Effort …. to change …

I had surprised myself this morning…woke up before sunrise [hahah, :) b’cos went to bed early]… so i took a walk to the beach, 15 minutes away from my home.

While watching the sun rise above the horizon, I also had a chance to view planes taking off [the airport is in the same direction]. On the south side, i was watching some men swimming in the water, with very choppy waters.

I also noticed some birds trying to fly.

The aeroplanes flying, the birds flying, and the men swimming all had something in common.

All 3 of the them – plane, bird and men – were creating motion or locomotion. The bird was trying to fly against the wind and it is not the type that rides the draft of the wind [eg sea gull, eagles], so it was flapping very hard. After a very short while, it kind of gave up and decided to fly with the wind.

The planes, we know have fuel and aerodynamic designs that help them to fly against gravity and wind etc.

This stretch of beach is not the most appropriate for swimming because Singapore is a deep water harbour. There are lots of tankers, vessels moored out in the middle of the ocean – still within sight from shore. [We are one of the world’s busiest ports, if not the top.]

So watching these mid-age men swimming got me thinking about their safety. The men – 2 of them were already swimming out there while another 3 started to join the 2 one at a time…like a convoy.

Interestingly, while i was distracted by the aeroplanes taking off on my left side, i was surprised that when I turned right, the 3rd man took a very very long time to reach the 1st 2 men. Then the 4th man took a very speedy moment to reach the same 2 men out there.

Eventually, both 3rd and 4th men made it out there almost together. The 4th man seemed to have glided through the water effortlessly [breaststroke] while the 3rd man swarm [freestyle].

That got me thinking why the 3rd man took so long. From my view a distance away, it felt like he swam painfully against the current and making minimal headway. It felt like he took forever to make very little headway. Whereas the 4th guy did it so fast.

So it is with our change journey. We either need the ‘fuel’ and / or aerodynamic design to assist us with speed or we need to swim very very hard in the opposite direction to overcome the ‘current’.

To go against the flow takes a lot of determination, guts, and relentless focus. The bird gave up but the men did not.