You Can’t Rush a River
You Can't Rush a River
What a 470km journey down the Hunter River taught me about life, business, fatherhood and the danger of forcing progress
Summary
While paddling 470km down the Hunter River from source to sea, I learned a lesson that extends far beyond rivers.
Some days there was barely enough water to float. Other days I battled wind and tide for hours and made little apparent progress. The harder I tried to force the journey, the more frustrated I became.
Eventually I realised that rivers, like many of the most meaningful things in life, cannot be rushed.
This article explores what the river taught me about patience, adaptation, fatherhood, business, wellbeing, and the often-overlooked value of taking steady steps towards our goals rather than constantly chasing faster results.
Because perhaps the goal is not to get where we're going as quickly as possible. Perhaps the goal is to become the sort of person capable of getting there.
A few years ago, I paddled 470 kilometres down the Hunter River from its source in the Barrington Tops to the ocean at Newcastle.
At the time, I thought the challenge would be physical.
The distance.
The weather.
The logistics.
The endurance.
And while all of those things certainly played a role, the greatest challenge turned out to be something entirely different.
Patience.
Like many people, I've spent much of my life wanting to move forward faster.
Build things faster.
Learn faster.
Get fitter faster.
Grow businesses faster.
Achieve goals faster.
I've often treated life as though it were something to complete rather than something to experience.
The river had other ideas.
The River Doesn't Care About Your Timeline
One of the strange things about rivers is that they don't care what you want.
They don't care about your plans.
They don't care about your schedule.
They don't care about your expectations.
There were days during the expedition where I imagined covering huge distances, only to find myself moving painfully slowly against wind and tide.
There were sections where the river was so shallow that paddling wasn't even possible.
I climbed off my board and carried it through dry riverbeds, trudging kilometre after kilometre under a hot Australian sun.
I remember looking at the map and thinking:
"I should be further ahead than this."
Perhaps you've had similar thoughts.
I should be further ahead in my career.
I should be earning more money.
I should be fitter.
I should have written the book.
I should have started the business.
I should have figured this out by now.
The river offered no sympathy.
It simply presented reality.
And reality didn't care about my timeline either.
The Tortoise and the Hare
As children, many of us are taught the story of the tortoise and the hare.
The lesson is usually presented as:
"Slow and steady wins the race."
But I think there is something deeper.
The tortoise wasn't obsessed with winning.
The tortoise wasn't constantly checking how far ahead everyone else was.
The tortoise simply continued moving.
The hare, on the other hand, was distracted.
Reactive.
Overconfident.
Focused on outcomes rather than process.
When I reflect on my own life, I can see moments where I've behaved like both.
There have been periods where I've sprinted after goals, trying to force outcomes, putting enormous pressure on myself to make things happen faster.
Then there have been periods where I've learned to trust the process, focus on the next step, and allow progress to unfold at its own pace.
The river rewarded the latter.
Building a Business Is Like Paddling a River
In many ways, building SwiftReporter has felt remarkably similar.
There have been times when I've looked at where I wanted the business to be and felt frustrated by the gap between vision and reality.
The temptation is always to push harder.
Move faster.
Force results.
But meaningful things rarely respond well to force.
Trust takes time.
Relationships take time.
Products take time.
Reputation takes time.
Communities take time.
You can't bully these things into existence.
You can only keep showing up.
Learning.
Improving.
Adjusting your course when conditions change.
And taking the next stroke.
It's not glamorous advice.
It probably won't go viral on LinkedIn.
But increasingly, it seems to be true.
Fatherhood Has Been Teaching Me the Same Lesson
If the river taught me patience, becoming a father has reinforced it daily.
Anyone with a toddler knows that life no longer unfolds according to your schedule.
You can have a plan.
The toddler has another.
You can have priorities.
The toddler has different ones.
You can try to rush.
The toddler generally doesn't care.
Parenthood has a wonderful way of exposing our illusions of control.
And perhaps that's one of its greatest gifts.
Because many of us spend years believing that if we just organise ourselves well enough, work hard enough, and plan carefully enough, life will finally cooperate.
Then a child arrives and reminds us that life is not a machine.
It's a relationship.
A conversation.
An unfolding process.
Much like a river.
The Modern Obsession With Speed
One reason this lesson feels important is because modern culture often celebrates speed above almost everything else.
Fast growth.
Fast results.
Fast success.
Fast answers.
Fast delivery.
Fast transformations.
We are constantly encouraged to optimise, accelerate and hack our way to outcomes.
Yet many of the things that matter most cannot be accelerated.
You cannot rush trust.
You cannot rush wisdom.
You cannot rush meaningful relationships.
You cannot rush mastery.
You cannot rush becoming the person you're capable of becoming.
Nature seems to understand this instinctively.
A tree grows at the pace a tree grows.
A river flows at the pace a river flows.
A child develops at the pace a child develops.
Perhaps humans are not so different.
Adaptation Over Force
One of the biggest lessons from the expedition wasn't actually patience.
It was adaptation.
When sections became too shallow, I carried the board.
When conditions changed, I switched craft.
At different stages of the journey I moved by paddleboard, kayak and foot.
The objective remained the same.
The method changed.
This is something I've often forgotten in life.
We become attached to specific plans.
Specific timelines.
Specific outcomes.
Then reality changes.
And instead of adapting, we resist.
The river taught me that adaptation is not failure.
It's intelligence.
It's responsiveness.
It's working with reality rather than against it.
Perhaps the Goal Isn't Speed
Looking back, I'm grateful the river didn't cooperate with my expectations.
Because if it had, I might never have learned what it was trying to teach me.
The truth is, most of the things I value most in my life have taken longer than expected.
The relationships.
The friendships.
The skills.
The experiences.
The businesses.
The personal growth.
None arrived according to plan.
Yet many arrived exactly when they needed to.
Perhaps the goal isn't to get where we're going as quickly as possible.
Perhaps the goal is to become the sort of person capable of getting there.
The river certainly seemed to think so.
And after 470 kilometres, I'm beginning to think it might be right.
Reflection Question
Where in your life are you trying to rush the river?
And what might happen if, instead of forcing progress, you focused on showing up, adapting, learning and taking one more stroke?
By Evan Sutter