The Thoughtful Mend

Mending the line is an integral part of fly fishing.  A mend can lead to a snag, take, or most of the time, nothing at all.  I’ll bet I mend well over one hundred times during an outing on the river.  How many times am I just going through the motions though?  Of those 100+ mends, how many did I truly focus on?  How many did I really mean?

A guide on the San Juan taught me to stack mends in order (or at least attempt) to achieve the perfect drift.  I do believe thoughtfully mending the line will help me catch beautiful trout, but what parts of our lives need mending?

Perhaps all the distractions of this world are causing us to neglect the things that need the most care.  Family, close friends, day to day conversations, random encounters, our responses online, social media presence, etc.  I teach high school and try to have thoughtful, meaningful conversations with my students, but I know I don’t always get there.

Either they’re tired, I’m tired, or we’re all tired.  As many amenities as we have in 2026 and how “easy” things appear to be on the surface, life is still hard.  Have we become too self-aware?  (Thanks, True Detective).  We worry about things people fifty years ago never would have even considered because they didn’t exist.  Some of our concerns are trivial and we know that, but we still worry.

We can’t admit that we’re wrong because so many people these days believe they’re right.  However, obtaining information is different from having knowledge and thinking you’re right is different than knowing you’re right.

My charge is to start mending.  Mend that friendship that’s on a knife edge. Reach that person on your periphery that you know needs a helping hand.  Talk to that difficult family member you know you’ll need five years down the road.  We live in a complex world where it’s easy to cancel people out and become siloed.  The toxic spread of misinformation is intentional and we have to be wise enough to know fact from fiction.

Be thoughtful in your approach to mending your own life too. Who knows, maybe they’ll be a fish at the end of your line?

Enjoy February and don’t forget to look up.