Camp News & Blog

The Math We All Need

April 20th, 2020

Normally, we host a campfire ‘talk’ on the blog each Friday Night. As we’ve all been cooped up, we’ve been enjoying these talks together on our Weequahic Families Facebook Page. (Please join us if you’ve not done so already!)

And, just in case you’d rather read than listen, I thought the talks should go on the blog, too. Enjoy!

A Little Math

Alright, campers. You’ve been doing online school for a while now. Let’s test your math skills.

What’s this equation? A2 + B2 = C2 . That’s right: the Pythagoreum theorem.

How about this one?  E=mc2. Yes, Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

Ok, I know – too much math. I’m a camp director and didn’t do anything past calculus. (And I barely got past that!) Let’s talk about an equation that is even more useful. In fact, its the source of a LOT and LOT and LOT of people’s success. Are you ready?

E + R^p = O

E stands for ‘Event.’ By that, I mean anything that happens to you in reality OR in your head. And, when you think about it, most of the stuff that happens in our head – what we project in the future – is not nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be. 

A very wise man said the same thing a long time ago:

I am an old man and have known many troubles but most of them never happened.

Mark Twain

Events happen to you. You have very little control on them.  And, they happen to EVERYONE. Doesn’t matter if you are Beyonce, LeBron James, or Tom Brady. It could rain on your trip day. Your campfire might not light. That person you thought was going to be a friend said something really mean to you. She didn’t text you back. He didn’t treat you the way you wanted to be treated.  Your printer runs out of ink. You may win the lottery. You will probably NEVER win the lottery.

So, those are events. The big E. They happen to everyone. Now, let’s talk about the R in this formula. What do you think it is?

I’ll give you a hint: the ‘R’ in this formula is the BIGGEST, MOST IMPORTANT reason behind your success and your failure. And, it’s also the ONLY thing in this whole equation that you have TOTAL control over.

‘R’ is for Response

Do you get mad or do you get even? Do you say ‘Oh… woe is me or that’s not fair, But he…. But she…. But I didn’t do it.

It’s ok to be like this. Almost everyone is. It’s habit – a default setting you have built for yourself by doing it over and over and over again.

Or, do you choose to be different? Do you instead look at that event and say Ok…. How can I use this, learn from it or make this better?

When we arrived at Camp Weequahic 12 summers ago, I had several people who were very successful camp directors tell me ‘don’t do it.’ It’s too far gone. We only had 120 campers. The facility was not in good shape.

But we saw something different – something we could work with. A depth of tradition, an amazing set of ‘bones’ on which to build a community in which kids and staff revel and play and laugh and experience joy.

The Power of Principles

See that little ‘p’ over the ‘R?’ It’s a little thing that governs the reactions you show on a daily basis: your principles.

Now, I’m not talking about your middle or high school principal. Instead, I’m talking about a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.

For example, always being honest is a principle. So are:

  • The more your focus, the more you’ll see.
  • Gratefulness causes the realization of the bounty around you.
  • Courage grows the more you use it.
  • You are the sum of all your training.  

Your reactions – whether they are mental, physical or emotional – are all governed by your principles: that system of belief that serves as a your foundation.

And they are a small thing. Speaking of small things, I’ve got a question for you. Would you rather have $1mm right now or a penny that doubles every day for a month? The $1mm is a lot of money, isn’t it? And, at first blush, I’d be you’d want to take it over that little doubling penny. But, you’d be wrong.

That small penny doubles and doubles and doubles until it’s worth $10.7mm in just 31 days.

It’s the small things that matter. It’s the principles you choose to live by that matter. Your reactions are what matter. Your parents cannot choose these for you. Neither can your teacher, your coach, your minister, your rabbi, or your camp director. We can show you and teach you and mentor you. But, ultimately, you have to choose. And you show the world the choice you’ve made through your day to day, hour to hour actions.

So the ‘E’ stands for Events, the ‘R’ stands for Response, and the ‘p’ for Principles. What does the ‘O’ stand for?

Outcome

You can’t complete control the outcome. Why? Because you cannot control the event. You can influence the heck out of it, though, by choosing the principles by which you lead your life wisely and then determining your response.

Here’s the funny thing: the outcome really doesn’t matter as much as you think it will. Think about winning something really awesome: a championship or the first place ribbon or whatever else. The shine on that trophy, the sheen on that ribbon… they wear off pretty quickly. You’ll be on to other things that captivate, motivate, and interest you very soon.

Don’t worry about the outcome much. Control what you can control: your response and the principles that guide it, and you’ll be able to tackle any event with dexterity, deftness, and determination.

Have a great week!

Our neighborhood

Our Neighborhood

March 14th, 2020

On my way home last week, I watched Midway, a movie about a major World War II battle in the Pacific.  Throughout, the director showed both sides – the  US and Japanese –  in an honorable way. In fact, the director and producers dedicated the film to the sailors from both sides at the end of the movie.

