Great Companionship - High Endeavor Together

Imagine two scenarios in which you have taken up a martial art.  In the first scenario, you go to the martial arts school, pay your membership fee, and take your first class.  You feel fatigued by all of the punches and kicks included in twenty minutes of warm-up drills, you get completely lost by the seemingly complicated locks and throws the instructor insists you learn along with all of the higher ranked students who have studied there for several years, and you don’t even bother to count in whatever foreign language they use when they make you do thirty push-ups on your knuckles.  Afterwards, you limp home and dread the awful Charlie horses you’ll feel when you wake up the following morning.

In the second scenario, you feel fatigued, get completely lost, and you don’t even bother to count.  Afterwards, rather than limp home full of dread, you limp to a nearby restaurant with a friend and trade notes on which drills were hard to do, which locks were difficult to understand, and, of course, how much you’re dreading the awful Charlie horses you’ll feel when you wake up the following morning.

The thing is, in this second scenario, you’ve set out in pursuit of a new endeavor—namely, the studying of a martial art—with the benefit of having a companion join you along the way.

Each of us can try new things on our own and enjoy many benefits; in some cases, pursuing something on our own is not only beneficial, but necessary.  However, there are many benefits of pursuing a new endeavor in the company of another.  Sometimes, we not only have someone to commiserate with after feeling exhausted by punches and kicks, so to speak, but we also have an opportunity to reflect on the significance of the experience through a dialogue and interaction away from the endeavor itself.  We can explore each other’s reaction to the curriculum of a cake decorating class, provide feedback to each other’s work when taking a writing workshop, and offer words of encouragement when one of us struggles with a particularly advanced climb at the local gym’s rock climbing wall.  No matter the endeavor, having a companion whose company we value offers a potential for stimulation that is often harder to find when pursuing something on our own.

Regardless of the endeavor you pursue, consider inviting someone else along for the ride.  You may become more engaged, you may feel greater satisfaction, or you may just have a good laugh over how bad you are at counting to ten in foreign languages.

And, at the very least, you’ll know that you aren’t the only one limping home that night.

Next Inner Passage Climbing Camps to share with a great companion? Contact Inner Passage at info (at) innerpassage (dot) net

• Cochise Climbing Camp, near Tucson, AZ – March 9-11, 2011
• Joshua Tree Climbing Camp, near Palm Springs, CA – April 17-19, 2011

{ 0 comments }