A friend used the riptide analogy: You get sucked in, and your first instinct is to fight it. The harder you fight, the more energy you spend. But the simple truth is, a riptide is stronger than you; you cannot outmuscle it, and if you continue to try (if you exercise, as I continually did, “maladaptive stubbornness”), you drown. The simple lesson (as California surfers learn over and over every year) is to stop fighting and go with it. Save your strength, stop fighting, and the riptide itself will quickly propel you out of harm’s way, into calmer waters. At that point, if you’ve preserved
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