Some rustlers ride into the sunset. Some cavaliers walk away from an explosion and don’t look back. But one time, Patrick Swayze lassoed a tornado and rode it away from the past and into a storm.

That’s the kind of cowboy I want to be.

I’m five weeks deep into an administrative job. I’ve tried to tame the job and bottle the job. But I can’t bottle the wind, especially a whirlwind. I want to become quite skillful in whirlwinds, not bottles.

My job is described as herding cats, although it feels like making sandcastles with the wind. The wind is not on my side. I might never tame the elements, but I can be a better rider.

I can’t control where the storm takes me because I cannot control the storm. I can hold on for dear life and accept the storm’s path because I can call upon my grip.

One time, I saw an African drummer perform. He said people would shake his hands and ask him how his hands could be so soft and smooth from hitting drums his whole life, to which he would reply, “I’ve never hit a drum in my life; I play the drums. That’s why.”

Life can give us callouses when we live against the grain and soften us when we go with the rhythm of the wind. Even whirlwinds have rhythm. Hitting the wind causes chafing. Playing the wind—playing to the wind—causes momentum. I should pick storms wisely and hang on with all I got.

I see a storm on the horizon and another storm after. There is always a storm, and there is always a horizon. How will I always find the courage, patience, skills to ride the whirlwind so that it lays me down like a musician’s instrument? I promise I will learn it by playing it.