"Go With the Flow" Is Terrible Advice

It’s 10 a.m. on Monday. Your week is just beginning, and you’ve already made dozens of choices without even thinking about it it. The blue shirt or the white shirt. Splenda or raw sugar. The scenic route or the quick route. Music or NPR. Though it may not always feel like it, we’re experts at making decisions. And every so often along comes a really hard choice. We struggle with it, wrestle with it, agonize over it. We draw lines down the middle of the page with “pros” in one column and “cons” in the other. We create reasons for this instead of that, blue over white, NPR instead of the playlist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GQZuzIdeQQ

There is an age-old tidbit of wisdom that reveres “going with the flow.” After watching Ruth Chang’s video, it occurred to me that “go with the flow” is just about the worst advice anyone could give. The happiest people don’t go with the flow, they swim upstream. Happy people don’t let life steer them down the path, they head to the top, soak up the view, then take a leap of faith.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B36Lr0Unp4

It’s 10 a.m on Monday. Your week is just beginning. What will you choose this week?