DROPPING A STONE VS. SKIPPING A STONE...A METAPHOR FOR LIFE…

             DROPPING A STONE VS. SKIPPING A STONE...A METAPHOR FOR LIFE…

By

Frank C. Cota, Jr., Inspired by (Tio) Ruben Perez!

I had this wonderful conversation with my tio (uncle) about a week ago regarding throwing a stone in the lake versus skipping a stone. My uncle was recalling with great fondness how he loved to skip stones across the lake and the focus, effort, and practice that he would take to skip the stone the farthest that he possibly could, leaving the most ripples that he possibly could. This article was born of that conversation, and I share it with you now, using this beautiful memory as a metaphor for life.

When you drop a stone in the water it leaves a ripple and then it's gone. There's nothing left to show that anything had ever dropped. We often discuss the ripple effect, the effect in which something we do creates an impact surrounding us much like when a stone drops in the water and leaves that ripple. However, dropping a stone in the water and leaving a ripple versus skipping a stone has significantly different results.

Although we understand that both the dropped stone and the skipped stone must inevitably sink, it is the distance they travel, the impacts they make, and the ripples they leave that are the difference. I believe that we should strive in our lifetime to “skip that stone” as opposed to dropping it. In skipping the stone for it to be a successful skip, requires technique, skill, focus, and effort. I believe that in our lifetime the ripples that we leave in “skipping the stone” in terms of living our lives, are those many “skips” of kindness, care, compassion, assistance, love, and friendship. In our life, I believe, each time we show or demonstrate the above we are creating a “ripple” effect from these “skips of compassion” that far outlasts our time on this earth. Albert Camus once said life is the sum of all our choices. In saying this I believe that he was sharing that one fantastic deed does not make us fantastic, nor does one bad deed make us bad. It is the sum total of the things we have done in our life and ideally the good outweighs the bad so that the sum total of our life is a positive one. So, with each passing day we had the opportunity to skip that stone by positively impacting a life, by showing compassion, by helping others… skip, skip, skip, ripple, ripple, ripple or would we prefer just to drop... ripple... sink….

As I shared previously, inevitably, gravity will take its toll and sink each stone. The difference are the distance, dynamics, and ripples, created from the concerted and focused efforts of skipping as opposed to the less concerted efforts have dropping. I hope that as we go through our life we endeavor to “skip” and not “drop”, to delay the inevitable “sink” as long as we can, and through our efforts to help others, creating lasting “ripples”, and momentum, that cause those we help, to help “skip” others along to success and happiness.