When I was 13, I stood less than 20 feet from a mother moose and her calf. I was with some friends from Boy Scouts, hiking above our camp in the mountains, when we stumbled onto a meadow and saw them grazing.
None of us knew how dangerous that encounter was.
We were kids — curious, loud, and full of bad instincts. We walked away quietly, “borrowed” a head of lettuce from our coolers, and tossed it in her direction. I don’t remember if she ate it or just kept staring. One thing, though. I’ll never forget the stillness.
Thankfully, she didn’t charge us. She just stood there. We were studying her and she was studying us.
It was a peaceful moment that could’ve turned violent without any warning. She made the decision for both of us, and thankfully, that was to turn and walk away into the trees.
It’s probably for the best that we never saw her or her calf again.
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about that experience. It wasn’t a storm in my life but it had all the ingredients to become one. We were fortunate. None of us had any idea how protective a moose can be of its calf.
The experience seems like a good analogy for life: sometimes quite on the surface; underneath, the potential for or an actual, violent storm.
When a storm first hits, it’s hard to tell if you’re just feeling the ripple of waves passing through or if those ripples are a sign of something deeper and more serious.
A shift in the current, if you will.
Waves are the everyday, surface-level disruptions like a hard day, an argument, some bad news. They crash over you sometimes loud and sudden, and sometimes relentless.
The current is what’s happening underneath — your direction, values, and long-term momentum. It doesn’t always show up immediately. Most of the time, you’re not even aware it’s there because it’s been created by a lifetime of experiences and values. Ultimately, however, it’s what decides where you end up.
So often, we mistake the waves for the current. We panic when we feel the jolt of impact and assume we’re being dragged somewhere new, but not every wave means the current has changed. In fact, most waves don’t signal a change, but not every current shift comes with noise either.
Waves demand attention, sometimes for a long time and sometimes for just a moment. Currents require discernment.
So how do we know when the waves matter, and when they’re just passing through?
Reality is, that’s a hard question to answer, and I’ve answered wrong both ways.
There was a time in my life when everything felt off. Work was stressful, I felt like my wife and I weren’t on the same page on a lot of thing, and I was a lot less patient than I typically am with our kids. I chalked it up to a rough season of choppy waters and endless waves, nothing more. Like I typically do, I figured I could just push through (just keep swimming, right?). I didn’t need to talk to anyone because things would eventually settle down.
But they didn’t.
Weeks turned into months, and that sense of “off” didn’t fade. It worked its way deeper into my life. I wasn’t just tired from pushing through. I was depleted.
One evening, standing in front of the spice cabinet in our kitchen, I realized that this wasn’t a series of bad days.
The current in my life had shifted.
You could argue that it took me too long to admit it, but perhaps the lessons I needed to learn were still building enough momentum to break through the surface of those turbulent waters.
It was, however, one of those moments that stopped me right where I stood and caused me to question what changed. What values had I laid down to carry the burden I’d lashed to my own back?
I’m not exaggerating when I say that moment was life-altering, standing in my kitchen holding a dusty, old container of dried rosemary. It was a dramatic change where I realized the current I was swimming in was not where I wanted to be, so I got out of the turbulent water.
Then again, we’ve all had those moments in life when we’ve made big decisions because of a single wave. An unfriendly comment from a co-worker or family member. A disappointing outcome. A brief identity crisis when something you put your heart and soul into failed. In those cases, abandoning ship isn’t generally the right move. Sometimes, all you need is a bit of rest, a bit of perspective, and a good snack.
“Wow, those are great little anecdotes,” you might be saying to yourself, “but Aaron, you still haven’t answered the question.”
I said it wasn’t easy. The challenge is knowing when to ride it out and when to course-correct (or pick a completely new boat). Look, there’s no clean formula for that. Sometimes, a wave feels like it’s drowning you, until you realize the water’s only a foot deep and you can stand up. Other times, it feels manageable until one day you realize how exhausted you are from swimming in the wrong direction for months. Sometimes, you are swimming the right direction, but the current is so strong you feel like you’re not moving.
That’s the quiet danger of confusing waves and currents. You either overreact to something temporary or you miss something lasting until it carries you somewhere you never meant to go.
There are some practical questions to ask when the water starts getting rough:
- Is this exhaustion or disconnection?
- Am I reacting to a moment or drifting from who I want to be?
- Is this feeling new or is this a pattern I’ve been ignoring?
Those are a few drops in the sea of questions you could ask yourself, and the questions you ask may not give you immediate answers. But they can help you take a breath. Questioning is an invitation to notice whether you’re being tossed around by a storm but are still where you belong or if you’ve slowly, silently drifted into another ocean altogether.
Back in that meadow of nearly thirty-five year ago, the moose didn’t charge us. We got to walk away and tell the story. We even convinced more friends to come with us to see if we could find the moose again. We were too ignorant to know the danger we faced, but that mother was experienced enough to know we weren’t a threat. We were fortunate that we didn’t push her boundaries enough to make her change her mind.
When you’re staring down a metaphorical moose or being buffeted by waves, presence of mind is required to decide whether to stand your ground or swim away. Knowing how to decide is part of the wisdom we collect as we go.
We’ll all face storms (or moose). Sometimes we feel pulled by undercurrents we don’t even notice until we’re miles from where we started. Sometimes, like a group of clueless kids in a meadow, we just get lucky. Luck isn’t a great strategy. At some point, we all have to learn how to tell the difference between the wind at our back and the tide that’s dragging us out.
When we do, the important thing to remember is that we get to choose how we respond — with wisdom, clarity, and hopefully, without a moose deciding for us.
Thanks for reading, and before you go. . .
I’m Aaron Pace. I write about life, business, and lessons learned from navigating life with curiosity and a touch of humor. As a lifelong problem-solve with a love of storytelling, I’d like to invite you to follow me here (on Medium.com), where I explore the happy union of growth, human value, and innovation.
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