Against the Flow

 

Sometimes it feels as though I am swimming against the flow. Any swimmer in my home area will know how that feels since the River Arun flows into the sea at Littlehampton. The River Arun in one of the fastest rivers in the country. It is tidal for roughly 25 miles as it travels towards some small streams at the source to the east of Horsham. It has a ferocious current with barely a slack time between the tide coming in and then tearing back out again. There are a number of great swimming events held in the Littlehampton stretches of the river and although the organizers try hard to hit the supposed slack time of the tide, it really is just a quieter movement that never quite seems completely still. 

Once the river meets the sea it does not breathe a gentle exhalation and melt softly into the English Channel. But instead it starts to bear to the east and one can see where it flows into the sea in quite clearly visible colour line. It flows on for a long way and has a bad tempered swirl back on the beach side. This makes swimming, even travelling parallel with the shore a bit hit and miss but generally if you swim from the West to the East to the end of the promenade area it will be very hard and sometimes like a contra jet in an endless pool. Then if you swam say twenty five minutes against the flow it will just take ten minutes to get back.

I find that life is very much like that; the harder you swim in the direction you want to head toward and the ideas and goals that you hope to achieve, the more you find that now and again, you are washed back pretty much to square one. You have choices in life of course and you can take the easy route and settle down to go with the flow and a more simple life, travelling in the same direction as most other folk, earning your crust, not having too much stress and being content with the way of life you chose.  

That seems to be my problem, along with my husband of course and a surprising amount of other people I know who also like the look of direction that requires more effort, and that the flow needs to be fought to make any headway. 

Never losing sight of whatever is that is pricking at the back of your head. Do not be put off when it gets hard or the effort makes you wonder if it’s worth it. Most importantly do not let other people, who don’t have your attitude, strength of mind, contrary streak or plain pig headedness, put barriers in your way. Follow your crazy, daft dreams or die trying, whilst some stand still slowly shaking their level heads.