All Boats Are Empty

A young man decided the day was simply too beautiful for work. He grabbed his small fishing boat, some food, a canteen of water, and headed down to the river. Fishing, drifting, perhaps even a nap, all were possible on a day like today.

The young man drifted down the river for awhile. He enjoyed the clean spring air, listened to the birds, and watched the fish splashing about.

After drifting along for a mile or so, he decided a nap was in order. He found a spot in the shade along a row of trees and tied off his boat.  "Perfect" thought the young man.

Within minutes he was napping.  That deep, "zombie-like" kind of napping that you can only get on a lazy river, on a lazy day.  Life just couldn't get any better.

Then came the crash.  In the middle of his peaceful slumber, the young man was shaken awake by a God awful ruckus. Another boat had slammed into his, throwing him side to side and awakening him from his nap.  

The young man jumped up full of anger. He yelled out, "Somebody better apologize to me and be damn quick about it"!  He wanted the whole world to know his outrage, to see his hurt, to feel his anger directed at them.

No one spoke. No one answered.  No one was there. The other boat was empty. It was simply floating down the river. It could have been drifting unattended for hours, days, or even years.

At that moment of realization the young man's anger instantly dissipated. His desire to fight, to curse,  to humiliate someone with a verbal barrage... all gone. He actually felt a little embarrassed at having yelled at no one. In the blink of an eye, his attitude had changed. Why, and how?   How could a man so full of anger, and so eager to fight, simply go back to the peacefulness he had been enjoying a few seconds before?

Because the boat was empty. There was no villain. There was no one to watch as the young man played his "victim card", and vented his anger. Without an audience to watch, and a bad guy to blame, there was no reason to put on a show.

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I can't remember all of the times I have cursed someone that cut me off in traffic, or I've made a mean spirited remark about someone that I witnessed doing something stupid. But when I was the one making the mistake, I always had a ready-made and perfectly reasonable excuse in my head. Even if I didn't have a reason for my screw up, I'd always downplay it. "Oh that wasn't so bad". "Lots of people make that mistake".

I could rationalize any mistake as long as I was the one making it.

Now imagine if all of the boats that bump into us in life are empty. Instead of looking for someone to blame or someone to ridicule, we can treat each incident as an empty boat. Why let an empty boat ruin a beautiful day? Why let an empty boat make us angry, and take us away from our peaceful existence that we were enjoying just moments before?

Every so often, in the course of our daily lives, a situation is going to "bump" into us. When that happens, we immediately have a decision to make. We can either become angry, begin shouting and arguing, and probably staying mad all day, or we can accept the fact that we live in a world of  6 Billion people, and we are, quite often, going to get bumped.

Without bad, we would not know good.

Enjoy the ride.

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