As when water trickles upon a rock, the erosion that occurs is imperceptible – in the short-run.
If the drip is allowed to continue for a long enough period of time, the rock will lose.
It doesn’t matter that the rock may be serving a useful purpose, like buttressing a footbridge. Nor does it matter that the people who walk across that bridge have come to depend on it. Sustained pressure works, every time.
We want to be the water.
We approach life with a belief that consistency is the key to success. We do what we do every day with an eye toward the future. We stick to our plans by doing all of the little things that need to be done today so that our tomorrows will be better.
But most of us are rocks.
Each of us struggles with managing the daily stressors that slowly wear away at our resolve to succeed – or even our basic will to survive. When we are young and our level of resistance is high, we notice the drip, but we are strong enough to ignore it. Time and the drip conspire against us.
Good intentions count for nothing.
Being involved in a relationship that is decaying is a lot like that. When the arguments have been had and the walls between the two have been erected and fortified, the real ugliness begins. The point, it seems, to the existence of one or both of the former lovers – their lone reason for living, is to wear away at anything that is left of the relationship to ensure that its destruction is complete.
Common sense, logic, or considerations of how this behavior misshapes the future have no place in this discussion.
Not anymore.
Drip, drip, drip.
Photo Credit
Photo by Leonard John Matthews on Flickr – Creative Commons
Originally posted at Ray’s Blog – March 19, 2011
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I like your anaolgy. I think we’re probably a little of each, the water and the rock. Being water takes mindfullness and persistance. Being the rock usually happens when we’re unaware, or too busy or deflated to see what’s happening to us and take action to prevent the endless erosion.
Congrats on getting space here. All the best,
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
I’m very happy to be here, thanks!
Yes, people can be, and are, both the water and the rock at different times of their lives. One of the many aspects of writing that I enjoy is that the words we put out there are open to differing interpretations, where the meaning drawn by each reader is nuanced. In this piece, I sought to draw a contrast between the forces that erode, like the water or the actions of another — over which we have no control — and the effects of that erosion.
Thank you for sharing your view.