This morning I got up and started conference calls at 7 am. We are designing an email campaign to let the whole world know how they can be more healthy. Very interesting and inspiring. After the call I took a break for a quick surf. Yes, miracles do happen! Virtually no one was in the water. One or two of us along a reef that you can actually see from the road. The South Swell is filling in. South Swells of California are like being a goalie in a soccer game. There is a lot of time between sets where you just sit and wait, but the waiting paid off. One wave in particular was nothing but a long wall of blue madness. 150 yards as fast as you can go, barreling…pure adrenalin! It doesn’t happen off. And particularly in June with virtually nobody in the water.
As I was sitting in the water looking towards Hawaii wondering when another set would come in, a 60+ year old came paddling out and sat beside me. He informed me he’d been out of the water for 5 weeks, a victim of a stroke. He said “I was fine by the time I got to the hospital, my heart had just made an extra flutter and put a piece of plaque up in the left side of my brain. It stunned me for awhile but I was only in the hospital over night. The doctor informed me I should take some time off from strenuous exercise. So I told him I would go about a month without surfing. Then he began to give me a lecture about surfing and motorcycle riding and that surfing was that dangerous. I looked him in the eye and told him, ‘Listen some things are worth dying for. It’s a quality of life issue. I’m not going to live if I can’t surf.’”
Reluctantly the doctor told him to wait 5 weeks before paddling out. This was his first day out. He had been a surfer for over 45 years. He said to me, “I only want to catch a few waves…it’s just too much fun! I just couldn’t live without having this much fun” He was actually a pretty impatient fellow, paddling up and down the reef looking for the right wave. But he found three of the biggest ones today!
Just before he went in, he looked at me and said, “This was just the fun I needed for today!” He took off and rode in.
Wouldn’t it be great if all of us knew what created that kind of feeling inside. The feeling of Fun!!
