Let go

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river....Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last , 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go , and let it take me where it will. Clinging I shall die of boredom. ' The other creatures laughed and said 'Fool! Let go and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed acrss the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom'. But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go , and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again , the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream to whom he was a stranger, cried, 'See , a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!'... And the one carried in the current said 'The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.'

Excerpt from Richard Bach's Illusions.