For a 365th straight day on Saturday, a bus driver from Chicago jumped into Lake Michigan. This is his way of relieving stress during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dan O’Conor stated that it all began when he started jumping into the lake at Montrose Harbor on the city’s North Side last year as a way to find relief and reduce his stress during the difficult times.
“It was during the pandemic, it was during the protest, it was during an election year. … So it was somewhere where I could come down here and block all that noise out and kind of be totally present with me in the lake, and find some moments of Zen,” said O’Conor, who is also the father of three.
He continued his stress relief jumping all through the fall season and then stepped into the hard part, to hack a hole so big, that he could continue doing this all through winter as well. He had to make a hole in the frozen lake, and hence, after one such fall, he went back home only to find his body covered in about 20 scrapes and cuts.
His encouragement to go ahead with his relief technique came from the response he received.
Regarding the same he said, “People started asking me what this was benefiting and how they could support — and when I say people, I’m talking strangers online, you know. When I started posting the videos on Twitter and Instagram … I got more wind in my sails there because people started commenting like, ’This makes my day, it’s nice to see this.”
This jumping was special for him on Saturday as it marked the end of a whole year of doing it.
Saturday was special because it was the culmination of doing it for a full year.
O’Conor said, “I just wanted to celebrate just that drive to dive for 365.”
