Catch the next wave

After you've explored the June entries, we hope you leave with a little more hope, a little more perspective, and the courage to keep holding onto the rope. Then we hope you share your own wave, because every story matters and every ripple reaches someone. Peace to all—mind, body, and soul. ✌️

Written Waves

The Wake

by Bert Russell

Date: 6-21-2026 @ 2:57 PM

I bought my first boat right off the showroom floor.

Actually, I bought it online.

I thought I had found the deal of a lifetime.

By mentioning an advertisement, I saved over $7,500. I was proud of myself. I felt like I had beaten the system. I had done my homework. Or at least I thought I had.

What I failed to do was read the comments.

The boat looked beautiful. The pictures were perfect. The price was irresistible. The engine started every time I turned the key. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turned out, quite a bit.

The boat had a reputation. Owners complained that it would not idle correctly. The carburetor system struggled at low speeds. It was difficult to maneuver around docks. Windy days became stressful. No-wake zones became frustrating. Parking the boat often felt more challenging than driving it across the lake.

The discount I was so excited about suddenly made sense.

The previous buyers had left a wake of information behind them. I simply failed to see it.

Life works the same way.

Every decision leaves a wake.

Sometimes the wake is small. Sometimes it is large enough to rock every boat around it.

Water skiers spend their entire day looking for smooth water. They want the smallest wake possible. They know that even a small ripple can throw them off balance.

Wakeboarders are the exact opposite.

They search for the biggest wake they can find. The larger the wake, the bigger the jump. What one person avoids, another person embraces.

The wake itself is neither good nor bad.

It simply exists.

The difference is what we plan to do with it.

The same is true in life.

Some decisions create a smooth path for the people around us. Other decisions create waves that travel much farther than we expected.

Buying that boat taught me something I have carried ever since.

The problem wasn't the boat.

The problem was that I focused on the discount and ignored the wake.

I looked at what was directly in front of me and failed to look behind it.

Every decision leaves evidence.

Every action creates consequences.

Every choice sends ripples across the water.

The wake tells the story.

The question is whether we are paying attention to it.

Before making a decision, it helps to ask one simple question:

Am I looking at the boat, or am I looking at the wake?

Sometimes the answer makes all the difference.

Written Waves: Short Wicks

by Bert Russell

Date: 6-20-2026 @ 3.27 AM 

Waves rarely knock us down the first time.

Most of the time they give us a warning.

A little spray across the bow.
A slight wobble beneath our feet.
A reminder that the water is still stronger than we are.

The problem is that familiarity often disguises danger.

As children, we learn this lesson the hard way. We touch a hot stove, fall off a bicycle, or light a firecracker with a wick that is shorter than it appears. The first few times nothing happens. We laugh, tell stories, and convince ourselves that we understand the risk.

Then one day the wave arrives a little faster than expected.

The firecracker explodes sooner.
The rope snaps tighter.
The water becomes rougher.

What changed was not the wave.

What changed was our respect for it.

Life has a way of teaching through repetition. It allows us to drift closer and closer to the edge until confidence slowly transforms into complacency. We stop listening to warnings because yesterday worked out fine. We assume tomorrow will do the same.

But every wave deserves respect.

The experienced water skier knows this. The lake may appear calm, but hidden wakes are always moving beneath the surface. The moment a skier believes they have mastered the water completely is often the moment they find themselves floating in it.

The same is true in life.

Relationships require respect.
Money requires respect.
Tools require respect.
Nature requires respect.
Time requires respect.

Even success requires respect.

The things that hurt us most are often the things we stopped paying attention to because they became familiar.

I learned long ago that a short wick can teach a long lesson.

The numbness eventually fades.

The lesson doesn't.

Like waves rolling toward shore, life's warnings keep returning until we understand what they are trying to teach us.✌.

Written Waves: The Bocce Ball Lesson

by Bert Russell

Date: 6-15-2026 through 6-19-2026 - Finished at 1:12 PM

As Father's Day approached, I found myself thinking about my father.

I loved him very much.

As a child, I knew him simply as Dad. As an adult, I realized he was much more. He was my educator, my advisor, my provider, my friend, my colleague, and often my debating partner. We butted heads from time to time, but I never doubted that he loved me, and I hope he never doubted how much I loved him.

Recently, I found myself thinking about a game of bocce ball.

At first glance, bocce seems simple. You toss a small ball, then try to roll your larger balls as close to it as possible. Yet anyone who has played knows that success rarely comes from one perfect roll. The game is won through dozens of small adjustments. A little more force. A different angle. A patient approach. One roll influences the next.

