Surfing Life Waves: A Surfer's Guide to Riding the Waves of Life

First published as a book in 2012 — written, as it happens, on scraps of paper in dusty Kathmandu cafés, about as far from the ocean as I've ever been. Republished here in full, lightly updated, fourteen years later. The ideas haven't changed. Neither has the ocean.

Waves are all around us. Light waves, sound waves, radio waves, seismic waves, gravitational waves. We speak of waves of relief, waves of anxiety, heat waves, shock waves, brain waves. Your heartbeat itself is a series of waves — your innermost energy, visible on a hospital monitor. Waves are the constant that underpins reality, and perhaps the unifying element of all life.

With all this wave activity, it's easy to compare the waves we can measure to the more abstract ones we face in living. Opportunities for success, failure, love and a whole spectrum of enriching experiences come to us in waves, every day. And so the surfer — arguably the world's foremost expert in waves — turns out to have the perfect operating manual for life.

Here's the heart of it: you can't control waves. They break where they break. What you can control is being geographically, physically and mentally in the best possible position to make the most of the waves that do crash into your life. It's a path destined to throw you into the depths more often than staying safely on the beach would. But a life spent on the beach, watching others, is not the life of a surfer.

You may have already ridden or missed the best waves of your life — or the perfect waves of your dreams may be brewing in a storm far away. It doesn't matter. Don't be attached to what you can't control. Focus on what you came here to do, which is to go surfing.

Get the original book, freeSurfing Life Waves was published as a beautifully photographed 72-page book in 2012. Join the Surfd crew and we’ll give you the full designed edition — ocean photography and all.

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The Surf Check

Sometimes it's a dash to the end of the street; sometimes it's a voyage across continents. Deciding when and where to surf is integral to every surfing experience, and surfers pursue it with a blend of knowledge, intuition, technology and luck.

Life's version: when you feel a longing for new challenges — or yearn for something more — it's time to go and find the place where your waves of opportunity are breaking. Take some time to consider the waves you dream of riding. Surfers conjure their perfect waves in fetish-like detail: the cylindrical shape, the colour, the lightly-feathered peeling lip. When you can visualise what you actually want, your search can begin. That vision imbues purpose and direction, which gives life meaning.

There is an ocean of opportunity constantly swirling around you. Some waves are small and seemingly insignificant, a rare few are perfect, and many are daunting or downright terrifying. Sometimes you'll feel you're in a lull — no job, no dates, seemingly no prospects. At other times you'll have too many options. This is all part of nature's interminable rhythm.

The essence of the surf check is that you get yourself out there and look around. Stop. Breathe. Distinguish between what you want and what you need — they are very different things, so invest your energy wisely. Material desires are fine, but objects rarely fill the spaces in your heart.

And don't over-think it. Einstein reputedly defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result. If the conditions in front of you look good, get out there. If you're consistently not finding the right waves, maybe you need a geographic change, an exit from a dead-end relationship, or a fresh look at what you really want. You may even discover you're already riding your dream waves.

The surf check is where you get excited about life. Use your intuition, assess the conditions, and go searching.

Preparation

When the waves are good, surfers usually jump straight in — but watch the professionals, whose livelihood depends on riding well, and you'll notice intricate pre-surf ritual: meditative silence, music, stretching routines.

Before harnessing the waves that spill into your life, there are things you can do too. Being healthy not only extends your life but enriches your experience of it. When your body functions well, your mind is free to engage completely — you become more fearless, more willing to push beyond your perceived limits. It is beyond your comfort zone that the magic happens.

Visualisation is part of preparation, too. Simulating situations mentally before they occur builds confidence: you've already been there, so it's not as scary. Surfers can't help but imagine catching the waves of their dreams — there's hardly a surfer for whom the right-shaped tree doesn't become a gaping barrel. In life you can do the same. Picture the interactions that will move you toward what you want, and picture them going well. You don't need mantras or the Universe's participation. Just use your imagination; that's what it's for.

Finally, keep visualisation and expectation separate. Don't think you deserve your dream waves, for neither nature nor life can be controlled. Existence is a drunkard's walk in which much of what happens comes down to chance and timing. What you can control is that when your chances come along, you're as prepared as you can possibly be.

You'll never regret the time and effort spent developing yourself to be your best.

The Paddle

Often overlooked, sometimes dreaded, the paddle-out is the price of entry — especially at beach breaks, where the ocean seems determined to keep land creatures terranean.

