Tracks and Tales: Enjoying Challenges

Do we enjoy a situation more if it?s slightly outside our comfort zone? Do we have better attitudes when we have to struggle just a bit? Does a little misery make a better memory?

I am thinking that the answer, in certain situations, just might be yes, it does.

Here?s my possible explanation. When things go well, we may have an enjoyable time and maybe even learn something new. However, the smoothness of the event itself works against it. The activity doesn?t take our full attention, giving our mind space to wander and serves to not make the memory outstanding (as in literally standing out). On the other hand, when we add in some sort of difficulty, not only does it serve to more fully engage us in the experience by virtue of working through the difficulty, but also serves to create a blip in memory, something to catch our attention on.

Several examples come to mind. Recently, I took a class of fifth-graders out for winter survival. Although the temperature reached in the low 20s, winds up to 30 mph made a rather frigid wind chill and disrupted attempts at making fire. A couple of weeks before, I took out a different class of fifth-graders for the same activity. The weather was more favorable the first time with temps in the high 20s, low wind, and rather dry wood. Fire building was almost too easy.

Naturally, I cannot speak for the students involved, as they all would report they enjoyed survival, one of my own personal favorites. I can, though, report on what I myself observed. The earlier class had the normal range of fifth-grade behavior and levels of focus, including some giving up when fire building failed on the first round. Everyone in the later class seemed to be deeply focused and determined to succeed, to the point of trying to make even tiny embers work. They all had very positive attitudes and a strong willingness to work with each other.

I have seen the same trend in learning how to canoe. A little wind makes the students work just a little bit harder, brings them deeper in the experience as they need to be while they fight the wind, and adds just a bit of unpredictability to the mix. Too little wind and too easy to canoe allows the mind to wander to other ideas. In contrast, too much wind makes it too hard to work with and paddling becomes more of a battle than a trial. In other words, too much of a challenge can ruin the experience.

That little extra focal point can make all the difference in the world. I have seen several times groups struggle just to paddle their canoe forward. Yet, as soon as I throw a ball into the water and explain rules of ?canoe basketball,? everyone becomes expert canoeists, forgetting they thought they didn?t know how to turn left.

The earliest memory for me of this idea came during my first summer teaching about the outdoors. I was leading a group of girls of varying elementary ages and running into struggles due to the age mix and normal girl drama that occurs with tweens. I was taking them on an overnight when the forecast called for rain. As soon as we reached our campsite, we set up an overhead tarp under which to work. Just in time, the rains poured down and the group of us huddled underneath. Still inexperienced, I searched my memory for activities possible in our confined space, when the girls spontaneously decided to take care of entertainment themselves. They sang and danced our way over the next few hours of downpour. Instead of complaints of being bored, I heard laughter and openness. The next day dawned beautifully as I heard the squabbling begin again.

It makes me wonder if challenges aren?t always negative obstacles, but opportunities for us to grow and enjoy life more.