And so I went surfing at a new surf break recently … new break and new people.

Now, I’m already WAY comfortable at my home break, and the people there – so I find myself in a very unfamiliar scene. The break is faster to me, and the surroundings unknown. I am not yet familiar with the location of the dangerous spots – reef and rocks that can cause major damage – and I am not familiar with how this particular break moves, pushes, pulls and crashes.

I recall myself from not too long ago … a total newbie to surfing. A real kook – not that I ain’t one now but now I’m a better newbie – and I remember the feeling of struggling, the feeling of exhaustion and fear, the feeling of … the unknown. But I got past that … that’s the thing that keeps me going. Sort of like a roller coaster, the ride goes up and down.

The ride, once it reaches a peak MUST by all purposes come down and hit the bottom. There’s no other way around it – you come up up up up, you have to come down. The “down” is what gets to most people in real life. They don’t see the undeniable fact that it has to come back up … it has to. The ride that we call life is designed that way. Some people prefer their lives like merry-go-rounds, or Carousels as some call it. They don’t ever get the Ups and the Downs, but they do however go around in the eternal circle … constant and predictable.

That’s okay too. It’s just that I’d rather ride the roller coaster. I would rather experience the uneven balance of life’s Ups and Downs … it’s more fun that way. I like going through life much like a roller coaster climbing up a steep hill … the anticipation (love, career, friends, family) and the knowledge that something good – albeit unknown – is coming.

I like the downs – where I have just completed a great and exhilarating nose-dive and adrenaline rush waiting for the long climb up that will lead me to the doing all-over-again! I have moments though, when the carousel seems more attractive … when the merry-go-round’s predictable rhythm and circular yet steady unyielding path is comforting and necessary. I have those moments creep in – full of fear, unassuredness, and paranoia/anxiety of the things that may happen.

I just have to remember that the ride, for me, is better on the roller coaster.

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