Put Down the Raft!
Letting go of what no longer serves you
The Raft
I heard an analogy the other day, a fable really, told by Jay Shetty on his ‘On Purpose’ podcast and it struck me as incredibly meaningful. Perhaps it will appeal to you as well.
A man and his friend are stuck on an island in the middle of a wide and treacherous river. They decide the only way to save themselves is to build a raft. They build this raft and it is strong and heavy and sturdy. It gets them safely across the river. The man says, ‘This raft has saved our lives, I will never be without it. I will carry it forever so that I am always safe.’
The man goes on to carry the strong and heavy and sturdy raft for many, many miles. Then one day he and his friend enter a forest filled with giant trees and thick, twisted underbrush. Carrying the strong and heavy and sturdy raft, he begins to struggle as the raft bangs upon trees and he stumbles as his feet tangle in the underbrush.
The friend says, ‘Why don’t you put the raft down? It no longer serves us here in the forest.’ But the man is steadfast in his conviction that the strong and heavy and sturdy raft saved them once and should always remain with them.
The friend goes on traveling easily through the forest trees and underbrush as the man continues battling the weight and cumbersomeness of the strong and heavy and sturdy raft, until night falls. The friend, having scampered ahead, greets the exhausted and frustrated man with a campfire and a forest scavenged meal.
The weakened, battled, and bruised man says, ‘I do not understand. This raft served us so well in the river; it saved my life. How can it cause so much pain now?’ The friend gently tells the man, ‘It served you well then, at that time, in that place. You are grateful for the raft, but you no longer need it now, in this time and this place. Now, it is time to let it go.’
The Moral
The moral here is simple but profound. What provided purpose, security, progress, and in fact life, is now cumbersome and disabling. Though grateful for the experience and lessons taught by the raft, it is necessary to release it in order to continue traveling, growing, moving forward. Two things may be true at the same time. Simple yet profound. Secure yet cumbersome. Grateful yet moving onward.
How many of us can easily relate to the heavy weight of the ‘raft,’ the thing that provided safety and success at one time, but now is keeping us stuck, unable to move forward. My ‘raft’ is the profession I have adored and advanced in for many years, only now beginning to feel heavy and stagnant and no longer allowing forward momentum.
For some of us it may also be a job, or maybe it’s a friendship, a residence, a routine or habit. Using this analogy, we are still able to love and appreciate and be grateful for the raft and what it provided, what it taught us. But at the same time, we are able to acknowledge that if it no longer serves us in this time and place of our lives, then it is time to put the raft down. Two things may be true at the same time.
A Quote for the Raft
My favorite character in the raft analogy is the friend. He asks the man, ‘Why don’t you put it down?’ but he doesn’t push him or demand that the man listen to his friend’s advice. He sort of like a coach in that way. Another quote I ran into on the Calm app the other day spoke to how this friend helped the man or how a coach strives to help their clients:
When you ask for help making a decision,
remember that you shouldn’t really want the answer.
You should want help finding the answer.
My Ah-ha Moment
I was meeting with my own coach earlier this week after a terribly difficult day. I was feeling so frustrated with a situation that I had minimal control over and I was deep in my emotions about it.
She listened to what I am sure was a good 20 minutes or so of hemming and hawing, circling possibilities, repeating the specifics of the seemingly no-win scenario, and she listened and listened and listened. But what was interesting was she kept asking in that amazingly calm and kind way that coaches have because they are not IN the situation themselves (I KNOW how this works, and it STILL amazes me every time I’m on the opposite side of it!), she said, “You are so upset. There is something else happening here. Tell me more about why you are so upset.”
Eventually, I was able to articulate that yes, I felt angry right now because of the specific situation, but that this one event is simply a reminder of why I feel sad about my life as an educator and how my values and commitments are still there but the environment has changed so much that my values and commitments no longer seem to fit. For me, teaching has always been more about talking and discussion, problem solving, debating without being unkind, being helpful to others while encouraging independence, in essence working to build students up to be the best possible human they can become so that they are prepared to lead and change the world as they grow.
And yes, I know that sounds incredibly altruistic, but that's truly what I always believed our responsibility was as educators. Teach them the content, sure, but more importantly, teach them how to be good human beings. With all the prompting and questioning and listening, listening, listening, I eventually said, “So yes, I’m sad. I'm sad that it's over, this career that I felt so passionate about, it’s just so different from what it was. But at the same time, I'm scared because I don't know what lies ahead, what's coming next, where my need for authentic learning and personal development for kids will be met.”
