What`s the Worst that can happen

This is my first Blogpost. A chain of events went by recently that led me to a point where I decided I should start publishing what I have written. Here`s something I wrote around 2 years ago. I figure it`s a good introduction to how my mind works and what kind of things you should expect from my writings.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Nothing happens. That’s the worst that can happen.

Since I was 11 years old, I was inserted into this organization called Children International Summer Village. It has went through many changes of branding and wording, but in principle it is an organization that tries to promote lasting peace by providing a platform for children to learn understanding each other’s similarities and differences. After many years, we have developed many advancements to assess our principles and achieve our target. The main board developed a kind of educational assessment. This is a current development to me and so I tried to look back to how I performed in my previous CISV camps using this educational assessment system. I realized that I probably only completed my educational goals after several camps. I was not a fast learner and I took a very long time to open up my mind. I joined various camps since I was 11 years old.

Started with the Village, for 11 years old children. I remember the concept was to begin opening up children’s mind to the various types of people around the world as early as humanly possible. At the age of 11, children are capable of expressing their core values but are receptive enough for new contents. This flexibility in 11 year olds should be able to accelerate their awareness of difference and foster a positive growth through positive interactions with other children with various background. However, I remember I was not very participatory. I was a round (read: fat) kid with temper problems and a very loud voice with no control over it. At the end of the camp, I remembered I had several friends but I had no memory of a deep emotional connection to any of them. In fact, I lost contact with all of them. I remember being very offended and defensive whenever my leader told me to calm down and I was not able to empathize how other people would be offended by my lack of control in voice volume (and/or pitch). I came back confused of what I did wrong and why I did not feel much use of the program itself other than to have fun.

Second camp I participated in was a Summer Camp. I was 13 years old, and I was even more temperamental than before. I was a hothead with a lot of ideas with no space for new ones. I remember I had difficulties connecting with anyone because I was the youngest in the entire camp. There was that one time the camp was going to have a camp meeting and I shamelessly volunteered to be the camp-meeting leader. But, what do you know, nobody wanted me to become the leader. At that point I remembered feeling how much of a failure I was and I could not figure out why. That was also the point in my life that I realized, no one liked me. And I don’t blame them, in fact, my current me wouldn’t get along well at all with my past self. He was humorless and tactless.

Third program I was fortunate enough to participate after that was an interchange to Norway. During which I was lucky enough to get a partner that really built up my way of thinking. He was expressive and he had no doubts at expressing his thoughts. ANY thoughts, good or bad, important or not important. No, let me rephrase that, all things are important when thought out and expressed correctly. By then, due to my current state of insecurity from previous experiences, I realized I was not very loud and I listened a lot. I realized that listening was actually kind of fun, and people seem to appreciate it more. In addition, I realized a new way of expressing anger, which was soft spoken words with certain intonations. That was the era in which I discover cynicism and sarcasm. They were very useful tools for me to avoid increasing my voice but were still able to express my, then still, unstable emotional thoughts.

I went to an international youth meeting in Brazil after that. I did not realize this then, but now I realize how much I have successfully grown in that IYM. First indicator: I was successfully appointed camp meeting leader without volunteering my name. In fact, some people in the circle nominated me, which felt awesome. Second indicator: people laughed at me and with me. Together with my improved sarcastic jokes and effortless cheery behavior, people enjoyed my presence and were attracted to talk to me for more than just chit chat. Which lead to the third indicator: I remembered a conversation I had with a friend from the camp. We were laying down outside and we looked at the sky. He expressed how he liked seeing the sky at night and imagining how actually we are looking at an infinity and perhaps someone or something else is looking back. These are…what I call, personal conversations. Opinions that are less important in the world in general, but very important to the person itself. To top it off, a staff from that camp told me at the end of the camp that I will be able to influence a lot of people in the future, for good or bad was left to be discovered.

Developing a person takes time. A very long time. I realize I am not a fast learner to require more than 5 years to reach this point of thought. But all this learning point have made me the person I am. For the first time ever in my experience as a staff I felt that I can connect with everyone. I had the time to actually listen to each of them. I had the initiative and the instincts to know which questions would be fun to ask for which participant. I could sense their tone and response speed on topics that they will be interested in talking about more or less. At several very lucky breaks, I can even sense the response that they hope to hear from me to encourage them towards a better self-development. I had the inspiration to ask personal questions to each of them and their feelings of appreciation were expressed to me in a way that I have never received before.

The camp did not actually went without any problems at all. In fact, I remember how my anxiety kicked in when I was in my day off with one of the leaders. All I could think about was how things might happen badly when I was away. I was worried of the sick participants, of the activities, of how the staff would interact with each other and many other things. And so I asked an honest question to my day-off partner: do you think there ever was a perfect camp? Where there is no problem? Technical or emotional? Or any problem at all.

His answer was a refreshing reminder of how I used to grow as a person: maybe there is. But is it a good camp? When there is no problem, is it the perfect camp then?

In one of our leaders’ meeting, I couldn’t remember exactly what we were discussing, but we were discussion each participants individually and made an effort on how to positively support them for improvement. We were discussing on several cases where we can encourage an environment where we allow mistakes and make them learn from it. A safe place to express what they want to express while anticipating the damage (or improvement) that it will bring to the group of their own selves.

That reminded me of how I used to learn. How I reached this point of my life when I feel self-confident enough to be able to ask questions to people. The confidence to be honest to people that I just met a few hours ago and the self-respect to enjoy the fact that people always like to be heard. Ultimately, the confidence to know that I have learnt only so little about the art of human interaction and I cannot wait to see what I learn tomorrow.