A discovery of courage, pace, and help

Dylan Neumann – Class of 2025

As the bus rumbled along the dirt road, people started to wake up and look out of the window. Trees all around us, and a few cabins in front of us. The bus slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. As we got off the bus, nobody expected the bonds that would be made, or the spirits that would be broken. 

Temperance and pace are virtues that everyone needs to learn, for their safety and for others. I learned about these while I was speedily cutting avocados to make spring rolls during the cooking period. The knife that I was using sliced right through the avocado and sliced my thumb open. It was a clean cut. So clean that I couldn’t even feel it. The blood flowing out of the open wound was so severe that Mr. Cribb immediately went out to get a bandage. It smelled like soy sauce and avocado from the ingredients. “Oh my goodness are you ok?” he asked.  “I’m fine.” I said. It didn’t hurt, it just felt very uncomfortable. After washing it and applying the bandage, it didn’t stop bleeding. It only took a few hours to bleed through the bandage. I learned during that period that going fast sometimes isn’t the best way to do things. Sometimes you have to be slow and methodical to get your desired outcome.

Help is something that everybody needs every once in a while. I discovered this while I was 30 ft above the ground on a wire that was shaking as I crossed to the other side of it during a high rope course period. The only thing stopping me from falling down was the spotter with a harness below me. I was trying not to look down at the ground way below me, as that would only make my nervousness worse. I was using ropes to hold on when a glint of sunlight caught my eye and I nearly missed one. I felt the harness on my waist tighten around me as my spotter prepared to catch my fall, but I was able to catch the rope and hold on. I speedily made my way across and then jumped down, landing safely on the solid ground below me. As I was up there, I thought about how much teamwork mattered in life. If the spotter wasn’t there when I jumped down or when  I almost fell off, then I would have hit the ground and been severely injured. It really opened my eyes to how everybody needs their “spotter”.

Unexpected courage is something that everyone will experience during their life. Mine was during the canoeing period, on Wodiko island, a canoe went into the water for the second time, I had to jump into the lake to stop it from drifting away. I jumped in right after it. The water was pleasantly warm and the bottom of the lake was spongy and soft. I could feel the slight flow of the current running around my legs through the water. I grabbed on to the handle on the end and hauled it back to the shore. I sat there for a couple of moments before dragging it higher on shore so that it wouldn’t fall back in again. A slight breeze made me shiver despite the warmth of the water. The decision that I made was a spur of the moment, one that caught even myself off guard. I would have never before expected to jump in after a canoe to bring it back to shore, but the situation changed my view on how things work. If someone does something wrong, it may be someone else’s actions that right it.

Life is like a web of challenges. 

You need different virtues to cut through it.