Most of us have been taught to draw progress as a straight line.
Start here.
Set the goal.
Make the plan.
Work hard.
Arrive there.
Simple.
Except almost nothing important in life seems to work that way.
Careers don't.
Relationships don't.
Faith certainly doesn't.
And if you've ever tried to change the way you think, recover from something painful, break an old habit, rebuild your confidence, forgive somebody, or forgive yourself, you already know that personal growth doesn't either.
Some days you move forward.
Some days you circle back.
Sometimes you think you've finally dealt with something only to discover six months later that there's another layer underneath it.
We tend to interpret those bends as evidence that something has gone wrong.
Today, of all days, a river might disagree with us.
Today Is World Rivers Day
September 27 is packed with observances.
It's Ancestor Appreciation Day. Gold Star Mother's and Family Day. National Chocolate Milk Day. National Crush a Can Day. Wife Appreciation Day. World Tourism Day. World Deaf Day. And depending on which calendar you're reading, several others.
But today is also World Rivers Day, an international celebration of the waterways that wind their way across our planet.
It began as a worldwide observance in 2005 after Canadian river conservationist Mark Angelo proposed the idea during the United Nations' Water for Life Decade. What began with celebrations in dozens of countries has grown into an event observed around the world. World Rivers Day
That's interesting.
But it's not the reason I picked it for today's Celebrate the Day.
I picked it because of something rivers do.
Rivers Don't Apologize for the Bend
Look down at a river from high enough above the ground and you'll notice something.
It rarely behaves like a ruler.
It curves.
It doubles back.
It snakes through the landscape.
We even have a word for those bends: meanders.
Here's the part I find fascinating.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, water moving around a bend tends to move faster along the outside of the curve. That faster-moving water erodes the riverbank.
On the inside of the bend, the water moves more slowly, allowing sediment to accumulate.
One side is being worn away.
The other is being built up.
And because both are happening simultaneously, the river changes shape over time. USGS
Think about that for a second.
Erosion isn't necessarily stopping the river.
Deposition isn't necessarily blocking the river.
The bend isn't evidence that the river has lost its way.
That's how the river makes its way.
And that's where World Rivers Day suddenly stops being a story about rivers.
Maybe You've Been Measuring Your Life With a Ruler
We have a terrible habit of looking at other people's lives from a distance and comparing their apparent straight line to our bends.
He got promoted.
I'm starting over.
They've been married twenty years.
Mine fell apart.
His business took off.
Mine failed.
He seems confident.
I'm still fighting thoughts I thought I dealt with years ago.
And before long, we start saying things to ourselves that we'd probably never say to another person.
I'm behind.
I should be farther along.
I screwed everything up.
I wasted too much time.
I thought I was past this.
There's a dangerous assumption underneath all of those statements:
Progress should be straight.
But who told us that?
Some Parts of You Are Being Eroded. Others Are Being Built.
This may be my favorite thing about today's river lesson.
At the bend, something is leaving while something else is accumulating.
That's not entirely unlike growth.
There are beliefs you've carried that may need to erode.
There are words you've spoken over yourself that need to lose their grip.
There are habits that once protected you but no longer serve the man you're becoming.
There may even be versions of yourself that got you through a difficult season but aren't meant to accompany you into the next one.
And while some things are being worn away, others are being deposited.
Patience.
Perspective.
Faith.
Discipline.
Humility.
Courage.
Wisdom.
Compassion.
You don't always notice those deposits while they're happening.
Sometimes all you can see is what you're losing.
But that doesn't mean nothing is being built.
This Is Why Your Thoughts Matter
This is where Dapper Minds Society comes into the conversation.
We talk a lot around here about grooming the mind.
Not because positive thinking magically makes difficult things disappear.
It doesn't.
But because the story you repeatedly tell yourself about what you're experiencing influences how you move through it.
There is an enormous difference between:
"I'm back where I started."
and
"I've encountered another bend."
There's a difference between:
"I'm falling apart."
and
"Something in me may need to change."
There's a difference between:
"I wasted those years."
and
"Those years taught me something I'm carrying forward."
The circumstances haven't necessarily changed.
But the interpretation has.
And interpretation matters.
Proverbs 23:7 gives us the principle that sits at the heart of Dapper Minds Society:
"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."
What we continually rehearse internally eventually affects how we see ourselves, how we speak, how we respond, and how we live.
That's why grooming your mind isn't pretending everything is wonderful.
Sometimes it's simply refusing to call a bend the end.
You Are Still Moving
Maybe that's what somebody needs to hear on World Rivers Day.
You aren't where you expected to be.
Okay.
The last few years took turns you couldn't have predicted.
Okay.
You're rebuilding something you thought would never break.
Okay.
You're confronting something about yourself you wish you'd figured out twenty years ago.
Okay.
Are you still moving?
Then don't mistake an unexpected direction for a lack of progress.
A river can travel miles without ever drawing a straight line.
In fact, scientists studying meandering rivers have found that those bends aren't merely random defects in otherwise "proper" straight rivers. They emerge from the physical interaction of water, velocity, erosion, sediment, and landscape. USGS
The landscape affects the river.
And the river reshapes the landscape.
Life does something similar to us.
Experiences shape us.
Then the person we become begins shaping what happens next.
Celebrate the Bend Today
That's what I want Celebrate the Day to become.
Not another list telling you it's National Chocolate Milk Day so you should go buy chocolate milk.
Although, frankly, I'm not opposed to that.
I want us to start looking for the thread.
Because every ordinary day contains something worth noticing.
And when you deliberately practice looking for meaning, gratitude, beauty, humor, connection, or a lesson in an otherwise ordinary Tuesday or Sunday, you're practicing something bigger than celebrating obscure holidays.
You're teaching your attention where to look.
So today, celebrate the rivers.
But maybe celebrate your bends too.
Think about one part of your life that hasn't gone according to plan.
Instead of asking:
"Why am I not there yet?"
try asking:
"What is this part of the journey building in me?"
Maybe something needs to be eroded.
Maybe something new is being deposited.
Maybe the route changed.
Maybe you changed.
But you're still moving.
And perhaps progress was never supposed to look like a straight line in the first place.
Celebrate today. There's something good here if we're willing to look for it.
Groom your mind. Shape your life.
— Nick Stout
Dapper Minds Society
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