Stop Treading Water

Stop Treading Water

A couple of days ago, I did a short live video where my tired brain kept reaching for an analogy and missing it.

I think I said something like “weighing in water” more than once.

What I meant was wading in water. Or treading water. Or something close to that. I knew the feeling I was trying to describe, but I could not quite get the words around it.

In running. In work. In relationships. In different corners of life where I am not necessarily moving backward, but I am not really moving forward either.

There is motion, but not much progress.

Effort, but not always direction.

Just staying afloat.

Today, on the one-year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s tragic murder, one of his thoughts came back to me and finally gave shape to what I had been trying to say.

Charlie spoke about the responsibility to do something with our lives. To use what we have been given. To refuse to sit idly by while our days quietly spend themselves.

That was the missing piece…

I was trying to talk about idling.

There is nothing wrong with routine. Structure is good for us. Repetition can build discipline, stability, peace, and a sturdy life. 

Much of a meaningful life is built inside the ordinary. The same alarm. The same work. The same responsibilities. Small acts repeated faithfully.

But routine and idling are not the same thing.

Treading water has a purpose. It keeps you from sinking, and there are seasons when staying afloat is absolutely enough.

There are days when progress means refusing to go under. There are seasons filled with grief, exhaustion, uncertainty, illness, financial pressure, family responsibility, or several of them at once.

Sometimes the heroic thing is not acceleration.

It is endurance.

Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is breathe, keep your head above water, and wait for strength to return.

But eventually, we have to ask whether we are still surviving something, or whether we have simply become comfortable not going anywhere.

Comfort does not always look comfortable.

Sometimes it looks like exhaustion.

There are areas of my life where I have been moving, working, sweating, answering emails, checking boxes, putting in miles, filling calendars, and ending the day tired enough to believe I must have accomplished something meaningful.

Activity can disguise stillness remarkably well.

You can be busy from sunrise to midnight and still be circling the same patch of water. You can work harder than almost everyone around you and still avoid the one thing that might actually move your life somewhere different.

We are very good at confusing effort with direction.

Back to running, my favorite place to steal an analogy from. Spoiler: when I write about running, it is almost never actually about running.

There are stretches where I am training, putting in the miles, maintaining fitness, and doing enough to feel productive, but not really pushing toward the athlete I keep saying I want to become.

I am moving enough to feel productive.

But am I progressing?

Life works the same way.

You can answer every email and avoid the difficult conversation. You can take care of everyone else and neglect something important in yourself. You can talk endlessly about the business, book, relationship, ministry, adventure, or change you want while remaining safely inside preparation.

Preparation can become one of the most respectable hiding places we have.

Idling rarely looks lazy.

It often looks busy. Responsible. Reasonable.

It looks like having perfectly legitimate explanations for why today is not the day.

We have all been given something.

Time. Ability. Influence. Strength. Opportunity. Compassion. A voice. A pair of hands.

Maybe an abundance of some and very little of others, but none of us received exactly nothing.

There is something almost sacred about the responsibility attached to that.

Do not idle through your own life.

That does not mean flooring the gas pedal every morning and driving recklessly through every responsibility, relationship, and season. 

Wisdom knows when to slow down. 

The engine was never meant to live at redline.

But it was not built only to idle either.

There are moments when caution becomes camouflage.

We tell ourselves we are waiting for clarity, timing, confidence, or calmer water when, often, fear is simply doing the writing.

Years can pass that way.

We become skilled at staying afloat and forget there was somewhere we once intended to swim.

That may be the real danger.

Not failure.

Forgetting.

Forgetting the work, the person, the risk, the gift, the life we once meant to move toward.

Doing something with your life does not have to mean doing something impressive. Some of the most consequential things we do will never receive applause.

A meaningful life is not necessarily loud.

But it is usually intentional.

I do not want movement without direction. I do not want fatigue to become proof of purpose. And I do not want fear dressed in reasonable clothing making decisions that courage should have made.

So find one place where you have been treading longer than necessary.

One conversation. One habit. One project. One relationship. One part of your faith, work, health, family, or purpose.

Take one deliberate step.

Swim toward something.

You do not need to floor it.

Press the gas enough to feel the engine answer.

Whatever yesterday took, it did not take this moment.

Do something with what you have been given.

When strength returns, use it.

When the way opens, move.

We were not given breath merely to stay afloat.

Move.