Chris Koch knows a thing or two about adventure.
The Nanton native has travelled to five continents, visited remote villages in Cambodia and Nepal, swam with sharks, bungee jumped in Brazil and even filmed a pilot for his own travel show.
And when he isn’t globe trotting, he’s on his family farm, baling hay, driving a combine and helping out with the livestock.
And he’s accomplished all this without arms or legs.
“There was no real known reason as to why I was born like this. It’s just one of those things that happens,” Koch told a captivated audience of Grade 5-9s at Eleanor Hall May 17. “This has been my norm my whole life. I’ve never known what it’s like to have arms and legs.
“A lot of kids will ask me what does it feel like to not have arms and legs? I ask them what does it feel like to have arms and legs?”
Rolling across the stage on his longboard, Koch was in Clyde to give a talk about seizing the day and reaching goals. Having faced adversity since the day he was born, he had some simple, yet wise advice for the students.
“If you can’t laugh at life, what can you laugh at? We are all going to have those days where it seems like nothing goes your way,” he said,
“When you have those days, slow it down and try to find that funny twist in the series of unfortunate events of that day.”
Attributing his perseverance to his sense of humour, Koch credited his family for teaching him to laugh at himself and face problems head-on. He stressed that he was forced to teach himself how to do things on his own and he was all the better for it.
“Right when I born, my grandmother joked around about how my dad never finished anything he started,” he said. “My parents realized early on that if they did everything for me, all they would be teaching me is how to rely on someone else to do things for me.”
While no one in the room other than Koch was missing a limb, let alone all four of them, Koch was quick to point out learning to be independent was the same for everyone.
He noted that kids whose parents take care of all the chores will quickly learn to rely on their parents for everything.
“I don’t want to look back on life when I’m 50 or older and say, ‘Ah, I wish I had done this and that.’ I want to look back on life and say I did as many things as I possibly could. Maybe some things didn’t go the way I hoped but at least I tried.”
While getting around and being helpful to others such as on the farm has been a relatively easy journey for him, Koch said that getting past mental barriers has been a challenge.
Referring to the “six inches between his ears,” Koch added that his life circumstances did lead to a great deal of frustration.
He stressed that getting past mental barriers and discouragement was probably the most important thing people could do.
“The fact is I don’t have arms and legs and I’m never going to have arms and legs, and I’m worrying about stuff I have no control over,” he said. “When I get mad about those things, I’m wasting time and energy.”
Getting past the mental barriers has proven worthwhile. The well-travelled adventurer is planning a kayaking trip in Norway, a return to Cambodia and many more adventures down the line, though first he was off to Barrhead and Neerlandia to talk to students there.
He finished off by noting that across the world, he has met almost exclusively good people.
He asked the students to remember that the terrorists, criminals and corrupt leaders often written about in the news were the minority and that the Earth was jam-packed with kind, caring and understanding folks.
Above all, he expressed his wish that people chase their dreams. After all, what else are we here for?
“You get out of life what you put into it. We all dream about things we want to do. Get out there and do it,” he concluded. “Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to fail many times.
“Be more afraid of regret.”
