I’m on my favorite beach on earth* on Lefkada, Greece, with my sweetheart. Te gorgeous clear blue-green waves crash rhythmically into this beach which looks like it’s is carved out of stones by God herself. There are a million things to be inspired by.

I see none however. All this sweetness is dampened by a crying pain in my left shin, a thumping ping pong sized swelling is equally eager to come and take a look at the Greek sun. Just 30 minutes ago, I started darting towards the sea, Blue Lagoon-style. This was followed by an encounter with a giant size rock hidden just below sea level, at the place where the wave break so exactly where you have to surrender and jump in fast. The encounter was not eventful to the rock at all, but all the more to me.

It was the perfect happening on an already ‘challenging’ holiday, where in chronological order, I got bed bound for 2 days with a mysterious pain in what I was convinced to be my liver, thunder storm that haunt the island made it 3 days of being confined inside. After the pain equally mysteriously left my right side, we almost got ourselves killed on a deserted rocky and steep hilltop, while looking for adventure. This episode left our car damaged, so that was our next problem. And now my aching leg, zillion kilometers from a descent doctor. Lovely.

So this holiday isn’t exactly obstacle-free, much like ‘life’. It’s amazing how much we blame the rocks that we bump into for being in the way -once I got out of the sea, I angrily limped up and down the beach looking for the rock that hit me. Of course, the rock doesn’t care. It was here before long my shin.

So what do we do then with the rocks that we bump into? Instead of shaking our fists angrily at the rocks, thinking ‘no more rocks for me!’, we could save ourselves the trouble and accept, as gracefully as we can, that there are, and there will be, many more rocks. Why? Let’s face it. They were here before us.

Rock on,

Geertje

* This place is called Kalamitsi, officially chosen the most beautiful beach in Greece)