The Waves of Life

We all can relate to the feeling stranded at sea.

Not literally, of course. Perhaps in your health. Your business. Your relationships. Sometimes all at once.

These are the periods when there is no wave in sight. Nothing is carrying you forward. No boat is coming to save you. If you want momentum, you have to manufacture it yourself.

So you keep kicking.

When there is no wave

When you are behind the wave, everything requires more energy.

You have to create the waves that create waves. You have to find the small pockets where expending energy might produce movement, even when you cannot yet see where that movement will lead.

That is incredibly difficult when you are stranded in the middle of the sea. You don’t always know which direction to turn. There usually aren’t many people offering you a life raft, either.

In fact, when the last wave has passed, you will often hear voices telling you it would be easier to stop kicking.

Let the old path sink. Find a new one. Accept that this moment is over.

Sometimes, they may be right. Not every path deserves to be followed forever. There is a difference between commitment and blindly holding onto something that no longer exists.

But there are also moments when “finding a new path” is simply the more socially acceptable way of giving up before the original path has had a chance to become clear again.

A wise man once told me, “Pick your pain lane.”

I’ve thought about that often.

Life contains pain regardless of which direction we choose. There is pain in building something meaningful. There is pain in walking away from it. There is pain in fighting for your health, your family, your business, or your vision. There is also pain in accepting what your life becomes when you stop fighting for those things.

We don’t get to choose whether life will be painful. We get to choose what is worth enduring pain for.

The problem is that when we are stranded at sea, sinking can start to look like relief. The path becomes unclear, and we mistake a lack of visibility for proof that there is nowhere left to go.

But then there are the people who keep kicking.

They kick until a vision begins to appear. Or they kick long enough to strip away the mud surrounding the original vision, allowing it to return in a clearer and more honest form.

Eventually, their movement creates movement.

And they catch a wave.

When you catch the wave

Catching a wave is an incredible feeling because momentum begins to return.

You are no longer manufacturing every inch of progress. Something larger is finally moving with you.

From the outside, this can look like success. From the inside, it still feels fragile.

You aren’t fully in front of the wave yet. You are simply on it. The foundation is beginning to strengthen, but one critical mistake could still knock you off. You know that if you lose your balance, a lot could unravel.

Even so, you are moving.

You kept kicking when people told you to stop. You held onto something when others could no longer see what you saw. Now you are beginning to accelerate beyond those who remained still—and perhaps proving a few people wrong along the way.

That can be satisfying. But proving people wrong cannot become the reason you keep going. Eventually, the wave has to take you somewhere you genuinely want to go.

Because catching the wrong wave can be just as consequential as never catching one at all.

When you have been stranded for long enough, almost any momentum can feel like good momentum. You become so desperate to move that you forget to ask whether the wave is taking you in the right direction.

Survival makes us less selective.

That is why being on the wave is better than being behind it, but it still isn’t the position I find most interesting.

When you are in front of the wave

The position I am working toward is being in front of the wave.

This is what happens when you have created enough stability that survival is no longer making every decision for you.

You can see what is coming. You have time to prepare. You are not clinging to the only wave available because it represents your only fighting chance.

There will always be more waves. The beauty of being in front of them is that you have the optionality to choose which ones are worth riding.

That applies to nearly every part of life.

Financial stability gives you the ability to choose which opportunities to pursue. Physical health gives you the ability to decide how you want to use your body. Emotional stability allows you to choose relationships from a place of alignment instead of loneliness. A strong business allows you to choose the right customers rather than accept every customer who appears.

True stability creates optionality.

And optionality, to me, is one of the purest forms of freedom.

It doesn’t mean you will always choose the right wave. You won’t. Sometimes you will misread it. Sometimes you will fall.

But when your entire life is no longer dependent on one wave carrying you forward, falling off doesn’t have to mean drowning. You can recover, regain your position, and wait for the next one.

I think most people oscillate between two states: trying to manufacture a wave from nothing or desperately holding onto the one wave they managed to catch.

Very few people intentionally build a life positioned in front of the waves.

That position doesn’t arrive through luck alone. It is built by creating margin across every important area of life—your health, finances, relationships, work, and sense of self. It comes from making decisions today that give you more choices tomorrow.

I have spent a lot of my own life kicking.

There were periods when I could not see a wave anywhere around me. There were moments when sinking would have been easier and, to some people, probably appeared more rational.

But I kept kicking.

Slowly, the movement began to create more movement. The vision started coming back into focus. Waves began to form.

I am still learning how to ride them. In some areas of my life, I am holding on more tightly than I would like. In others, I can finally see far enough ahead to choose a position.

Perhaps that is the work of life.

To know when to keep kicking. To recognize the right wave when it arrives. To learn how to ride without allowing one wave to carry the weight of your entire future.

And eventually, to build a life where you are no longer waiting desperately for momentum to find you.

You are positioned to meet it.

Because the goal isn’t to create a life where you never fall.

It is to create one where falling no longer means drowning.