Effectivity

Don’t Rock the Boat

Imagine you are packing to take a trip up river in a small boat.  There are two different approaches to deciding what to take.  The first is to think of all the things that you would like to take with you on your trip.  The second is to think of the things that you wouldn’t want to be without on your trip.  As you can imagine, the two approaches could end in two very different results - one of them wet and soggy.

This is the scenario described in the novel Three Men in a Boat (1889) by Jerome K Jerome.  He uses the image of the load that we might carry in a boat, to discuss the load we carry in life.  His words describe the situation better than I could so I have included an excerpt below:

“How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat until it is in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think are essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber….fine clothes and big houses…friends that do not care for them, and that they do not care for.  Expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with…the dread of what will my neighbour think”

He goes on to suggest that if we choose carefully what we fill our lives with - our load - then we will find our life simpler, more free and more maneuverable. 

Not only will a light boat handle well and ease the complications of your journey, it will also be fast and efficient.  By only including what is really important to you, your progress towards your goals will be more direct and reliable.  And the really beautiful part is that you will have spar

e time, rather than being constantly at the mercy of time.  As you sail along the river, you will be able to watch and listen, fine tune your course and plan ahead.  Your time will be more flexible and less stressful, and in the end the journey will be more like an adventure than a struggle.

“You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good plain merchandise will stand water.  You will have time to think as well as to work.  Time to drink in life’s sunshine”

There are a million things that I would like to include in my life.  Our world offers endless oportunities like that.  But when I am in a sane, sensible state of mind I realise that very few of these things are actually important to me. 

 I love playing music, but not enough to devote hours of practice, so playing music does not make it into my boat at the moment.  The idea of writing a novel excites me, but I know that if I concentrate on that, then something more important will suffer.  I often toy with the idea of buying a little Japanese vintage sports car, but I know it would become just another time trap that sucks my energy from the things that are really important to me.  Instead I have decided to limit the number of things that I include in my life.  This lets me give each of these things - relationships, projects, goals, passions - the time and energy that it deserves.  This allows me to run and jump at oportunity rather than struggle under a massive burden.  It allows me to steadily and deliberately move towards my goals and still gives me the space to enjoy the journey.  By minimizing my luggage, I have reduced the chances of failure, but also increased the chances of recovery if I should capsize.  I have found that there is no downside to reducing my load.  When I take the important things with me and leave the others behind I never look back. 

“You know we are on the wrong track altogether.  We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.”  Jerome K Jerome (1889) Three Men in a Boat

What would you like to include in your boat but know that it would just weigh you down? 

Photo credit : Loaded by 416 Style