Don't get ahead of yourself

I love kitesurfing.

So you can imagine how excited I got by the 20+ knots of wind forecasted for the afternoon of our arrival in Tofino last weekend.

But I also knew I needed to let go of it. Of the desire to go kiting. Otherwise I’d spend the entire ~7-hour journey to Tofino in a subtle state of contraction.

Constantly checking the forecast (which is only updated a couple times a day, anyways).

Rushing everyone at lunch so we can hit the road again.

Missing out on getting to know my travel companions.

So as I packed up the car on Friday morning, I decided to let go and not get ahead of myself.

If there’s wind, there’s wind.

If I kite, I kite.

As you can imagine, along the way to Tofino my desire kept coming back up.

So I kept letting it go. At least a dozen times. And each time I let go I could open back up to what was happening right in front of me.

The beautiful morning light splitting open the clouds.

The smiling eyes on mask-covered faces.

Later that afternoon, when we finally got to the beach, there was no wind after all!

It was just the four of us.

Smiling and squinting into the late afternoon sun shining down on Long Beach.

So we climbed back into the car and continued our drive another 10 minutes up the road to check in at the hotel for the evening.

This time, when we stepped out of the car, there was wind.

Lots of it. I could hardly believe it.

There was wind swirling throughout the parking lot, bending the trees and pulling on the flagpole.

Giddy, I threw on my wetsuit, rigged up my kite and ran down to the beach and into the sun-drenched ocean.

I was kiting.

You see, it's easy to spend every minute of the day caught up in thoughts—good and bad—about what may or may not happen down the road. We do this with our work, our relationships, our health. With politics and with everything else going on. Ultimately, very little of it is under your control.

What if you were to let go a little bit more, and a little more often?

I’m curious if this story resonates for you. If so, how?

Feel free to message me and share from your own life.