The Whales Didn't Show
- Stephen Walker
- Jul 29
- 2 min read
The Whales Didn't Show
Hi, it's Steve.
I just got back from a week in Washington state — family and friends I hadn't seen in years, two babies I met for the first time, and one thing I'd been looking forward to for months: a whale watch.
Here's what happened on the whale watch: nothing.
No whales. Not one. The crew told us it was the only trip all season without a single sighting. I did everything right — picked the cruise, got on the boat, scanned the water for hours. The whales simply decided not to show.
And it was still a great day. Open water, a beautiful sunset, people I love beside me. The Salish Sea didn't give me what I ordered. It gave me something else.
Forty years of mindfulness practice didn't make me immune to the disappointment — but it gave me something to do with it. Out on the water, I kept reminding myself, hour after whale-less hour, to come back to the moment: the open water, the sunset starting, the people I love beside me. The gratitude wasn't automatic. It was a choice I made, and remade, as the afternoon went on. That's what the practice actually is: not rising above the day you didn't get, but returning, again and again, to the one you did. Some things can't be forced, scheduled, or earned. What you control is smaller and simpler: whether you get in the boat, and how you meet the day that shows up instead of the one you planned.
So much of life works this way. The job you don’t get. The conversation you rehearsed that goes sideways anyway. The door that doesn't open on your timeline. The person who isn't ready when you are. We grip the outcome so hard we miss the sunset that came instead.
This came up in my live sessions on Aura and Insight Timer recently: how much suffering our expectations quietly create, and how the real skill is clarity about what matters paired with flexibility about how and when it arrives.
A question to sit with this week: Where in your life are you gripping an outcome you can't actually control? What would it mean to keep showing up — and loosen your hands?
One thing: When things don’t go your way, forgiveness and gratitude are the path to peace. So here’s a meditation for that: https://www.aurahealth.io/refer/aura-55u8c/tracks/-OGlRVE4wO0DHpYo07NK
And if something in this letter landed and you want to talk it through, my calendar is always open for a conversation: https://calendar.app.google/mK4NJ66TCvwwUjb99
Sending lots of good energy your way,
Steve
Visit us at www.integrityandjoy.com
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