the ocean seem an impossible task, so too will the risks that are in front of you.

And even if you manage to make it to the horizon, another horizon will be in front of you. Just as our ancestors who sailed the oceans for the very first time, you have no idea how long your journey will take. What the problems might be out there for you. When the next major wave will crash. Will you even make it back in one piece?

But humans have been taking these impossible risks since the dawn of our species. It’s what has led us to here.

The ocean you know you will need to cross will never not be there. It will never not look like a hell of a ride. But we’ve crossed oceans before. And so will you.