You Are My Sail

One day while casually walking through the woods I came across a man who was in a small row boat sitting in the middle of the river.

As I got closer I noticed he wasn’t moving. He was trying to go up stream with only a paddle. I also noticed that his boat was loaded with personal belongings that weighted the boat down so heavy that the water was pouring in from the sides anytime any small ripple in the water ran into his boat. He would frequently stop and take breaks just to scoop some of the water out.

It was the beginning of spring, the river was high and the current was strong. It seemed that no matter how hard he paddled he wouldn’t be able to make much progress.

I yelled out to him, “What on earth are you doing?”

His reply, “It’s obvious isn’t it? I’m trying to paddle up this river.”

“Where are you trying to go?”, I yelled back.

“Forward! Anywhere but backwards, I’ve been down that road before. There’s nothing for me there anymore!”

“You’ll never make it anywhere like that!” I shouted back.

He ignored me and continued to paddle. Amused, I sat there and watched him. After about 30 minutes of continuous rowing he started to lose progress and go backwards. Realizing that he didn’t have the strength to go forward he rowed to the shoreline near me.

I ran down to help him haul his boat onto shore. He collapsed on the ground panting.

“It’s exhausting isn’t it?”

“What’s that?” he said.

“Trying to go forward with all this resistance…I mean the current is so strong, all you have is a paddle, and your boat is nearly capsizing from all of the things you’ve packed into it. Why are you doing it?”

He turned to me and said something I’ll never forget.

“Son, I’ve been trying to go forward all of my life. When I was younger it was easy, the current was slow and my boat wasn’t filled with junk. Hell, for awhile I was even going with the current and didn’t have to do anything. But as time went by I picked up more and more stuff.”

He turned and pointed to the boat. “You see these things in the boat?”

I nodded.

“These things are part of me, they came with the boat. Go ahead try to remove something.”

I hesitated but then I reached down to his boat and tried to pull out one of the objects. It wouldn’t budge.

“You see, this is the only boat I have and I believe that a few miles up this stream, I’ll find happiness. So I’ll keep rowing and rowing until I get there.”

He continued.

“On somedays I inch forward, on other days I end up falling backwards, and on days like today, I have to side track to this shoreline where I am talking to you.”

“Why do you use only a paddle, surely there must be another way?”

In all of his years of rowing he had never questioned why he had used only a paddle, but he didn’t know what else to use.

I noticed that a wind was blowing up stream.

“Why don’t you make a sail, surely the wind can help you along the way?”

“But I don’t have a sail.” he said.

“Well…what’s in all of these boxes on the boat? There must be something we can use as a sail?”

The man looked shocked. In all of his years of rowing he had never thought to actually look in any of the boxes.

“I guess it’s worth a try.” he said.

We rummaged through the boxes and I found a sweater.

“How about this?” I said.

He looked up at it. “That is a sweater a girlfriend of mine gave me long ago as a Christmas present.”

Not understanding what he was implying I said, “Well can we try to make a sail out of it?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not.”

We went to work immediately on the sail. After about an hour we had fashioned the sweater into a sail.

“Here goes nothing he said.”

He got back into his boat and I helped him push off. The wind caught the sail and he began moving forward. He was moving so fast that he didn’t even have to paddle, but he did anyways, because his destination was important.

I never saw him again, but I believe in my heart that he did indeed find his happiness.

The moral of the story is when you are struggling in life to move forward, your burdens weigh you down, and everything seems to be against you; sometimes what you need to get to your destination, you already have right beside you. Things you’ve had all along and unless you take the time to look around and see them for what they truly are, blessings; they’ll always weigh you down. Everything in life has a use; to learn, to grow, or to move forward.

You are my sail.