When Is It Time To Reef?
Posted: Jan 12, 2012
Years ago, I hired a terrific mechanic who sailed to the US from Yugoslavia on a 33’ sailboat. He and his wife lived aboard and were wonderful people who became good friends.
We sailed together once from New York to Virginia. With the wind picking up and the forecast questionable, he asked me, “How do you know when it is time to reef your sails?” After stumbling through some possible technical answers and realizing that I didn’t have a good one, he answered for me: “When the thought first crosses your mind.”
Over the years that thought has come back to me many times, though I have too often failed to abide by its wisdom. Perhaps a project is behind schedule and I am wondering when to push for overtime. Start too soon and I will unnecessarily drive up the cost, start too late and the project will be compromised. When is it time to ask for more hours? More often than not, the best answer is “when the thought first crosses your mind.”
There have been times I wondered when to reduce my exposure to certain financial risk. Trying to time a market or the economy in general is all but impossible. In 20/20 hindsight I can see the answer was there in my friend’s advice: “When the thought first crossed my mind.”
I have wondered why his expression so often rings true, and I think I know the answer. In our culture we place a high priority on reason, on figuring things out. We create spreadsheets to make decisions, and like to think our way through. And who could argue with the power of rational thought? But I think that if you are out on the water, and a thought arises on its own…”maybe it’s time to reef”…”maybe I should have a look in the engine room”…the thought comes from a deeper place. Our instincts have been at work, an inner wisdom has kicked in, and the thought arises, without any analysis at all. And that is a voice we should heed.
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