I saved someone’s life today. I immediately attribute the experience to my recent commitment to living life at Cause versus at Effect; but more on that later.
You’ve maybe seen some of my past post about how much I’ve been loving and learning from my surfing journey. From my first near death encounter with the waters of Rio back in 2014, I’ve since surfed in 4 countries across 3 continents! What a journey.
Today in Costa Rica was different. Surfing Costa Rica was new for me for a number of reasons; I had a 1 to 1 coach who came out with me on his own board and whose job was to essentially help me read the waves (when to ride, when to dive), understand the layouts (rocks if too far to the left, crocodiles if too far to the right), and what aspects of my form would need improvement to take my skills to the next level.
This is what the session was SUPPOSED to be. When we go out to water, it was a sh*t show! The waves were oscillating between baby two footers crashing right at the shore and these series of behemoth monsters that were crashing at such a speed that paddling out almost seemed impossible. We were committed and braved some big boys to finally get to a place where catching a wave seemed a real possibility….I caught two. I had challenged myself to go out with a short board though it had been a while and, with a new crowd of novice surfers closing in, every drop in had to be straight on to avoid collisions, a method that lead to more than a few nosedive wipeouts.
Eventually, 90 minutes had come and gone and we were approaching the two hour mark. My coach, Jose, let me know he needed to get going but that I was welcome to stay out as long as I wanted.
I wasn’t confident I’d be able to catch any more waves in the session; the winds were picking up, making the water do this ‘washing machine’ like level of turbulence that, in past sessions, made me so motion sick I yacked in the water… but something told me I wasn’t ready to go.
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about this concept of living at CAUSE as opposed to living at EFFECT. I’m sure some more prolific philosophers could do a better job then I at explaining the ‘pure’ definition but for me, it simply means making the conscious choice to take ownership over every decision I make. Being at cause means you have choices in your life - you can choose what is best for you and for those around you. Those who live their lives at effect often see themselves or live their lives as victims with no choices whatsoever.
This mindset influenced my decision to stay out because, had Jose not told me he had to go, I would have been committed to continuing to push myself and not calling it a day until I decided I was ready. As silly as this may sound, I felt really empowered in my ability to make a decision autonomous of any outside influences and factors and was stoked to see how the universe would reward me: Mistake # 1.
Living at Cause is making a choice and taking ownership for those choices; its not making decisions because of some warped expectations of reward from karma or the universe but that is inadvertently, still living at EFFECT! Does that make sense?
Okay so back to the life saving. I decided to stay out and try and catch one more wave. I never did. I’d see one, commit, paddle paddle paddle annnnnd misss it. I had one fleeting thought of ‘what the heck universe! Where is my ‘Hero’s Journey’ ending?’ and that’s when I heard it; Ayuda! Ayuda-me! I look up to see two teen boys struggling in the water. I realized they were the same boys who were wave diving by the shore when I first began paddling out; as the furthest surfer out at about 20 meters, they had REALLY drifted off.
The first thing that came into my mind was a flash back of that fateful day back in Rio; that moment I realized I had gone too far, that there was no one around me and that the harder I fought, the further I felt the ocean pulling me out. *No time to think, time to act*
I was once asked if surfers wear lifejackets and for some reason I found it really funny. In retrospect, I guess it’s a fair question but the answer is no.
When we wipe out, you hold your breath and relax. You might be tumbled but your body and board are naturally buoyant and will surface if you wait it out.
‘Okay, lets get this board (flotation device) to these guys stat’ so I swim over pass them my board and the two guys (each at least 200 pounds) tell me they can’t swim. Like at all. I’m on a 7 foot board, which may sound long but I assure you, in this situation, it was not. By the grace of God, I was able to use my training to stay calm and tread water long enough so just the two of them could use its support and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a longboard rider was making his was over to help me out.
Keeping the guys calm while we waiting for the lifeguards was tough, yet familiar; we could see them struggling to make it out; the same ‘behemoth monsters’ from before were giving them a beating but eventually, they were able to intercept, got the boys on their massive ‘lifeguard boards’ and paddled them back to land.
I said a sincere thanks to the Frenchman who had come to my rescue….in my process of attempted rescue, rode one final wave back to shore and collapsed on the beach. I was exhausted & had swallowed a fair bit of water, but weirdly enough, found myself in such a unique state of peace. I just laid on the beach and looked up at the clouds; everything was so still. The guys eventually came running over, so full of gratitude and emotion and I just gave them a smile, a ‘Pura Vida’, and made my way back to surf shop to drop off my board.
I looked back at everything that happened that day; the motivation behind my decision to stay out (which was little more than a gut feeling that I wasn’t ‘done’), how it almost felt like my relationship with the ocean had come full circle in an entirely new way….but above all else, a reaffirmed confidence in my intuition; the ways in which my decision to live at cause influenced a decision that was best for me but also those around me.
So that’s it. This entire manifesto is simply an invitation for YOU to take a second and ask yourself: are you currently living at Cause? Or at Effect? What are you going to do about that?