The River of Life

We are all born on a raft floating down a river. Some people start in the rapids and some people start in relatively calm water, but there is always the inevitable current of time that never ceases. For a majority of our young lives we have one or two primary guides that help us navigate the river of life. For the luckiest of us we have two primary guides that work together and use their years of experience to guide us, hopefully steering us down the least treacherous forks in the river.

It is important to remember that we don’t always really knows the correct path. There are infinite forks to choose from, and at any time the rapids could get overwhelming or there could be a waterfall. The less fortunate of us will be stuck with guides that don’t know what they are doing, just blindly hanging on and hoping for the best. Maybe they never had a guide of their own.

Sometimes it is near impossible to ever escape the rapids one might be born into. Some of us will lose guides along the way. Some of us will be all alone way too early in life. Those of us who have experienced the fewest of the rapids will often think we are the most skilled to navigate the river of life, not knowing how difficult they can really get.

It is easy to see how quickly things can go wrong when there is a sudden increase in difficulty. Because we aren’t experienced in difficult situations, we tend to panic and make things worse. On the flip side, those that have been stuck in the rapids this whole time can handle the more difficult situations as if it is a day to day experience.

We become jaded to those that haven’t experienced the hardships of the roughest rapids. We find it easier to mock others for their failures instead of using our own experiences to help them. We forget how quickly danger can build for the inexperienced. In the end though, the rapids will wear us all down. If rocks can’t stand the strain of continuous water over time, what chance do we have. The stronger and longer the rapids, the shorter and tougher our life is going to be.