River People vs Ravine people
Are you a river or a ravine ?
"People are disturbed not by things but by the views which they take of them". Epictetus
When a river descends from the mountain and meets a boulder or obstacle, it doesn't stop or summon its board of directors to think about a strategy how to overcome the obstacle. The flowing water naturally finds a detour, another way to run to the sea.
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The question is, during our lives, when are we rivers and when are we ravines?
River people are optimistic, energetic, and full of ideas and ways to accomplish them. Ravine people are passive, energetically dry, hopeless, and unresponsive. A ravine may end in the sea but it carries nothing.
Water as a symbol of life appears in almost every religion I have researched. It is not a coincidence that 60% of our physical body is composed of water.
Water in nature has three states: gas, liquid, and ice. The first two are in a constant state of movement and produce the cycle of rain, evaporation, clouds, and rain again. Ice is static caged energy that can be released by heat. All these natural states of water have no specifications. There isn’t necessarily a different type of water in Tanzania than in China.
The same with human beings. The functioning of the human body is the same all over the globe. What is different is the dynamo that makes us tick. What differs between a happy person and a miserable one is the attitude with which they meet reality because reality remains the same but how we think about it changes and determines our state of mind.
River people tend to see reality, even in hard times, as an opportunity. Ravine people would perceive reality as a battle for survival.
It is the flow of life. The water needed to awaken a gloomy soul sometimes is just a small alteration of thought — a slight change in thinking.
A large boulder in the middle of a river doesn't stop its flow, it provides a great opportunity to build a vista point on top.
Have magic in your life.
Ted Barr
