My Personal Narrative Example

Ken's Antarctic Awakening

This wasn't what was supposed to happen: unsuccessful with our climb, pinned down in our tent with this wild storm raging outside, radio not working, the ice shelf beneath us cracking and moaning, food and fuel running low, and the temperature a brutal 40 degrees below zero. Nope. By now we were supposed to be safely back at the station with no one but ourselves knowing that we had just climbed Mt. Erebus, Antarctica’s most famous mountain.

No one was supposed to know because climbing a mountain wasn’t why we were in Antarctica. As members of the first ever winter-over construction crew, we were there to work. Our job was to rebuild a dormitory and a couple of other structures, work that wasn’t possible during the busy summer months. But wintering in the Antarctic is an adventure in itself: a long eight months isolated from the rest of the world, with no mail, no fresh food, and no way out if something went wrong.

And things had gone terribly wrong. As three members of the station search and rescue (SAR) team, we had been given permission to do some winter training over the weekend. We said we would camp for one night, near the station. But our real goal was Erebus, an active volcano looming in the distance some 50 kilometers away. Over a series of weeks, we planned our climb in secret, meeting late at night and preparing our gear. With the help of a couple of snowmobiles, we felt we could get to the base of Erebus, then use skis to climb to the lower reaches  of the mountain, and up high use ice climbing gear to reach the summit. If all went well we would be back to the station in time for work on Monday, with no one knowing we had done the climb. 

Just shy of the summit, however, a huge storm came rolling down from the polar plateau, obscuring our vision and very nearly preventing us from getting back to our tent halfway down the mountain. There we hunkered down for the night, exhausted and cold, hoping the storm would clear by morning. When it hadn’t, we knew we had to try and get off the mountain anyway. With one person out in front trying to find our tracks from the day before, we slowly crept down the mountain. Eventually we met the frozen sea and set up camp. But it was a restless night as the sea ice below us scraped against the rocky shore. When the storm hadn’t cleared the next morning we moved again, this time away from shore out on to the frozen sea where the ice was more stable.

Now we started to worry whether we would get through the storm alive. The cold had sapped our strength and we were each suffering from frostbite: on our faces, fingers, toes, most of one of my feet. Inside our tent, each exhaled breath condensed and froze on the inside walls, and each time we moved it came crashing down, soon enveloping us in frost. We had food and fuel for one more day, but if the storm lasted longer than that, our survival was in doubt.

But the next day the storm cleared and we began our trek back to the station. We soon met other members of the SAR team who had been out looking for us over the last three days. Back at the station there was a general sigh of relief that we were safe, but there was anger as well: from the administrators for breaking the rules and causing a major search effort to find us, and from our friends for making them worry that we might have perished in the storm.

As foolish as we had been, or perhaps because of our foolishness, there was much that I learned from this venture. One thing I learned was to not be so selfish in my desires. I learned that I have responsibility to others, and that I cannot selfishly choose to climb a mountain because it is what I want to do. To my family, to my friends, and to my employer, I have obligations, and these obligations must override my personal desires. Another thing I learned is that I can get through the most challenging situations. The three of us worked together and well to keep ourselves alive. Even when it seemed we might die, we never lost faith in ourselves. When I have faced tough situations since then—in outdoor situations, or with my work, or in relationships—I know I have the strength to survive.

Chapter Nine on Risk

Chapter 9 "Risk" features Shackleton's epic sailing adventure from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island, some 1400 kilometers in a tiny, open boat across the most dangerous (and cold) seas in the world. It is very difficult for us to imagine the difficulty, danger, and misery of such a journey. Because of this, I found this chapter a little difficult to relate to my own life, especially as I have never had to take a huge "necessary" risk such as he took. I have, however, taken many, many risks: as a climber, as a kayaker and rafter, as a driver, as a traveler. But the risks have always been of my own choosing, and many of them were careless, thoughtless risks, and it has been only because I have enjoyed a certain amount of luck that I have survived.

One of such risks for me, I will recount in my Personal Narrative, which I will post shortly. A Personal Narrative is simply a story from your life in which you learned something. I encourage you to consider writing a Personal Narrative as one of your non-text posts, should you wish.

Chapter 7 "Conflict"

For this week, I will focus on Chapter 7 "Conflict." This is a very relevant topic for me personally with my administrative work within the ELA.

This is because the ELA has experienced a great deal of conflict over the last several years due to differing views on how we should conduct a curricular reform.

While the majority of the instructors supported a particular set of curricular reforms, a minority of senior instructors were against the reforms. Due to feelings of not feeling respected, of accusations that have been made against them, and due to a considerable amount of "groupness" (a sense of "us" vs. "them" that has magnified the importance of the issues), this group has had great difficulty accepting the reform.

So, what can I "take away" from this chapter on Shackleton?

First, we should have "Deal[t] with Anger in Small Doses" better than we did. Legitimate concerns were expressed by the dissenting group early on that were not addressed. Efforts should have been made to have had extensive discussion and debate over these concerns, and perhaps some compromises needed to have been made. Better yet, we needed more of a conflict positive environment in which open discussion might have led to some "win-win" negotiations. Instead, the minority group felt marginalized and disenfranchised which subsequently led to feelings of intense frustration and ultimately aggression.

