There’s a series I once watched called The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, and there was a quote that stayed with me:
“Birds don’t fly; they ride the wind. Fish don’t swim; they are carried by the water.”
This view is as much about perspective as it is about surrender. It’s poetic, beautiful, and invites reflection.
Have you ever been in a river? The current flows in one direction, and if you try to fight it—swimming upstream—you’ll exhaust yourself and get nowhere. There are moments in life that feel just like this, aren’t there? Times when we push against the current, believing we can change its course, only to find that some things are immovable forces.
The truth is, life has many rivers. Some are worth navigating and working with, while others require us to simply let go. Surrendering isn’t giving up; it’s recognizing when resistance is only causing unnecessary suffering. But how do we know the difference? How do we identify what is a “river” in our lives—the things we cannot control? That’s the hard part.
It takes time, self-awareness, and a willingness to step back from our struggles to see the bigger picture. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves: Am I exhausting myself trying to fight something that just is? And if so, what could happen if I surrendered, trusting the current to carry me?
When I think about the quote, I wonder: do birds actually fly? Do fish truly swim? Or have they simply surrendered to what they are—to their nature—and found harmony within it?
What if we did the same? What if we embraced our own nature, allowing life’s wind and water to guide us instead of resisting them? What if we trusted the flow?
By shifting our perspective, we begin to see the beauty of surrender—not as a defeat, but as an act of profound wisdom. We let go of the need to control and, in doing so, free ourselves to move more fluidly with life.
After all, some of life’s greatest joys aren’t found by fighting the current but by letting it take us somewhere new.
The Wild Gems 