ArcaMax

My son was furious when I picked him up from day camp, slamming the door when he got in the car. He had been downgraded from a "yellow" swimmer to a "red" swimmer. He hadn't forgotten how to swim. The YMCA had simply changed its policy.

My son loves to swim. He likes donning goggles and swimming underwater, not to mention perfecting his handstand. But the YMCA had changed its safety rules, and rightfully so. The shallow end reaches 5 feet deep, and campers now have to be at least 5 feet tall to swim there without a life jacket unless they pass the swim test. My son is 4 feet, 10 inches.

His choice was to either put on a life preserver and accept his designation as a red swimmer or take the swim test and move up to green where he'd have free reign of the entire pool. There was no longer the crutch of middle ground.

He opted to sit out entirely. For two days he refused to get in the pool at all. He was angry that the rules had changed. From his perspective, something had been taken away. The whole reason we chose the YMCA day camp for the summer was so he could swim. Now, he felt it was ruined.

Change is hard, especially when you're perfectly happy with the way things are and especially when you're 10. My son couldn't do any of the things he loved to do in the pool while wearing a life preserver.

I saw this policy change as an opportunity, which he found equally annoying. None of my previous cajoling had convinced him to take the swim test, and now he was stuck.

Watching him, I realized how often we let ourselves comfortable. But it's in these little struggle points that we figure out who we are and what we're made of. If we don't push ourselves, life inevitably will do it for us. Life changes the rules all the time whether we like it or not. We lose a job or miss out on a promotion. We get sick. Our kids grow up and move away. How many times do we stare down our own deep ends? We can get mad about it. We can sit on the side of the pool and wish things would go back to the way they were. They won't. Life pushes us forward.

I told my son all of this. I also told him that I was glad that he was given this opportunity to grow. I wanted him to think of how great it would feel to reach the next level, to be a green swimmer and no longer have to think about staying in the shallow end. If he didn't pass the swim test, I assured him we would practice on the weekend so he could try again next week. Because we can always try again.

He took the swim test and passed it on the first try. When I picked him up from the YMCA he declared the test to be easy and said he even went down the water slide in the 10-foot section of the pool. Twice! How free he must feel.

Life has a funny way of nudging us along. Just when we think we've found our footing, something changes. We can spend our energy begrudging change, or we can become the kind of person who embraces the challenge of deeper water.

Do you know anyone who's doing cool things to make the world a better place? I want to know. Send me an email at Bonnie@WriterBonnie.com. Also, stay in the loop by signing up for her weekly newsletter at WriterBonnie.com. To find out more about Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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