My family has a boat problem. I got swept up in it from a young age. Starting around the time when I was six, I was enlisted as crew for races in a small, two-person sailboat called a Day Sailer. My dad and  I would race Ramona every Saturday in the summer at 2 PM. At first, the best part was the Oreo cookies, pretzels and lemonade supplied by the race committee after the sailing was done. As I grew older, my own obsession with sailing grew and I looked  forward to racing with my dad each week as we chased the elusive blue felt pennants given to the winners of each race. For the better part of a decade sailing on the weekends (and occasionally travelling for a regatta together) became a way for me to fuel  my competitive spirit and spent some quality time with my dad.

During and after college our time racing on the Day Sailer diminished to the point of virtual non-existence. My schedule got busier, and I wasn’t always around on the weekends to get out  and race the boat. This year my dad is back out racing and two weeks ago he asked me if I wanted to join him. I said yes, and within minutes of being on the water my old competitive juices were flowing again and I wanted to win! Here’s the funny thing about  sailing – the thing you need the most (wind) is the thing you have the least control over. It’s part of what makes the sport so maddening. You can have the best strategy, the best execution, and the best team, but without the cooperation of the wind it means  nothing.

After stumbling through the first two races that week, we found ourselves leading the third and final race. As we rounded the last mark and headed to the finish line I was fighting with  the wind – trying to cheat my way to a faster finish, which inevitably means you end up going slower. Sitting right next to me, my dad calmly said “just take what the wind gives you”. I didn’t think anything of it during the race – I was focused on winning,  after all. But as I drove home later that night I couldn’t stop thinking about that simple sentence and how applicable it is to life.

There are so many things that we cannot control and yet we fight and resist them as if it will make a difference. What if, instead of spending your effort fighting the wind, you adapted  to it. You could change your strategy, shift your focus, re-adjust your goals, anything other than fighting your new reality. I’ve thought about that quote a ton over the last two weeks and continue to catch myself trying to change things that are outside of my control. That tendency won’t go away overnight, but maybe with time I’ll  learn to be better at taking what the wind gives me. Maybe you’ll find the same.