By his own admission, Chris Emch was a pretty unhappy guy – until an injury on a Scuba trip to the Philippines led him to an Indonesian guide named Fritz.
Chris Emch was on a group Scuba trip to the Philippines in October 2013 when it happened. About 11m down off Apo Island, he removed a borrowed earplug that was chaffing him, creating a suction that yanked his ear drum outward. The resulting injury forced Emch out of the water for days.
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By his own admission, he was a pretty unhappy guy. He’d spent years working as a police officer and, as he put it, had seen “what awful things people do to each other over petty things”. After a career-ending injury, he’d opened a Scuba shop in Thousands Oaks, California, but the business was struggling. And only months before the Scuba trip, he’d been diagnosed with skin cancer and had endured a painful divorce.
Emch liked the isolation of diving. After all, you can’t exactly have a conversation 15m underwater. There on Apo Island, suddenly sidelined, he could have packed up and gone home. Instead, the 41-year-old decided to have a look around the surrounding islands.
“I rented a scooter and set out to see what Dumaguete had to offer,” Emch said. “I went to a bar with one of the managers from the resort I was staying at, and he introduced me to some friends of his.”
Those friends became his tour guides, and Emch realized this was the first time in a long while that he’d enjoyed making connections with new people. Perhaps something inside him was shifting.
The Scuba group continued on to Manado and Bitung, Indonesia, where Emch hired a guide name Fritz to show him around. They took in the local sights, but Emch was most affected by his conversations with Fritz.
From Emch’s perspective, Fritz lived a modest life. He’d worked at Kungkungan Bay Resort, where Emch was staying, for 16 years. He made about $140 a month, lived in a small boarding house and took on odd jobs to provide for his wife and son. But most importantly, Emch realized, Fritz was happy.
Emch told Fritz that he wanted to see his family, so off they went to Fritz’s home. Emch met Fritz’s wife, son, cousins, parents, aunt and uncle. He sipped sweet tea and chatted with them. The experience deeply affected Emch.
“I had everything I could ever want and still complained all the time,” he said. “I realized how blessed my life was and how truly lucky I was to have the life I had been given.”
From that point on, Emch said he had a new perspective on life.
“After that day, things tasted better, things smelled better, the glass went from half empty to half full,” he said. “It was like someone put me into a machine and reprogrammed my brain. It was an amazing feeling.”
Emch returned home and got rid of many of his possessions. He sold the Scuba business. These days, he lives in Bangkok – a move he made after visiting a couple he’d met on the same life-altering trip.
At 42, Emch said he continues to learn new things about himself and others. He always tries to see the good in people and to make the best of every situation. He still uses the lessons he gleaned from Fritz.
But most importantly, he said, he’s taking time to get to know himself better.
“Travel truly changed my life, changed my outlook, changed my perception, changed how I acted and changed me as a person,” he said. “Compared to who I was a year ago, some of my closest friends and family don’t recognize who I am anymore.”
He used to be too materialistic, he said. And he thinks he should have treated his family better. But now, he’s striving to become the person he wants to be.
“Everything happens for a reason”, he said, “and you can’t control where life takes you or what lessons it wants to give you.”
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