The paddle in life is the small steps required to achieve a goal. You can procrastinate and avoid the tedious tasks, or you can embrace them with exuberance. The sooner you get them done, the sooner you get to surf.

Getting to where the waves of opportunity break takes persistence. If your goal is to be healthy, there's a series of steps between the you of right now and the glowing you of the future. Those steps are the paddle. There will be obstacles and there will be difficulties, but the more you paddle, the stronger you get. Don't fixate on the waves breaking way out there; keep your attention on your immediate surroundings, stay focused, and look up occasionally to make sure you're on track. Remember that every obstacle was once someone else's opportunity — obstacles and opportunities are all water in the same ocean. It just depends where you're looking from.

Two rules of the paddle. First: never ruin someone else's ride. Even if it means taking a beating yourself, cheer your friend — or a stranger — onto the wave of their life. Happiness is best shared, and your turn will come. Second: don't resent the paddle. It warms you up, it tests your courage, and it makes the waves you ride even sweeter. When you're working toward a dream, the obstacles are as much a part of the dream as the elation of achieving it. What kind of dream would it be, if it were easy?

And when you're deep in an underwater tempest, being thrashed so hard you don't know which way is up — relax. Conserve your energy. The most successful people have invariably taken the most beatings. It's just an experience; it is not you. Even if you get washed to the beach without catching a single wave, it's okay. Come back tomorrow and try again.

The Line-Up

You've made it out beyond the breakers, to where the ocean is ominous and electric. This is where the waves live. Now all you have to do is negotiate the crowd, read the ever-changing conditions, and find the right position.

Our world has limited space and limited waves of opportunity at any one moment, and greed doesn't work — it creates anger and ugliness, in the water and out of it. The key is to become the best surfer you can be, so you earn your rightful share of waves. Being intrepid and creative will find you waves where others aren't looking. Being bold will get you onto the biggest ones — the waves most people are too afraid to catch.

Position yourself deliberately. Before you paddled out, you saw where the best waves were breaking. Find a landmark, stick to it, and don't get dragged off it by the current — in life it's dangerously easy to get swept away by minutiae and drift from why you're out there at all. Keep focused and hold your position, even when it takes hard paddling. Everyone else is struggling too. And if it's too crowded, or the struggle never eases, perhaps you're surfing in the wrong place: geography can transform a life. Sometimes the smartest move is sitting wide of the pack, at peace, waiting for the rogue set everyone else will miss.

Be friendly out there. A smile and a hello go a long way — in surfing, as in life, being positive and enthusiastic gets you places. Ignore the people quietly hoping you'll fail; they're not your problem. When your wave finally comes and you're in prime position, paddle with every ounce of determination you have. People notice, and they pull back and let you go.

Be strategic, and find the balance between assertive, timid and greedy.

The Wave

Waves are born of energy from the sun. Through wind and a million variables, a pulse of water travels toward land, and if the force against the ocean floor is great enough, it steepens and spills forth as a wave — no two ever the same.

In life, waves of opportunity are everywhere. Identifying the right ones and learning to ride them takes practice, dedication and hard work. When you've identified the right wave for you — a relationship, a career, an adventure, a goal — and the opportunity arrives, do everything you can to catch it. Paddle with determination, commitment, focus and instinct. This is where you synchronise yourself with the opportunity.

The ghosts of the people you didn't become linger always around you. So when you get an opportunity, even a small one, treat it as sacred. Sometimes the waves that seem irrelevant deliver the perfect experience, partly because they were unexpected. Often all it takes is a change of board — or attitude — to appreciate what has been there all along.

Your wave is here. Gather momentum and, in the words of every surf instructor everywhere: paddle, paddle, paddle!

The Drop

Exhilarating, weightless, momentary, profound — the drop is all about commitment. You've harnessed a new opportunity and now there is no turning back. This is where you let yourself go, find your feet, and embrace the rush of new experience. You may fail, but you will learn. And pulling back now almost always ends in one of those spectacular, time-suspending, over-the-falls wipeouts that other surfers love to watch.

Life serves many kinds of drops. Paddle early and you'll get to your feet with time to scope the wave ahead. Rush into a late drop and you'll be on your toes — quite literally — free-falling into what could be the ride of your life. People make life-changing decisions in moments of love, boldness and madness: saying hello to the intriguing stranger, signing the lease, taking the job. Late drops shake us out of complacency. They can be good or bad, but we need them, because taking risks makes us feel alive.

