To set October off on the right foot, I went exploring. 

Not big exploring for weeks on end, out in the middle of nowhere. But close exploring in a tiny patch of Wild Florida I hadn’t seen in my 33 years as a native. If you’re used to cities having more than 100 people in them, then maybe you’d call the place I spent my adventure in “the middle of nowhere” anyway. But for me, just over 3 hours from home, it felt like a tiny escape.

If you’ve ever seen my rooftop tent, you know I love to get out into quiet places and enjoy sleeping up among the trees. It’s even more amazing if I can catch a slice of outside that isn’t crowded with other adventurers. And this trip, I got quite a bit of alone time with the wildlife.

Monday in particular, I went for a paddle, taking a rented kayak through an interwoven labyrinth of rivers, connecting native Florida wildlife in watery pathways crowded with birds, and critters of all kinds. I crept past alligators, tiny snakes sunning, and even paddled up to a manatee carving its way through one of the larger waterways.

You could say I’m an experienced kayaker, but I don’t go paddling often. So I did what smart adventurers do, and paddled against the current while my arms were freshest, heading straight out to follow my trusty map back to a hidden grotto I read about in someone’s blog. Paper map in front of me, clear documentation that the streams I would follow went on for miles in every direction, I was reminded how different the perspective is picking your way through narrow breaks in the trees than it is on paper. Even knowing others had navigated the miles between me and my destination...it really didn’t look like there were miles of waterways ahead of me. 

It looked like I had about 5 strokes in front of me, and then I’d hit a dense wall of trees and brush. A wet, living, dead end. 

If I just trusted my eyes, I’d have turned back and kept to the big, obvious waterways. There just wasn’t any way through all that heavy overgrowth. And though I knew other people had come before, there wasn’t anyone out that morning but me.

But see, that’s the thing about journeys. Even with a map telling you the destination exists, you can’t actually see all the way to the destination. At best, you see 5 strokes of the paddle in front of you. And if you sit, and wait...holding ground until you see further than 5 strokes, you’ll never advance.

You advance by taking those 5 strokes.

With each pull of the paddle in the water, my perspective would shift. It didn’t transform to finally show me the full path...but 100% of what I was seeing would change just a little...always showing me about 5 strokes worth of waterway ahead.

Lately, I’ve been trying to learn about trust and obedience. In my spiritual life, I’ve been seeking a deeper understanding of trust, working to exchange it for worry in the heart of my life. I feel like trust is allowing yourself to be present, and to focus on the 5 paddle strokes at hand. Obedience is moving the paddle through the water...even if you don’t know how much longer you can keep paddling.

You paddle where you can, while you can. You use what strength you’ve got, and keep caring about what is in front of you in an engaged way. You let your life boil down — not to a roiling pile of unanswerable questions and relentless uncertainty — you let your life boil down to the things that you have the power to do right where you are, with what you’ve got, according to your best judgment about which direction is worth the work.

During my paddle, it was about a solid hour of uncertainty. The world I dragged my kayak through was beautiful, secluded, and rejuvenating in a way that being lost in nature always is to me.

But the parallels to the rest of my life made me wonder:

Is it possible to find peace and focus in the long term goals of my everyday life, by looking for the next 5 strokes? Instead of having the great distance I feel between myself and my next professional goal feel discouraging, what if it settled me down to paddle? What if I felt deeply okay with my lack of vision for the END of the journey, because I accepted that I don’t have to see the end in order to bring it steadily closer?

I think most of us are afraid if we settle into taking one stroke after another that we’ll wake up weeks (or even years) from now woefully off-track from where we want to go. Arguably, this “next 5 strokes” approach is a way of taking action in structured ignorance. We believe we have a “real” destination that “can be” reached from where we are, so we “just trust” and take action.

There’s one last thing to say on this analogy of adventure, and learning to move forward in structured ignorance. It’s what helpful locals and salty guides do intuitively whenever they give directions to newcomers and tourists. You’ve likely done the same yourself when helping someone else find there way to a place you’re certain exists, but which they’ve not yet reached on their own.

It’s the “you’ve gone too far” designation.

Every person I encountered on my way to my rented kayak and out through the fingers of this secluded nest of river sections uttered these words “You’ll know you’ve gone too far if…” 

7 words.

I heard them from a nursing mother, a distracted rental agent, a gnarled captain, and a random photojournalist. Each of them, in their own way, conveyed identical information, without exception. When I think back to that day I notice that there wasn’t a single person I talked to, who knew where I was trying to go, who didn’t utter those words. It was all of them.

I think those 7 words are what separate brave perseverance from reckless stupidity.

It’s one thing to push forward, taking the 5 strokes you can see, trusting the intention and importance of your goal and the strength of your planning with a clear picture of what “too far” looks like. It’s another entirely to set out on an adventure, ill-equipped to make route-changing choices along the way.

You may have something in your life that people have told you to be brave and “go for it” about. Or perhaps your own dream seems to live at the end of a messy labyrinth of life choices that you feel forced to keep making in the dark. By all means, cling to the power of a “next 5 strokes” ethos. But arm yourself with the protection of “you’ll know you’ve gone too far it…”

Bravery is about mindful risk-taking. Not mindless wish-making. 

Sometimes we instinctively know what “too far” looks like. But some adventures take us too far from what we’ve known. We can’t anticipate what likely challenges are in an arena we completely lack experience in. So seek guidance and idea-sharing with others who might know. And define your “too far.”

Once you’ve got that, then you’re ready to sink into the stroke. To give your whole attention, your slowly-growing grit, and unique passion to the next 5 strokes. When you do that the sweat is satisfying and consistency becomes possible. Better yet, progress comes… and so do the payoffs of new waters.

Maybe the next 5 strokes are the next 5 emails you’ve got to send. Or trying to get to bed at a decent hour each day this week. Or researching job opportunities in your area.

Or maybe it’s defining “too far” for your current goal.

Whatever it is, you can do it. 

And remember to reach out to me anytime... I always love hearing about your Wild Ideas, and Brave Action!