On Adventure
As I stood on the edge of the boat, preparing to jump into the Arabian Sea at 5am, I only had one thought - it would be embarrassing to drown.
My relay team and I were attempting a 36 Km swim from Worli Sea Link to the Gateway of India. It was the first ever relay attempt at night and an ambitious undertaking for the four of us who had never done anything close to this before!
I had spent over 100 hours in the pool in the preceding six months, perfecting my stroke and building my endurance. But none of this had prepared me for the sheer terror of being alone in the open water. As the waves crashed against me and I swallowed a lung-filling amount of sea water, the adrenaline rush from doing something so crazy quickly turned into panic. To keep irrational thoughts of being left behind by the boat at bay, I decided to think about my “why” to keep myself going.
My “why” was straightforward - I have always been chasing adventure. As a kid, I spent innumerable hours exploring the magical worlds of Hogwarts, Narnia and Oz–imagining my own future adventures with a level of elaborateness and creativity that is characteristic of a mind unburdened with reality. But as I grew older, the daring deeds and epic quests that I had dreamt of never manifested and at 25, I was still waiting for my Hogwarts letter!
This happens to everyone, I guess. We’re all born with big dreams - dreams of becoming an astronaut, a rockstar, an explorer or if you’re like me, of having a life filled with adventure. And somewhere in our mid 20s, the practicality of reality overwhelms the idealism of our dreams. Instead of actively pursuing our dreams, we dream of a fantasy world where we are unhindered by time, location and money. It's a seductive dream. But with time, I have come to realize that it's a mirage, a sedative for our drive to pursue our childhood ambitions.
I call it a mirage because for the longest time, I assumed that in the future when I’m not constrained by these practicalities, my life would be filled with adventure. It's addictive looking at the world through this lens because then, I am not to blame for why my life doesn’t resemble my childhood dreams. It’s the constraints.
And so I made it my singular focus to eliminate these constraints. I incorporated productivity hacks to create more free time, started working on a plan to leave India because all the adventures in my favorite novels were set in distant far away lands and focused on climbing the career ladder so I could make more money. I was stuck taking a very roundabout route to my adventure.
Adrift in a reality devoid of magic and wonder, I had a full blown Quarter Life Crisis. It forced me to grapple with the cliched big question all of us struggle with - “What should I do with my one, wonderfully short life?” I could no longer do the required mental gymnastics to convince myself that I should be practical and delay gratification. And so I decided that in 2022, I was going on an adventure!
However, choosing one adventure was an insurmountably difficult task. The heroes in the fantasy novels had it easy--they received one call to adventure they could not ignore. Harry received his letter to Hogwarts, Lucy discovered a magical wardrobe and Dorothy literally gets transported to her adventure by a cyclone. In a world haunted by the paradox of choice, how was I supposed to choose between equally exciting adventures with conviction?
One of the mixed blessings of being in your mid-20s is having the flexibility to try out a million different things with the conviction that each new choice is now your whole personality. I have donned and discarded a ridiculous number of personalities over the last year - one month I was convinced I wanted to be a marathon runner and the next, I wanted to hula hoop and the month after that, I bought a cycle, which now has a permanent place in my living room.
This entire phase of self discovery through experimentation was very fun. However, after a point, it felt like I was chasing novelty more than adventure. I was tired of beginner level competency at multiple things and was craving something more that would *hopefully* give me a sense of purpose. Serendipitously, around this time, I attended a swimming training by an ex-Olympian and something just clicked for me. I don’t know if it was the coach or the community of dedicated swimmers or the fact that I’ve been swimming all my life, but I decided to commit.
Having swum competitively in college, I had a love hate relationship with the pool. But this time it was different. I was no longer comparing my pace with other swimmers and judging myself harshly for it. The adventure that I was on did not have distance or speed milestones. It was open-ended. The only rule was to appreciate the journey - the adrenaline rush from jumping into the freezing cold pool at 5am, the banter with my coach and the camaraderie with my fellow swimmers.
Part of what I wanted to explain in this essay was “how” I ended up on the boat. But I don’t think I can fully explain, even to myself, the exact sequence of events from doing laps in the pool to successfully finishing my first relay swim in the Arabian Sea. For now, let's call it the universe doing its thing!
