Diving Deeper

Hi, guys. My name is Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life Diving Deeper. We've all heard the quote that says variety is the spice of life. A different take or a different spin on that is to say, if you've only tried one type of ice cream, say vanilla, how do you know that you don't like any of the other flavors, like mint or coconut or chocolate or cookie dough? The answer is you don't because you haven't had that experience. So if we were going to judge whether or not we like something by the first attempt, then we'd be doing ourselves a disservice. And to make it even more complicated, sometimes our decisions are fogged by our fears. So we don't take action because we are afeared of the uncertainty. We're a fear of what's going to happen to us. But if you take the action, if you take the experience, one of the things you might come away with is you might find out that you love the thing that you are actually avoiding. I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, getting ready to do a scuba diving trip. Prior to this trip, I hadn't done scuba diving in about five years. And prior to that, I'd only done my certification dive. So really I had like one dive trip under my belt. And if you're familiar with scuba diving at all, you know that there's a lot of life skills that you have to know to ensure your safety in the water. Foolishly, I thought that I could kind of bypass that by just kind of going back in that water thinking that I was going to remember everything. So I'm on the boat and I'm all geared up, and I was one of the first people to get into the water in this. In this dive place, I think it's called the Setio island. In the water, I inflated my vest and I was okay. I feel pretty good here. And then when I put my respirator in my mouth, I was told to test my buoyancy by going five feet under and then coming back up. So, respirator in, I start to let the air out of my vest. I go maybe a foot, and then I start freaking out. I start panicking. The reason being is it didn't felt natural. I hadn't built up that habit. That feeling of what it was like to be underwater. When I was there, breathing underwater didn't feel natural as it did when I was doing my certification because I had several dives, so I had the time to acclimate to that feeling. But in this instance, I didn't have that. So I get up to the surface of the water, and I kind of make my way kind of panicking, short of breath, I make my way over to the dive boat. I said, hey, I'm. I'm panicking over here. I don't know if I can do it. Dive master looks at me. He says, listen, stay on the surface. Relax. Stay on the surface. Put your regulator, your respirator in your mouth, and just kind of stay on the surface as if you were snorkeling and just get comfortable with it. So hearing this says, okay, I can do that. I'll give that a try. And then if that doesn't work, then I'll throw in the towel. So I'm skimming the surface, and I notice that my breathing actually starts to slow down. I start to get more relaxed. It starts to feel more comfortable. So once I felt comfortable, I said, all right, well, let me start to let some of the air out of my vest so this way I could sit down, like, sink down and do the test for my buoyancy. So I go down, everything's good, and I see the rest of my dive team going over to this anchor line that's in the front of the boat. So I go down, you know, about 30ft, and I make my way over to them, and I start the dive. In the dive, I was very, very close to the dive master there, making sure at all times that it was in his sight, because I didn't want to kind of move away and if something were to happen, to be too far off. So, needless to say, I didn't really enjoy that dive that much. And there were so many beautiful things to see in the water. There weren't a lot of fish, but there were all these, like, a lot of coral, a lot of sponges, and, like, different things on the surface. They call this particular dive spot Candyland. If you remember the board game Candyland, you probably remember these, like, these spears that kind of coming out of the ground that made a castle. They kind of look like that underwater. So after the completion at that dive, I was one of the first ones to actually run low on my tank. So we had to make our way back to the boat, get out of the water before doing the second dive on the boat. I was a little bit shook. I was like, all right, well, I'm not really sure. I didn't enjoy it that much. I don't know if I want to do the second dive, but what was really happening. The truth is that I was scared. I didn't have that much enjoyment because I was fearful. I didn't feel comfortable in the water. So I was given the excuse that diving wasn't for me and I didn't enjoy it. But then I was, you know what? I'm going to be upset with myself if I don't complete the second dive. I had paid all that money and I don't do the second dive. And plus I might see something else that I like. At the very least I'll get more comfortable in the water. So the dive comes out again. Again I'm the first one in the water. And we start the dive. This time we're kind of like hugging close to the island. And close to the island there's all these like rock formations, these caves and pass throughs. If you've ever done scuba diving, you're near current. It's one of the most amazing feelings I'd ever felt in my life. So we're scuba diving along. You see these like these rock formations on both sides. You have your. As you're scuba diving and swimming through and you feel like you're in a different planet because you practically are in a different planet. And then you have the current going back and forth, back and forth. And then in front of me there's this cave that's kind of like, you know, this carve out of the island and again you're going back and forth, back and forth with the current and all of a sudden you get to a spot where you go back and all sudden it goes and it pushes you in the cave. And it was one of the most insane feelings that I ever felt in my entire life. I mean it was beautiful. I remember my dive master looking back at me and looking back as I'd made a noise, I was like, I went to say like woohoo in the. But with the, with the respirator in my mouth it just was like a bunch of bubbles coming out that probably made a weird noise. So she looked back at me and I gave her like the, you know, I gave her like the okay symbol and like this like kind of like this groovy surfing symbol to let her know that I was really enjoying the dive and that everything was okay. So we, we