First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living

by Richard Bode

I have no destination, no real destination, in the literal sense. The destination, the place toward which my life is tending, is the journey itself and not the final stopping place. How I get there is more important than whether I arrive, although I will arrive, and what I must try to remember, now more than ever, is to listen to the wind, and the wind will tell me what to do.

To tack a boat, to sail a zigzag course, is not to deny our destination or our destiny—despite how it may appear to those who never dare to take the tiller in their hand. Just the opposite: It’s to recognize the obstacles that stand between ourselves and where we want to go, and then to maneuver with patience and fortitude, making the most of each leg of our journey, until we reach our landfall.

There’s only one sure way to come about, and that is to gather momentum on the course we’re on. As a youth, I applied that lesson narrowly to the handling of my sloop, but with the passage of time I saw that it was a verity, as true for life on land as for life at sea. I might abhor the tack I was on—and I recall two memorable occasions when I did. Early in life, I deplored the college I was attending; later, I despised the job I held. But I had to stay with each long enough to gather wherewithal (decent grades in the first case, sufficient savings in the second) to carry myself through the eye of the wind. If I quit one or the other prematurely, I would founder and the wind would take over my life, blowing me in directions I had no desire to go.