I recently heard about a book by Adam Braun, a magna cum from Brown University, a young man with a huge heart who has helped build over 20 schools around the world. He wrote this book about his experiences: The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change.
In an interview, Adam explained how he wanted to do a college semester “at sea” where a ship drops students of at 11 different countries for a week at a time. In every country, the students were 100% responsible for arranging their housing, food, etc… He was really excited as he embarked on his trip until a traumatic life event happened that changed his life …
As the ship headed out, they were essentially caught in a “perfect storm” with 3 different storm fronts. At one point, a 60′ wave crashed over the ship breaking all the glass on their 6th floor deck and ruining all the navigational equipment etc. They did get a MayDay out, but they were a floating duck!
Adam thought for sure he was going to die, and all the common life questions “flashed” through his mind. Why am I about to perish? If I’m about to die, why was I put here? Looking back through his life, the things that stood out were not about “things” but instead were about family and about the times he had been of service. His final acceptance was … maybe I was just here to help someone else.
Hearing this story made me think about three separate times when I had close calls. Of all of the scenarios (coincidently ALL of them happened in water), although I don’t recall thinking any profound life questions, each time I walked away having learned lessons that have helped me well while on my Path of learning to serve others …
1) Just a child …
The first incident was when I was 12 while spending a New Hampshire summer with my Grandparents, and experiencing my very first visit to an ocean.
Our summer softball team included local girls plus two Minnesota sisters also visiting their grandparents. We were excited for our end-of-season party at a beach in Maine. Unaware of what a “tide” was, the sisters and I were playing frisbee together in the late afternoon, and with all our jumping around we didn’t realize we were being slowly swept out.
We found out quickly that we couldn’t seem to swim ourselves back in and were getting further and further from shore. Someone finally heard our calls for help and called the lifeguards, but we were pretty tired by now. Fortunately the sisters were on a swim team and made suggestions on how to swim with less effort, but I was almost done for.
It was sheer determination with encouragement that I kept my head above water long enough for the terrified lifeguards to finally get to us with a surf board.
Here’s something that struck me when I returned to my grandparents house … I couldn’t seem to convey how close that experience came to having a different ending, and my grandparents made light of it. I remember going to bed early to hide under the covers. But somehow I processed my emotions on my own because I ultimately walked away proud of myself for not giving up.
2) As a young teen …
The next time was a few years later when my family and I were camping near a lake with family friends.
A bunch of us kids were swimming in a “non-lifeguard” roped area when I saw one of the younger boys panicking as he waved his arms while continually going under water near the farthest rope. The rope distance from shore was pretty far out and none of the families noticed him having trouble; in any case they would have had a hard time getting to him on time.
I swam over to him right away just to calm him down but he immediately jumped on me in panic. He was a big boy and kept pushing me under. I couldn’t get away from him … I was starting to get pretty scared for both of us.
Then I remembered … I had just started a lifeguard course and we went over this exact scenario. I needed to get away, come up to him from behind, and put him in a hold so he couldn’t grab onto me. He was terrified when I got away and came back by putting him in the hold, but then I was able to talk to him more confidently, telling him to relax while we started heading toward shore.
My will and clear thinking of a solution is the only thing that helped me and this boy get to shore safely. The families didn’t even know there was a problem until I had to tell them. Again, no one else saw the danger we had been in.
I walked away proud of myself that I had stepped back from a challenging moment, and stayed calm enough to find a solution.
3) As a young woman trying to find my “sea legs” …
And the final scenario was when I was 18 while following my Dad’s footsteps and taking my 5th solo, static-line skydive!
The jump site was still using round army parachutes, which were more difficult to steer and had a slow turn response. The jump site used a huge arrow on the ground to communicate to the parachuters which direction to turn in order to land back at the jump site.
On this particular dive, I think there was a funky wind because I was quickly getting close to the ground while still far from the site. I was also heading straight for a large pond!
Eventually I had to ignore the arrow so that I could try and get myself away from the pond, but there’s such a turn delay with the round chutes that nothing was happening fast enough.
We were trained to use our flotation device if we thought we’d land in water, but I really thought I was going to make it to the side of the pond. Instead I dropped like a ‘lead balloon’ and landed smack in the middle of the pond.
I had wits enough to keep the chute from landing on top of me, but then my helmet and boots kept pulling me under water. I then tried to take off my helmet and my boots, but started to panic when they wouldn’t budge.
I knew I was about 2 miles from the jump site, so I then realized that it was 100% up to me, I was on my own. I was already getting tired and not able to swim to the edge with a dragging chute and heavy equipment, so I went with the ‘least resistance’ approach.
I took a breath and allowed myself to go underwater with my back toward the shore. With my arms at my side, I slowly pushed my way along in the water with little hand movements. I went back up for air as needed, saw that I was making a little progress, went back underwater and just kept at it until the toe of my boot finally touched ground.
I went a bit further and was just able to jump a bit to keep my head above water when my dad’s car came screeching to a stop on the road beside the pond.
First thing he said was “so you decided to go for a water dive huh!” with a chuckle. What the *&^% ?!! Sheer will, staying calm, keeping my head, and doing what I needed to do saved my a#$% that time!
I’m sorry for the pun but I can honestly say … talk about Sink or Swim!!
With hindsight, I see a common theme. All three incidents involved strengthening my WILL to overcome panic, thinking clearly in a stressful situation, keep working at it, and then be rewarded with a powerful lesson and outcome.
We all have our own type of powerful experiences, and there are always valuable lessons to be learned from them that we can apply to our daily lives.
Fo me, when I go through hairy moments, I’ve learned to take a deep breath and say “I’ve got this!”