It's generally wise to take on opportunities within your skill and experience level to manage — or at least comprehend. (It must also be said that alcohol severely enhances the appearance of some opportunities, often with disappointing consequences and a good tale to tell.) Never stop learning, and remember: the greatest risks yield the greatest rewards. If you're following your heart, you can never go entirely wrong — even in failure.

The opportunity is before you. You've said hello, you've accepted the offer, you're about to sign the line. Don't pull back. Don't even think. Life is made of moments of heightened emotion, and this one is yours. Relish it. This is you — alive.

The Bottom Turn

Every proficient surfer will tell you the first bottom turn sets the tone for the entire wave. It's the fluid, swooping motion that converts gravity and the wave's momentum into your own chosen line on a transient watery canvas.

You've made the drop, and the wall of potential is rushing forth to meet you. Here's the part nobody tells beginners: wherever you look is where you will go. Stare down at the reef and you'll shortly be meeting sea urchins. Look out along the wall of the wave, and that's where you'll race. The best surfers look up to the power pocket — the critical slope where the wave pours its energy back into itself — the most exciting and dangerous of realms.

In life, the bottom turn is your intention. It's how you choose to harness the opportunity you've just caught. You can aim for high performance and put everything on the line, or you can cruise, observing the world around or within you. There is no right or wrong — the key is to set an intention and stick to it. Landed the new job? Decide: will you strive, risk failure, and aim for the steepest section? Or glide toward the shoulder and enjoy the view? Not every wave needs to be annihilated; sometimes cruising is just as fulfilling.

This is where you get to decide.

The Ride

You've picked your line, and now you're a living being harnessing a wave of moving energy. Once you've ridden a good wave you can't help wanting that feeling again and again. Imagine living your whole life with that enthusiasm. It's possible.

The secret is that there is no secret. In life — as in surfing — you ride your waves in ways that reflect your personality, mood, skills and objectives. For a fulfilled, even blissful existence, you simply need to spend more time flowing with the kinds of opportunities you love.

Flow — as defined in positive psychology — is the state of complete immersion in an activity, where time seems to stand still and you become your actions. Reaching flow with the waves of your life takes practice at whatever it is you love. Mastery is said to take ten thousand hours, and that's fine: you've been catching waves of opportunity since birth. You're already a master of sorts. Once you have a vision, ride as many waves as you can — nothing beats time in the water.

As pleasure-seeking animals we sometimes ride the wrong waves over and over, letting the right ones pass out of laziness, fear or bad judgement. If you're consistently riding the wrong waves and not enjoying your surfing, it's time to change your approach — or change beaches.

And regardless of skill or circumstance, you can transform your life waves right now through attitude alone. The key is exuberance. Be light, be curious, be exuberant. You've met the partner of your dreams, got the job, chosen the new field of study — ride the opportunity for the sheer sake of being part of it, without attachment to the outcome. Don't listen to the dream-stealers; everyone alive today will be gone in a sprinkling of decades, and it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. If the wave offers you a wall, throw yourself up to the steepest part and feel the elation as you drop back down with speed. Gravity is the only thing that should ever bring you down — so defy it, embrace it, and flow back to the power source to do it again. Get good enough and you may even begin to fly.

This is your life, and you're surfing it.

The Paddle Back Out

Different from the paddle that began your session, the paddle back out is where you reflect on the wave you just rode. Sometimes it's effortless — a channel, a helpful rip. Often it's a breathless struggle against relentless sets of oceanic fury. Either way, it's the perfect time for processing what just happened.

This is the time to contemplate failure — not to dwell on it, but to replay the wave and learn. Paddle hard if you need to let off steam. You'll be back in the line-up soon, open to fresh opportunities.

In life you sometimes get on a roll: everything goes your way, and you synchronise — through luck, awareness and skill — with the opportunities rising to meet you. Relish those times. But sometimes you'll fight for an opportunity with all your might and fail miserably at the critical moment, surfacing to find the obstacles stacked against you all over again. You can give up and go home to the comfort of old ways. Or you can try again.

Don't be attached to the bad experience. You are not the experience — it was just a wave of energy that you rode. If someone hurt you, if you lost a challenge, if a work venture failed: learn, of course, but file it as an experience, not an identity. The most successful people are rarely the most talented; often they're simply the most tenacious. Too much genius is lost to a lack of perseverance. Don't let that happen to you. Your only responsibility in life is to flower — to reach your full potential. You live once, and there'll be plenty of rest when your ashes are scattered to a breeze.

Get back out there. You'll rarely regret trying.

