Just Don't Pull Yourself Up!

I plunged into the water face first and was yanked back up to the surface by my life jacket. Spitting out the water that had rushed into my mouth, I raised my arm letting the watcher in the boat know I was okay. Frustrated, I yanked the grips on top of my boats to make sure that my water skis were firmly in place. I refused look toward the boat knowing that my aunt and family friend Tom would be waiting to once again tell me what I had done wrong.


Unfortunately (or so it seemed), neither person waited for me to look over to give their advice.


"Emily. Don't try to pull yourself out of the water. Let the boat do the work for you. Then after you're up, then work on balancing and centering yourself."


This was probably the sixth time today that I had heard this same piece of advice and it was getting old - and fast.

I thought about what they said to me about how I'm supposed to let the boat do the work for me. So I figured that for this time I would just sit in the water holding the rope's handle and wait for something to happen. And that's exactly what I did. I started in my crouch position and stayed that way until the hand grip on the tow rope was forcefully yanked out of my hands. At least this time I didn't do a belly flop.


"What could I have possibly done wrong this time?" I wondered aloud, partly to myself and partly to my aunt Susie and Tom.


"There is a a fine line between trying to do all the work to get up and not doing any of it. You have to give the boat a little help by slightly bringing your butt out of the water, but you need to learn to let the boat bring the rest of your body up." Tom said patiently even though I'm sure he was tired of doing circles to pick me up after falls.

For the next try, I attempted to find that line. I raised my back end but I still held my crouch position. Success followed and I was out of the water. Even though I fell about a second after I got up, it didn't matter. I had finally found the thin line between wanting to do all the work and doing none of it.

Even though Tom's advice was meant to teach me how to get out of the water on skis, I found multiply ways in which I could apply it to my own life, especially when working with other people. Work groups are formed for the soul purpose of splitting up the work and taking pressure of the individual. If all parts of the group work together, in the end, everyone will be successful. If one person decides to take on a bigger load and do all the work by him/herself, the group dynamic is thrown off and eventually everyone will fall behind of the work-nut and the group is no longer useful unless the work load is split evenly again. The same kind of thing happens when someone in a group decides to do none of the work. Not only is the person who slacked off in trouble, but so is everyone else that was counting on him or her to do their part. Finding the line between doing to little work and too much is a hard concept to learn, but everyone must learn it at some point. Luckily, I learned this having fun water skiing before I had to apply it to real life scenarios.