Skipping Rocks & Changing Status

This is a bit of a nostalgic post following cleaning my truck this weekend and finding rocks I picked up on vacation.

The week of Memorial Day this year we loaded up the truck and towed our camper to the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota.  I hadn’t been up in the area for many years and it looked about the same as I remember; huge boulders, jagged cliffs, small towns, pine forests and an unhealthy quantity of pie shops.  One thing that definitely hasn’t changed is the flat rocks found along the shore.

For those not familiar with the North Shore, the rocks are smooth and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  When I was a kid, I remember running up and down the shoreline, bounding from boulder to boulder, grabbing rocks and throwing them into the water.  I watched my dad skipping rocks and he showed me how to skip them also.  We competed over who could skip more.  I can remember grabbing a nice flat rock, looked at my dad and asked how long he thought it’d been there.  His response was “Who knows, but you’re about to change its status from a land rock to a water rock.”

I had forgotten those words until my two sons and I were skipping rocks near the same spot my dad said them to me.  I taught them how to skip rocks and climb on the large boulders while my wife stood by shaking her head, wondering who was going to get hurt first.  I said the statement “You’re about to change its status from a land rock to a water rock” a few times.  I’m sure they heard me and at some point in the future, hope they remember what I said also.

That day, many years ago, was a delayed lesson-learned only now I understand.  The rock didn’t have a choice; I changed its status by taking it from land and putting it in the water.  We as humans, however, have a choice.  Even if someone else tries to change our status; termination due to downsizing, new boss/manager as part of a restructure, birth of a child, illness of a spouse, we own our own response.  So as we look at a new year right around the corner ask yourself; should I change my status?