kayakguy
Contributor
My mother and I got certified together when I was 14 back in 1991. I realize now of course that it was for me.
Maybe 8 years ago we went to Florida and my mother came along. She had never really taken up diving like my wife and I eventually did but she did some warm ups and we went to the keys for some very easy and shallow dives.
Now I had been an adult and on my own for several decades but my mother still taught me a lesson that day.
As we were getting ready to depart on the boat she asked me to hand her a flipper. Being the "experienced and serious" diver I was I immediately corrected my mother. "Moooom, it's fin..."
Without missing a beat she replied "I don't care" in the most nonchalant and uncaring manner I could imagine.
I realized immediately she was there to have fun and something so insignificant as a piece of recreational dive gear's name just wasn't important. She was right.
Every time I get too big for my britches or start feeling high and mighty superior to someone less experienced or not as dedicated to a pursuit I remember that lesson.
I wonder how much fun I have missed worrying about being technically correct?
My mother is still with us and we go on many adventures together often in foreign lands. I have never told her of the lesson she taught me that day but whenever we are somewhere and she is acting silly or maybe a little...embarrassing, I remember that it simply doesn't matter. We pass through this life once. Don't waste the journey worrying about truly insignificant ********.
Maybe 8 years ago we went to Florida and my mother came along. She had never really taken up diving like my wife and I eventually did but she did some warm ups and we went to the keys for some very easy and shallow dives.
Now I had been an adult and on my own for several decades but my mother still taught me a lesson that day.
As we were getting ready to depart on the boat she asked me to hand her a flipper. Being the "experienced and serious" diver I was I immediately corrected my mother. "Moooom, it's fin..."
Without missing a beat she replied "I don't care" in the most nonchalant and uncaring manner I could imagine.
I realized immediately she was there to have fun and something so insignificant as a piece of recreational dive gear's name just wasn't important. She was right.
Every time I get too big for my britches or start feeling high and mighty superior to someone less experienced or not as dedicated to a pursuit I remember that lesson.
I wonder how much fun I have missed worrying about being technically correct?
My mother is still with us and we go on many adventures together often in foreign lands. I have never told her of the lesson she taught me that day but whenever we are somewhere and she is acting silly or maybe a little...embarrassing, I remember that it simply doesn't matter. We pass through this life once. Don't waste the journey worrying about truly insignificant ********.