Memorial Day is the unofficial start to the summer. I grew up in New Jersey, pretty close to the beach, and like many high school teens I worked at a local beach club during the summers. When I was 16 I took a course to become a lifeguard. It’s pretty straightforward: you learn first aid, CPR, and how to rescue people in the pool/ocean. One thing people tend to do when they can’t swim or are possibly drowning is panic. This is obvious, but the implications are severe. In a panic people might inadvertently try and drown the rescuer, which means as a lifeguard you need to be ready to handle this type of situation.
So, one part of lifeguard training was a test of how well you could escape if a person, in their panic, tried to drown you with them. The instructor, a former para-rescue jumper and fairly big guy, had all of us future lifeguards in the pool, treading water. We formed a big circle and faced one of the walls of the pool, while the instructor (who could hold his breath for pretty long stretches of time)would dip below the surface and swim up behind a person unknowingly, wrap his arms around their neck, and try and pull them under.
Here’s the thing, though: once he latched on it wasn’t too bad. There’s a little trick we’re taught to help escape (and if you couldn’t escape you could tap out). The scary part was the waiting, of not knowing when it would be my turn. It would be silent until a big splash of water was heard nearby (you had to stare at the wall in front and couldn’t look around). In research this is called anxiety, fear of the unknown.
This is part of the reason why people who should train and exercise don’t. It’s uncertain, unknown, and unfamiliar. What if I fail? What if it’s really hard? What if I look silly? It’s much easier to default to what we’ve always done. Stay somewhere we can’t be seen, don’t get out of our comfort zone, don’t take too much of a risk. You don’t get better by staying in your comfort zone. It’ll be hard, but it’ll be rewarding, and you’ll likely look back and realize it wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought it would be.
