Ride the peaks and troughs of your relationships

Relationships are a lot like surfing waves. Outside conditions are always changing, It’s easy to go surfing on the crystal blue days with ruler-edged perfection waves, especially when the sun is shining bright and warm. One day later and blue skies can go gray. While it is very common to see crowds of surfers on the best days, it is exceedingly rare to see any surfers at all out on the worst days. Surfers that wait for perfect conditions do not surf often, if at all. People that wait or search for the perfect love are apt to be single. Fair weather surfers tend to come and go, devoted surfers remain committed to surfing for as long as they can breathe.

All surfers want to ride their perfect wave, but it’s when conditions go south that their love and commitment are tested the most. Gone is the even line up and smooth conditions. Even beginner surfers can ride a perfect peeling wave, and good surfers can do it with their eyes shut. Storm waves with chaotic conditions and bumpy unpredictable waves are challenging for all surfers. Surfing storm waves is a spontaneous situation that demands complete conscience and awareness of the surrounding environment. It is impossible to know how a ride will finish, and a surfer must have supreme faith. Some of the best rides come on the stormiest of days. Sometimes the most rewarding surfing experience comes from experiencing and getting through the worst surfing experience.

Surfing is one of the few human activities that offer instant gratification. For many surfers, surfing is much more than instant gratification. It’s about having a relationship with the ocean on a day-to-day lifetime basis. The longer a surfer remains in love with surfing, the more that surfer will appreciate all the ocean’s moods and appearances, rain or shine, smooth or rough.

One day, the ocean may deliver a beautiful ride, the next it may deliver an ugly wipeout. Surfers that take the time to nurture a relationship with the ocean learn to accept and love all aspects of the ocean.

For devoted surfers, there are no bad days, just days. Devoted surfers love the ocean unconditionally and feel honored to partake in her blessings. If today the ocean gives me one more wave, I shall ride it with all my heart and respect. Waves, like love, are a gift to be cherished and respected at all times sunny or gray.

You may find yourself in a relationship where everything is perfect or close to it. But just as you really never know your surfing ability until you have surfed in all conditions, one never really knows the strength of their relationship until it goes through all conditions, good and bad. Getting through the bad times together is what makes love good if not great. To be counted on and then to come through keeps love solid as a rock.

All waves are beautiful in their own way. There is no better wave than the one you are on. Fair-weather surfers turn their back on an ocean that just keeps loving, to look for imagined waves elsewhere. The first time the wind blows the wrong way, they fly away easier than dandelion seeds flying in a gentle breeze.

Real love endures the coldest, howling and hurricane-like winds of calamity with more strength than a solid fortress made of rock.

To develop and enjoy relationships to their fullest, be like a surfer that has a firmly established relationship with the sea, accepting the good times with the bad times as growing experiences, growing closer together loving full-time all the time for all time. Aloha.

E-mail surfing experts Michael and Milton Willis at wbsurfing@hotmail.com.