The Daily Superhero in You
Lessons from a Treacherous Thai Cave Dive Rescue
In late June, 2018, the majority of a young Thai football team and their assistant coach finished practice one Friday afternoon and decided to head to a favorite spot nearby, the Tham Luang cave, to let off some steam, play, and explore. When they failed to turn up to a birthday party organized by one of the parents later that evening, the families discovered the boys were trapped inside the cave which had since flooded as a result of torrential downpour (rainy season came unexpectedly early that year). Little was known of their exact whereabouts inside the cave or whether the team was even still alive. All their concerned parents had to go on was a pile of bikes left at the entrance.
The entrance to Tham Luang Cave on Day 2 of the rescue operation (source: GQ).
What happens next is nothing short of nail-biting, excruciating, heroic, and remarkable, which is, of course, why Ron Howard made the movie (now available on Amazon Prime). The province calls in teams of emergency services, the Royal Thai Navy SEALs, British cavers and rescue divers, and a handful of locals who know the cave fairly well. The boys are discovered to be so deep inside that the nature of their location plus the dive path out mean the rescuers have to resort to a strategy and tactics (sedation) that almost certainly imply some casualties.
Not to mention the added complexity of the rains and the cave’s treacherous layout, which is life-threateningly dangerous for even the most experienced of cave divers let alone amateur boys and a man. The group is trapped for more than two weeks before their rescue is even attempted (divers did deliver some basic rations, enough to keep them alive, but that was only after 7-10 days).
Source: The Evening Standard.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it for you by detailing the rest! But there are so many beautiful spiritual lessons and reminders of who we are and what we are made of, of the powers we have access to when really put to the test. The journey is a true show of superhuman courage and strength.
The coach, who is the only adult trapped in the cave with the 12 boys, serves as the story’s first major hero by exercising the full power of mindfulness, faith, and leadership in a time of major crisis. He keeps the boys cool, calm, collected, and hopeful, even, with daily Buddhist meditations, prayer, and coaching as they encounter one dark and scary night, one heart-wrenchingly terrified moment, after another, with no promise of any end in sight.
But it is the mere fact they believed they could and would be rescued, that they believed they could and would survive, that served as the ultimate sword against fear and the thing most responsible for their survival. It was their faith and trust in themselves and a higher power. It was the beauty of their strength in numbers, only multiplied when the entire group opted to follow the coach’s suit with his positive energy, attitude, and mindset in order to manifest divine protection and cover for all 13 of them.
In the coach’s mind, his efforts were the bare minimum repentance for putting the boys in harm's way in the first place (by his own account and acceptance). But what he deemed as a horrific mistake only resulted instead in his life’s greatest achievement, in the opportunity to shine his light and show his true colors in a testimony of raw courage, steadfastness, and resolve. The power of one single human, mind, body, and spirit is indeed so incredibly awe-inspiring when given the chance to rise to the occasion. The power of one man’s faith is enough to power a universal will so faithful and truthful that it leads to the survival of all 13.
The irony is, these resources are not only available to us when trapped deep within a flooded cave in a far-flung province of Thailand amidst torrential downpour rain. These superhuman powers, these shows of will and strength, are available to us everyday and are in fact so often exemplified in big and small form, but also so often, in private. No true story to full feature film deals on Amazon (Prime). Just the real, true life and times of so many remarkable humans doing superhuman, superhero things in repeated shows of day-to-day strength. Oftentimes these heroic deeds and things, no matter how big or small, go entirely unnoticed and most certainly unappreciated and unsung.
The truth is: you are so much more than you think you are. Your full story may not be “out there” in public. But the universe sees and knows it. You have access to more support and strength than you think you do to get through your hardest moments and the universe is standing by ready to serve you. You are a hero in your own life and let me be the first to tell you: that coach is a hero but that coach could have been me and most certainly you.
Source: Buzzfeed.
Keep going. Hold your head high because you, too, are a daily hero. The hero in you could and would light up the night sky with your courage and strength, with your willpower to power the will for survival on behalf of at least 13. Keep going, hero. You may not be running around in a cape (or maybe you are, in which case, power to you!) and you may not be interviewed by the local news tonight, but you are a true hero for many indeed. I see the hero in you and the universe does, too. You are that coach. And, that coach is you. I believe we can all be absolutely sure of it.