Pilot your Life
We’ve all seen videos of planes that ascend too quickly (or at least experienced it in a video game). It looks like this: an incredible burst of energy and an exhilarating climb which slows down because it can’t be sustained. The lack of energy to continue turns the plane around in the air, and the fall starts. Only very experienced pilots can save a plane out of freefall.
A better plan for reaching the heights is slowly and steadily. We all know this. The story of the tortoise and the hare practically screams it into our childhoods. But even in that story, there’s an alternate version often playing in my head. If the hare just had more character, he could have simply finished faster. In that narrative, I’m the disciplined hare. Of course I can handle going fast.
That’s why I like to think of life growth as climbing with an airplane. No commercial flight ever shot straight up; they take it gradually. A normal plane can’t sustain going straight up as much as a person can’t sustain a breakneck lifestyle. I can’t; you can’t.
Pilot your life like an airplane. It takes some work to get things off the ground, but once you start, the best way up is slowly and steadily. Don’t lose yourself on the heights. As many have said, “the most radical thing you can do is be consistent.”
