Coasting
My husband and I are fortunate enough to have a boat on a series of inland lakes. Every weekend we can, we drive for an hour to the marina. The street just before our marina is quite hilly. There is a dip and then a rise and then another dip. One day after the rise, I put the car into neutral and coasted to the entrance of the marina. That started the competition. How far could we coast? The next weekend we started coasting after turning onto the street. We rolled down the first hill, slowed on the rise, and then sped down the next hill. Then we got more daring. When it was safe, we not only rolled down the hills, but would turn into the marina and try to make it all the way into our parking space.
Some days we could turn from the main road doing 30 MPH and easily coast all the way down the two hills and into the parking space. Some days we would have to stop before turning and pray that the energy from the turn’s meager momentum would bring us all the way. Sometimes the coast was fast. Sometimes the rise after the second hill would slow us down almost to a standstill before the second hill gave us momentum again. Sometimes if we turned too sharply into the marina we barely made it into the slip. But amazingly, once we learned to let go and trust, we could coast to our destination easily and with minimal effort.
Since this became such a fun game, I started coasting other places when I could. It not only saves gas and wear and tear on my engine, but it makes monotonous driving more fun. So the other night I found a great hill on the way to meet a friend. As I dropped the car into neutral, I wondered how often do we think we think we need to push down the gas pedal of life to get where we want to go? How often do we think we need to do in order to get to our destination? What if we just coasted?
How much momentum have we built up in our lives? How far can that momentum carry us without any additional effort? How many times are we tiring ourselves out with additional effort that is not necessary? Today, look around you and see where you can coast. What are the things you are pushing to happen? Is the effort necessary? If not, let go and watch. Does your desired outcome still occur?
