The Sailboat Metaphor

"SAIL" is more than just an acronym for Simply An Inspired Life. A metaphoric SAILboat is an ideal vehicle for our voyage through life's often troubled waters and stormy winds.

When life's storms blow, we could choose to play the tumbleweed, and let life blow us this way and that. Or we could hold on tight and resist as long as our strength holds out. We all know people who respond to life in those ways, and it isn't pretty.

Another way to encounter life is head-on. When we watch someone tilting at life like a Don Quixote, our first reaction may be "how brave," but soon we see the futility as our someone inevitably tires. Life can never be conquered by brute force.

Sailboats have mastery over the wind. A skillful sailor can sail in any direction - with the wind, across the wind, and even directly into the wind - by applying the skill and patience to "tack" from side to side - coming a little closer to an upwind destination with each turn.

As a karate fighter or a fencer parries and turns a stronger opponent's force back upon them, so too a sailboat uses the force of its opponent - the wind - to travel anywhere - even into the face of the storm itself.

Life often resembles a windy storm and we can best respond by turning the force of the storm to our own purposes. Once one begins to think like a SAILboat, life's storms start to look like a power we can utilize to design a Bold and Joyful life.