http://www.ted.com/talks/diana_nyad_extreme_swimming_with_the_world_s_most_dangerous_jell yfish.html Yeah, so a couple of years ago I was turning 6 , and I don!t like "eing 6 .

#$aughter% &nd I started grappling with this existential angst of what little I had done with my life. It wasn!t the resume of "reaking this record here, it was more like, who had I "ecome' (ow had I spent my )alua"le time' (ow could this ha)e gone "y like lightning' &nd I couldn!t forgi)e myself for the countless, countless hours I had lost in negati)e thought ** all the time I had spent "eating myself up for losing my marriage and not stopping the sexual a"use when I was a kid and career mo)es and this and this and this. +ust why, why didn!t I do it "etter' ,hy' ,hy' ,hy' &nd then my mother died at -.. &nd so I starting thinking, not only am I not happy with the past, now I!m getting choked with, /I!)e only got .. years left./ ,hat am I going to do with this short amount of time that!s just fleeting' &nd I!m not in the present whatsoe)er. &nd I decided the remedy to all this malaise was going to "e for me to chase an ele)ated dream, an extreme dream, something that would re0uire utter con)iction and unwa)ering passion, something that would make me "e my "est self in e)ery aspect of my life, e)ery minute of e)ery day, "ecause the dream was so "ig that I couldn!t get there without that kind of "eha)ior and that kind of con)iction. &nd I decided, it was an old dream that was lingering, that was from so many years ago, three decades ago ** the only sort of world class swim I had tried and failed at "ack in my . s ** was going from 1u"a to 2lorida. It was deep in my imagination. 3o one!s e)er done it without a shark cage. It!s daunting. It!s more than a hundred miles across a difficult passage of ocean. It!s pro"a"ly, at my speed, at my age ** for any"ody!s speed at any"ody!s age ** going to take 6 , may"e 4 , hours of continuous swimming, ne)er getting out on the "oat. &nd I started to train. I hadn!t swum for 56 years, not a stroke. &nd I had kept in good shape, "ut swimming!s a whole different animal. &s a matter of fact, this picture is supposed to "e me during training. It!s a smiling face. &nd when you!re training for this sport, you are not smiling. #$aughter% It!s an arduous, difficult sport, and I don!t remem"er smiling at any time during this sport. &s I said, I respect other sports, and I compare this sport sometimes to cycling and to mountain clim"ing and other of the expedition type e)ents, "ut this is a sensory depri)ation, a physical duress. &nd when I started in with the eight hours and the 6 hours and the 6. hours and the 67 hours and the 68 hours and the .7*hour swims, I knew I had it, "ecause I was making it through these. &nd when I said I!m going to go out and do a 68*hour swim, and we!re coming into the dock after a long day and it!s now night, and we come in and it!s 67 hours and 8- minutes and I can touch the dock and we!re done, the trainer says, /9hat!s great. It!s 67 hours 8- minutes. ,ho cares the last two minutes'/ I say, /3o, it!s got to "e 68 hours,/ and I swim another minute out and another minute "ack to make the 68 hours. &nd I put together an expedition. It!s not that I didn!t ha)e help, "ut honestly, I sort of led, I was the team leader. &nd to get the go)ernment permissions, you read in the paper, you think it!s easy to get into 1u"a e)eryday' 9ry going in with an armada like we had of 8 people and fi)e "oats and 133!s crew, etc. 9he na)igation is difficult. 9here!s a "ig ri)er called the :ulf ;tream that runs across and it!s not going in the direction you are. It!s going to the east and you!d like to go north. It!s tricky. &nd there!s dehydration. &nd there!s hypothermia. &nd there are sharks. &nd there are all kinds of pro"lems. &nd I gathered together, honestly, the world!s leading experts in e)ery possi"le way. &nd a month ago, the .5rd of ;eptem"er, I stood on that shore and I looked across to that long, long faraway hori<on and I asked myself, do you ha)e it' &re your shoulders ready' &nd they were. 9hey were prepared. 3o stone left unturned. ,as the mind ready' You know, you!re swimming with the fogged goggles, you!re swimming at 6 strokes a minute, so you!re ne)er really focused on anything, you don!t see well. You!)e got tight "athing caps o)er your ears trying to keep

