Slow and Steady... may mean you are sinking! (Blurb)

 

I always enjoyed camping and plan to again soon.  Which is why I may day dream back to the last time I got to camp.  This is actually the same trip I did THIS : http://derkopenedeyes.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-match-fire-part-1-blurb.html .  There is so much more occurrences on said trip and I will post about those in the future.  Today, we talk about boats.

The task of the trip was to canoe.  One of my favorite things to do when going on a camping trip.  We had a few canoes and decided to get ONE kayak, so only one person was able to travel in the kayak.  We rotated this to those who wanted to use it.  The first user was very quick in it.  I cannot rightly remember exactly who was in it then, but we all knew they were all over the river, and we were eating their bubbles.

The trip was pretty awesome, we all had fun and as the kayak users changed we found out this one guy got in it was SOOOOO SLOOOWWW.  Actually it was the same guy I introduced you to in the post linked above.  We were constantly slowing up to wait for him to catch up.  Likely annoyed - or just splashing one another and joking about it, and maybe even him.  

This actually happened to him often, even once when we played a video game we continually found ourselves waiting on his character on the screen to catch up to the rest of us so we could continue to the next area.  It was a great joke for about one day. 

The reason neither held up much was in each instance our perception was off.  We all believed the user was the problem, thinking him just slow and just not as adept at the activity.  The truth was - as we found out later on a nice little bank - the kayak had a leak and had taken on tons of water.  He was slow because he was lugging around a good 50 pounds or more of extra weight.  The problem with the controller? The joystick was sticky and would not move left or right properly making the character on the screen move at a slower rate, no matter how hard it was pressed otherwise. 

It would have been nice to have figured out the kayak was leaking much earlier in the trip and not just blaming the man in usage of it, certainly because it would have spared him embarrassment but also because right after we discovered the leak and took a good 30 minutes to drain it as dry as possible we turned the bend in the river and discovered the END OF THE TRIP POINT only about 100 feet away.  

There are plenty of times, I am sure, we blame our equipment when we are the ones causing the problems, but it is good to know sometimes it happens the other way around.  A few good things to remember from this story are:

1. Do not blame someone for a mistake or a problem until all possibilities are exhausted

2. If you rent a Kayak, check for leaks EVERY TIME you stop for a break

3. If you decide to drain a fully leaked Kayak have someone walk around the corner to see if you are about finished with your run. 

All good things to keep in mind, but what does this inform me spiritually?  

There are times when we look at someone else and only looking in from the outside we assume they are a problem, even though the truth is they just need someone to stop with them.  They likely only need a few minutes to 'drain' out some of their leaked and filled up issues.  They may not even realize what the problem is, the healing factor is time and inspection.  If we can just purposefully slow down every once and a while, we can help to heal and drain out those things that may be slowing us down elsewhere in life.

 

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