Life works much the same way.

When I think about my father, I do not remember one big lesson. I remember thousands of small ones.

He taught me how to ride a bicycle, shoot a basketball, throw a baseball, hold a flashlight correctly, and work hard. He taught me how to water ski, snow ski, sled, swim, play tennis, and enjoy the outdoors. We played golf together, visited museums and art galleries, went on vacations, and spent countless hours simply talking about life.

At the time, many of those moments seemed ordinary.

Now I realize they were anything but ordinary.

Like a bocce ball slowly rolling toward its target, each lesson moved me a little closer to the person I would become. No single lesson changed my life. It was the accumulation of thousands of small moments, repeated over years, that shaped my direction.

Perhaps the greatest lesson he taught me was how not to quit.

Life was not always easy, and neither was he. There were things we disagreed on. No parent is perfect. No child is perfect. But when I look back, I see a man who showed up. He was there when I struggled, and he was there when I succeeded.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the sacrifices I never noticed at the time.

That is the ripple hidden within every family.

Long after the conversations end, the lessons remain. Long after the games are over, the memories stay. Long after a father is gone, his influence continues to move through the lives he touched.

Sometimes the greatest legacy a father leaves behind is not found in a single moment.

It is found in the thousands of ordinary moments that quietly roll forward, guiding a child toward a better future.

Peace of mind. Peace of body. Peace of soul. ✌

Education is the key. Teaching is the degree.

Written Waves: Sunlight and Shadows

by Bert Russell

Date: 6-18-2026 at 5:41 AM

Most people enjoy sitting in the sun.

After a long winter, we naturally search for warmth. We pull our chairs into the sunlight, close our eyes, and let the sun touch our skin. In many ways, kindness works the same way.

A compliment can warm a person's heart in seconds, yet a cruel comment can leave a shadow that lasts for years.

Why do people continue to bully or be mean? Do they feel stronger when they hurt others, or are they carrying shadows of their own? I do not know the answer, but it is a question that crosses my mind whenever I hear voices rise in anger.

The world already has enough storms. It already has enough darkness. What it needs is more sunlight.

Not the sunlight that comes from the sky, but the sunlight we create through our actions. A smile. A compliment. A kind word. A helping hand. Small acts of kindness may seem insignificant, but their warmth can travel farther than we realize.

Just as the sun's rays touch the surface of a lake and create thousands of dancing reflections, one positive action can create countless ripples we may never see.

I often struggle to understand why there is so much violence, hatred, and division in the world. Yet I refuse to let those shadows define my outlook. Life is too short to spend it hiding under the covers in fear.

Instead, I choose to sit in the sunlight.

I choose hope over fear.
I choose kindness over anger.
I choose encouragement over criticism.

The shadows will always exist, but so will the sun.

The question is simple: Which one will you share with the people around you?

Peace of mind. Peace of body. Peace of soul. ✌

Education is the key. Teaching is the degree.

Written Waves

Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at 10:31 PM

Learning to Ride the Wind

For most of my life, I thought I was sailing into the wind.

No matter how hard I tried, progress seemed difficult.

Everyone around me appeared to move in straight lines.

School.

Reading.

Communication.

Learning.

Everything seemed simple for them.

For me, it felt like I was fighting a constant headwind.

The harder I pushed, the harder it seemed to become.

As a young man, I didn't understand why.

I thought there was something wrong with me.

I thought everyone else had been given instructions that I somehow missed.

So I pushed harder.

I tried harder.

I pretended harder.

And for years I exhausted myself trying to sail directly into a wind that was never meant to be fought.

Years later, I learned something from windsurfing.

A windsurfer doesn't move forward by fighting the wind.

A windsurfer learns to work with it.

The sail isn't there to stop the wind.

The sail captures it.

Redirects it.

Uses it.

The very thing that appears to be holding you back becomes the thing that moves you forward.

That realization changed how I view my life.

For decades I saw my learning struggles as a weakness.

I saw dyslexia as a barrier.

I saw my non-linear thinking as a defect.

What if it wasn't?

What if the wind was never the problem?

What if I simply hadn't learned how to trim the sail?

At forty-nine years old, I finally understood why I experienced the world differently.

The diagnosis didn't change who I was.

It changed how I understood myself.

Suddenly the wind made sense.

The frustration made sense.

The confusion made sense.

The years of feeling different made sense.

More importantly, I realized that many of the skills I developed while struggling had become strengths.

I learned to solve problems.

