The Average Surfer's Guide: To Travel, Waves and Progression

By Simon Short

From the author of the viral article 'A Story about Surfing, Depression and Identity' The Average Surfer's Guide is true story about life balance and how prioritizing our passions can play an important role in grounding us, educating us and making us better humans as we grow older. The book takes a unique approach by forgetting the glamour of professional surfing and telling a story of hard lessons learned by an average surfer. The Average Surfer's Guide presents an open, honest and humorous account of the insecurities faced by everyday surfers both in the water, on land and in life. The stories told present a refreshing and positive outlook on how surfing can benefit us, first as a sport, then as a lifestyle and identity. The chapter began on a mild, dark, moonless night in April of 2014. My life had fallen apart roughly a year or so earlier. On that night, at about 3 a.m., I found myself sitting on a river jetty near Newport Beach with a loaded Glock 17 hand gun in my backpack. I had reached the coastline after walking over ten miles in a state of absolute hopelessness. There I sat, at the end of the Earth, on a cold rock, staring at the waves. The black, oil-paint-like ocean would be the only witness. I began to wonder what the news reports might say about the unknown man who was found washed up on the beach at the start of summer. I sat for hours and thought about my friends, my family, my past, and my future. I thought about the people who had wronged me and the people I had wronged. In the end, I never found enough courage to be a coward that night. I never pulled the trigger and wrote that final chapter. Instead, my chapter continued. For a while it continued in the same dark setting as I struggled to find a way forward and wondered what I really had to offer myself and the world. I never thought that chapter would end, but it did. The end of that chapter came on a humid, rainy day in Costa Rica in 2018. I remember a feeling of absolute bliss, absolute contentment, and absolute presence in a moment. Four years after I had been sitting on the rock jetty, there I was, sitting on the back of a quad bike, racing through a jungle to check the surf with my best friend, at the wheel. I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. How had the story changed so drastically? The answer was that I had embraced the change. I had gone through everything necessary to learn and to change, including the pain, the hard times, and that night in Newport Beach

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1985861887
• ISBN13: 9781985861886
• Release Date: November 2018
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"