The Leaf in the Stream

I went down to the creek behind our home and dropped a single green leaf into the water.
It spun once, caught the current, and drifted. My only task was to follow.

At first, it moved fast, slipping over pebbles, dodging little sticks that tried to hold it back.
Then, without warning, it slowed. The current softened. The leaf circled in lazy loops, like it wasn’t sure whether to rest or keep going. Finally, it came to rest on top of a brown leaf, an older one, maybe from last season. Side by side, the green and brown floated there, still.

Watching it, I saw my own rhythm mirrored.
There are moments when we race ahead, powered by momentum. Others when we circle the same bend again and again. And sometimes, when the season asks it of us, we rest. Not because we’ve failed, but because it’s time.

Life looks repetitive from above: the same errands, the same emails, the same dinners. But under the surface, the stream is always changing. The light hits differently. The water carves new paths. What looked like “the same” is actually us growing, deepening, moving through new terrain.

Walking slowly as the leaf moves through its path made me realize that it’s not anyone else limiting my pace or shaping my story; it’s me.
The quiet storyteller inside who keeps repeating old lines: You can’t. You should. You’ll fail.
Those aren’t prophecies. They’re echoes. And I can choose to write new ones.

So maybe the leaf lesson was this: stop fighting the current.
Flow where the stream leads. Rest where it slows.
And when it’s time to move again, do it with the same ease the leaf had; no resistance, no hurry. Just trust.

At the end of this post, I’ll add a short video of that green leaf winding its way downstream. Watch it. Then ask yourself:

• Where am I forcing the current right now?

• What story about my pace, or my worth, am I still retelling?

• And what would it look like to float, just for a while?

Sometimes wisdom arrives as quietly as a leaf in a stream.