Have y’all ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right; when you try to accomplish tasks and keep running smack dab into resistance? That was yesterday, for me. I was trying to promote the Share A Square project within my own hometown, and not a soul wanted to listen. I even put on makeup (which I don’t do for just any simple thing) so I would be presentable. But, everyone I approached about it looked at me with eyes that said, “Yeah, yeah. Everybody thinks their baby is the cutest.”

What do you do when you aren’t making headway? Do you have ways to help yourself get “jumpstarted?” Do you have advice you want to share?

My first impulse is to just throw up my hands and go pout (which is what I did). My second impulse is to start “thinking in story,” and that’s often when I find my answers.

Many years ago, I loved to board sail. I wasn’t a daredevil sailor, by any means, but enjoyed quiet sailing with just enough wind to carry me across the water. I relished the opportunity to harness the power of nature to get me where I wanted to go. Sometimes, I couldn’t get there in a straight line; I had to zig and zag. The pleasure wasn’t as much in the “getting to the destination” as it was in the trip to get there.

On weekends we took our small children and joined friends at Lake Texoma to enjoy picnic and water sports. The beach where we met was perfect for the small children, because they could walk out into the water for twenty yards without the water getting as high as their chests. There were always several ski boats, and numerous board sails lining the shore waiting for anyone who wanted to try their hand at the sports.

One weekend a friend of mine came to our gathering with her husband. I saw him walking around my sailboard looking at it with a gleam in his eye. “Do you sail?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “But, I’d like to try.”

I had taught several people to sail, even though I was not really much of a master at it. I can be patient, if I want to be; and I can explain things well, if I listen to my words. “I’ll teach you how, if you’d like,” I said.

He looked at me with a sneer of disgust, and said, “I don’t need a girl to tell me how to do this.”

“Girl?” I thought. I was five years older than this fellow, had been married for more than a decade and was the mother of two children. I hardly qualified as a “girl.” I held my tongue, shrugged and said, “Then, go for it, Big Guy.”

He launched the board out into the water, and tried to climb onto it. “You have to take it farther out,” I told him. “The fin will get caught in the sand.”

“I don’t need your help!” he barked, but he did push the board into deeper water.

He wouldn’t listen, but I’ll tell you that in the center of the board on which you stand, there is a small vertical board that goes into the water and acts like a keel on a boat. If it got stuck in the sand, he wasn’t going anywhere.

He stood on the board and reached for the boom to try to lift the sail. The “boom” is the horizontal spar that you see the surfer holding in the picture, and it’s what you use to position the sail. However, you can’t pull a sail full of water into the air with that (the water gets very heavy!). There is a thick cord attached to the boom (called the “uphaul”) that you use to pull up the sail and dump the water off the side as you go. I watched him struggle for several minutes before I shared that information with him. He just glared at me.

That young man pulled the sail upright, and then it knocked him into the water. He climbed back on, hauled up the sail, and it knocked him over again. “Can I give you just one piece of advice?” I asked. “NO!” he shouted.

I decided that there was no point in talking, so I joined my friends on the beach to watch the show. We couldn’t help but laugh as he struggled with the sail and kept falling over. After about twenty minutes, the wind had blown him halfway across the slough toward the main part of the lake.

“You’d better go help him,” his nervous wife said. So, with a sigh, I borrowed a board and sailed out to him.

I said, “There’s only one thing I need to tell you.”

“Go AWAY!” he screamed. So, I did. I went back to the beach and watched for almost an hour as he got blown farther into the lake. His wife was moaning and wailing, so finally several of us got in a ski boat to go rescue him.

I jumped into the water and pushed him toward the boat. “Get in the boat,” I said.

“I CAN do it,” he said.

“No, you can’t, because you won’t listen! This is MY sailboard. You can get in the boat or swim for shore.” I snapped.

He clambered into the boat. I stood on the board and hauled up the sail. Effortlessly, I sailed a few circles around the ski boat, as I told that young man a piece of my mind.

“I’ve just got two things I want to tell you,” I said. “First, you can’t fight the wind, you have to use it. When you lift the sail, the wind has to be at your back or it will knock the sail into you and you’ll keep falling on your butt. Second, if someone who knows how to do something gives you some advice—listen! Stop letting your pride get in the way!”

With that, I leaned back and skimmed across the water.

Y’all, I was a lot smarter when I was younger. Those are some life lessons I had forgotten, or was ignoring. So, I’m proud to tell you that I’ve listened to some advice this morning, and I’m ready for some “tacking and jibing.” If I have to zig and zag to get where I’m going, I’m ready to do it. I’ve got the wind at my back and it’s going to be smooth sailing.

Technorati Tags: advice, story, board sail, life lessons