And then I swear the earth moved beneath me when she said, “So this is really what is happening now. Let me give your words back to you as I heard them. You are saying,
“I'm sad that it's over and I'm scared that it might not be.”
And there it was. The place where I put my raft down. It was that clarity, that sense of ‘Oh, THAT’S what I’ve been carrying around on my back! I should probably let go of that!’ It was that knowing-ness of hearing exactly how I felt but couldn’t quite articulate on my own in that moment. And then it was this warm, gooey feeling that, you know what? It’s okay to feel sad for losing something and simultaneously afraid that you might not be quite out of it yet, but that now you know. And again, two things can be true at the same time.
Three Truths
I wanted to put this all together here because each of these elements came to me over the course of a week and they felt like serendipitous kismet to me. Here they are all together:
If the raft no longer serves you, put down the raft!
When you ask for help making a decision, remember that you shouldn’t really want the answer. You should want help finding the answer.
“I'm sad that it's over and I'm scared that it might not be.”
But wait! There’s one more…
Wise Words from Alice
Today I stumbled upon an article about Alice Monro, the acclaimed short story author from Canada who recently passed away. The article was written in Publishing Weekly in 1986. In the article, Monro said that she really wasn't interested in writing novels because “I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that's the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don't understand. The novel has to have a coherence, which I don't see anymore in the lives around me.”
So here we have Alice Monro, who was revered for her ability not just to write a story but to write a story as if she was truly seeing inside of a person's soul and knowing what their life experiences meant to them, what their relationships meant to them, what living meant to them. And in 1986, she noticed that people were living not really in connected moments of experience' but instead they were remaking themselves over and over bit by bit and not necessarily living with one master plan in mind…that’s some seriously inspiring premonition from Alice Monro!
In essence, if you have been lugging around that raft for the last 10, 15, 20 years and you say to yourself, ‘You know what? This raft is starting to give me a pain in the back. I think I need to put this raft down and I need to figure out what's going to help me get farther along in life without pain and maybe with a bit of happiness and success. Yup, I think I’ll put the raft down!’
Four Nuggets to Ponder
And now, all four of the wisdom nuggets I stumbled upon this week come together in this neat and tidy little list of perspective to ponder:
If the raft no longer serves you, put down the raft!
When you ask for help making a decision, remember that you shouldn’t really want the answer. You should want help finding the answer.
“I'm sad that it's over and I'm scared that it might not be.”
Alice Monro noticed that people live in ‘intense, but not connected, moments of experience.’ They ‘remake themselves bit by bit’ throughout their lives.
Coaching, Teaching, or Personal Reflection
The questions for you this week are more flexible in that they may be applied to a student setting, a coaching session, or for your own personal journaling or reflection. Extra points if you are able to hold two things as true at the same time!
Do you have a ‘raft’ that no longer serves you?
Do you find yourself holding on to the ‘raft’ because it served you so well in the past? How does it serve you presently?
If it no longer serves you well, how might you work toward letting it go, putting it down?
Tell me about a ‘raft’ that you carried and that that did serve you well previously, but that you no longer carry. How do you feel without it?
Would you describe your life as a ‘well-made novel with coherence’ and order or do you see your life as one in which you have ‘remade yourself bit by bit’ over time without knowing exactly where you were going?
And this one is just for you, dear readers…
Another fantastic admission from Alice Monro was that she didn't need to know right away how her story would end. She said, “Once I'm into it, I'll find out what happens. It's getting into it that's important, not caring what happens.”
“A story is a spell, rather than a narrative.”
What does she mean by “a story is a spell, rather than a narrative?”
How about your story…is it a spell or a narrative?
Hope you enjoyed these stories, quotes, and connections as much as I did!
Be well,
Nicole
Love this - “When you ask for help making a decision, remember that you shouldn’t really want the answer. You should want help finding the answer.” Really gave me something to think about. As did the whole article. I think I remake myself bit by bit.
I also love the raft analogy. It certainly applies to my own life, particularly the pang associated with letting go of something in order to move forward. That said, the part of this post that gave me goosebumps is the connection to your own life and the way you described the mix of emotions associated with identifying your own raft and coming to the conclusion that it's time to put it down. Powerful writing, Nicole, and powerful living!!