The wave and the ocean: dealing with the immutability of life.

Picture yourself standing on a beach, with your toes curled in the smooth white sand, seagulls sounding off, and a warm ocean breeze blowing saltwater lightly on your face. You close your eyes and hear the waves crashing rhythmically, each ending its existence with a loud crash against the sand, only for the tide to make its slow retreat back to the ocean, rejoining its origins. Upon opening your eyes, you can now see these waves rising and falling, each with its own distinct shape, as they begin as small humps and take on ever-growing kinetic force until the moment when they crest and come crashing down against the shore. These waves each carry an air of uniqueness as they might bring with them seaweed, some bringing sea life, and some bringing nothing at all.

As you look at these waves, each seems to be its own distinct event, as if each holds itself on its own merit, uninfluenced by the others. The reality, however, is that these waves are not isolated events, but rather they exist as interpretations of the greater event that is the ocean, the tides, and the winds which create each wave. In life, we often look at things much like the individual wave, often experiencing grief or anxiety as a result of just how quickly the tide has turned or how fleeting a moment has felt.

This mindset is a normal reaction: as individuals experiencing the world around us, we crave certainty, and nothing is more certain than being able to point to a specific event and be able to name its existence. But a name does not provide permanence. With a shift in winds or as situations develop and evolve, we feel like poor Alice thrown down the rabbit hole. We are forced to adapt and improvise just to make sense of what is going on around us. Many times our reactions seek to create more permanence, and our grip tightens. This can arise in any number of situations, whether it be moving to a new city, beginning a new stage of life, transitioning careers, or experiencing heartbreak. All these scenarios bring out our inner Alice, and with this uncertainty comes fear of the unknown.

You might be experiencing this now as you sit to read this article and feel the lump in your throat start to develop as your wave has just crashed and it feels like it is all over. A natural reaction is, in fact, to reach out and grasp whatever sense of familiarity you can get your hands on. Now, some might say, “Well, Alice didn’t do that! She embraced the unknown and leaped down the rabbit hole, hoping to explore!” The reality is, however, we are not all Alice, nor can we easily resonate with her mindset at times.

Instead, what can be offered is some perspective: think back to being on the beach and seeing each wave rise and fall. Were all the waves distinct creations? Were they separate from one another? Or were they each manifestations reflecting one larger whole? Each wave is not separate from the rest; rather, the waves before and the waves after simply represent the larger pattern of the ocean. So too are life’s events; they are each formations of our own oceans and can be thought of metaphorically as a single point of an ever-changing whole. While this may not cause our anxieties toward change to dissipate, neither does the foam of each wave; instead, what this mindset might provide is an understanding of the immutability of life and the perspective needed to live with the uncertainty.

By holding onto that which has changed, we also hold onto our fear and our anxiety. Instead, like the water, we can practice becoming ever-changing and flowing along with the events as they change and develop. This type of growth and mindset can be scary, as it feels like parts are flowing away, but we must remember that just because the waves have crashed, the ocean has not disappeared, and just because circumstances have changed, we still remain.