Welcome to the river of your life.

These are the waters that lead you through every choice, and every decision you’ll ever encounter. And there you are, suited up and ready to take on life’s big challenges. I see you’ve got your kayak, life jacket, and paddle all ready. Time to get going. But first…

Where do you want to go?

Want to see the wonders of the world?

Search for fame and fortune?

Discover the cure for cancer?

Or maybe even find true love?

It’s all here on the river. You just have to set your course, and you can be on your way.

Nice! Looks like you’ve mapped it all out, and know your goal! Now it’s time to make your first big decision. As captain of this kayak, you call all the shots.

Paddle towards your goal, or paddle towards the unknown?

This is a no brainer, right? Let’s head towards that big goal!

Great!

First decision done. You’re moving quickly towards your dream life. In no time, you’ll be the founder of the next big startup, a millionaire by twenty, have a PhD from an Ivy League school, and be happily married with six-pack abs!

Easy.

Life might look complicated from the outside, but when you create a great plan, anything is possible.

Okay next big decision coming up!

Not a problem. You know what to do.

Follow your map and take the path towards your goals!

Uh… wait. What the hell is going on?

Everything was smooth sailing, but now the current is ripping you away from your charted path. Away from your goals, and away from the person you were always meant to be!

Fight!

Fight like hell!

If the river takes you, the plan is ruined!

Oh God….

You look exhausted!

You paddled like crazy, and still missed that turn. Is everything okay?

I guess there was one thing I forgot to tell you about the river of life. In addition to the plans you made for yourself, the river has plans for you too.

The Current of Your Life

At each juncture in our lives, there is a force the lies beneath the surface waiting to exert a bit of pressure. Sometimes it’s just a small push—one that we can easily row our way out of. Other times, it’s a raging rapid and we don’t stand a chance.

These currents are made up of two very powerful and very permanent forces. They are: Luck and Society.

Luck is the serendipity that brings you to places you could have never dreamed of. The random introduction to your future spouse, and the catastrophic car accident that changes everything. Luck is beauty and chaos.

The same can be said for its counterpart, Society.

Society is the massive undulating movements of the times. It’s the zeitgeist that colors everything you do. Your race, gender, the economy, social conflict, trends, and prevailing political norms, all play a part in this larger force.

Both Luck and Society are powerful beyond comprehension. They invisibly lurk just below the surface of every decision you make. Fighting them—in order to stay your course—is a worthy but, ultimately, futile cause.

You have plans, and the river has plans.

So what are you supposed to do?

Your life has plans of its own

I used to live my life rallying against the currents.

I knew who I wanted to be, and exactly how I was going to get there.

Even as a kid, I had these nice clean and linear plans. I’d save twenty percent of my salary each month, and by the time I was 30, I’d be a millionaire. I’d go to Columbia University, I’d travel the world, and I’d be one of the most influential people in my field.

But the river of life….

Its plans are always stronger.

So roadblocks started to appear. Choices would be made for me by the currents of Luck and Society. Soon enough, I found myself far from my original course.

This wasn’t the life I had planned—but when I looked around—it wasn’t so bad either.

I found myself living in San Francisco, the founder of an event organization for startups, connected to thousands of people in the city. I’ve been dating the same incredible girl for 13 years. I learned how to code, I’ve dug up fossils in Ethiopia, swam in the Ganges River, and ate a private meal cooked by the best chef in the world.

My life was weird. Far weirder than I could have ever imagined.

It was at that moment, I decided to stop planning.

And instead, I learned how to live with the river, instead of battling it.

How to live with the river

We have three ways to navigate our lives.

The first is to fight like hell. To do everything in our power to bring our lives into fruition. We stay at dead-end jobs, fight for terrible relationships, work long nights, and send out thousands of emails. We rile, and thrash about. Only to have the currents of Luck and Society eventually crush us under their power.

The second is to succumb. To throw our oars aside, and simply take the current down to it’s conclusion. Whatever the river had planned for us—whether we liked it or not—is where we’ll end up. While we may arrive well rested, we will have played no part in shaping our own lives.

The third option is to paddle when we can, and rest when we must. To recognize that when the forces of Luck and Society are weak, we can exert our power over them. And when the currents are strong, we can conserve our energies, and admire the sights.

The curse of getting exactly what you wanted

The map of everything available to you in this life is a twisting and turning labyrinth of wonder and possibility. There are treasures beyond compare found along each stream and tributary.

But we miss this fact when we approach our lives as a master cartographer. When we map out our ideal plan before ever setting sail.

The thing about a charted course is, if somehow—through a sheer miracle—you were able follow it perfectly, two terrible things would befall you. 

The first is, when you get to your destination, you will be completely exhausted. You will have battled and fought at every turn in your entire life.

The second is, you will have missed out on everything else the river of life had to offer. By single-mindedly pursing this ambition, you will by virtue, have cast out everything else. All serendipity, all humanity, all the organic offshoots of life. You will have missed the whole damn thing.

We all know someone who became everything they ever wanted. They’re not nearly as happy as we’d imagined. 

Finding happiness on any route

The map you drew when you were 10, or 20, or 30 (or whenever you devised this great plan of exactly who you were going to be) was radically, and comically, small.

At the time of its conception, you were only aware of a tiny piece, within a tiny piece, of the breadth of options life had in store for you. By zooming out, and seeing the true nature of our possibilities, we’ll come to realize there is only one real option.

Acceptance and appreciation.

Our life might not turn out exactly how we planned, but instead we are gifted something even better.

We are gifted with wonder. Our life becomes a story that we shape and experience simultaneously. We are both the main character, and the author, driven to answer one thrilling question:

“What’s going to happen next?”

Ah yes, the river’s end

Now, I admit there is one final thing.

One thing I haven’t told you yet about our river. Something that might assuage the last of you to abandon the perfect plans you’ve created, and decide to become more curious explorers of your life.

and that is…

No matter which tributary you end up in, no matter which streams you’ve taken. No matter how hard, or true you’ve struggled to stay on your perfect course… the truth is, every single path leads to a magnificent, raging, and deadly waterfall.

The story ends the same for all of us.

Life can either be a big monumentous battle to architect your every aspiration into existence.

Or it can be a leisurely cruise, full of curiosity and wonderment. Where you end up far from your planned destination, but happy nonetheless.

You can either fight like hell for what you think is best, or you can work in concert with nature, bringing something even more spectacular into existence.

—Zac

Let’s jam together in the comments!

1. What’s something fantastic that’s happened in your life, that was coincidental, or out of your control?

2. How do you approach big life plans? Do you think setting 5 year goals makes sense?

3. Share something you’ve been working on! I’d love to see some of your creative works. Feel free to drop a link. Leave a comment