make our way through all these caves and, and these pass throughs and I'm enjoying the entire thing in my mind as I'm diving this. I'm saying, oh my God, I love this. This is the kind of diving that I enjoy. This is the thing I want to do over and over. I want to start looking at the different countries and figuring out who has these kind of dives and that's where I'm going to go. So on top of the. Now we're ending the dive and I'm back on the boat and I had some just kind of contemplating at the end of the week, we go back and I'm contemplating everything that happened in that day. I was like, man, I was ready to give up on this experience. I was ready to give up on scuba diving altogether until I had this experience. Having the experience of going through the pass throughs made me realize that this was an aspect of scuba diving that I loved so much. So that I started looking at trips all around the world that offered the same style or the same type of scuba diving. But if I had held out, if I didn't do that second dive, there's no way I would have known that this is what I liked. So isn't that true of life? I'll give you one more quick story. I was in Italy, I was doing my espresso sommelier in northern Italy and I was just finished up doing Cinque Terre, which is kind of like south, like south southwest of Florence. And as I did Cinque Terra, I was there. Where do I go next? I can go to Lago, to Como, or I can make a stop in Genova first. So I spoke to different people in, in Cinque Terre and they're like, oh, you know, don't go to Genova, it's a dump. They started like everyone was kind of trashing on Genova, but wanted to try. To be honest with you, my drive was, I wanted to try pesto, but I was like, you know what, let me just go there anyways. I could stay there for a day and if I don't like it, I can leave immediately after. I booked a day to Genoa. And I was kind of blown away by these streets that had like all these like narrow little streets and the, the topography of the city had like these different levels, which is beautiful. Kind of reminded me of like an Italian version of San Francisco, but a hundred times more better looking. And when I was there, I met up with my friend who lives in Geneva and she was showing me around to the different spaces. Kind of give me like the secret gems. Let me try the Genovese food. And then I was, you know what? If I had listened to the other person, if I had let them kind of taint the trip by their opinions or by their experiences, I would not have experienced this, and it's so true of life. We look for other people's opinions, but we forget that when people have an experience, they're bringing their own baggage to whatever that experience is. Right? Now imagine if I were telling you about scuba diving, right? You're like, oh, I really want to go scuba diving. And then I start telling you about the first dive I had. I'm like, oh, my God. Yeah, I don't know if you should go scuba diving. You know what? It's scary as hell because it's not natural. Natural to breathe underwater and you can die. And I started going down on telling you all these things. You're going to freak out. You're going to freak out. But if I told you the other experience about going to rock formations, you might be more inclined to try it. So the same is true with everything in life. You just kind of have to have the experience and make the judgment for yourself. But even if you've had one experience, you might want to do a second experience or try a different aspect of that same thing. Because what you may find, as I did with scuba diving, is that there's an aspect that you might like or prefer over the other one, and that can be your drive to carry on. So what is something that you. You want to experience or you experience? And maybe, you know, you didn't really enjoy it. This could be something like, maybe you travel to a country, right? Maybe you went to Italy and you went to Rome first, and before you'd wanted to go to Florence, but you went to Rome and you were just kind of turned off by the haggling and people trying to rip you off, whatever it may be. Now, why might you be incorrectly judging that other thing that you want to do? And write that down. What are you basing that judgment on? Is it based on a prior experience you had? Is it based on something someone else told you? And then lastly, for the third question, I want you to break that belief down even further. Do I know for certain that this is experience I'm going to have? And don't lie to yourself. Have other people had this experience and what was their experience? So if you're getting, you know, if you were being deterred from it because of something someone else told you, is that consistent along, you know, across the board? Or have there been just as many, if not more people saying that they love the place and. Or the experience and that it was the best trip they ever took? And if that is the case, then I invite you or I encourage you to see it for yourself, to try it for yourself. Because you may be surprised. The only way for us to really know whether or not we like something is to try it. And again, variety is the spice of life. And I want you to have the most spice. I want you to have the hottest life, the hottest life that you could ever imagine. But it comes with stepping outside of your comfort zone. It comes with trying new things. It comes with not listening to the crowd, what everyone else is saying, and having the experiences for yourself. That's all I've got for you guys today. Hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope it encourages you to try scuba diving and maybe even do the dive I did in Desheu island in Puerto Rico. If you have any questions, you can send me a message via Instagram. Onny D O n n y rouse r a u s.com and then lastly, if you enjoy coffee, you must try Rouse Coffee Company, My coffee company. I love my coffees. My coffees are some of the best in the world. But more than that, it's about inspiring that experience. It's about experiencing life. And coffee for me has always been that moment to kind of slow down and to remind myself that this is my time, this is my life, and to do the things that are important to me, do the things that I enjoy, do the things that matter. Because at any moment, everything can kind of fade away, right? And what we're left with are the experiences we've had. And you don't want to live in regret. You want to do the things that are going to bring you joy, and you want to do them now. That is all got for you guys today. God bless and I will see you next week.