I learned to adapt.

I learned to think differently.

I learned to see connections others often missed.

The wind that once felt like resistance had quietly become momentum.

Today I still encounter challenges.

The wind still shifts.

The water still changes.

Some days are calm.

Some days are rough.

But I no longer spend my energy fighting the conditions.

I spend my energy learning how to use them.

That may be the biggest lesson the water ever taught me.

The goal isn't to eliminate the wind.

The goal is to learn how to ride it.

Education is the key.

Teaching is the degree.

Peace. ✌️

Written Waves

The Ones That Got Away

Date: Monday, June 15, 2026 @ 10:18 PM

I was thinking about fishing today.

The funny thing is, I am not much of a fisherman anymore.

Not because I don't enjoy it.

Because I forgot how.

Life has a way of doing that.

If you don't practice something for years, the knowledge stays somewhere in the back of your mind, but the confidence fades.

Yet when I think about fishing, I think about my father.

I think about the trips we took to Lake Michigan with one of his colleagues, Larry Hess, if memory serves me correctly.

Larry had a boat that looked more like a charter boat than a fishing boat.

To a kid, it seemed enormous.

We would troll for Steelhead Trout and Coho Salmon.

Not little fish.

Big fish.

The kind that could make a young boy wonder if he had hooked a submarine.

Some of those fish weighed more than thirty pounds.

At thirteen or fourteen years old, I barely weighed ninety pounds myself.

I remember struggling to keep the rod tip up.

The fish would pull.

I would pull.

The fish would pull harder.

Looking back, I probably needed a fighting chair with straps just to stay attached to the boat.

But I loved every minute of it.

Those were experiences.

The kind that stay with you.

The kind that become stories.

Thinking about those fishing trips led me to football.

I was never the biggest player.

In eighth grade I weighed eighty-eight pounds.

As a freshman, I played strong safety.

I wasn't the starter.

I was second team.

But when the team needed a spark or the starter came out, I got my chance.

I had four sacks.

Two interceptions.

I could tackle.

I knew my assignment.

I knew where I was supposed to be.

I knew how to get the ball carrier on the ground.

I wasn't big enough to intimidate anyone.

But I was willing to do my job.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder what might have happened if I had been given more opportunities.

Could I have been better?

Probably.

Could I have developed my skills further?

Absolutely.

But if I am being honest, opportunity wasn't the only factor.

Choices mattered too.

Instead of focusing entirely on improving my craft, I spent time doing things that pulled me in the wrong direction.

I smoked cigarettes.

I got into trouble with the Grits.

I smoked between classes.

Why?

Because I thought it made me look cool.

Back then, a lot of people smoked.

The adults smoked.

The kids smoked.

It seemed normal.

I didn't want to be left out.

The funny thing about life is that hindsight makes some lessons painfully clear.

Today I can look back and see the opportunities I missed.

But I can also see the experiences that shaped me.

The fishing trips.

The football games.

The mistakes.

The poor decisions.

The lessons.

They all belong to the same story.

Maybe the fish and the opportunities have something in common.

Some get away.

Some we never even realize we hooked.

But every once in a while, if we're paying attention, they teach us something worth remembering.

And perhaps that is enough.

Education is the key.

Teaching is the degree.

Peace.

Are Interested more of Bert Russell's Philosophies or Pastimes - check out more of his lessons that he has learned overtime: Facing IT! - www.peacefouru.org - Gravitational Pull - www.H2Olifestyles.com - or The Ripple Effect - www.4youtwo.com (COMING SOON! - to a theater near you!!! Just Kidding. maybe someday, anything possible.) ✌

Written Waves

The Bridge

Date: Monday, June 15, 2026 at 12:13 am

Sometimes you spend years looking for an answer only to discover it has been sitting in front of you the entire time.

This weekend I realized something.

Many of the things I have been building are not separate projects.

Written Waves.

Facing It!

Gravitational Pull.

The Ripple Effect.

The Last Dispatch.

LakeLife4U.

H2Olifestyles.

The Skool community.

For the longest time, I thought they were different ideas.

Different destinations.

Different journeys.

I was wrong.

They are all connected.

Each one is simply a different path leading to the same place.

A place where people can learn from one another.

A place where people can share their experiences.

A place where mistakes become lessons and lessons become wisdom.

For years I searched for the bridge that connected everything.

Then I remembered something my grandmother used to say.

Education is the key.

Teaching is the degree.

Simple words.

Yet the more I thought about them, the more they explained everything.

Every person has something to learn.

