The Ripple Effect

They say time heals all wounds. I don't believe that's true, but there is a guiding principle we can take from it. I think of it as The Ripple Effect.

I remember casting my fishing rod into the lake at The Lodge when I was a kid. The bobber would hit the water; the ripples working out from its point of impact in concentric circles, gradually weakening until they eventually reached the point where they disappeared entirely as the bobber became still.

Time and distance dampened the ripples' effects on their surroundings until there was no longer any evidence they had existed at all.

Issues in life -both good and bad - act much the same way. They cause some pretty significant ripples at the point of impact; having the greatest effect on those closest to the situation in both time and space, but gradually weaken until their memory is all that remains.

The wounds of a particular event weren't healed as much as they just became distant enough with the passage of time that the pain no longer reminds us of their presence. Rather, like the bobber sitting quietly in the now still water, the event is still there. It can never be erased from our past, but it just sits there now - no longer causing the ripples that disturb its surroundings.

I look back at my life and see many bobbers sitting in the now still waters of my past. I wish I had never made some of those casts; while others cause me to long to recapture the joy of that moment. But the ripples of both have long since disappeared.

I suppose life itself is like one of those casts. The ripples represent the impact and influence I have had on my surroundings and those whose paths I have crossed. One day the bobber that is my life will settle and the ripples will gradually disappear. For a while, some of those who knew me might look back and see the now still bobber and remember the ripples until the passage of time slowly takes even the still bobber from their sight.