The Ocean and Me

My wife and I recently spent an entire week at a North Carolina beach and really enjoyed doing much of nothing but relaxing and decompressing. Nothing as it turns out is a good thing. Everyone is so busy these days trying to keep up with their jobs and the everyday things that bombard us many have lost the ability to stop and smell the roses.

While spending many hours just gazing upon the Atlantic, it’s amazing how small you can begin to feel. If you are inherently not a religious individual, the Atlantic has a way of making you at least introspective of your existence. The Ocean has such an almost private ecosystem that we really only know a small amount of information about and it awes me to witness it and feel a little bit closer to, if only for a week at a time. For example, we watched in the early morning, as the crabs would come out and just as quickly burrow into the sand. They also would appear with the incoming tides for a split second and burrow under the water disappearing. So thinking with our huge internet and vast amounts of information we could investigate to find out just what species of crabs these were we dove in. There are a number of crab species and it’s evident that although we know about them and about what sustains them, their habits are somewhat of a mystery. This ratifies just how we only scratch the surface when it comes to this vast expanse.

There are times I wear my faith on my sleeve and I make no apologies for that. The more I study the complexities of the ocean and it’s circle of life, the more I am convinced that a higher authority was and is at work. I think I have been converted of sorts regarding the ocean. Not that long ago I would tell you the mountains is where I would like to retire. That is no longer the case, although I still want the mountains close enough to visit and North Carolina provides the best of both of those worlds. I have fallen in love with the ocean. It has clarified perspective for me about life and about what’s important. If you ever begin to feel as if you are entirely in control of your life and everything about it, I invite you to sit in a chair by the ocean for just an hour and witness just how small you are in the grand scheme of things. That being said, even though we are a small piece of this world, you don’t have a complete puzzle without all of the pieces. Give it some thought.