The relevance of surfing

Blurring the lines between work and play, or why we should all do seemingly useless things

For most of my life, my two default modes were work or play. Everything had to fit into one of these categories. Work lead me towards my goals and play took me away from them but allowed me to enjoy the moment. I’d sway back and forth between the extremes of each, sometimes sacrificing everything for work and other times enjoying the moment and taking time to play (although more of the former). In this model, play felt guilty because you’re sacrificing today for tomorrow, while work is about growth, learning, building, and moving forward. Work feels good, and is rewarded by society in the form of money, status, and more work (and therefore, more money, and more status). As a young guy who had recently entered the adult world, it was harder for me to see the rewards of play outside of the temporary dopamine hits.

Through a combination of growth and conversations with a friend, my perspectives on work and play dramatically shifted. What once seemed fun but ultimately useless to me now seems integral to living a meaningful life. The example I’ll use comes from surfing in Canada’s icy cold water.

Surfing at its core is a useless activity, especially in Canada where it’s also dangerously cold and incredibly inconvenient to get to. My aforementioned friend’s “useless” activity is climbing (rocks). What initially inspired me was the way he spoke about climbing. Throughout conversations about our professional lives (work), he kept coming back to examples of how a given work challenge was not unlike a challenge he faced while climbing (play). The boundary between these two modes was removed, and experiences, learnings, and synergies flowed freely between worlds.

The more I thought about this, the harder it became to ignore the significance of my time spent surfing or doing other seemingly useless activities. I’m starting to see examples of this in my own life as I increasingly blur the lines between work and play.

Paddling out

Surfing in Canada is a daunting challenge. I’d argue that standing on the shore of Lawrencetown in the dead of winter staring at a relentless onslaught of 8ft waves and choosing to get in the water and paddle out is one of the more challenging activities people engage in. Add to this the reality that unless you’re an experienced surfer, you’re probably looking at less than five good rides before you die of hypothermia, and you’ll almost certainly find yourself wondering why you put yourself in this position. That is until you catch your first wave. The moment you stand up and ride down the face of an unbroken wave, you suddenly forget you can’t feel your fingers and remember why you’re here. You’re here because the challenge is what makes it meaningful, and without paddling out, there’s no chance of catching a wave. Surfing is teaching me to paddle out (do uncomfortable things) more. I occasionally get knocked off (failure), but I also put myself in a position to catch more waves (opportunities).

Sets, patience, and staying calm

For the less ocean-literate (people from Ontario), this is how waves/surfing works: waves are created by energy passing through water, causing it to move in a circular motion. The waves that make it to a surf break usually come in “sets” of a few waves at a time. This might be 3-4 larger waves, followed by a period of no (or smaller) waves. To catch a wave, a surfer tries to be as close to the “take-off zone” (the first area where the wave is about to break) as possible. The main issue with sitting in this zone is the bigger the wave, the further out it breaks, so you run the risk of larger waves breaking before they get to you and, well, that’s no fun. So what do you do? Well at first you’ll probably panic, get knocked off your board, and curse yourself for sitting in the wrong location, but over time you start to remember that the waves are coming in sets. Sure enough, right as you’re thinking “I can’t dive under another wave or my brain will literally freeze”, you come up for air and see the sun reflecting peacefully off miles of calm water. You get back up on your board, catch your breath, and before you know it you’re riding a perfect wave from the next set. Surfing is teaching me to remain calm during a big set of waves breaking before they reach me (life’s challenges) and to have the patience to wait for a wave (good times) in the next set.

Joy

Lastly, and most importantly, I’ve learned that surfing brings me joy and that’s enough. Taming the desire to justify every action, every decision, and every hour of time spent has helped me start to live more freely and has made previously “useless” activities some of the most beautiful and meaningful experiences of my life.