Zero Ambition
When I eventually turned 18 in my last year of High School, I had three things that primarily ticked over in my mind and my priorities. Number one and the most important was football. Number two was where my mates and I would drink on a Saturday night. Number three was working and making money. I was employed as a kitchen porter and delivery driver. I would have to say that I was comfortable and very content during the tail end of High School and then finally leaving school for what I thought would be for a very long time.
I can clearly remember my mum defining my comfortable and content life as having “zero ambition”. It was a blunt, but a fair remark because I didn’t really have any desire to shift my life from what it was. Living under her roof, I was forced to hear her evaluation of my life and what I my next step should be. Looking back at it now as a more mature young adult, I probably didn’t realise how upset she was about what I had planned for the next year.
As a mother, she presented me with a few suggestions that could kick start my ‘ambition’ and help me make sense of a direction that I should start to head in. Her three suggestion would be: One, enrol in an entrance level communication course. Two, find a more challenging job, and three, attend a 3 week Outward Bound course in the remote bush of central New Zealand. My mum's best friend's daughter went on the coarse and only had positive things to say about how it influenced her. Reluctant as I was to leave home, I choose to take a spot in the Outward Bound Course.
Outward Bound is a global non-profit organisation with schools all over the world. As Wikipedia puts it nicely, “Outward Bound programs aim to foster the personal growth and social skills of participants by using challenging expeditions in the outdoors.” Needless to say I didn’t bother to read Wikipedias description, and sat on a ferry heading towards the top of the South Island, New Zealand with 50 other people between the ages of 18 and 27, pondering why I decided to miss three Saturday nights, three football games and three weeks worth of pay.
On site, 50 boys and girls stood around in a circle. One by one they called out our names and separated us into three groups of 7 boys and 7 girls that we would spend the next three weeks with. We all had to sleep together in a massive room with bunkbeds. Our cellphones were then impounded from our clenched hands and replaced with a map of the camp.
Over the course of three weeks, our two instructors guided us through a number of these various outdoor expeditions such as a two 3 day hikes, a 2 day sailing exertion, kayaking, a half marathon, high ropes course, rock climbing, community service and a number of other team and individual exercises. All these activities were implemented in order to test our personal limits and how far we could push ourselves. Yes, some of the activities were challenging and some of them did test me physically and mentally, but to be honest that wasn’t what I what I would ultimately take away from the three week course.
I had strong misconceptions about being forced into a group of strangers. I have always been one to bond with those that I know I have common ground with. I did share similar interests with a number of people in the group, but with others there was zero shared interests , and I would soon learn that that was okay.
Living and going through every activity with these 13 other people would in some strange way, heavily affect me. I was with these people everyday for three weeks, constantly communicating and learning about each of their lives, where they had come from and where they wanted to go. We shared what scared us and what motivated us in life. It wasn’t easy at first. I wasn’t the only one to have to break down a barrier of manliness and pride of sharing feelings before opening up to rest of the group.
As the outdoor activities affected us physically and mentally I was more shaken about dealing with the emotional range of the group. There were 13 very strong personalities and we weren’t all thrilled to be hiking for 3 days. We laughed and moaned. Some cried and others got angry, but all of this brought us closer together.
By the very last day, I wasn’t prepared to just let these people go from my life. We were all from vastly different backgrounds outside of the coarse, and I’ll say it now, but I was nervous and somewhat scared to go back home, knowing that this group would never be together again.
As I slotted right back into my normal routine of priorities, I become somewhat depressed over the course of a few weeks. I began to heavily question what I was doing. I had just been in this amazing environment of constant emotional change that I was ready to try something new.
These 13 other people inspired me and ultimately broke me out of thinking that you should be content with your life because it’s comfortable. As I missed these 13 people more and more, the more eager I was to begin a new adventure in my life.
Roughly a month after I got back from Outward Bound, I was given the opportunity to study in the United States, and was able to realise that this was an opportunity that I could not pass up.
