Mike Replies To A Slightly Offended, Not Very Enthusiastic Scout.
mikeroweworks.com
mikeroweworks.com
Damn, can't you do anything just for fun anymore? Enthusiasm for an activity has to manifest itself as enthusiasm for earning the highest possible certification?
My advice? Quit Scouting today. Or, quit pretending not to care. Because the short answer to your question goes like this – You can be plenty successful without becoming an Eagle. But you’ll never get anywhere by doing things half-way.
People do all kinds of things halfway. It's inevitable. You're going to cook halfway, dress halfway, play sports halfway, appreciate movies and art and books halfway, train your pets halfway, and blog halfway. Sure, you can pick one or two of those and do them in a fully-assed way, but what about the rest? Are you just going to give them up?
Or are you going to hide behind the fact that nobody has instituted a system of ranking and achievements? Well, did you know you can be tested and certified on your ability to taste wine? Better stop drinking wine! Better not teach your dog to sit unless you're committed to earning the highest AKC obedience titles. Not only would you be half-assed, you'd have a half-assed dog, too. (My question: can you keep the dog as long as you don't train it, or does just having a non-obedience-certified dog make you half-assed?) American tennis players, did you know that the US Tennis Association sorts amateurs into numbered levels? Better stop playing tennis unless you're committed to maxing out! So you like to go hiking on weekends? Uh oh, there's adventure racing and orienteering... you'd better go indoors. You're doing the outdoors half-assed.
Well, maybe he'd agree with me on that one.
Yes, we all do things halfway, but when you are fully committed to a task, a project, or a cause, so much more can be accomplished.
I am an Eagle Scout and I certainly hated a lot of the scouting requirements. They seemed silly, and time-consuming, and frivilous--how many 14 year-old's spend hours weaving a basket?! However, I know a lot of people who got so close to achieving an Eagle rank but chose not to. Did it materially change their life? Obviously not, but a lot of them reflect back on it and think, 'I was so close, why didn't I try just slightly harder?' You don't have to have been involved in Scouting to know that feeling. "I was so close, if I only I had tried harder" is a feeling that sucks and that's what Mike Rowe is trying to tell this Scout.
Because (in the hypothetical case of Scouting) those were goals that someone else picked for you.
To the extent someone convinces you to jump through various hoops to win their approval, that person is controlling you. And yes, it might even be for your own good. But more than likely, it's for the hoop-holder's benefit.
Lets take a dirgression: I have a friend who owns a bike shop. He absolutely loves fixing bikes, setting up bikes, and helping people get into biking. It is a passion and he does good at that stuff. He absolutely hates inventory, book balancing and changing flat tires (well all menial bike maintenance tasks). Those maintenance tasks are a big part of the regular revenue stream, and the other things are just necessary for business. He can't afford to hire someone to do the stuff he doesn't like, it would cut too much into his profits and he would have to take a second job to live. Those can probably be argued as hoops he chose for himself, here are some he didn't: rent, sales tax accounting, business licensing, fire code compliance, insurance rules, and so on.
Had my friend taken your advice and not learned how to jump through hoops (and fucked the man in the process!) he would be fixing bikes at a loss.
Perhaps the overall goal and fun level in becoming an eagle scout is enough that putting up with the hoop jumping is worth it? Maybe that thing they are emulating is "real life" where sometimes you just gotta do crappy stuff before you can do the thing you really want.
Don't get me wrong, I learned a ton in Boy Scouts. Many of the skills and lessons I learned have proven to be very useful as an adult. And actually, I quit so I could work full time as a mechanical engineering intern, which started the path to the career I have today.
I don't regret not achieving the Eagle rank at all. The trophy isn't what matters, it's what it takes to get wherever you go.
As he relates further down in the conversation, there is nothing wrong with doing things for enjoyment. As you say people do this all the time. No one is able to be fully committed to every possible field that interests them.
However, in this life, two things are certain: You'll need to find something to "achieve" rather than just "enjoy" to be properly happy. A quick look a Oprah's book club will show you this.
