Personal Change
20 Minutes To live

Personal responsibility has saved my life. I was scuba diving 40 miles off the Delaware coast on the wreck of the Washingtonian, a 400-foot ship that sunk in the early 1900s. We were in 95 feet of water and visibility was poor, about 15 feet. I was a few feet behind my dive buddy, an experienced diver, as we searched for "bugs" (lobsters) in the scattered wreckage. Even with the low visibility, I was within sight of him when my regulator got caught in the tangled fishing line on the wreck. The more I struggled, the more the line coiled around my arms, legs, and equipment. Before I realized what had happened, my buddy was gone. The dragons of fear and frustration grabbed me. Seeing that my air gage registered 1600 pounds, my first thought was: "I have 20 minutes to live."

I felt sorry for myself as I thought about my wife and daughters. I was angry at fisherman who carelessly lost their fishing tackle - they were to blame for my predicament. I was furious at my buddy for leaving me. I tamed those dragons when I took responsibility and said to myself: "Blame and anger won't save you. Do what you have been trained to do, and do it fast!"

I took off the diving gear and laid it on the ocean floor, keeping the mouth-piece just like I was taught in my certification course. Using the knife strapped to my ankle, I cut the fishing lines one strand at a time. When my gear was free from the fishing line, I carried it away from the wreck to open sand and put it back on. When I finished, my air gage read 400 pounds (five minutes). I looked for my buddy and found him quickly, since he was frantically looking for me too. Safely on the boat after the dive, we laughed as we told the exciting story to
other divers who were unaware of my near-death adventure.

Personal responsibility saved my life that day. I almost wasted my air and my life blaming the entanglement on someone else and feeling sorry for myself. How often in our daily activities do we figuratively "die" wasting our breath on blame, anger, or self-pity when personal responsibility would save the day and fix the problem?