Water Park Lifeguard: A Short Story

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Children running, shouting, grinning. Such is an ordinary day as a water park lifeguard. I take a friends spot for their break, as I frequently did. He was the reason I got the job. I thought, $10 a hour to pace forward and backward? My 16 year old self couldn't dream of more. But, that was three months back and I had no fervor over the job left. I wind up fantasizing gazing at the base of the pool as I pace forward and backward. Then one day, I hear a splash from the left side of the pool and see a young lady attempting to keep herself up. In one motion, I kick my shoes off the second I see her and dive to help her. Luckily, I get to her while she’s still able to keep herself above the water. I pull her onto my tube and start my spiel. You are required to see the individual and respond in ten seconds, I took six. I grin, cheerful to do …show more content…

In school I never pushed myself to accomplish more than pass. Various times in my life when I knew failure was likely, I wouldn’t give any effort at all. I believed with this cushion of “I didn’t try” it would be better than trying my hardest and failing. I was very wrong. This episode happened toward the end of my junior year, I now comprehend the significance of effort. I take pride in everything I do and tend to go the extra mile when not fully necessary. I used to dread failure. I considered it to be a type of shortcoming, yet it's most certainly not. It's shown me a lot about myself and what I need to do. I would rather succeed than fall, yet failing shows you quite a lot more. It allows you to improve yourself, and succeed the second time. Thinking back on it, this wasn’t a very insane moment, most people would just shrug it off and say they’ll do better the next time. It’s mind boggling that this incident had such a giant impact on my day to day life. It showed me that I just required some additional push to do as well as I could be expected to

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