One
of the skills acquired during my NS stint as a Naval Diver is this -
drown proofing. It is a test still practised by the US navy seals
whereby we are thrown into 3m deep water with our hands bound behind our
back and legs tied at the ankle. With that, we are to take a breath,
release it completely such that we would sink to the bottom of the pool,
and then kick ourselves up to the surface to catch another breath - and then repeat it for about 10 times.
Following which, we are to use our lungs as "floats" and trap water for
about the same number of breaths, following which, we would have to
swim a distance "dolphin style" - and yes, with hands and legs still
bound.
Last but not least, we have to sink to the bottom of
the pool after the swim, perform a front somersault underwater followed
by another back somersault, pick up a dive mask from the bottom of the
pool with our teeth and bring it back to the surface.
Upon completion, that's when we are considered to have passed the test.
Bringing it into context with real life, I think some important lessons I have picked up through this training:
1. Reacting vs responding - When we are caught up in an unfavourable
situation, our first instinct is always to react. Singaporeans just love
to complain over the most minute thing - just look at FB, Instagram and
Twitter. Always choose to respond - ask yourself how you can
tackle the problem, put yourself in the other person's shoes. More often
than not, when we react, we think the worst of others - which reflects a
lot about ourselves.
2. Stop, think, breathe - One of the
things that caused divers to fail the drown proofing test is that we
tense up. When you are tensed, you tend to sink. That's the fact of life too. Always stop, think and take a breather. Being tensed will not diffuse an already tensed situation.
3. You have it within you to resolve an issue - This drown proofing
test taught us to use our lungs to help keep us afloat, without the use
of flotation devices. Some of us think that we don't have it within
us to resolve certain issues. More often than not, there's always a
silver lining - and our perspective matters. When we are too single
minded towards a certain bias, we take on a passive posture of "Nah,
nothing I do will matter". That's not true - how we deal with failure matters!
4. Which brings me to my last point - For most of us, we usually take more than 2 tries before we could pass the test.
Failure doesn't define us. Identifying what went wrong and then trying
again can be a fearful thing - but the important thing is to keep
trying. Making improvement is as important, if not, more important than
succeeding - for some of us stop trying to improve once we have
succeeded.
That said, after having passed the test, the water
confidence we have has rocketed a few notches. And I'm sure in life,
that's the case too - we become more resilient.
So the next
time when something unfavourable happens or you are at the end of some
criticism or you are shrouded with negativity -
