Swim Upstream

Recently, while backpacking in the Gila Wilderness, I had the opportunity to sit and watch a bunch of small fish in the flowing river. I was sitting on a rock, slowly filling water bottles with a backpacking filter. After 20 minutes of being still, the fish started resuming their regular activity, unaware of my presence.? Their habit was to aim upstream, swim in that direction, and, once completing the course, rapidly retreat to their designated protective area. The reasoning was apparent: they were watching for food to flow down the river, so they needed to be facing the correct direction.

Facing the correct direction. That gave me pause as I thought this through walking up the trail that day. I realized the lesson that these fish were teaching. If you want to find success, it is essential always to be positioned in the correct direction. Even though it is more difficult, you must swim upstream. In our lives, there will always be resistance when you are heading in the correct direction. The current will be flowing against you in some fashion. However, it is when you find these conditions that you know you will have an ample supply of opportunities.

Now that I think this through, this has always been the case. I see more opportunities come my way when I am swimming upstream. When I am coasting and floating downstream I find things are easier, but rarely do I find opportunity. When I do, the opportunity is weak and barely alive. Fish seem to know this too, they feed in areas that are active and thriving. Well, at least streamfish do. Those lake trout are messed up in the head, for sure.

Opportunities come first to those who are going in the right direction, swimming against the flow, and exercising the appropriate amount of struggle. I noticed that the smaller fish were avoiding the more rapid currents, favoring the shallow areas with less water flow. The larger fish were out in the areas where the water was deep and flowing fast. Interestingly, a principle here seems to be that you need to struggle to win, but not so much that you wear yourself out and make yourself susceptible to attack.

Growing up, I had a few opportunities to go fly fishing on the Gunnison River with my Grandfather. He never wanted me tagging along with him, but he would set me up and send me off in a direction while he fished in the opposite. I learned to enjoy the solitude of those riverbank walks. I never caught anything. The reason was because my Grandfather always sent me downstream, while he chose to head upstream. At the end of the day, he would come back down with a basket full of fish, and I nothing. Much later I would know the reason why. He was casting his flies upstream and letting them float down. The fish did not see him coming from behind. However, I was completely fishing in the wrong direction. The fish would hide as soon as they saw and felt me splashing through the water.

Seems this principle of fishing upstream applies to people as well as fish. It seems you can learn a ton by observing how nature operates. As I think through my life, I certainly grew more when I was struggling. During my trip up the stream of life, I have had many challenges, but it seems that each one I took on caused me to gain strength and get access to more opportunities. The times when I went with the flow and coasted for a while, I certainly paid the price. Perhaps my Grandfather was trying to teach me something, or perhaps he was having fun at my expense!