Limits

and i looked out at the sea
the ocean

i had just been swimming there, it was full of people populating solely the first ten meters of water... beyond that - not a soul

i had just been swimming there and had swam out to at least 30 meters... alone in the deep water. every now and then i would look down into the water looking for a tell-tale shadow of some hidden "thing"... a shark... a jellyfish... a manta ray... a plastic bag... something that could unexpectedly brush against my body and make me freak out.
imagination
you know that you have several meters of water underneath you, you have no idea what is in there... how can you NOT be slightly wigged out?! many things live in the water and in this wavy section of ocean there is so much stuff attention due to the human activity... obviously, if i was a fish i would be close to the shore so i could get-me-some.

i sat on the beach looking out to the ocean and thinking about how this did scare me.
i thought of the image of a starving homeless child which i had seen in a national geographic magazine.
i looked out to the ocean and wondered how much courage i would need to swim out to the yellow floating buoy in the distance... much further than i had gone before... if i was a fish i would be beside that buoy waiting for something to pass by me......
a solitary yellow floating buoy in the middle of the ocean... no-one around it, not even close!
i recalled my mother always saying that i was too scared for certain things.
i recalled the stories of lives that came to an end with so much ease and so abruptly...
i recalled images of courage i had once seen but particularly images of helplessness.

i had a choice here,
i was looking at the buoy and that was beyond my limit. my courage limit.
i could stay on the sand and get a job, get married, settle down, grow mentally old, and die
or
i could go beyond my limit, face a challenge by choice, bring Life into this day, toil with creation and destruction

i decided to swim to the buoy
walked over to the lifeguard and asked how far it was
250m

sat down and asked myself again: why am i doing it
for a minute i was unsure, the reason did not jump to mind, it was confused in images of triumph and of other seeing me swim so far out... looking in awe...
slowly i brought back the reason - to bring Life into this day; to not be lazy - to defy laziness; to honour those who cannot choose; to make me strong in the next circumstance i am faced with fear.

i swam into the water and, without looking back once, swam to the buoy.
yes i did look down several times and my imagination did not stop once but it was the imagination that i was feeding off... without it i would not be facing my limit.

sitting on the sand again, looking at the buoy where i had been just minutes before
i had felt alive
i had defied laziness
...


my eyesight glanced past the buoy and for the first time i saw the Ocean.
the ocean
not a vast body of water filled with creatures of all shapes an sizes - so much more
the ocean
how it continued
and its extense and depth were an indication of how much more i had to learn about myself
the buoy of knowledge was now at 250 meters...

my eyesight trailed off to the horizon beyond which the ocean still continued...