the heat of the head, "ecause it!s where the hypothermia starts, and so you don!t hear )ery well. You!re really left alone with your own thoughts. &nd I had all kinds of counting systems ready there in =nglish, followed "y :erman, followed "y ;panish, followed "y 2rench. You sa)e the 2rench for last. &nd I had songs, I had a playlist in my head ** not through headphones, in my own head ** of 68 songs. &nd I couldn!t wait to get into the dark in the middle of the night, "ecause that!s when 3eil Young comes out. #$aughter% &nd it!s odd, isn!t it' You!d think you!d "e singing $eonard 1ohen!s /(allelujah/ out in the majesty of the ocean, not songs a"out heroin addiction in 3ew York 1ity. >ut no, for some reason I couldn!t wait to get into the dark of the night and "e singing, ? /& heard you knocking at my cellar door ? ? I lo)e you "a"y and I want some more ? ? @oh, ooh, the damage done/ ? #&pplause% 9he night "efore I started, I finished ;tephen (awking!s /9he :rand Aesign./ &nd I couldn!t wait to trip the mind fantastic. &"out the 8 th hour, I was going to start thinking a"out the edge of the uni)erse. Is there an edge' Is this an en)elope we!re li)ing inside of, or no, does it go onto infinity in "oth time and space' &nd there!s nothing like swimming for 8 hours in the ocean that gets you thinking a"out things like this. I couldn!t wait to pro)e the athlete I am, that no"ody else in the world can do this swim. &nd I knew I could do it. &nd when I jumped into that water, I yelled in my mother!s 2rench, /1ourageB/ &nd I started swimming, and, oh my :od, it was glassy. &nd we knew it, all 8 people on the "oat, we all knew this was it, this was our time. &nd I reminded myself a couple hours in, you know, the sport is sort of a microcosm of life itself. 2irst of all, you!re going to hit o"stacles. &nd e)en though you!re feeling great at any one moment, don!t take it for granted, "e ready, "ecause there!s going to "e pain, there!s going to "e suffering. It!s not going to feel this good all the way across. &nd I was thinking of the hypothermia and may"e some shoulder pain and all the other things ** the )omiting that comes from "eing in the saltwater. You!re immersed in the li0uid. Your "ody doesn!t like the saltwater. &fter a couple of days, three days, you tend to re"el in a lot of physical ways. >ut no, two hours in, whamB 3e)er in my life ... I knew there were Cortuguese men o! war, all kinds of moon jellies, all kinds of things, "ut the "ox jellyfish from the southern oceans is not supposed to "e in these waters. &nd I was on fire ** excruciating, excruciating pain. I don!t know if you can still see the red line here and up the arm. =)idently, a piece this "ig of tentacle has a hundred* thousand little "ar"s on it and each "ar" is not just stinging your skin, it!s sending a )enom. 9he most )enomous animal that li)es in the ocean is the "ox jellyfish. &nd e)ery one of those "ar"s is sending that )enom into this central ner)ous system. ;o first I feel like "oiling hot oil, I!)e "een dipped in. &nd I!m yelling out, /2ireB 2ireB 2ireB 2ireB (elp meB ;ome"ody help meB/ &nd the next thing is paralysis. I feel it in the "ack and then I feel it in the chest up here, and I can!t "reathe. &nd now I!m not swimming with a nice long stroke, I!m sort of cra""ing it this way. 9hen come con)ulsions. & young man on our "oat is an =D9. (e di)es in to try to help me. (e!s stung. 9hey drag him out on the "oat, and he!s ** e)idently, I didn!t see any of this ** "ut lying on the "oat and gi)ing himself epinephrine shots and crying out. (e!s .E years old, )ery well*"uilt, lean, he!s six*foot, fi)e, weighs .68 l"s., and he is down. &nd he is crying and he!s yelling to my trainer who!s trying to help me. &nd he!s saying, />onnie, I think I!m going to die. Dy "reath is down to three "reaths a minute. I need help, and I can!t help Aiana./ ;o that was at eight o!clock at night. 9he doctor, medical team from Fni)ersity of Diami arri)ed at fi)e in the morning. ;o I swam through the night, and at dawn they got there and they started with prednisone shots. I didn!t get out, "ut was in the water taking prednisone shots, taking Ganax, oxygen to the face. It was like an I1F unit in the water. #$aughter% &nd I guess the story is that

