The Set of the Sails

Sail boats fascinate me.  Carolyn and I have been invited to go sailing a couple of times.  That’s a kick, but what gets me is that we can sail away from the shoreline and sail back, and I never notice a shift in the wind patterns. 

It’s like this poem:

"One ship drives east 
and another drives west.

With the selfsame 
winds that blow.

'Tis the set of the sails 
and not the gales

that tells the way to go.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1916

So the analogy is pretty self-evident, but let me say it anyway.

We have to manage the winds, or they will manage us.

Here is a great story to illustrate my point:

There once was a man who had two sons.  The father lived a life of drunkenness and reckless living.  His life was in shambles and he died a broken man.

As the years went by, his two sons grew into manhood and followed their own paths.  One son became an upstanding citizen, and a teetotaler, while the other son lived a life of drunkenness and debauchery as his father had done. 

Later in life each son was asked this question:  

“Why did your life turn out the way it did?”

Amazingly, both sons gave the exact same answer: 

“Are you kidding?  Knowing what kind

of father I had what did you expect?”

You see, one son set his sails for a life different from his father’s.  He managed the winds of his life and made choices along the way that led him down a different path from the one modeled for him.

And that is the secret.  He managed the winds.  He made good choices. 

The power of choice is yours and yours alone. 

Choose wisely.

P Michael Biggs

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