The Glow

You've caught your last wave of the day and your feet touch the sand. Maybe you fell for "one more wave" syndrome, the bane of every gambler's life — surfers know the cycle of chasing just one more good one to finish on. It's worth knowing when you've had enough, because there's nothing in surfing like ending on a high.

After a session comes a heady mix of exhaustion, exhilaration and — if the waves were good — stoke. Stoke is a blissful state of satisfaction, an elated mindfulness: you've touched the essence of your being, and all the worry in the world fades. Go down to your local beach on a clean offshore day and you'll see it everywhere.

Not every session in life brings happiness or enrichment. But you're always learning just by being out there — and every session makes you a better surfer. Even an average surf provides a glow, because you've been out there, progressing, alive.

When you've had a great session, savour it. This is where you give gratitude for simply being alive. There will come a day when you can surf no more, so bask in the aftermath of the moments that make you smile. And remember: life is not about the easy times but the difficult ones, for they become the benchmark by which you judge everything else. So when you've caught a great wave — met the person of your dreams, been recognised for your talents, saved a life, planted a tree, said hello to the cute dog outside the supermarket — appreciate it. Give your mind a break. Breathe in deeply. Smile. Feel complete.

The Tube

A philosophy taught by the ocean could never be complete without a tribute to the tube — those moments spent sliding through the wave's heartspace, engulfed in the ocean's liquid embrace. It is the most revered aspect of the surfing experience, with disproportionate volumes of literature, art and film devoted to it. It's one of the riskiest places to be on a wave, and also the most ethereal, fleeting and beautiful. The view from behind that curtain is as close to a religious experience as many of us will ever get.

In life, the tube is the moment when everything aligns. You're in perfect harmony with the opportunity, in the most critical and beautiful place, having committed everything — and now you're spiralling toward the light. You're boarding the plane. You're falling in love. If this goes well, you'll never forget it. It's the greatest risk, and only the greatest risk yields the greatest reward.

You'll rarely get barreled by accident. You know what you're getting into; usually you're jumping at the chance, if not actively hunting it. Taking great risks while surfing the waves of your life takes years of practice to perfect. But if you're dedicated — and willing to accept a lot of failure — you'll become exceptional at riding the waves of your success, adventure and enrichment. You can be the one others aspire to be: the person riding life's barrels, fearlessly and with style.

Never Stop Surfing

So here you are, surfing your way through life. The fear of failure has become a fear of not trying. Presented with waves of opportunity, you balance risk with creativity and instinct. Sometimes you strive for progression — alive, exuberant. Sometimes you ride with style and grace. Sometimes you let someone else go, and feel the glow of another person's stoke. Most of all, you're embracing the waves as they come and riding them mindfully, with your full attention.

Don't wait for a catastrophe to shake you awake. Too many people run on autopilot until it's almost too late. If you had all the money in the world, what would you do? Do it now — even a little bit every day. You'll be surprised where a bit of momentum can take you.

This is not a dress rehearsal for another, better life. Stop any self-loathing or negativity; it's a waste of precious energy. One day you'll look back in awe at the person you are today. Be open. Search for the opportunities you feel you truly need. Use your mind as a tool but your heart as a guide. Practice every day you can. Get fit and healthy. Smile unashamedly — life is too fleeting to worry what anyone else thinks.

When your life waves come, embrace them as magical, sacred experiences that illuminate your existence — but don't cling to them, good or bad. You are not the experience; you are the witness to it. And who is this witness? It's certainly not your noisy brain. It's that inexplicable part of you that loves being in the tube, being in flow.

When you become good enough at riding life waves, you may find you no longer need goals: the right opportunities and experiences begin to synchronise with you. It's a kind of enlightenment — the experience becomes you, and you become the experience. Your mind no longer fills your consciousness with noise; your heart overflows. You've tasted moments like this — days when you were so in tune, so in flow, that you felt unstoppable. With practice, dedication and mindfulness, you can ride your life waves like that always. You can become the whole ocean.

Embrace your life with exuberance and curiosity. Never stop surfing.

Get the original book, freeSurfing Life Waves was published as a beautifully photographed 72-page book in 2012. Join the Surfd crew and we’ll give you the full designed edition — ocean photography and all.

Send me the book

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Surfing Life Waves was first published in 2012 by Dispersion Publishing, with photography by Jules Phillips and Rhydian Thomas. If these ideas resonate, you might also enjoy How to Surf Forever, Surfing and Flow State, and The Transformative Magic of That Very First Paddle Out.