Sometimes it feels that life is too ahead, and you are too behind. Like memories from today are memories from yesterday in a blink of an eye. To me it has felt his way for too long. I push down the sadness of time going by, and hold it in its place using “actions of purpose”. A false truth that I am changing time to be more Important. I skimmed through the days, directed by worries and operated by pressures. The truth was too distant, too obscure, and too hard for my perception to accept. As an output, my actions seemed grand. My overachieving mentality got things done and pushed to make my work the best possible. When I look back on the year, that’s what I remember: a jumble of paradigm changes and isolated times of accomplishment. My work has made me proud but my mind has not.
I went into this year thinking that accomplishment was the key to impact, but the discovered truth I now know, is that every second of every day is the tue importance and gateway to meaning. If accomplishment is the key, then the moment is the hand holding the key and the brain controlling the hand. The moment is what motivates, what teaches, what shows you the map to memorize. The moment is actuality.
During our loon lake learning advance, I gained this new perception on success. Like a scientist, I had a hypothesis, and the four days that we were away, I was able to test it. In this post I will take you on the journey I went on to get to this realization.
To me its crazy what experiences have to offer. Everything can be so objective, so face value and easy, or you can make everything your own. When I was informed of the learning advance, I went into it with that face value point of view where everything was going to be as it sounds, and then it would be over. What I didn’t imagine though, is how much of a transformation I would go through.
It feels like it has been forever since I formed the goal to find balance in my life. At first it was just an idea, then as pressure lured me one way then another, the thought of balance became more and more desirable. As someone who likes to do a lot of things, and likes to do a lot of things well, it is very easy to get stuck doing one thing while my mind wants me to do another. This action of mind-body division is something that I have struggled with a lot, and was also the foundation of my goal for the four day learning advance.
A quote that I pretty much live by is:
“you don’t have to have all of the answers. If you have the questions, all you have to do is live” – Chris Bosch.
Those questions I had of how I can create balance in my life were so far away from relevancy at the time, but as I lived, tried new things, and F.A.I.L’ed a whole lot of times, this clouded idea of balance I once had, started to become more and more visible. I had gained these insights this entire year and as I practiced balancing my school, basketball, and out of school inquires such as gardening or more learning, certain trends of success began to form. I realized that I am more effective when follow my passions and doing things with a purpose. With this discovery and the reading ofThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I learned the importance of self identity and having a “correct map” plays in achieving this goal of balance.
Flash forward to the first day of the trip, and once again this knowledge had slipped into the archives. It took a lot of reflection during the goal creation exercises as well as that night to recover this critical point of understanding. We needed to create a goal that could be trackable through the trip and would be something that would help me advance as a person. My ability reflect had alway been good, but recently I had noticed that my constant push to find deeper meaning was throwing me into the future, breaking me of my trusting perception, and taking the joy of the moment and placing it just out of reach.
That was the start of my goal formation. As you will see in my tutorial video and reflection, self questioning is the first step to achieveing my set out goal. After I completed that step, I had a strong understanding of what I wanted to fix. I decided that I would try doing something that I loved: Running an experiment. Just like any lab experiment, I was going to try something just to test its effectiveness. I would capture my observations after every day and write a conclusion at the end.
My goal was based on the idea of reflecting on the moment and trusting in myself. It was an attempt to experience every moment with an open mind, to look inside myself, and discover what life is without guidance from pressures. The goal was to trust that I will be able to reflect on the moment without reflecting in the moment.
Like I said, I ran this like an experiment, trusting that I could reflect on my progress through a critical and observational lens at the end of this trip. The second day that I got back, I did exactly this. Ordering the trip chronologically in my mind, I exhaled the distant growth provoking memories of loon lake.
Day one with goal – Tuesday April 5th 2022
- I learned the importance of self connection and freedom in pushing myself to do the activities of today. I pushed my mind to be in the moment, to appreciate the opportunities and to except them as well. I leaned that I dont have everything together, but I know that if I just live to my passions, than my life will figure itself out.
- I learned that who I am is not the people I hang with, but more as what I bring to the conversation.
- I Was able to take the trust I had in myself and feel the moment during the activities of the day
- I learned that when I live in the moment, I am able to be more kind, outgoing, helpful, patient, supportive, and overall selfless.
- I learned that I may not be able to find deeper meaning in every event, but I am able to experience it while feeling myself and open. This allows me to be open for opportunity and experiences that can be reflected upon later.
