Grit and determination

Being at camp is hard work. The boys face both external and internal obstacles, and have to learn how to push through to meet their goals. That requires grit and determination.

Externally, there are lots of obstacles. Living in a wilderness campsite, there are numerous challenges. When the weather is cold, they have to cut enough wood to keep their tents warm. Sure, it’s fun to cut wood with a bucksaw the first time. But what about when you’re cold and tired and it’s the second time that week that you’re cutting wood all morning?

Internally, all of us fight negative feelings that can drag us down. At camp, they deal with these difficulties together, as a group, talking through the issues and helping each other to keep going, to finish the job even when they are frustrated.

How do you keep going when things are tough?

The boys recently learned about making fires. Supervisor Tim demonstrated different methods of starting fires during their afternoon teaching session. What do you need for a fire? Fuel, air, a spark. And lots of patience and determination.

The boys went to campsite to practice. Easy peasy. Put the elements together, in the right amounts, and carefully coax a fire out of the spark.

It’s not as easy as it seem. We’ve all seen countless videos of frustrated people giving up on making a fire. Would the boys press through and keep trying until they built their own fires?

With some teaching, a demonstration, and coaching, the boys were able to light their own fires. That’s not to say they’ll always be successful. But as they continue to practice, they will gain confidence in their new skill. The more they build fires, the easier it will be.

Camp isn’t all fun and games. It’s hard work and some days feel tough.

Many of the boys who come to camp struggle with grit, with sticking with things. But here at camp, they have a chance to slow down and learn to press through problems, to practice and keep at it until they succeed. It might look like they are learning to build fires (or make syrup or build tents). But really, they are gaining grit, the ability to press through a difficult time and push past the obstacles.

In the future, when the boys return home from camp, they might not have a lifestyle where they need to build fires every day. But the reslience they built when they learned to coax out a fire in difficult conditions?

That is something they’ll use every day for the rest of their lives.