Diving Back In

I’m at my mom’s in Juno Beach, Florida, for a couple days this week, and this morning we took a walk along the beautiful beach.  All bodies of water are different colors and the ocean here is an amazing blue-green, perhaps best described as aquamarine, which Wikipedia defines as a shade between green and blue and clear.  See, for example, the lovely uncut aquamarines below:    

 

Anyway, I was wearing my bathing suit and the morning sun was very warm, so I decided to take a little swim before going back inside.  Every body of water has different tides and weather and wind conditions too, and the waves today were a few feet high, breaking at an angle toward the beach, and kind of irregular.  These were not dangerous conditions by any means but I couldn’t help flashing back to my very scary swim in Mexico late last year – that’s the last time I’d actually swum in an ocean – and that particular body of water was truly not fit for swimming, as I described in my January post titled Bonus Hours.

This morning, though, I was reassured that there were quite a few people around – some fishermen nearby and other morning walkers enjoying themselves as they browsed for shells.  So in I went, cautiously and slowly, standing waist-deep waiting for one of the big waves to pass in order to swim out during the approach of the several smaller ones that followed.  And it was lovely.  I floated, swam a bit, opened my eyes underwater (beautiful aquamarine world!), and the whole time kept an eye on my colorful towel lying on the beach in order to monitor my distance and drift.  It was not a long swim but it was an important one.  And as I negotiated the waves to get back out of the water I realized that my heart was pounding hard. 

The experience made me think about how important it is to move forward from disappointing or negative experiences with a constructive and optimistic attitude, in a way that doesn’t close doors or eliminate options but rather educates and empowers us to take on similar and even bigger challenges in the future.  This can mean diving back into the waves, skiing the double-blacks with your 18 year-old, calling a client prospect just one more time, bringing up a difficult topic with a loved one vs. avoiding the conversation, taking the lead on connecting with relatives or friends or colleagues, being a proactive parent.  It means putting yourself out there and imagining bigger.   Not the most natural posture for someone who tends toward introversion, like me, but over the years I’ve decided that I prefer it to the alternative. 

Daniel Pink, in his recent book, To Sell is Human, contrasts saying Yes with saying No.  They each have benefits and drawbacks.  Saying “Yes” provides adventure, while saying “No” provides safety – both positives.  However, lots of yeses tend to lead to opening and growth (along with uncertainty), while lots of nos may lead to more control and predictability, but also a smaller personal world.