Floaters are people who spend much of their life and career looking for ways to keep what they got. To hang on. They wait out the tides of life and hope to just stay above water. To paddle is to resist and could possibly change the target outcome. When you are a floater, the unpredictable is the least appealing option. To stay afloat isn’t really living, but it is surviving and that’s better than sinking.
Swimmers look for ways to change their fortune and assume that the next move will better their current position. They paddle against the current, pursue uncharted waters and utilize a lot of energy to battle the elements in an effort to better their situation. Swimmers seek the unknown and look to gain growth through knowledge and sometimes failure. Swimming, to many, is living. Although with swimming, there is a stronger possibility of sinking.
Most of us spend much of our youth as swimmers, but evolve into floaters as we age. We are drawn to the appeal and consistency of the predictable bob of life. We have taken all the chances we were willing to take and are completely complacent with the way things are going-just as long as nothing rocks us or forces us to tread water. We hang in for dear life in hopes that it will be over soon enough and we finish things on our own terms.
How boring is that?
Some people have a lot of negative things to say about how Brett Favre ended his career. Everyone was caught up how his last few season were going to tarnish the “legacy” of his career. Favre responded by reminding the media that this was his legacy, his career and he planned on playing out how he saw fit. I don’t hate that. You can hate how he retired more than once or hate his refusal to commit to an answer about his retirement or how he might have hooked up with women outside if his marriage, but you shouldn’t hate him because he chose to finish the career his way. It’s his legacy. It was his career. He can end it how he chooses. Was he supposed to go out safely, as a floater, because we wanted him to leave the game as we imagined? Not everyone has to accept our expectations.
I’m not judging floaters like many would judge Brett Favre. If you spend your life floating-are living up to your true potential, setting records and learning? How many passes would Favre have not completed had he finished his career in Green Bay? How many fewer interceptions would he have thrown had he retired? Say what you want about him and regardless his motivation, at least he took the opportunity to try. It’s easy for us to sit back and judge, but as a reminder, this is not our legacy. He left the sport like he joined the sport-a swimmer. For that, he has my respect.
There are positives and negatives to being a swimmer or a floater. Swimmers are sometimes so caught up in the battle with the current, that they don’t take the time to assess the situation. Unlike floaters, they kick, flail and create ripples that rock the boat and cause more stress than needed. Floaters often give up too soon and not chance the unknown. They check out early and look for ways to ride out the waves, never testing themselves, but rather just accepting the natural progression of things. Inside every swimmer is a floater. Inside every floater is a swimmer.
Although I might be harder on floaters than I am on swimmers, I respect and understand both perspectives. This is your legacy. Your mark on the world. As long as you make the decision to take the direction and not allow that direction to be dictated, then you are still in control of your legacy. Like Favre, you should be the only one to decide how you leave the “game”. Just make sure, when you decide to start floating, that your not selling yourself short. Each of us has more swimming to do.
