You’re sitting upright, floating on a carefully shaped piece of foam and fiberglass, staring west across the Pacific Ocean through the early morning mist, waiting.
Last night the buoys read 12-14 feet at 16 seconds, signaling the arrival of a burly northwest swell. So this morning you arrived at the beach before sunrise. As you stepped into the cold water, you could feel the strength of the current pushing and tugging. Timing the sets, you paddled out beyond the break with the help of the riptide.
After a while, the horizon begins to shift and build, gradually at first, then faster. Like a sea monster breaching the surface, a massive mound of water rises up from the depths.
You paddle toward the rising mound with quick pumps of your arms. In position, you abruptly turn around and begin paddling toward the shore. Looking over your shoulder, you see the growing monster closing in on you. Your hands and forearms dig and pull through the liquid surface.
You feel the monster catch you and move underneath you as it lifts you upwards. Fear pumps adrenaline into your bloodstream. Your heart races and the hair on your neck bristles. The monster transforms into a steepening ramp, lifting you higher and higher, until you reach the teetering crest, looking down through the spray at the sunken trough more than 14 feet below.
And in that moment, you have a choice: (A) thrust your full weight forward and down the face of the wave as you attempt to stand up or (B) thrust your full weight backward and retreat through the rear of the wave to safety.
Choose option A and you risk wiping out and being pummeled to the bottom of the ocean until you’ve lost any sense of direction and every fiber in your body burns for oxygen. Or you could be launched into timeless bliss, flying along a moving, liquid wall of water with every cell in your body breaking into an electric, childlike grin.
Choose option B and you risk nothing. You remain floating where you were.
So what do you choose? Forward or backward? Fear or floating?
Despite being a native San Diegan, I wasn’t always a surfer. In high school and college, I played basketball. But when I started law school, I bought my first surfboard (with the help of student loans). At first, it was a struggle. To be honest, it was six months before I stood up on a decent wave. Back then, I wouldn’t even check the surf report. I didn’t care. I’d paddle out in a still lake, and I’d paddle out in the biggest winter swell.
One time, my surf buddy and I paddled out at Pacific Beach into double overhead closeouts. We were the only idiots out that day. Any surfer with half a brain knew that those waves were unsurfable and dangerous. To this day, I don’t know how we made it out. What I do remember is taking 30 minutes beyond the break to regain our strength and muster the courage to paddle back in through the impact zone.
I also remember the day I became a genuine surfer. There was a huge northwest winter swell slamming into the coastline and closing out all the beaches. Cardiff Reef could hold the swell and steep barreling rights were peeling off the river mouth. Two years of surfing had prepared me for the monster that rose up before me, and I’ll never forget the feeling of dropping in down the face, standing up and running my fingers along the wall of water that stood beside me as I rocketed down the line.
When I graduated from law school, I assumed my most valuable career lessons would come from the courtroom or office. Instead, many have come from surfing.
Surfing taught me that what often stands between us and moving forward is fear. Fear of wiping out or getting hurt. Fear of failure, embarrassment or not being good enough.
Looking back, fear has deterred me from so many opportunities. There are so many times that I let a wave pass by because I was afraid of exposing my weaknesses. But through countless wipeouts, I’ve begun to see fear differently — not as a harbinger of danger, but as a forerunner to progress. Fear has met me at the gates of so many incredible waves, and so many entryways to growth: law school, job interviews, big depositions, trials, proposing to my wife, becoming a parent, and on and on. Fear, I’ve come to believe, is a neon blinking sign pointing us in the right direction.
“Always do what you are afraid to do,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. Heroism “is the contempt for safety and ease. It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence. He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
There is camaraderie between those who commit to facing a common fear. Surfers who paddle out on a big day look out for one another, and when one of them paddles for a monster, the others hoot, whistle and shout “go, go, go” to steel the intrepid’s resolve. Their encouragement comes from knowing the difficulty of the task and the bravery required to meet it. There is a camaraderie between lawyers too, stemming from our shared knowledge of the challenges of the profession. One of the things I love about the law is how often it forces us to confront our fears. The longer I practice, the more inspired I am by the lawyers who have shaped our bar, and the more I want to hoot, whistle and shout “go, go, go” when I see others leading the charge.
As lawyers, we’ve all done the hard work of paddling out. We’ve made it beyond the break, beyond law school, the bar and the daily grind of the legal practice. And now we’re out here together, watching the horizon.
The next time the horizon shifts and the monster breaches the surface, remember to see it for what it is: an opportunity to move forward. Each wave is a gift. It was born in a distant storm and traveled hundreds of miles across the sea. Whatever you do, don’t let it pass by because of fear. In life, as in surfing, the electric bliss is almost always on the other side of fear.
The more comfortable we get with wiping out, the more likely we are to land on our feet. The forecast until we die is constant waves, big and small. So find what makes you afraid and thrust your full weight forward. You might just land the ride of your life.
Conor Hulburt is an attorney with The McClellan Law Firm and co-commissioner of Wetsuits, the SDCBA’s official surfing group.
Photo by Jason de Alba