Reality Check

Ferris Bueller knew what the hell he was talking about when he said that “life moves pretty fast.”

For the past six months or so, I have been grinding on a bit of a passion project with my friends in Vietnam, and against Bueller’s (Bueller… Bueller…) advice, I haven’t stopped to look around at all. We’ve been working our asses off and spending every free moment we get eating our hearts out to help recover our spent energy. I've hardly had any time to do anything else. It’s just been work, eat, surf, sleep for more than half a year now - and I love it.

Expectedly, it’s taken a toll on both my mental and physical health, but I have been too out of touch with myself to really notice. Most notably, I’ve turned into the type of person that I used to impudently ridicule, baffled at how someone could let something like work take over their lives. In fact, it was one of the main reasons I quit my corporate job and left the US in the first place. But here I was, sitting at the other side of the table with lẩu hải sản being the only thing between the old me and the current me.

In early February, I met my dad in Thailand. We planned to spend 10 days traveling around the land of smiles; exploring the picturesque islands and indulging ourselves in all the degeneracy that Thailand has to offer. This was a time for relaxing, enjoying each others’ company, and taking it easy.

Normally, I’m really good at taking it easy. Some may even say I’m too good, but that’s neither here nor there. This time, however, I fucking struggled.

I found myself sitting by the pool, stressing about things that were happening hundreds of miles away. I was taking calls and messages from both staff and customers nonstop, trying to make sure everything was okay.

“It’s beyond ridiculous at this point,” my dad lamented after telling him I’d be ready for dinner as soon as I finish editing this video for our instagram.

That was kind of a slap in the face for me. I’m sitting in an insane resort on a breathtaking beach with my dad, who I haven’t seen in over a year, obsessing over an instagram video that in all honesty isn’t going to do much of anything for me.

Where the hell were my priorities?

From that point on I made a conscious effort to be on my phone less and be present for the rest of the trip.

Then I went back to Da Nang…

Time was flying. Hours were turning into days, days to weeks, and before I knew it almost a month had passed since I first saw my dad. While it wasn’t so clear to me that I had not been living in the present, the universe was seemingly well aware and sent me a harsh reminder.

It was my fault, really. I had been driving around for about a month without brakes on my bike (this is a more common occurrence in Vietnam than you would expect, but that’s a whole other story). I got pretty good at driving without brakes actually. I learned to use my gears instead and was quite confident in my abilities. Eventually, however, fate caught up with me and I ended up T-boning a 50-some-odd year old man who decided to turn left across an intersection without looking.

My bike was totaled (it cost $300 in the first place so it doesn’t take much damage to total it), I had some minor scrapes and I tweaked my back, but more significantly, my friend who was riding with me had incurred a severe concussion. She hardly knew anyone’s name, didn’t know what city she was in, and had no recollection of the accident. Had she not been wearing a helmet she would have likely had her brains strewn across the street.

I felt like an absolute ass. She had entrusted me with her life, and I had casually thrown that responsibility to the side. I’m not sure whether I had just gotten too comfortable driving a motorcycle, or if I just never realized how dangerous it can be. Regardless, it took a big hunk of metal hitting me head on to remind me that I’m not invincible.

I wish I could tell you that’s the end of my story. I learned my lessons. I need to be more present, more mindful, more respectful of this gift we call life. Unfortunately, I’m stubborn.

This lesson was not my fault — initially.

I was standing on the side of a small road helping push my friend’s bike up the driveway. As is usual these days, I was in a bit of a hurry. I was running late to the competitors’ debrief meeting for the surf comp that was to take place the next day. My mind was everywhere but here, now.

That changed rather quickly, as I felt a metal object smash into the back of my left calf. I looked up, startled, and met eyes with two Vietnamese girls sitting on a motorbike, their faces showing as much shock as mine. They apologized profusely, and I reassured them that it was no problem. In the dark of the night, it didn’t seem like anything major: not much pain and just a little blood. I told them it was all good and waved them off as I headed inside to assess the damage.

The light revealed something much more severe than I first imagined. I looked down and saw a two inch wide and quarter inch deep gash in the back of my leg. Still, there was no pain. And I had a surf comp the next day - there wasn’t any time for this bullshit. I quickly taped the wound up and headed to the meeting with full intentions of surfing the next day.

After I returned home, I noticed that the wound had still not stopped bleeding. I needed to go to the hospital and get stitches. Admittedly a bit naively, in my broken Vietnamese, I asked the doctor about the possibility of surfing the next day. Flabbergasted, he laughed and informed me that not only would I not be surfing the next day, but I wasn’t even allowed in the water for at least a week. He was humored, and I was crushed.

About 10 long days had passed, and my wound was healing seemingly well. I had missed the comp and a handful of really good days of waves, but I was still alive. I was slowly weaning myself back into the water, starting with small and easy waves and when I started feeling confident enough to try the real deal, I went to the hospital to double check everything.

The doctor looked at my leg and muttered some Vietnamese words that I had never heard before. After repeating himself several times and realizing I wasn’t gonna figure out what he was saying, he pulled out Google Translate.

“It’s necrotic,” his screen read. “Necrotic?” I thought to myself, “What the hell does that mean?”

After a quick Google search, I realized that necrotic meant nothing good.

He began giving me some anesthesia through a 5 inch needle and told me to let me know if it starts to hurt. About 2 minutes into him cutting the rotting meat out of my leg, I told him it was hurting.

“Pain? You talk about pain but then you go in the water and play. You don’t know pain. You need to feel this.”

The entire operation was more or less filled with him shaming me, baffled at how stupid I was to go in the water with a wound like this. I certainly deserved his ridicule, and the truth behind his words made me all the more angry with myself. It could be another half month at least before I would be able to surf again. I would miss some of the best swells of the season.

Whether it was due to impatience, gross negligence, ignorance, idiocy, or a combination of it all, I now had no choice but to slow the hell down. On the drive home from the hospital, I went into a sort of meditative state.

“Listen to your body, pay attention to the blatant signs the universe has shown you.” I thought to myself. “Forget work. Money is not everything. You came here to surf, to live freely, to enjoy life. This business is just a means of achieving all these things. It is not the main goal.”

It’s been almost two months since I got hit in the leg, and finally, I am starting to slow down. I am listening to my body, and realizing how bad I’ve been treating this meaty vessel. I have completely neglected my diet - something which I was so passionate about not even a year ago. And I haven’t given my muscles, joints, or ligaments any sort of relief besides some half-ass stretching every now and again.

I’m finally getting back to my roots, appreciating my body, accepting that I cannot control everything, and calming the fuck down. Take a surf trip for the weekend. Read a book. Write a goddamn blog post.

Of course, I am sure that sometime in the not-so-distant future I will need another reminder from the universe. So from me to you, here’s yours: slow down, live simply, love your body, and most importantly, fuck money.