As I stood there, beer in hand, looking down on this diminutive young Singaporean woman, I could help but admire here for getting right to the point with her question. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement and the corners of her lips were smiling.
'What was this about?' I wondered.
She rushed on with her question: "Like when you are way out of sight of land, and the wind is wild, the waves are huge, the boat is filling with water and …..
"Whooah there" I said, "I think you have the wrong idea!" I recognized this is the most common question I get about offshore sailing, thanks to TV and Hollywood.
We had struck up a conversation at the "appys" table. It was a networking event - I think it was the American Association in Singapore - and I was standing over the appetizers table trying not to make my relish for all the goodies too obvious by piling my plate too high. I was also trying to figure out how to balance a drink, a napkin, a plate piled high with cream cheese and lochs and cheese on crackers. And, as if this where not enough, I was trying to figure out how one can be expected to eat
with a folk, not with your fingers, as is the accepted custom in Singapore, all the while carrying on a polite conversation without a mouthful of food. Talk about fear! This all seemed at the moment a much more daunting task than any calamity I had ever experienced sailing.
I went on. "In my whole life, I have never, ever, been caught in a real storm." I explained. "It's rarely like that. Sure we get soaked frequently by the squalls, and we do get small storms once in a while, but I am more afraid of lightening, and that's because if my GPS ever gets fried, I am pretty sure I don't remember how to use a sextant!"
Her excitement faded. She looked disappointed. I could see I wasn't shaping up to be the hero she thought I might be. 'Oh well', I thought, I still have all this great food!
Its now months later, and several more thousand more sea miles behind me, and still no great storm has ever come down upon me. But I am still thinking about her questions, about being afraid. So I am just back from going on deck to ask some of my crew "Are you afraid, and did it take courage to come on this trip?"
Funny, but none of them said very much about fear or courage, rather they spoke about risk and curiosity. For different reasons, they were all curious about what it would be like to do this trip. Dennis was curious what it would be like to be a "pin in a bathtub", a tiny spec on a great open ocean with big waves. Bob wanted to learn about sailing and was curious about how he would handle being on the foredeck during a storm. Jan was curious about what it would like to be at sea for 3 weeks, 'trapped'
on a tiny boat with the same five people! Matt said being afraid never occurred to him.
I was still hoping to hear more about courage so I asked "What then, made it possible for you to choose to risk in order to satisfy your curiosity about sailing".
In their answers, they all said they were accustomed to risk in their lives. It had been a part of their work, their personal circumstances and around their financial security, so compared to some of the things that had happened before, this was nothing! They were practiced at risk taking.
'Okay' I thought, 'this is making sense'. You see, I have this theory about courage. Courage is what we develop by taking risks. I was hearing from the crew that courage is the practiced ability to act, to make choices, to risk, in the face of our fear. In a way, we build courage by risking choices that give us what we want, even though we have fear about an uncertain outcome "Feel the fear and do it anyway" as they say. My crew are all practiced risk takers - they have courage - so coming on a
trip like this was possible, if not easy, for them. Jan also said "I know from experience opportunities arise at the right time in our lives. Even though I feel some fear about it, I have learned to take advantage of it by going for it even if I am a little afraid."
I believe most people mistakenly think courage is the absence of fear.
Because we are all afraid, many of us mistakenly believe we are not very courageous, so we limit our choices when we tell ourselves this story. It helps if we let our curiosity reign more often. The more curious we are, the more likely we are to learn to act with courage said my crew.
To be honest, if I think back to my networking conversation with the young Singaporean at the American Association, what I didn't say at the time is that I am frequently afraid at sea, even when there is no real cause for alarm. Think of me as the real "chicken of the sea!" I will make myself afraid when something goes bump in the night along the hull, something breaks on deck or I receive a weather forecast for bad weather. But over the years I have developed a love hate relationship with fear.
Fear is uncomfortable at the time, but I know it's a bit of a rush afterward and it makes the accomplishment of a passage more worthwhile, interestingly enough.
But most significantly of all, I have learned if I am willing to put up with the discomfort of fear, I can do anything I want! Not bad for such a big chicken, eh?
C. Cresswell
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