Get Everything Done

Life is like a boat going places. Sometime around 18yrs old, your parents untie the rope that attaches your lifeboat to their yacht. Instead of being towed, directed by their decisions, propelled by their efforts, you now start to drift.

If they were good parents and you were paying attention, you'd know they supplied you with oars and taught you how to use them. Looking around, you sight a lifestyle in the distance, set your back to it, and start rowing. Taking breaks when you tire or to have some fun. About 4 years of rowing typically gets you to college graduation and your new career. Maybe you take a spouse on board.

At this point, many people are Content to relax and drift awhile. Oars away. Forget goals. Proceed with life as it is.

More ambitious people like to see the ocean, and seek out better places. Looking around they spot a new island, read the travel book on it, plot a course on their map, set their backs to the destination, and start rowing. As they row they see the distance they have crossed as their old life becomes more distant. A few buoys — floating milestones — go by and they get encouraged to continue, even as the arms tire and the back starts aching. After a rest, they may continue. Or they may eventually despair wondering why it takes so long to reach the goal.

Few lucky people realize that this lifeboat also has a mast and sail. They set it up, learn to use it, and then look out to sea. There are two ways to use a sailboat. One is to open up the sail, catch the wind, and go as fast as possible whither the wind blows. It's an exciting life, but doesn't necessarily lead anywhere in particular as the wind changes direction, unpredictably.

The other way takes skill and practice. Tacking the sails right, and engaging the rudder, you can direct the boat under wind power anyway you want, Except directly against the wind. So you sit at the rear of the boat looking at the goal, adjusting sails and rudder to keep you moving towards the goal. There's a bit of work involved, but mostly it's pleasure as the boat effortlessly sails over the waves to the goal.

That, I believe, is Drift, Push, and Pull.

I don't have any experience sailing, but I've read about it. I wrote this piece for myself as I was trying to come up with a good parable for Mark's ideas of push, pull, and drift, in order to gain a better grasp on the subject. I'm surely not the first to notice, that boating is a very powerful picture for thinking about how life works.

Obviously rowing corresponds to legwork: going out every day and putting in the effort to make things happen. It's Mark's Push.
Present reality and future reality are obvious in the metaphor. Curiously, it's very hard to row while keeping your eye on the Future.

Sailing is harder to interpret. Literally, it's about harnessing the power of the wind. An external force you can't control, yet you can use it to your own ends. I'm not clear what Mark perceives to be the force behind Pull. It appears to be described as a metaphysical draw from the future. Perhaps Mark envisions a psychological draw. That would be more about motivation, driving the rower with dreams of Paradise Island.
Wind is more like favorable circumstances, people helping, and your own [insert name of the part of the psyche that drives you to do what you love]. The sail is your alertness and responsiveness to these forces. The rudder is your channeling of this energy towards your chosen destination.

Anyway, thinking of life as a boat — with zillions of possible destinations and various means of getting there — helps me grasp my own journey.