It’s summer time. At least in Bangalore, where I stay, summer has arrived. The sun is getting hotter every day and the fans have been switched on.

With summers, comes the love for water. Cold water. And as it happened this weekend, the love for swimming in cold water.

Most covid restrictions now lifted, kids in the society I stay in, decided to take to water like a force unleashed. Combined with a new instructor ready to teach the new ones, it was fun and frolic in water like not seen in the last 2 years!

Today, as I took my daughter to the pool, and watched her have fun while learning the basics, it was interesting to see how the small kids were reacting to being in the water. It so happened that at the same time I was also talking to my father in law. He being an ace swimmer, we were chatting about our daughter’s classes and he was narrating his experiences with kids while teaching them how to swim.

We talked about how the experience with water can be a lot of fun for some but can also be terrifying for others. The ones who enjoy being in that water, swear by those experiences. The ones who are terrified or in it for the first time, aren’t as happy and may want to avoid it the next time.

Long after we had come back home, that conversation and those scenes from today’s splash in the pool remained with me. And showed me some light…

All of us have our own way of handling things. Things that we feel good about – those which we know or can relate to – we handle them with ease. Things we don’t feel good about – those which are strange or new or unknown – sometimes confuse or terrify us. We gravitate towards the first kind and try and steer clear or are less receptive to the second kind.

However, according to my experiences and perspective, life doesn’t get built by doing those easy things. They can anyways be done. What makes or breaks us and our life is what we don’t know about – the unknown. Our experiences with them and within them and our responses and behaviour in those moments teach us a lot and help us grow.

And yet, while this simple thing is known to all of us, time and again when we are faced with the unknown, we grapple with and within ourselves. Not knowing what we should do and whether we will do the right thing. A lot of times, in that fear of the unknown, we shirk the path less travelled and stay our current course.

Back home, when these thoughts played out in my mind, they opened up my vistas. There was something running within me for the last few days, which was troubling me because of it’s unknown nature. I wasn’t sure of what I should do. I was perhaps thinking a lot and becoming confused in the process.

As I cleared the fog in my mind today, I realized that while there may be unknowns, it is best for me to move forward and give it a try. While there is a balanced chance of it not turning out as promised, there is also a good enough chance of it leaving me with an enriched experience.

After all, as someone said, life is one big adventure and we must try something new and unknown all the time…