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When it comes to freediving, there is a balance between clear and obvious selfishness that requires you to be a high-performing athlete and altruism. You have to put on the tunnel vision, you have to put on the horse blinders at a certain point versus this giving and altruism that you have in the community. How does one balance these selfish emotions, which will drive one to success? How does one handle these conflicting issues?
For me, I think I have, for the most part, a pretty good ability to separate those emotions and do what I need to do, for example, focus on my dive. And I've seen it lately in the past couple of months, I have certain emotions in my personal life and my relationships, and going through periods where I even feel really sad and bothered and then having to do this dive that I've been training for the past couple weeks or couple months. I have to separate myself from that in order to have a successful dive.
It's interesting to be able to detach yourself. I don't know if it's a therapeutic thing, because when you have the ability to do that, and then you do have these successes, it almost makes you feel invincible. It makes you feel like "wow, I can do anything that I put my mind to". It's interesting to analyze all these different emotions that you feel, the goals you set, and everything else, and be able to separate that. I know a lot of people who I've actually had some conversations with recently, have a difficult time with that. They're not able to separate those two things as easily and their emotions and, or their connections with the person that they're diving with really affects their dives. And they don't wanna spend the time to maybe try to dive with a new partner during their training, because they don't feel as comfortable. For me, if I am training for something and I have something that I need to accomplish, like a dive that I'm working for, it doesn't matter who I'm diving with. If I feel like they can do safety for me, then that's what matters. Because I have this goal in mind, this is what I came here to accomplish. And I have to be able to separate that if I wanna be successful for myself.