The film reminded me of the many wars fought throughout time on this small planet. They were waged for different reasons: power, resources, influence, retribution, etc. The one common factor: one set of humans and their tools against another set of humans and their corresponding tools.

We humans are now locked in another battle. This one, though, is different. Rather than it being against each other, it’s all of us against something that doesn’t care where we are from, what we look like, what car we drive, etc. COVID-19 can affect us all.

Being Neighborly

A teacher once taught a lesson about loving our neighbors. He did so in dramatic fashion, making a member of a despised culture the ‘hero.’

Here’s the short version: A man had been beaten up, robbed and left for dead. Many people who were well thought of in ‘their neighborhood’ walked by, excusing their lack of lending assistance for multiple reasons. Then a member of a despised culture stopped, showed mercy, humility, and love by helping the man and setting him up to be healed with no thought of repayment.

The punchline: the person from a despised ‘neighborhood’ had been the true neighbor. He’d loved the injured as he did himself regardless of anything else – race, creed, color or religion.

Our Neighborhood

How big is your neighborhood? At camp, we’ve got a fun bunch of us. But if we compare our camp with all the camps in the US, it’s a very, very small neighborhood. 

Our Earth is pretty big, right? It’s measured at 24,901 miles around the equator. However, when you compare the Earth to our solar system, it’s pretty small. Compare it to our larger galaxy, it’s smaller still.

For comparison sake, it would take you about 45 hours to circumnavigate the Earth on a plane. To get to Pluto and back, it would take 25 years and a really big rocket ship. To edge of our galaxy and back? That’s currently estimated at 220 million years.  

So, when you compare it to the larger context, our Earth – our neighborhood – is pretty small. Mr. Fred Rogers touched on this a lot over his many decades of service. He didn’t care what you looked like, where you were from, or what was in your bank account. You were his neighbor and he treated you with kindness, patience, respect, and love. Period.

In other words, we are all neighbors. And, until we find life off world, we are the only neighbors we’ve got.

Our Current Battle

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a virus in the neighborhood. We’ve got to work together to stamp it out.

A powerful politician once admonished his ‘troops’ not to let a crisis go to waste. Whether you agreed or not with his politics or timing is irrelevant. This is one such crisis but not in the terms he meant.

This is not an opportunity to place blame. It’s an opportunity to realize that all of us in this tiny little neighborhood are in a fight against something that threatens us all. The good news? There are very simple and powerful ways to defeat it.

First, remain calm and patient. We humans have gotten through much worse. Secondly, wash your hands really well. If you aren’t sure how, here you go. The third is stay away from other people as much as you can for the time being, especially if you feel crummy.

Campers, we are most worried about those with challenged immune systems and the elderly. It would be neighborly of us to do our best to reduce the spread of this disease any way we can. (Here’s a great infographic that explains things well to young and old people alike.)

Weequahic Neighbors

So, while this time is certainly strange for us, it’s also an opportunity to remember that we humans, despite our differences, are all neighbors. Let’s decide to be good ones for each other.

Heck, if enough of us work at this long enough, maybe everyone will start acting the same way. When that happens, our Earth will feel a little bit more like a summer at Weequahic. Talk with you next week.

Tubing

Constraints

March 6th, 2020

We just enjoyed one more day than we had last year or the year before that or the year before that. We got a bonus day: February 29th.

But did we change anything? Did you spend the whole day reveling in something you rarely if ever enjoy? Perhaps a swim in a chocolate fountain? Maybe you painted your room some really fun colors. Perhaps you spent the entire day with the people who bring out the best in you, laughing to the point of snarfing.

The funny thing is that the calendar is just a constraint for our planning. Our time on earth didn’t change just because the calendar said we had an extra day. We got to enjoy (or not depending on your choice of attitude) the same about of time on the 29th as we did the 28th of February.

Helpful Constraints

Did you know that the beloved children’s book Green Eggs and Ham came from a bet? A good friend bet Dr. Seuss that he couldn’t write a great children’s book using 50 words or less. (Who do you think won the bet?)

What other constraints are useful? We present a number at camp with which our campers and staff are familiar.

No cell phones. No technology except for something that only plays music. We have set bed- times and wake-up times. We have some choice in the Dining Hall but that list is about 5 or 6 items long rather than a full menu at a restaurant. The speed our waterski and tubing boat stays constrained to safe (and fun!) speeds.

When you think about it, we’ve got a LOT more constraints in camp than we do at home on a relaxed weekend. And yet… camp is more fun than a lazy weekend at home. In fact, I would argue that we have more fun at camp BECAUSE of the constraints rather than in spite of them.

We aren’t trying to decide between 50 different ideas of what to do this afternoon. You aren’t trying to decide where to spend your time online. There are no worries about picking your food from a long list of options or your clothes out of your ample closet.

At Weequahic, we narrow things down to the essential, to the events and activities and friends and mentors that help create amazing. These are the situations in which you can flourish, which bring out your best self.

No distractions. No unlimited choice. Just the people and the moments that matter.

Those are the kind of constraints we need in our lives. Have a great weekend!