Against the Flow

My friend Brad mentioned a bike ride he took the other day and how the ride out with the wind at his back was easy but coming back with the wind against him, it was quite challenging.  That same day, I had walked at a track after work. The wind was blowing about 25 mph and I experienced the same thing. Walking with the wind was a breeze (no pun intended) but when I started back against the wind, I thought I would die from exhaustion.

Life is much easier when we go with the flow, have the wind at our back, and all the other adages of that sort but to do the opposite builds muscles, spiritual, emotional and physical.

Someone told me once that doing the right thing sometimes doesn’t feel the best.  Sometimes doing what’s right is the most difficult course of all to take.  It’s much easier to fit in with the crowd if you are doing what the crowd is doing, right or wrong.

It takes a lot more courage to speak up for example when someone is being treated unfairly.  It takes a lot more courage to say “that offends me” than it does to just ignore the conversation or the person.  It is a lot easier to listen to, even if you don’t jump in and participate when someone is gossiping about a co-worker or a friend. It is a lot easier to stay silent about your faith for example, than to risk offending someone by telling them about your faith. 

When I was a little girl, there was a girl at school that took great pains to bully me every day in every way possible.  From calling me a gopher (because my teeth stuck out a little) to making fun of my clothes, to taking my lunch money.  I was a very sensitive, emotional little girl and I cried at the drop of a hat.  This classmate knew exactly how to push my buttons, how to make me cry and so I spent a lot of days being called a crybaby.  If I told a teacher about it and they said something to the bully, it just seemed to make it worse.   The worst part was that when this girl wasn’t around, everything was fine.  My other classmates genuinely liked me, we had a great time together.  But as soon as the bully appeared, it was easier for them to join in with her than to stand up for me. Much easier to go with the flow than to resist.

I think sometimes that this is where my tendency to champion the underdog comes from.  I will almost always root for the less likely to succeed.  I can’t tolerate meanness or bullying in any form. Seeing someone mistreated is one of the few things that can make me really mad.  Ironically, I was mistreated badly in my first marriage and instead of speaking up and taking care of the situation, I reverted to the scared, bullied little girl I had been.  It took years to reach the point that I felt enough value in myself to decide I would no longer tolerate the abuse.

Years ago, the water park where I live offered an early morning exercise program called Against the Flow.  The park had a “lazy river” in which the water simply flowed around a winding path.  The idea of the program was to walk against the flow of the water and this resistance would build muscles and burn more calories.  The flow of the water was very gentle and calm when you went with the flow.  Going against the flow however made you feel as if you were fighting to stay upright.  It was amazing how that little bit of resistance could be so difficult.  At the end of the session most of us would go ahead and reverse direction and go with the flow.  It was the best part of the class.  No resistance required.  It was simply heaven to be floated along, not having to do anything.

Going against the flow may mean standing up for your convictions, your ideals and your beliefs.  Going against the flow may mean you offend and make a few people uncomfortable.  Going against the flow is certainly going to be a bigger challenge than simply not resisting.  But the muscles you build along the way will be worth it in the long run.

“Flex em”