reaction speeds, our memory, learning, just being shown some-
thing and being able to do it again right away. One of the things
we did that was really cool was we spent a morning at a pool. In
the pool they had us do an obstacle course, like an aquatic
obstacle course. Then there would be information on the bot-
tom of the pool that we would have to retrieve. Then we had to
remember and retain it. Then a couple of days later, do an
exercise using the information of the pool.”
Despite being stressful, Olathe’s high sensation-seeking
personality made the task easier. “In the pool I actually relaxed.
I could tell I was doing well. I started actually having fun with my
little team. We were laughing and joking. That made it easier to
remember the information that I needed.”
She got me thinking of something I hadn’t really thought of
before. If you ask an average or low sensation-seeking person if they
would rather try to do something that they know they can do or
something that they aren’t sure they can do, many people would
choose the thing they know they can accomplish. A lot of high
sensation-seekers love the feeling of pushing themselves beyond
what they think they can do. They thrive on the experience of
pulling everything together in order to accomplish something. It
creates an emotional and physical combination that’s probably
unlike any other.
Olathe agrees. “Yeah. It’s a feeling of absolute presence.
You’re like ‘Okay, I’m going to walk through that door. There’s
going to be some equipment...I’m going to have to harness up to
that climbing wall...remember this number...unscrew those
bolts...and get this moved over to there. That’s all I need to do
right now. I’m going to do it, and I’m going to work with these other
people. We’re going to figure it out.’ It’s a sense of empowerment
action.”
In the end, she wasn’t selected. She got tripped up on
a paper and pencil test. But her high sensation-seeking personality
got her pretty far.
What did she learn about herself? “I learned that I get really
intense. I knew I was intense. It’s not like I had not been told I was
intense, but it made me realize that I’m really intense. Even for
people who are intense.”
I wanted to continue to test my original theory however, so
I decided I would seek out the most dangerous profession I could
imagine and see how the high sensation-seeking personality129 / All in a Day’s WorkDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:48, subject to the Cambridge