Every person has something to teach.

Life is the classroom.

Experience is the curriculum.

Some lessons come from success.

Some lessons come from failure.

Some lessons come from golf courses, rivers, storms, family, friendships, work, and quiet moments of reflection.

The lesson itself is important.

Sharing it is even more important.

Knowledge that stays locked away helps only one person.

Knowledge that is shared can help many.

That is the bridge.

That is the mission.

That is the journey.

As I continue down this road, I do not claim to have all the answers.

I am simply a student trying to learn.

And when possible, a teacher willing to share.

Maybe that is all any of us are supposed to be.

Learning.

Teaching.

Growing.

Together.

What did you learn?

What can you teach?

Education is the key.

Teaching is the degree.

Peace.

Written Waves: Getting Back Up

8:44 PM on 6-11-2026

Medical procedures can be expensive. For me, they can also be exhausting.

I am dyslexic. Reading has never come naturally to me, yet people often tell me that I write well. Strange, isn't it? The very thing that challenges me most is often hidden behind the thing I do best.

This week, I have been preparing for a medical procedure that most people consider routine. The instructions seemed simple enough. There were pages of directions and even pictures. Yet somehow, I managed to fail. Twice.

What many people do not understand is that dyslexia is not simply reading words backward. Instructions can become a maze. A sequence of steps that appears obvious to others can feel like trying to follow a map while the roads keep changing directions.

Then add diabetes to the equation. The dietary restrictions, blood sugar lows, lightheadedness, and fatigue create another layer of confusion. What should be a straightforward process becomes a physical and mental obstacle course.

As I sat reflecting on my frustration, I thought about learning to water ski.

The first time you try to water ski, the instructions sound easy. Hold the rope. Keep your knees bent. Let the boat pull you up. Everyone on the shore makes it look effortless.

Then the boat accelerates.

The water rushes over your face. The skis separate. You lose your balance. Before you know it, you're floating in the lake wondering what just happened.

The people watching may only see the fall. What they do not see is the effort it took just to get into the water and try.

The second attempt is often harder. You know how much it hurt the first time. You know what can go wrong. Yet you grab the rope again.

That is where I find myself today.

I may have failed the procedure twice. I may have misunderstood instructions that seemed simple to everyone else. I may have battled low blood sugar and frustration along the way. But like a water skier floating in the wake of the boat, I am still holding onto the rope.

Sometimes success is not getting up on the skis the first time. Sometimes success is having the courage to try again after the fall.

The water does not care how many times you failed. The boat does not judge your previous attempts. It simply offers another pull forward.

Life works much the same way.

So, I will grab the rope again. I will study the instructions again. I will make another attempt.

Because every skier who eventually glides across the water first learned what it felt like to sink beneath it.

Peace to all—mind, body, and soul. ✌

New Entry - 6 - 4 - 2026

Written Waves – The Tide Between the Waves

I have learned that my mind moves a lot like the water. Some days I wake up with the feeling of a perfect swell rolling beneath me. The air smells fresh, the horizon looks endless, and every stroke forward feels effortless. Ideas connect like currents beneath the surface, and suddenly I can see the route, the destination, and every buoy in between. Those are the days when motivation feels less like work and more like catching a wave that was always meant for me.

Then there are the low tides.

The water pulls away from shore, exposing every rock, stump, and obstacle I forgot was there. I stare at the same task, knowing it needs to be done, yet I cannot find the right place to begin. Instead of paddling forward, I drift. I check one thing, then another. I find distractions disguised as productivity. The shoreline feels farther away than it really is.

For years, I wondered why my moods seemed to rise and fall so dramatically. Was something wrong with me? Maybe not.

As a nonlinear thinker, I have realized that my mind is constantly searching for patterns, connections, and understanding. When I can see the path, I become energized. When I cannot see the starting point, my momentum stalls. The frustration is not from the work itself. It comes from not yet seeing the current beneath the surface.

The lesson is that low tide is not failure. It is observation. It is the ocean pulling back before the next wave arrives. The answer is rarely to force the wave. The answer is to study the water, understand the conditions, and trust that the tide will return.

The ripple is what people see—motivation, accomplishment, and progress. The gravitational pull is what they do not see—the hours of thinking, studying, questioning, and searching for the current that makes the next wave possible.

Sometimes my greatest strength and greatest challenge are the same thing. I do not think in straight lines. I think like the ocean. 

Revelation:

 "The wave never apologizes for rising and falling. Neither should I. Both are simply part of the tide." ✌️