Posts Tagged ‘There will be time to Panic’

6 of Many Hard-Core Life Learnings

January 15th, 2011

The insights that I shared with you in the last few blog posts, the one that I am sharing hereafter and the one that I will share next happen to be from a real life story. Mine. I decided to share them because I find them crucial to be in one’s life toolbox. I also see all having one thing in common, and that is how they show the abundance of life, and how interconnected and whole its segments are and how it never stops giving us answers – that’s of course, as long as we look through curious and open eyes.

The following story is not one that’s as old. It happened 40 meters below sea level a few years ago facing the American University of Beirut’s beautiful seaside. The weather and the water were perfect for diving and there we were. My buddy was high on nitrogen and was following the fish with his regulator trying the feed them with air a meter below me. I was, on the one hand, enjoying the laugh and on the other hand, reluctant to go deeper to struggle to get him or leave him behind knowing that the rest of the group were almost out of sight.

What I was not conscious of was that my tank was leaking. And suddenly, I exhaled and my breath got stuck in the midst of an out of air situation! My buddy was still high and was impossible to communicate with, I could barely see a yellow dot that I imagined to be the tip of a diver’s fin in the distance, I was 40 meters below the sea surface and I could not breathe!

There was just time to do one of two things: panic or think: fortunately, I thought. Then I swam as fast as I could toward the group, went to one of my friends and communicated my situation to him, shared his regulator and we both surfaced hanging to one another. We reached the boat. I survived. Then I took some time to tell and panic.

Learning: you will always have enough time to panic when it’s time to panic. Doing so before that can either waste your time or waste your life (or that of your organization).


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Wael!

“trace – training and coaching executives

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