The second thing is that it is self-defeating to eliminate possible passions or areas to "achieve" in simply because there are elements of them that you may not enjoy or that require greater effort than "comfortable". This is the biggest lie of our society today - that there is something out there that will fit perfectly with you and you will never have a bad day, require practice or fail at.
Every human needs a purpose, but not everything that you do needs to be yours. Rowe isn't addressing the issue you raise, but the idea that you can do everything half-ass and some how come out of life fulfilled and happy. In fact, the "smarter" and more naturally talented you are, the HARDER you need to work at your purpose.
It has little to do with what everyone else thinks, and everything to do with what you think of yourself.
> This is the biggest lie of our society today - that
> there is something out there that will fit perfectly
> with you and you will never have a bad day, require
> practice or fail at.
How many hackers would stop coding just because they hit a wall or found out that their solution was impossible? It's because they love what they are doing, even if they run into issues.
That's what the self-esteem group puts forward when they run from failure in the name of hurt feelings. It's a lie.
If your strategy in Scouts (and Life) is to avoid those
activities and requirements that you don’t enjoy, you will
have a difficult time transcending any definition of
mediocrity. That’s not a criticism -- merely an observation.This sounds less like a recipe for producing a successful and resourceful man of the world and more like a recipe for a guy who spends his spare time trying to get all the achievements on Grand Theft Auto 4.
And Eagle Scout is awarded to recognize those that go above and beyond; the Scout must perform an important service to the community that is important to him. He gets to choose.
If you avoid all activities and requirements that you don't enjoy then yes, you're going to have a very hard time becoming good at anything. But if you take on every challenge that you can just because it's there, you're going to fail at most of them and have a much harder time with those you really do care about.
The Boy Scouts certainly helped me face my self directly, almost always against my preferences. Now if they (and I) had done a better job at prioritizing my time and dealing with my "atheism" I'd have made Eagle. Of course I would have felt guilty supporting an organization that essentially required a certain form of religious belief and also discriminated against gays.
Their message and practice is flawed but still contains quite a bit of wisdom.
The ultimatum of "Eagle or quit" is nonsensical to me. This person clearly has dedication to other parts of his life, and Scouts is just a soical outlet. Why should he give that up, how does that imply impending mediocrity?
For example, I could have done an Eagle project the summer after high school, but I left immediately to be a camp counselor at the church camp - something I had dreamed of doing since the third grade. Had I stayed home, I would have had the time to go through with a project. But I had different priorities.
I wasn't in scouting for the Eagle. I was in it for the friends and for the adventure. I hiked, biked, and canoed. I helped my troop become more scout-led. I didn't do it halfway.
That's weird. I don't think I've ever been asked if I'm an Eagle Scout (I'm not; I dropped out at Life, a couple of badges and a project shy of Eagle) in the nearly two decades since I quit. I must not hang out with the kind of people that care about Boy Scout ranks.
On the other hand, if you’re committed to the troop and activities, but are simply not interested in eagle, (as many here have pointed out) – then yes, I agree.
What I read into your comment is more along the lines of:
I think that the boys should be on 'this' projected curve
of achievement going into the future, but these other boys
that have no goal of meeting my projected curve are distracting
the other boys that need to spend 100% of their time with
their eyes on the prize.
Don't worry, so do I.
I owe a lot of my character today, particularly my mental toughness, to what I experienced playing football, but I still regret making the choice to abandon Scouting and never reaching Eagle. I suspect I'd regret not playing football had I stuck with Scouting instead. Oh well, life's about choices and their consequences.
G.K. Chesterton somewhere wrote that "Everything worth doing is worth doing badly." I'm with dkarl on this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_membershi...
Because, you know, nothing is better for our youth than making them deny who they are and teaching them they aren't worthy of being in a leadership position because of their sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
As an example, here are the requirements for eagle scout. Check requirement #4. http://www.usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsrank7.asp
Compare to the girl scouts who have held this position on sexual orientation since 1991:
As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference.
And its really the leaders that are scrutinized. BSA is a heterosexual mens' club. There are every other kind of club; why not this one?
