Tranquil Resources

Tag: control

  • Do It Afraid

    I stood at the water’s edge

    watching as they paddled away –

    Two little girls still learning

    right to go left, left to go right.

    Don’t go past the rock, they were told.

    As if a rock could mark 

    the place where danger begins.

    As if adventure

    ever listened to boundaries.

    They paddle farther.

    And I felt that old familiar thing —

    the tightening, the voices saying,

    ‘Hold on. Pull them back.

    Keep safe what you love.’

    But their mother stood quietly beside me.

    ‘Let them go.

    They’re safe.

    They can swim.

    They have to learn.’

    So I watched.

    Watched them wobble,

    turn the wrong way,

    drift further than they’d been told

    and find their way back.

    Safe.

    Proud.

    And a little more certain

    of themselves.

    Maybe courage

    isn’t the absence of fear.

    Maybe it’s standing at the water’s edge,

    feeling fear rise

    all the way to your throat

    and loosening the grip anyway.

    Sometimes, we are the ones

    paddling out.

    Sometimes we are the ones

    left on shore.

    Both require courage.

    Both ask us to trust

    what we can’t control.

    Maybe that’s where adventure begins.

    Not when fear disappears

    but when we refuse

    to let it decide

    how far we will go.

  • Choosing Peace Instead of Power

    There are days when the desire for peace feels almost naive.
    When the demands of our leaders sound louder, sharper,
    more determined to prove something
    through domination rather than understanding.

    Battles are waged
    — in words,
    in policies,
    in posture —
    and I find myself asking
    the same question again and again:

    For what purpose?

    Is it to show strength?
    To claim ground?
    To stand above rather than among?

    I don’t want to be part of that kind of power.

    I want to live among others,
    not on top of them.
    I want to breathe shared air,
    not take more than my share.
    I want a life that makes room
    — for difference,
    for dignity,
    for voices that don’t sound like my own.

    And yet, choosing peace
    when our leaders glorify conquest
    can feel like swimming against a current.
    It can feel isolating.
    It can feel misunderstood.

    There is pressure to harden,
    to pick sides loudly,
    to respond with the same force that unsettles us.

    But peace is not passive.
    It is deliberate.

    It takes strength to refuse domination.
    It takes courage to remain open
    when closing off would feel safer.
    It takes discipline to stay rooted in compassion
    when anger offers a faster release.

    Peace begins locally.
    I remind myself of this in the way I speak.
    It is also in the way I listen.
    I resist the urge to reduce others to obstacles or enemies.

    I cannot control the battles
    being fought beyond me.
    However, I can decide
    what kind of presence I bring into the world.

    So I choose to breathe.
    I choose to soften rather than strike.
    I choose to stand for dignity
    without standing on someone else.

    This is not weakness.
    It is alignment.

    And on days
    when the contradiction feels unbearable —
    when peace feels
    out of step with the world —
    I return to this truth:

    *To fight for the rights of others,
    * To stay humble,
    * To care deeply


    My contribution must be toward
    building bridges,
    lifting people up,
    sharing space rather than conquering it.

    I do not want to live in this world alone.

    Let’s be brave.
    Let’s be humane.
    We don’t need to shout,
    but we do need to stand up.