Know Thyself: Three Little Screws

A few days ago I went surfing.

Not until today I understood the lesson that a little screw taught me.

I took two boards, one bigger in case the waves were too small.

They weren’t.

When I installed the fins on the shortboard, I noticed another screw had worn off. Just the same thing that had happened to me last time, almost three weeks ago.

“Such bad luck!,” I thought to myself.

At home, on a flat day, I had replaced only one screw using an Allen wrench, which is slightly wider than the screw holes of my shortboard.

“I should have changed them all; they are old and must be rusted by the ocean,” I said to myself in the cold parking lot while removing the longboard bag and looking for the screwdriver to fix a much larger fin.

I surfed until the sun went down. And I could complete a good session with my single fin, but I kept asking myself how much better it would have been to surf those excellent lefts with my shortboard.

Today, after a few days, I received a set of new screws and a free key by mail.

“I will finally be able to repair my favorite shortboard,” I said out loud.

Then, I went to replace the screw that prevented me from using the board, and I realized that the other screws didn’t turn either.

Then I understood it.

After trying the new key, I understood that what had been deformed from overuse, and had therefore ceased to fulfill its function, was the key I always carry with me in the fin case.

Not the screws.

This has made me self-reflect:

  • Sometimes you have to stop changing screws and ask yourself if it might not be your key that has worn out. Especially if you keep changing screws, but everything remains the same.
  • If you never doubt yourself and believe that you are never wrong, you will continue to change screws all your life, like Sisyphus, because you will never look at your own key, no matter how deformed it is.
  • Discarding a board for a worn key makes no sense, but sometimes we make similar mistakes. By not assuming responsibilities or avoiding at all costs being critical of ourselves, when we are so easily of others.
  • You have to assume your mistakes and try to find a remedy as quickly as possible. But we must not let these or other setbacks rob us of the pleasure of fully enjoying what we are doing.

Yes, for sure, the shortboard would have been better that day.

But I lacked enough mental flexibility (fluidity, if you want) to forget about it in the water.

And, at the end of the day, being unable to use it with those dreamy waves was all my fault for having done negligent maintenance.

Note for oneself:

  1. Always keep all your equipment ready. That’s what you can control.
  2. Wear and corrosion, take them as necessary; you will hardly stop them no matter how much you resist them.
  3. Do the same with your mind: engulf her with doubt, keep her in shape with readings and conversations, don’t let her take anything for granted, and question her time and again.
  4. Get to grips with your responsibilities, even if your mind seeks excuses tirelessly for not doing so.
  5. And, even if that little boycotter sometimes gets in your way, make sure you enjoy every moment, on this blue planet, to the fullest.

You only live once. And tempus fugit

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