- In canoeing, I learned the importance of seeing nature as objective, without backed emotions, or thoughts. This allowed me to feel part of nature, it allowed me to appreciate the flow of the moment, and it allowed me to communicate with peers in a kindhearted, and present way.
- In rock climbing I was able to fail and not give up. This act was me being ready in the moment which was influenced by openness and determination, both products of taking hold of the moment and making it my own.
- I previously had said that I wanted to live the moment rather than experience it and in these two activities as well as the high ropes later that day, I pushed myself to live in the moment and trust in who I am. As I reflect on the experiences, I realize how much I was able take from them not only as learning experiences but as experiences that would morph my identity into a human who is caring, kind, and interesting to talk to, work with, and learn from.
Day two Wednesday April 6th 2022
**Be ready for the moment so you can be prepared for the future**
- You can always do more, but if you aren’t showing the appropriate energy level then you are not in the ready state.
- seeking out wisdom is not something that is handed to you. When I recognized that the guide for our tour shared many of the same interests as me, I immediately reached out to have a conversation. All I wished is that I was able to talk more from my heart rather than my mind which was trying to squeeze out the importance of the moment. If I could have been present at the time, my true self would shine through, and I would have been able to have a truly meaningful and enjoyable conversation.
- If you are constantly behind in your mind, you will never advance. If your are holding on to mistakes, thinking about the past, and reflecting on the meaning of events, you will loose the moment, you will loose the importance that being present holds. When you do this you may not fall back, but you wont advance as a human in life. When you are present, you don’t just witness the moment, you feel the moment, you remember the moment, you create the moment to be a memory in your mind. When you are in the moment you are able to advance your identity, you are able to achieve and work through goals, and you are able to be yourself in every moment, making every moment your own. This was the main point of learning from Loon Lake.
- Although being in the moment has been positive, out of sight out of mind is not really out of mind, not at a deeper level. This is true, because procrastinating is only going to make things worse and less enjoyable. A way to stop this that I learned is through capturing thoughts so you can let go of them. This is like going through a speech with a loogie in your mouth – its just not going to be as enjoyable. Another way to stop a nagging thought that isn’t something you can write down, is to evaluate the moment. You have to think about the importance of the thought, the current state of your mind to deal with the thought, the moment you are in, and where the thought is coming from. That last point is very important because, if I am in a moment of ease, my ego will immediately resort to finding something that makes me feel uncomfortable. When there is no physical options, my ego will push on thoughts that will make me feel bad about myself, about what I am doing, or something that I should be doing that I am not (worrying about the future). Usually I can determine the origin of the thought based on the experience I am having or had.
- During one of the final outings of the trip, the shelter building and nature walk, I was able to see true growth on my goal. Although my mind attempted to drift as I thought about the trip coming to an end, I kept myself in the moment appreciating the community of our PLP 10 class. Although some forts failed, everyone was supportive and helpful, and I was finally able to just be, and enjoy the process of building and critiquing the other shelters. I also noticed how comfortable it was to collaborate with my teammates, some who I had only talked to for peer critiques earlier on in the year. I can attribute this to the sharing of good times, but I can also say that the main reason I felt so comfortable was because I was so ready and in the moment. I was confident on who I was, my abilities, and the moment, that I was able to just feel like all I wanted to do was share the feeling of openness with everyone around me.
- I was able on this day to understand the importance and significance this goal has in my life. I trusted myself with this goal, trusting my instinct and the gut feeling that this goal would be the one. This goal of mental dependence lead to social interdependence and positive influence on the people around me. It made me realize that who I am and my identity will shine through without trying to punish or put pressures on myself. My values of hard work, meaningful thinking, and seeking out opportunities for growth and wisdom will always persist, and actually strengthen to passions instead of goals.
Thursday was another example of growth on my goal, and was the first day that I truly began to feel just a little bit more free. Its crazy to think that western society has been sructured around struggle and disconnect, but its true. If I could share one piece of advice that I learned in this trip, it would be to be mindful. Its a treacherous climb to trusting in the moment, but if you can take a few minutes out of your day to just connect, your life will change. I like to think that its kinda like that path to realization that you hear you grand parents talk about. It takes time, focus, and trust, but if you can find time to attempt what I did on the loon lake learning advance, than you will be able to connect with the buety of the moment, where ever and when ever that may be.
Thank you for reading my reflection on a truly significant time in my learning adventure. If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment them down below.