Stop Fighting the Current Before You Drown

I once heard someone say:

“When change happens to you, you’re a victim.
When you embrace change and help others through it, you become a leader.”

Over time, those words seem less like advice and more like an undercurrent I can’t ignore.

Because change isn’t a moment.
It isn’t an event.
It isn’t even a season.

Change is all of it, everything, the underlying power behind life.

Everything Changes. All at Once. All the Time.

There are days I feel like I’m caught up in a rip current— pulled away from the safety of the shoreline. Change tugs at the seams of who I am, what I know, and what I trusted would stay the same.

My kids grow up.
My parents age.
My relationships shift.
My community reshapes itself.
My career transforms.
Technology evolves in a second.

Change is in every molecule, every atom, every breath. Keeping anything “the same” is like trying to hold the ocean in your hands.

We’re Not Afraid of Change — We’re Afraid of Not Choosing It

We aren’t afraid of change itself—we are afraid of losing the power to choose. Even those of us who say we ‘love change’ only love it when we can control it.

The job we choose.
The new city we're moving to.
The tattoo we impulsively get to commemorate our midlife crisis.

But what about when change happens to us?
When change blindsides us?
When change offers no choice, no warning, no negotiation?

That’s the kind of change we are designed to fight against. The type of change that is scary, unpredictable… deadly.

As humans, we crave predictability. The illusion that comfort, safety, and normality are something we can maintain with enough effort and willpower.

But comfort, safety, and normality are temporary.

Always.

It is when we believe otherwise that change feels devastating—like we are being sucked under by the current and are fighting to get back to our shore.

Stop Fighting the Current

Anyone who’s been caught in a rip current knows the instinct:

Kick harder.
Swim faster.
Fight against the pull.
Crawl back the way you came.

If you’ve ever been in a rip current or read about someone who has, you know how it ends — fear, exhaustion, death.

The ocean isn’t kind to people who resist it.

Neither is change.

The secret to surviving change is treating it like a rip current:

Don’t waste your energy resisting the current of change; allow it to carry you to your new destination.

The current is stronger than you can fathom. If you can surrender — even a little — and let it carry you for a while, something surprising happens:

You don’t sink.
You don’t break.
You don’t lose yourself.

The current carries you to somewhere new.

Maybe not where you thought you’d be.
Maybe not where you wanted to be.
But somewhere you can stand, breathe… where you can find your footing again.

Real Leadership Starts Here

You aren’t alone in this ocean of life. Millions of people have found themselves caught in the rip current of change. 

Some are riding it out. Some are desperately fighting against it.

Look around and spot who's struggling.

Grab their arm.
Tell them to stop fighting.
Show them where the current is going.
And stay next to them until the current eases, helping them reach their new shore.

That’s what real leadership looks like.

Not controlling change.
Not mastering change.
But learning to ride it — and then helping someone else trust the current to carry them through.

Have you ever surrendered to the current? Who around you is fighting against change that you can help right now?