Your Life is a Fluvial Process

Those of us in the Western world are accustomed to think about life in a linear fashion.  Our personal, spiritual or vocational lives are framed in a staged progression.  Examples:

•  Strategic planning is based on a principle of direct cause and effect toward a long term goal

•  Career planning mixes a defined stage theory of adult development with assumptions about ‘forward progression’ in any given career

• Spiritual life development frequently makes an assumption of step by step advance to a greater level of peace and tranquility

In my 20’s and 30’s I assumed life could be mapped out.  Create a Master Plan and fix your energy on it.  Of course I could do it because society shouted out a loud message: "You can be anything you want to be".  Now in my 50’s, I look back and see a different course has defined my life, career, spiritual development.

Life is a fluvial process.  It's worth a little science lesson here before some life & leadership application...

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A fluvial process in nature is the physical interaction of flowing water and the natural channels of rivers and streams. Such processes play an essential and conspicuous role in the denudation of land surfaces and the transport of rock detritus from higher to lower levels. 

Over much of the world the erosion of landscape, including the reduction of mountains and the building of plains, is brought about by the flow of water. As the rain falls and collects in watercourses, the process of erosion not only degrades the land, but the products of erosion themselves become the tools with which the rivers carve the valleys in which they flow. Sediment materials eroded from one location are transported and deposited in another, only to be eroded and redeposited time and again before reaching the ocean. At successive locations, the riverine plain and the river channel itself are products of the interaction of a water channel’s flow with the sediments brought down from the drainage basin above.

The velocity of a river’s flow depends mainly upon the slope and the roughness of its channel. A steeper slope causes higher flow velocity, but a rougher channel decreases it. The slope of a river corresponds approximately to the fall of the country it traverses. Near the source, frequently in hilly regions, the slope is usually steep, but it gradually flattens out, with occasional irregularities, until, in traversing plains along the latter part of the river’s course, it usually becomes quite mild. Accordingly, large streams usually begin as torrents with highly turbulent flow and end as gently flowing rivers. (Wikipedia)

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The imagery & resulting applications are numerous.  (It’s a great illustration of how when we pay closer attention to nature, we find deeper understanding and insight into our own lives).  Let me pick out just a few and frame them as observations and questions:

1. When you assume  your personal, corporate or spiritual life can flow in a direct line, assume your assumption will not survive!
2. What tools and support do you have when life’s flow takes an unexpected course change?  Push back is natural when you hit an obstacle, but somehow you have to find a way to keep the flow going. Who are the people you can turn to?  What emotional/spiritual resources are you currently building that will sustain you when life's course takes an unexpected turn?  
3. Like any flowing body of water, our lives carry detritus, erosive material.  Have you ever thought that when life goes around a bend, it may be an opportunity to deposit some of that stuff?  Take time to reflect and see what you could lose from your life in order to gain energy for the next phase.
4. Don’t waste your pain.  A river cannot learn, but you can.  Every course correction, every still backwater, every steep drop and obstacle are opportunities to shape the flow & direction of your life.  Don’t waste your pain on whining and self pity. 
5. A river flows somewhere…always.  Gravity is a force that moves it toward a lake or the ocean.  What force is driving your life in a way that enables you to find ways around or through obstacles?  You can define your life by it’s unexpected turns and barriers or by a larger context and force.  That larger context for me is the knowledge that I am being prepared for an eternal relationship with my Creator-God.  I flow toward a goal that transcends this life, but engages this life as a training ground for an everlasting life with a God of love, purpose and joy.

Life and leadership truly is a nomadic, river-like journey.  In the end, where will your river flow?  Answer that, and the course changes may start making more sense.

Harv Matchullis

harvey@visiontracks.ca   -  www.visiontracks.ca