e)en 3a)y ;=&$; who are stung "y the "ox jelly, they!re done. 9hey either die or they 0uickly get to a hospital. &nd I swam through the night and I swam through the next day. &nd the next night at dusk, again, whamB 9he "ox jelly again ** all across the neck, all across here. &nd this time, I don!t like it, I didn!t want to gi)e into it, "ut there!s a difference "etween a non*stop swim and a staged swim. &nd I ga)e in to the staged swim. &nd they got me out and they started again with the epinephrine and the prednisone and with the oxygen and with e)erything they had on "oard. &nd I got "ack in. &nd I swam through that night and into the next day. &nd at 76 hours, this "ody couldn!t make it. 9he de)astation of those stings had taken the respiratory system down so that I couldn!t make the progress I wanted. &nd the dream was crushed. &nd how odd is this intelligent person who put this together and got all these world experts together. &nd I knew a"out the jellyfish, "ut I was sort of ca)alier. & lot of athletes ha)e this, you know, sort of in)inci"ility. 9hey should worry a"out me. I don!t worry a"out them. I!ll just swim right through them. ,e!)e got "enadryl on "oard. If I get stung, I!ll just grin and "ear it. ,ell there was no grin and "earing this. &s a matter of fact, the "est ad)ice I got was from an elementary school class in the 1ari""ean. &nd I was telling these kids, 6. of them ** they were all in the school on the gymnasium floor ** and I was telling them a"out the jellyfish and how they!re gelatinous and you can!t see them at night especially. &nd they ha)e these long 5 to 7 to 8 *ft. tentacles. &nd they do this wrapping. &nd they can send the poison into the system. &nd a little kid from the "ack was like this. &nd I said, /,hat!s your name'/ /(enry./ /(enry, what!s your 0uestion'/ (e said, /,ell, I didn!t ha)e a 0uestion so much as I had a suggestion./ (e said, /You know those guys who really "elie)e in what they "elie)e in and so they wear "om"s'/ &nd I said, /,ell it!s odd that you!)e learned of this as a no"le kind of pursuit, "ut yeah, I know those guys./ (e said, /9hat!s what you need. You need like a school of fish that would swim in front of you like this./ #$aughter% /&nd when the jellyfish come and they wrap their tentacles around the fish, they!re going to "e "usy with them, and you!ll just scoot around./ I said, /@h, it!s like a suicide army./ (e said, /9hat!s what I!m talking a"out. 9hat!s what you need./ &nd little did I know, that you should listen to eight year*olds. &nd so I started that swim in a "athing suit like normal, and, no joke, this is itH it came from the shark di)ers. I finished the swim like this. I was swimming with this thing on. 9hat!s how scared of the jellyfish I was. ;o now what do I do' I wouldn!t mind if e)ery one of you came up on this stage tonight and told us how you!)e gotten o)er the "ig disappointments of your li)es. >ecause we!)e all had them, ha)en!t we' ,e!)e all had a heartache. &nd so my journey now is to find some sort of grace in the face of this defeat. &nd I can look at the journey, not just the destination. I can feel proud. I can stand here in front of you tonight and say I was courageous. Yeah. #&pplause% 9hank you. &nd with all sincerity, I can say, I am glad I li)ed those two years of my life that way, "ecause my goal to not suffer regrets anymore, I got there with that goal. ,hen you li)e that way, when you li)e with that kind of passion, there!s no time, there!s no time for regrets, you!re just mo)ing forward. &nd I want to li)e e)ery day of the rest of my life that way, swim or no swim. >ut the difference in accepting this particular defeat is that sometimes, if cancer has won, if there!s death and we ha)e no choice, then grace and acceptance are necessary.

>ut that ocean!s still there. 9his hope is still ali)e. &nd I don!t want to "e the cra<y woman who does it for years and years and years, and tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails, "ut I can swim from 1u"a to 2lorida, and I will swim from 1u"a to 2lorida. 9hank you. 9hank you. #&pplause% 9hank you. #&pplause% &nd so, what after that' &re you going to swim the &tlantic' 3o, that!s the last swim. It!s the only swim I!m interested in. >ut I!m ready. &nd "y the way, a reporter called me the other day and he said he looked on ,ikipedia and he said he saw my "irthday was &ugust ..nd 6E7E, and for some odd reason in ,ikipedia, they had my death date too. #$aughter% (e said, /Aid you know you!re going to die the same place you were "orn, 3ew York 1ity, and it!s going to "e in +anuary of !58'/ I said, /3ope. I didn!t know./ &nd now I!m going to li)e to -8. I ha)e three more years than I thought. &nd so I ask myself, I!m starting to ask myself now, e)en "efore this extreme dream gets achie)ed for me, I!m asking myself, and may"e I can ask you tonight too, to paraphrase the poet Dary @li)er, she says, /;o what is it, what is it you!re doing, with this one wild and precious life of yours'/ 9hank you )ery much. #&pplause% 9hank you. 9hank you. 9hank you. 9hank you. #&pplause% $i)e it large. $i)e it large.