Swim, run, fetch
There was a study done once on rats. They were put into a bath of water, and the time was measured: how long are they willing to swim before they drown? In the first trial most rats lasted around 15 minutes, and just before the critical point they were pulled out. After some rest they were put back in. This time they swam for hours — reportedly up to around 60 hours.
That is the power of hope. The rats believed they would be rescued, so they kept going. Surrender was not an option until the body gave up. The rats did not investigate whether such a struggle makes sense. There was no questioning of the purpose. There was hope.
And it is quite interesting. We celebrate people who run ultramarathons for 20, 30, 40 hours, and a rat swims for 60. It is not worth comparing hours — each species is different, each person is different. But it raises one question: why do rats have that resilience, and we don’t?
I think the answer is the thing that made us win in the first place. Consciousness. Atoms turned into chemicals, chemicals turned into living creatures, and living creatures turned into humans who now study atoms. Chemicals became so advanced that they study themselves. That is incredible. But it also means we ask why before every step. The rat doesn’t.
Three characters get it right where we get it wrong: a rat, a man who couldn’t get into school, and my dog.
Swim: have hope
Why did people used to have so much resilience? They had hope — a shared picture of a better world. Nobody cared about balance because work felt like play.
I am Polish, so I can say this freely: this country is incredible in a crisis. We gather, break barriers, break walls. One thing brings us all together, and it is hope. It works in a whole country and it works in one person.
Is there a smart way to build hope? I think so. Two things: 1) choose one thing to pursue, 2) pursue it with all your heart. That’s it. Have a vision, have clarity on the end point. But know that it will be painful, scary, doubtful and lonely.
When you have a dark forest in front of you, you can cross it to see what is on the other side, or stay where you are and never know. You don’t know the way — it’s dark. But you can see the next step. So take it.
Run: stop thinking, just do
Forrest Gump is one of the least intelligent characters in film. His IQ was not high enough for him to get into school. Yet he was more successful than most of us will ever be: college athlete, soldier, table-tennis champion, founder of Bubba Gump, husband, father, and in the end a man with a beautiful garden to look after.
The 21st century says success needs a high IQ, money behind you, a strategy, a plan and good execution. Forrest had none of that. He went with the stream.
The Inner Game of Tennis explains it as Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1 judges, analyses and protects. Self 2 acts freely. You can see Self 2 dancing at a house party: the music moves through the whole body, not only the ears, everyone falls into the same rhythm, and — like two waves with the same frequency — the amplitude rises. Nobody is thinking how they look. The body just goes.
How to get there, as I took it from the book: focus on the end goal (the ball on the other side of the court — not the score, not the tournament); watch how the pros do it without waiting for instructions; imagine how the movement feels; do it, notice what felt wrong, adjust. That is exactly how Forrest learned table tennis. His friend told him “never take your eyes off the ball”. So he didn’t. Day and night.
Right here, right now is all there is. The past is done. The future has countless factors outside our control. My favourite line in the film is “shit happens”. Forrest steps in dog poo, his running partner shouts, and Forrest asks: what shit? Tell me honestly — how many times did anything actually happen after you stepped in it? For me, zero. It’s reversible. Clean it and keep running.
Same with his business. No five-year plan, no list of a hundred steps. Just shrimp, every day. Then a hurricane came, his was the only boat left, and business boomed. The big players are on the Titanic sipping champagne until the iceberg comes. If you want to do business, do business. Something will come out of it.
Life is a box of chocolates. Without the war, Forrest never meets Bubba, never meets Lieutenant Dan, never plays table tennis, never builds the business. Sweet is never so sweet without the sour. You wouldn’t swim against a river, so why waste the energy? Swimmers caught in a rip current are told the same thing: don’t fight it head-on; swim across it, let it lose its grip, then head for shore. Use the current. Don’t resist it.
Fetch: be bored
I have a beautiful border collie. When we took him we didn’t know what we’d signed up for: constant play, constant attention, more need for stimulation than anyone else in the house. His two favourite things are frisbee and searching for snacks.
Those are the same things we call a job. We “have to” run. We “have to” hit our steps. My watch once told me the performance of my run was −3. After one kilometre. Maybe I’m just tired and you’re already judging me?
Our dogs are looked after better than we look after ourselves. Everything we call biohacking — meals at the same time, good food, daily movement — is just a normal day for a dog. And he loves his jobs. We don’t love ours. Why?
One word: boredom.
Dogs are bored a lot. They wait while we work. They sit. So when the thing finally happens — the human stands up — they are ecstatic. Something might happen. Something fun. Let’s go.
The brain works like this for us too. Dopamine is less about the reward and more about the promise of it: the rush comes when something good might happen, not only when it does. To feel that, there has to be a gap first. A wait. Nothing.
We have removed the gap. There is a phone in every pocket, and no minute is ever empty. Depression and anxiety in teenagers started climbing around 2012, about when most of them got a smartphone. Researchers still argue about how much one caused the other. But I know what my own days feel like without a single empty minute: flat.
Boredom is not a bug. It is the signal to go and find something. In one study, people who were made bored first — copying numbers out of a phone book — came up with more creative ideas afterwards. So be bored sometimes. Let the wait build. Then when the frisbee flies, run after it like my dog does.
The next step
The rat didn’t question whether swimming made sense. Forrest didn’t overthink the ball. The dog didn’t scroll while waiting. None of them is smarter than us. They just don’t get in their own way.
So choose one thing. Stop thinking and do it. Leave some empty time for yourself. And when the forest is dark, take the next step.