“Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.” - James Altucher
The day I almost died in silence!
It was a scorching hot Sunday afternoon when I met up with some friends at a park next to the Chippewa river in downtown Eau Claire. The previous night, a friend of mine had invited me to join them to go floating on the Chippewa River. Floating is one of the highlights of Eau Claire. To be honest, I was a little scared and skeptical to float on the water, because I am not a good swimmer. Moreover, it rained heavily the previous day and the water level was higher than usual. The weather report forecasted more rain later that afternoon. So this wasn’t the greatest time to go floating on the river. I mentioned that I did not have a tube and he offered to lend me one of his. Without thinking carefully about it, I agreed to join them.
On this Sunday, I met up with my friends at the park near the water. They were already blowing air into the tubes and waiting for others to join them when I arrived. I helped them blow up the tubes. It actually took a while as their pump ran out of batteries and the city pump had a long line of people waiting. Since they predicted it would rain in a few hours, we didn’t have time to waste. We spent about 45 minutes directly exhaling air from our mouths into the tubes. I was completely exhausted afterwards and so were the others. After blowing so much air into the tubes, we dragged them to the shore of the river.
Before floating on the water, my friend asked who among us couldn’t swim. For some strange reason, I remained quiet. My ego was telling me to stay quiet as I would have felt embarrassed to admit that I was the only person in the group who couldn’t swim. My friend then handed me a floating tube, but not the type I had in mind. The tube was small and fragile—like a tube for 10-year-old kid. He said a friend gave it to him and he had not used it before. At that moment, there wasn’t much time to dwell on how small the tube was. It was too late to change my mind. I had to go along with them, but deep in my mind I knew the tube was not safe.
I put my ego to the test in dangerous high water. We started to float in the water, but my tube was moving faster than the others. At one point, I heard my friend shout, “Slow down, Dominic!” but there was nothing I could do to control it.
I barely had my entire body on the tube as it was so small. 5 minutes later, I was in the middle of the river and far from the rest of the group. Right then, I noticed that my tube was leaking air and my legs were slowly sinking into the water. At this point, I was holding on to the deflated tube. Then I felt a gashing wave lift me up. It flipped my tube over and dumped me into the water. I started breathing heavily and holding on dearly to the deflating tube. At that moment, it became clear that this was life or death.
So many thoughts were running through my head. My life flashed right in front me. I tried to look back to see if I could get any some help but everyone was too far away from me. I started to panic but kept holding on to deflating tube.
I was frustrated with myself for not telling my friends that I was not a good swimmer. I told myself, if they knew that, they probably would have offered me a better tube. There were multiple times I wanted to let go of the tube but I knew I wouldn’t dare.
As tears fell from my eyes, I went back to lamenting about the poor decision that got me there. It was just too late to worry about anything. I shouted to myself, “God help me!”. I knew I was in big trouble and needed a miracle at this desperate moment. Somehow, the water calmed down and I was able to float on the river, while my entire body was in the deflating tube.
Slowly but surely, I made it to the end of the river. It was a huge relief to have cheated death! I had been offered another opportunity to stay true to myself and I will take that ticket and run with it.
I realized that honesty is just not important but crucial to my life. If I had mentioned to my friends that I couldn’t swim, I could have avoided this situation and prevented this embarrassment. Maybe, they would have offered me a better tube and protected me more during the river tubing. I also realized that it wasn’t too late to take some swimming lessons.
It is too easy to have your ego lead you to being quiet when you really need to speak up. Being true to ourselves and speaking up in potentially dangerous situations can save us headaches in the long run.
James Altucher, an American hedge fund manager and best-selling author, once said that “Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.” Honesty can nourish your soul and give you some peace of mind. Don’t let silence take you to your grave.