Diving Board Lessons

One of the great temptations of human existence is to base your life on contingency. That you will actually take the courageous step once all the conditions are absolutely and utterly right for you. When you have the right boss, when you have the right job, when the car payments have been made, when the kids are through college, when you’re on your deathbed. When you’re dead. It would be certainly easier then. The though is that if only I can control the climate of my existence and get the temperature exactly right, then when I’m completely comfortable, and have a sense of freedom, and a sense that I’m not beholden to anything, then I’ll take a courageous step in my life. Of course, these conditions almost never come.

— David Whyte

Contingency seeking has been a common experience of mine. Tweaking and fussing or hoping and cajoling some situation in my life so that it will be a “safer”, more predictable platform from which to jump.

Reminds me of the first time I jumped off a diving board. I was in swimming class, probably two or three years older already than most of the kids around me. The class teacher had got me to go up the stairs — how, I don’t know?

My knees were knocking, and I felt quite weak and dizzy as I went up, but somehow I made it to the top. Standing out on the board and looking out over the pool, I couldn’t imagine jumping, let alone going upside down.

The teacher held up a long pole with a little hook on it and said I could grab it and use it as a support while I jumped. My young mind believed this for some reason, and I bent down and got into position to dive, still absolutely scared, but somehow the sight of that pole kept me there.

Then I heard the teacher count down — Three! Two! One! I stood still. Completely frozen. Someone said, “Jump!” I looked at the huge pool under me and didn’t flinch. Someone then said, “Try again.” And the countdown began again. Three! Two! One! …

As I began to move through the air, the teacher yanked the pole away, and a sudden racing shot through my body. It was too late to go back, and yet the fear ruined my form, and I ended up smacking the surface of the water with my back. I went under, and sank almost to the bottom of the pool.

Thoughts of drowning, which I knew nothing about, but could imagine — flooded my mind. I saw the surface of the water coming closer and closer, despite anything in my head. Surfacing, I looked for the teacher, and said something about her taking the pole away, but the experience was clearly an example of the worthlessness of contingency seeking.

Most of the time, life doesn’t offer us a clear and obvious path. Sometimes, what needs to be done next is obvious, but how to do it isn’t clear. Sometimes it’s the opposite. And sometimes, all you can do is take a deep breath and jump in, trusting that whatever happens, you’ll be ok.  Which is usually the case anyway. Mistakes are rarely as bad as they seem, and the kind of help we think we need tends not to be what we actually need in the end.

Photo Credit

“Boy on High Dive” The Saturday Evening Post, August 16, 1947, oil on canvas, 35 x 27 in.

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