Why is scrutinizing the leaders any more acceptable than scrutinizing the boys?
The world is a heterosexual mens' club. The rest of us would like to be included.
Also we separate the boys from the girls at this age, because it's helpful (reduces acting out, focuses goals). That's not considered a terrible thing, at least by youth leaders who have a dozen young people to teach/train.
The problem is, unlike gender (currently disregarding transgender/gender queer/intersexed folks), you can't determine someone's sexual orientation - especially at this age. So it's not so much that the world is a heterosexual mens' club, but more that the heterosexual men think it is. As a result, they speak and behave based on that assumption. This assumption further marginalizes those who may already feel like outsiders within their own community.
When I was a scout nearly twenty years ago (holy crap, that's weird to say; getting old is funny), I was already agnostic, leaning atheist, and my troop had a quietly but openly gay member, and our scout leaders knew it. The only time religion ever came up was during summer camp at Camp Old Indian in the mountains in South Carolina...there was a non-denominational meeting on Sunday morning in an old chapel. Attendance was encouraged but optional.
I don't know if my troop was just a really open-minded one (in small town South Carolina, that seems really unlikely!), or the policies of the BSA have changed dramatically. I do know that a friend's little brother joined the same troop several years later but with different leadership and did not find it enjoyable and quit within a couple of months. The troop had moved its meetings out of the old train car it used when I was a scout, and into a Southern Baptist church, and apparently the mood of the troop changed with that move.
It's depressing because I'd always assumed that when I had kids, they'd have the same scouting experience I had, and that I'd participate as a volunteer scout leader. It was a wonderful experience for me, and I wish all boys could have those kinds of male role models in their lives, as well as that kind of camaraderie with other boys. But, given the way the organization seems to have changed into a tool for promoting a hate-filled agenda, I guess it's just not going to happen. Even if my kid did happen to be the "right kind" of kid for the BSA, I wouldn't want him being exposed to that kind of backward thinking and I can't support an organization with that kind of agenda.
Consider: refusal to participate and let youth see your good example hurts only the boys. And really helps no one.
Not quite true, according to what I've read. The BSA had no official policy on homosexuals or atheists until a few years ago. No position is definitely better than a position of blatant intolerance, in this case.
Admittedly, "reverent" has been in the Boy Scouts Law forever, as far as I know. It does not define "God", though, so it's a pretty flexible sort of thing. The Order of the Arrow, and its borrowing of lots of Native American mythology, seems to make it clear that "God" means whatever your conception of God might be, probably including a simple naturalist concept of greatest good, which I'd have no trouble professing reverence for. Jewish and Muslim kids are welcome in the Boy Scouts, so it can't be merely the Christian God.
Consider: refusal to participate and let youth see your good example hurts only the boys. And really helps no one.
Valid argument. But, the fact that the official position of the Boy Scouts is now against gays and atheists, the only example I could set would be one of lying in order to participate. Being an atheist, I am explicitly prohibited from being involved in Boy Scout leadership. I would have to profess beliefs I do not hold, either actively or passively, in order to take part. I'm not willing to do that. I'm not an angry atheist, or anything, and I don't really care to trumpet my beliefs (or lack thereof) from the rooftops, but I also won't pretend to believe in something I actually believe is generally a destructive force.
The leaders (adult and less adult) make or break a troop. They define the character of the group. For me, scouting became a lot less enjoyable when the Scout Master that started me off stopped being as active in the group. That's probably when I started losing interest in the experience, if I think back on it.
I got all the way up to, but not quite, Eagle Scout. I was Order of Arrow, I filled various leadership roles, and I had almost every requirement except for the project. I lost interest before I went through with the project, however, so I never got Eagle. I have absolutely no regrets about that.
I was partly jaded (lots of people did simple projects that seemed unworthy to me), partly lazy, partly annoyed with an organization which was defined by open bigotry, and partly disinterested without the strong leadership. It hasn't had a single recognizable impact on my life, and I don't know that I'd change anything if I could.
I doubt I'd encourage any of my children to go to scouts now, although the experience was extremely valuable for me.
