Rowing across the Mediterranean – my experience, reflections and more…
Get better at who you truly are, and you become better at all the roles that you play.
I wrote those reflections after my Mediterranean row in the Summer of 2021. Reading through the text today, and looking at the pictures brings some good memories, and reminds me why I want to repeat it, and share the experience with the people I care about. Now, looking from a short distance, and having thought, and internalised my experience living on a little boat with three strangers, here are my initial reflections:
You realize pretty quickly how much in common people (even the ones, that have nothing in common at a first glance) actually have, when you have to sleep, cook, eat, and shit on a little boat! Especially, when you have to row in two-hour on/two-hour off shifts, and even more so, when you do hourly ones for 24 hours, when one of you succumbs to a nasty stomach bug. When life is stripped to its very basic form, and there is a common mission, especially if that mission is to survive, people form real communities where each individual is supported, and encouraged to be the best version of themselves.
When you are a part of a team, it is easy to assume that someone else would do a job that you are reluctant to learn to do. None of us had had any previous experience on boats…except for Mark, who had sailed offshore, and knew his stuff very well. He “naturally” became our skipper, and was completely in his element setting up waypoints, and navigating the boat during our practice rows on the Solent, and in Barcelona, while we all got lazy, and did our navigation basics without diving any deeper beyond rowing the effing boat! Well, guess what – Mark got very ill, and dehydrated during the first few hours of the race, and had to come off the boat. We had been lazy to learn the ropes when there had been time to do it, and ended up having to do it in a hurry, when there was no choice left. Lesson in there – in a team, especially a small one everyone should be able to do everyone else’s job, even if some of the crew are better, and more experienced at certain tasks.
You realize pretty quickly that emotions, both yours and other people’s do not define who you are. You learn to forgive and forget what is being said in a heat of the moment. When you are under the same amount of stress, you realize that your circumstances are not any different from the others, and you are not hard done by in an exclusive sort of way. What makes you different is how you cope, so you learn to cope in a way that sets up an example to the others, and shows that you are trying to improve, to deal with the harsh reality in spite of numerous setbacks. It is OK to be vulnerable, and angry, and pissed off with yourself, and the others. You do not take it personally and move on – things get back to normal pretty quickly that way.
When thrown into an environment, which is far outside of your comfort zone with lots of unknowns, and nothing is certain it is good to set up some little consistent routines to cling on to, something that gives you a feeling of control, however small. This could be keeping your space in some order, brushing your teeth, having your morning cup of coffee, whatever. Humans cannot survive in a complete chaos for a long time; same goes to total order. The sweet spot is somewhere in between, and that is why it is good to occasionally step outside your comfort zone, and realize that you can survive, and even thrive there too, but only after dismantling yourself down to the basic parts, and then rebuilding yourself up through little routines that you slowly take control over.
For me, this was ultimately about answering a simple question – Who are you, Leo Krivski? Consultant Anaesthetist, father, husband? Those are some of the roles that I play, but ultimately they are not who I am. I constantly try to get better at playing those roles, but what I really am is being rarely tested. That trip gave me an opportunity to do just that – to see who I really am, stripped of any other roles that I play in my daily life, which is fairly orderly, and safe. I have discovered at least two things:
· I am still pretty tough.
· I have not disappointed myself. In fact, I liked being me.
And this is a good starting point, for me at least. Get better at who you truly are, and you become better at all the roles that you play. Step outside of your comfort zone, and you will be surprised how meaningful your relationship with others, and yourself will become. Speaking of relationships – men need brotherhood, which consist of other men of value, who are able to hold each other accountable, but also to support each other when a brother is down. There is both roughness, and tenderness in men’s friendships, and it has nothing to do with homosexuality. We perform best as men in a company of other men preferably under physical strain, and we should seek those conditions, and those men worthy of the name. I am grateful to the men that have shared this one with me.
