Dive in or take it slow?

When Maria was around eleven years old, she lived with her family in a big house in a nice lakeside neighborhood. In the summer, Maria's family spent a good amount of time at the lake. They had a pontoon boat for leisure rides around the lake at evening time. The also had a small speed boat for skiing and fishing. These were kept at the gated neighborhood dock.

Now, this lake was in Michigan and as you may be aware, the water never gets truly warm in lakes such as this one. But still, the family would often go swimming off the docks. Maria's father liked to take the kids down after dinner on summer nights to cool off after a long day. All of the kids loved this. They would quickly don their bathing suits and gladly ride their bikes down to the dock.

Once they arrived at the lake, someone would yell, "Last one in is a rotten egg!" Off they would run down the dock to the end. All of the kids would stop short at the edge and look in wondering how cold it was.

Then Maria's father would dive in. He would swim to the surface and say, "Come on in! It's not cold at all."

Then one by one, the kids would jump in and, one by one, they would come to the surface and shiver.

Maria, on the other hand, always took a different approach. She would walk to the ladder leading into the lake off the side of the dock. Then she would dip her toes in. Then she would place her feet on the first rung of the ladder. Then she would slowly, slowly, slowly lower her body into the water a little at a time, pausing to let each section adjust to the water temperature.

Usually during this process, her father would have been out of the water a couple times for a running jump or dive back into the lake. He would always say to Maria, "If you just jump in, your body will adjust more quickly and you can have more time having fun."

Maria still eased herself into the lake every time. However, I can say that she does now appreciate the advise.