Working at a summer camp gives me opportunities to grow each and everyday. We just ended our third session this Friday and one instance this week has followed me. At the beginning of this week I've noticed this little boy, his name was Kyle. One of the things he was most excited for was jumping off the high dive. I heard about a couple times where he climbed up, but each time he tried he became very freighted, but eventually would jump off. Soon enough the life guarding staff had to banish him from ever jumping off the high dive. Then it was the last full day of camp and as the rest of the campers headed to their cabins for rest period I noticed two staff members comforting a little boy standing on the high dive. He had received 5 letters at lunch which meant he had to jump off in his clothes. Well, not knowing that the little boy had received five letters the life guarding staff had not noticed when Kyle made his way up to the top. But by the time they realized it was him, it was too late and we had a terrified crying 9 year old boy back up on the high dive. I made my way over there to help out. Though being banned from the high dive Kyle made his way up it once again to not be made fun of by his friends.
After minuets of encouraging staff members yelling "You can do it!" , little kyle still refused to jump from the high dive. He sat there crying, yelling "I can't I can't I can't I can't" over and over. We couldn't get him to stop saying it no matter how hard we tried. So after a good 45 minuets, our very intimidating waterfront director finally got little Kyle to jump off.
I guess what I took from this is the fact that when it comes to myself I still the phrase "I Can't" shouldn't be an option. I need to step out of my boundaries and prove to myself that I can. It's surprising how much you can learn from a nine year old and he doesn't even know it. As I helped him get his bags in the car at the end of the week I asked him what his favorite part of camp was, and of course he said the high dive. :)