And my comment was related to earl's 2nd sentence. The one right before my reply.
My point, which was possibly lost, is that engaging in sexual behavior with a minor does not preclude homosexuality. It is merely orthogonal to it.
I pick my words carefully. Not every reader does as much, and sometimes this happens.
And Earl's second sentence, read properly, also points out that paedophilia is orthogonal to homosexuality. He was proving that A is not a proper subset of B by pointing out the elements of A which are not in B. I assume he didn't bother to mention the elements of A which are in B because they're not relevant to the proof at hand.
I pick my words carefully. Not every reader does as much, and sometimes this happens
Perhaps you're carefully picking which words you read instead of carefully picking which words you write.
Most pedophiles identify as straight, not gay, and are more often than not married men. So, if anything, the Boy Scouts are exposing these kids to a higher likelihood of being molested than they would if they allowed openly gay scout leaders.
Read that again. Even though the act of pedophilia in this context is one of male-on-male sex, the pedophile would claim that they are straight. Whether or not that's their real sexual orientation is immaterial.
The point being, that men who have already come out of the closet about being gay are far, far less likely to be child molesters than, well, say, homophobes that troll internet message boards.
I apologize for my careless remark. I volunteer in a boys club, and from that viewpoint pedophilia (against boys) is by definition homosexuality.
But I agree completely, in the population at large its orthogonal. Again I apologize for a hasty remark.
Regardless it was a joke but one based on factual events widely reported. I knew I risked a little karma loss for saying something potentially un-PC but sometimes I don't care. Good to widen minds sometimes. :P
If we define pedophilia as interest in sexually immature individuals, then there is a negative correlation between pedophilia and homosexuality. Pedophiles, no matter which gender of child they abuse, strongly tend to be either heterosexual, or else not interested in adults. And when asked to cite what was attractive about their victims, invariably they cite feminine characteristics such as lack of hair.
When homosexuals are accused of pedophilia, they are inevitably involved with boys who are young but sexually mature. While everyone agrees that this is a bad idea, the relative frequency of this interest is no higher than interest in teenage girls among heterosexuals.
What my original comment, at the head of this thread, was alluding to, in the real world, is the issue where it seems a rather large number of Catholic priests seem to be either (1) gay, or (2) pedophiles, or (3) both. Are all? Of course not. And of course every situation is different. If a middle-aged priest has sex with a 17-year old altar boy, or whatever, then yes by the official psychological definition he is not necessarily a pedophile. But from a legal standpoint, it's an adult involved with a minor, and the media coverage and community reaction around that will blur into it being an adult with a "child", and with the courts now labeling them, in many jurisdictions, as a sex offender. Which then means he is given the fuzzy and technically innacurate, laymen's label of "a pedophile". I'm confident in predicting that a significant percentage of Americans at least would consider a 40/17-year old sex encounter as pedophilia, regardless of whether that is the official definition or not.
Also, I ask all HN'ers to stay polite. We should all write here as if we were conversing with someone face-to-face in the same room. Thanks and this has been a public service announcement. :P
We hiked regularly in the Ocala National Forrest in Florida and took trips in the summer to North Carolina, the Southwest Canyons, and Philmont.
Reservations aside, if my children chose to get involved with Boy Scouts, I would love to be a leader. I'd like to give my time like my dad, who planned and hiked the Southwest Canyons trip, did for me.
But I can't. The BSA considers me an unfit role model.
Remember, the Boy Scouts of America, by design, discriminates against over 50% of the population. Why is it surprising that they'd discriminate against a few more percent?
(Also, polytheists are not allowed. You must believe in exactly one god, though which god it is is up to you)
From Brown v. Board of Education: 'We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.'
Now, as a private organization, sure, the Boy Scouts should be allowed to discriminate as they please. But they shouldn't be funded by taxpayers if that's the case, through free or discounted access to public buildings, classrooms, and parks.
Mike Rowe arbitrarily defines success, denounces otherwise high achieving boy for not meeting it.
Sounds like a pretty solid definition of success to me.