This Week from Africa

Getting Stuck in the Mud – When Control Is an Illusion

The other week, we were about to leave Senegal and the Saloum Delta for The Gambia.

Because we wanted to exit the river delta as far south as possible, so that we would only have a short distance to the entrance of the Gambia River, we planned to pass through some smaller bolongs. That is what the canals in the river are called.

Smaller bolongs mean shallower water and, often, no real charts at all.

A couple of times, according to our charts, we were sailing on land.

And the sandbanks seemed to be everywhere, just not where the maps showed them.

We ran aground a couple of times.

One time I had to jump into the dinghy, attach a halyard, and slightly tilt the boat in order to reduce the draft, while Nike could get Santana free.

Another time we kept running aground and simply could not find our way through one specific section of the river. Not until a fisherman passed by and told us to take a shortcut through a narrower passage in the mangroves, which on our charts was marked as extremely shallow water.

With some tips on where to stay in the different turns, we managed to get through without any further complications.

At least not until we were back in the bigger section of the river again.

There the sandbanks had shifted from right to left, and there was no other way than finding them by… finding them.

Once we got stuck, we pulled back, switched to the other side of the river, and continued on the other bank.

At first, I really had my problem with this approach.

I feared running aground. I feared getting stuck.

The Limits of Control

But we had prepared for that. We left on a rising tide, and if we had really been stuck, we could simply have waited an hour or two until the water rose and we were free again.

And maybe that is much more of a metaphor for life than we would like to admit.

We think we are in control. Of our own life, as well as our environment and nature.

And very often, that is simply not true.

We think we have a good GPS and well-written charts.

And then we get careless. First unprepared. Then frustrated. Then angry.

Many people I know are very over-organized. Everything is scheduled in order to stay in control.

But control is only possible when we know all of the variables.

And we do not.

We only know a fraction. Often that is enough. What matters is that we do not act as if it were everything.

Because then it is only a matter of time until we get stuck.

And if we insist on being right, it usually does not help us find another way. It just keeps us stuck longer. Sometimes it even makes the whole situation worse.

How much easier could life become if we got more comfortable with the try-and-error principle of sailing a Senegalese bolong?

Try something. Pay attention. Notice the feedback. And if it does not work, adjust your approach.

Not because you failed.

But because the map is never the same as reality.

If reading this makes you curious how that shows up in your own life, that is exactly the kind of space I create in the RESET Intensive and the RESET Experience.