Strong is a river, not a boulder

STRONG

I read an article for work last week that featured a woman who found herself responsible for a large group of people at a young age. She felt like she was missing some quality she needed to have in order to lead them well.

Lacking insight about what it was that she was missing, she interviewed 100 women senior to her to try to figure it out.

The outcome? She figured out that she was not missing anything. She went on to say, “There was this river of strength flowing through all of the women and over to me.”

It’s hard for me to conceptualize strength as a river. I guess I perhaps have seen it lately more as an “all or nothing” type of situation. You’re strong or you’re weak. You’re not a river but a big solid block of material (maybe a boulder?) that either sits in its place or is moved elsewhere.

I’m thinking especially tonight of a relative who has a very serious illness. As our family members try to be resourceful — each in our own ways — it’s a difficult process, especially among people who (in general) have really strong personalities.

Maybe part of the solution is to be “rivers” instead of boulders. Rivers rise and fall, but they still convey water from its origin to its final destination. They freeze and they thaw. They run fast and they run slow. Most important … when they encounter a fixed object (like a boulder), they flow around it. There’s no either/or, but a modification of approach that still achieves the purpose.

The thing that stuck out to me about the quote was not just that it “flowed through all the women” but that it flowed “over to me.” And I’m guessing that once the woman seeking whatever it was that she was missing became the recipient of strength, that she eventually shared it forward.

Thinking of my family member(s) with this song.

Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via coordinator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.” (But I can’t resist spell-checking, as you can imagine.)

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.