The end of most days on GOALS expeditions look like this: dinner has been served, and the group is gathered in a chair circle surrounding the firepan. With toes in warm sand, we gaze upon purples, blues, and pinks in the early evening sky, and listen to the sound of moving water as it is carried by on a calm evening breeze, and watch for the first stars to come out. Separate discussions and small group giggles from different areas around camp naturally come together as the group gathers for one of my favorite activities – reflecting on our day together, using rose-thorn-bud.
“Roses” are the best parts of our day, and kids generally have long lists of roses that they’ve noted in their journals. “Thorns” were the day’s low points, and it can be tough to come up with any, unless weather or whitewater present unexpected surprises. “Buds” are what we’re looking forward to in the coming days – big rapids, great hikes, a new role for our camp team.
Looking back on 2020 through a rose-thorn-bud lens, it’s too easy to focus only on the thorns – and there were plenty. We experienced more loss of life, destruction of habitat and property, economic hardship and societal friction than we should ever endure – and they all occurred simultaneously. It’s safe to say that many people have never been more excited to turn the calendar page, but let’s not lose sight of one very important fact. It wasn’t all bad.
2020 also provided an extraordinary rose – the gift of extra time. We have been given an unexpected surplus of unscheduled minutes to explore, understand, and ultimately improve ourselves. Many people I know dove into new hobbies or re-committed time for old activities they “used to enjoy.” Being forced to slow down lead many of us away from the “over-busy-lifestyle” we didn’t even realized had taken over our lives. By creating a balance between the activities we want to be do with those we have to be do, we move toward authentic happiness and a life less ordinary. We move toward what Richard Branson describes in one of my favorite GOALS journal readings – the idea of living as human beings rather than human doings.
This leads us to our bud – and the theme of our 2021 t-shirt…”VIVE SIN REPRESAS.”
River runners generally don’t like dams. They change the way a river naturally functions – limiting it’s power, eliminating high flow events and preventing crucial migratory patterns. The wall of a dam that holds back a river causes it to stagnate. Those among us who are focused only on the thorns of 2020’s quarantine experience may suggest that our society has spent the past 9 months forced to remain stagnant - held back by the towering wall of a COVID-19 dam. But those who can recognize the roses among the thorns may realize that the “dams” which have limited our power, eliminated natural “high flow events” and guided us more toward becoming humans doing than humans being were being constructed long before COVID arrived.
Although more dams are being removed than built in the U.S., the same can’t be said in some regions we explore. Iconic rivers in Nepal, Africa, and South America are currently threatened by damming. Throughout the regions that surround Chile’s Rio Futaleufu or Peru’s Rio Marañon, villagers opposing the dams often create large banners or paint messages directly on their homes - “¡Marañon sin represas!” – or “Marañon without dams – let the river flow free.” The GOALS 2021 t-shirt encourages us to break down the walls that are holding us back.
GOALS expeditions empower kids by helping them realize that they’re more capable than they think; more powerful than they realize; more talented than they know. Whether the challenge is an intimidating whitewater rapid, a towering cliff jump, a night sleeping under the stars, or just the vulnerability of sharing a reading from the GOALS journal – the growth that comes from getting through them would never be experienced if self-limiting beliefs and behaviors prevented kids from ever giving it a try. In their thank-you letters to the canyon written at the end of their expedition, kids often describe how finding the strength to attempt these novel challenges has resulted in a confidence they didn’t know was there all along. It has broken down walls they didn’t know were holding them back.
At some point in 2021, the restrictions implied by COVID-19 will be reduced, and many of the freedoms we’re all craving will be available again. We’ll enjoy traveling, gathering in large groups, and even giving or receiving solid hugs. When that occurs, let us enjoy them and realize we should never again take them for granted – and let us also be aware that they weren’t the only things holding us back. Like kids discovering something deep within they never know existed, our 2020 rose may be rooted in a realization of the beliefs or behaviors we once blindly accepted as normal that keep us from flowing freely. It’s time to vive sin represas - to live without dams. It’s time to flow the way human beings are meant to, and in doing so, to share our gifts, knowledge and talents with others. It’s time to break free of the physical and metaphoric walls that are holding us back – those that a COVID vaccine will break down for us, and those that it won’t.
Like cold, rainy days on the river with unrelenting head winds, 2020 was a “character builder” – but that dammed year is over. Here’s to the GOALS family using the new year to avoid rushing toward a “new normal” – and instead to intentionally create our own “next exceptional”. Here’s to leading by example, and to creating the best 2021 possible.