Same Ocean, Very Different Boat

We were dead asleep aboard Barefoot Sunset when it hit, just before five. The boat was moving, properly moving, a sloppy sensation coming from all around us. We could hear it as well as feel it, and it was not a noise a boat safely at anchor should make.

Dave and I stumbled out of the bunk together. My first thought was the obvious one: had the anchor dragged, were we being pushed onto the reef? No wind, no swell, so no. Next thought was a volcano getting a bit spicy, we've heard that kind of rumble before further into Indonesia. Also no, nothing near us. Which left earthquake. Big, as it turned out, though it didn't feel that way from where we were, more the lower end of middle of the scale, a reminder that Mother Nature has strong opinions out here.

Once we knew we were safe where we were, I made coffee, sat on the back of the boat, and watched the sunrise, still with no idea what any of it meant beyond our own experience. Aftershocks kept coming through the morning, none of them close to the size of the first.

Then the outside world arrived, the way it does now: snippets of video, pictures, speculation, delivered via social media, followed by a flutter of messages from people checking whether we were okay. Lives were lost. Homes collapsed. Large infrastructure buildings crumbled. Businesses were destroyed. Roads were cut by landslides, closing off villages already dealing with everything else. Less than 15 miles from where I'd been drinking coffee and admiring how awesome Mother Nature was, that same force had taken everything from other people.

That's when the thought arrived, sitting there scrolling: we might be in the same ocean, but we're certainly not in the same boat. Never mind that this time I was, quite literally, on my own boat.

When something like this happens, something beyond anyone's control, we reach for the same lines. We're all in this together. We're all in the same boat. Said as a kind of rallying cry, meant to comfort. But scrolling through what had actually happened less than fifteen miles from where I sat, it was very, very clear that wasn't true.

I still believe in that first phrase, just not the way we usually mean it. I can get behind "we're all in this together" if we redefine it from a tribe point of view: we show up for each other, we listen properly, we meet each other with empathy instead of assumption. What I can't get behind any more is the idea buried inside it, that the impact of a shared experience is the same for everyone it touches.

Because it isn't. When something moves through your industry, your year, your life, the impact on you and your business isn't the same as the one next door, and it's not down to luck. It comes down to how your business is set up, the kind of leader steering it, the planning already done, whether you've weathered something like this before, who's around you and how they support you. So many variables sit underneath what looks, from a distance, like everyone going through the same thing.

An earthquake at least announces itself. It leaves something you can point to: a cracked road, a flattened home, proof enough that everyone around you understands why you're not fine. Most of what moves through a business doesn't do you that favour. It doesn't crack anything visible. The business keeps working, the clients keep coming, and because nothing announces itself as a problem, nobody around you has a reason to notice, let alone help. Just a slow drift, invisible from the outside, that only you can actually feel.

Same ocean. Never the same boat. If you want more of this kind of thinking landing in your inbox before the next thing moves through without warning, sign up here and I'll send the next one your way, sea stories included.