The Kayak Always Veers Left

Last week I was kayaking with my Mom and noticed that the kayak had a tendency to veer left. Of course that’s not a huge deal, you just need to take some corrective paddles, but it got me thinking about why and revealed a much deeper insight.

All results in life are a matter of cause and effect. A certain input produces a certain output. But it’s not as straightforward as that. Every result involves a complex interaction of factors, so it’s hard to isolate a truly singular cause. This is important to realize because if we want to change the results of our life, we need to understand what is most influencing them so that we can change our approach.

So the most important question we ask ourselves is: What can we do that will most positively change our results and shape our life? 

Back to this kayaking where we’re veering left, I thought maybe it was the boat itself. If it’s waterlogged a certain way it changes the weight distribution and can cause a subtle and constant tilt in direction. 

Then I thought maybe it was our paddling style. You paddle on the right side to go left, and perhaps that side is simply stronger and we were actually steering it left. 

Or one step further, who cares what might be causing it. What if we just adjusted our technique and paddled in such a way that we offset whatever was happening. 

The more we understand the cause and effect nature of life, the better we can direct the results of it.

And the biggest limiting factor to that whole process is our awareness. We don’t know for certain what works or what doesn’t. We don’t know all of the things that need to be considered when trying to figure something out. We can only draw our best conclusion from the limited amount of information we have.

That’s the ironic part of this whole story. As my mind was consumed, dissecting the details of this instance, fascinated to understand the cause and effect, we turned around and the kayak started veering right instead.

With that new information, the reason became obvious - the tide was simply pushing us toward shore, which was beyond our control.

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