Secondly, we needed to have "Engage[d] Dissidents." The reform dissidents were essentially ignored. What we needed to have done is brought the dissenting voices and members "into the tent." I have always loved this notion from Shackleton, that he took the members that might pose the greatest threat to his leadership and made them members of his tent. This way he could consult with them and keep them feeling listened to and wanted, and prevent them from joining forces with others. There is an expression in English, "Keep your enemies closer and your enemies closer" which is attributed to the great Chinese military commander Sun Tsu which expresses a similar concept. We needed to have done something like this by better including our dissidents in the reform process so that they could have more of a say and be part of the reform. Not doing so has led to a lot of problems.

My efforts over the last couple of years have been to try and make up for the past. Giving the opposition an opportunity to express themselves has been one approach. We have had several open meetings in which opposition views could be presented and discussed. More recently, opposing members have been given roles in which they could contribute in ways in which they were uniquely suited. These efforts have been at least partially successful, and much of the division and distrust and anger of the past appear to be lessening.

My Personal Mission Statement

I have mentioned that originally I had planned on us all writing mission statements as part of this class. Now I am thinking it is best to just focus on the blog and your final research paper. Should you, however, be interested in writing a mission statement as one of your blog entries, it is a great exercise for thinking about your life and what you want from it.

Your mission statement can be very short (50 words or less) or longer (a couple hundred words). It can be written as a list such as this one of mine:

At the end of every day I wish to feel that I have been ...

productive

physically active

mentally challenged

important to those I care about

helpful to my family, friends, students, and colleagues

kind, caring, considerate, and honest, with myself and with others.

Someday I hope to have ...

raised two secure, happy, successful children

inspired hundreds of students through my teaching

ridden my mountain bike from Llasa, Tibet to Kathmandu. Nepal.

When I die I wish to be remembered as a good ...

father, husband, son, friend, teacher, colleague, and person.

Or your mission statement can be written more like a paragraph. This is one I did for a course in what is called Personal Leadership:


I, Ken Enochs, living at my highest and best,
am empathic, engaged, positive, and trustworthy.
In my various roles—as a father, son, husband,
friend, teacher, and colleague—a primary purpose
in my life is in helping others achieve their potential.
But, of course, I must also find the space to pursue
personal interests that feed and support my own
development so that I might be a stronger, more
whole, and more satisfied human being, for myself
and for others.


Should you be interested in this task, it might help to look around a bit on the web and find some additional examples. Again, this is purely optional, but it could be a great way of fulfilling one of your blog posts.

On Rank

Last week's Chapter 5 and this week's chapter 6 are both "team" focused chapters.

There is much in these chapters that resonates with me and applies to my workplace, the ELA.

The ELA is a fairly big team, with a great deal of diversity. We have native and non-native speakers of English. We have Japanese instructors, and non-Japanese. We have among the non-Japanese a wide range of nationalities: British, Australian, Scottish, Finnish, and many Americans. We are divided by contract status: some instructors are on short-term contracts, others longer, and some on permanent contracts. We are also differentiated by gender.

While, for the most part, we do a wonderful job of working together to create a great program for all of you, the differences between us,  especially "rank" differences, cause a lot of subtle problems. I say subtle because in general, we are very equality focused. We all teach the same courses, teach the same amount as one another, share in all the non-teaching responsibilities that come with a program like this, and we each have a vote in decision making. It would seem that we are equal.

In reality, however, there are differences. Someone with a permanent contract can, in many ways, do as they like. They can speak up at meetings, choose to be against the directors, not show up at a retreat, etc. Someone for whom English is their native language has an advantage over a non-native speaker when debating issues. Someone from a more debate-oriented culture (e.g. British) has an advantage over someone from a harmony-focused culture (e.g. Japanese). Males, in general, have advantages over females. Those who go home to a family have advantages over those who go home to an apartment alone. People who drink alcohol have advantages over those who do not. Etc.

In psychology these differences are known as "rank." And what you need to know about rank is that those in a lower rank are much more aware of and sensitive to rank differences than those in a higher rank. So... the take-away point that I want you to remember is to be very sensitive and considerate of rank differences, especially those of lower rank than you. You will naturally be somewhat blind to these differences, but those below you will not be.

I work with several people in the ELA of similar rank to me, that have little or no sensitivity to the advantage that they have over others, and this causes a lot of unnecessary resentment. Don't let this be you.

What Makes Us Happier

Further to our recent discussion of optimism and the need for gratifications in our life, I found this on one of my executive coach friend's Facebook page about what makes us happy. It's just an article he found elsewhere, but it is a quick and easy read and provides a nice list of simple ways to be happier. See the article here and for those really without the time to check it out, the ten easy ways are these:

1. Exercise more
2. Sleep more
3. Shorten your commute
4. Spend time with friends and family
5. Go outside
6. Help others
7. Practice smiling
8. Plan a trip
9. Meditate
10. Practice gratitude

So ... not so hard. Most of those are easy to do.

I would like to add to the list this item: "Doing something that you love." For me at the moment this includes photography. This is something I have always had some interest in but over the last year or so I have gotten seriously back into it. Lately, in fact, I have started shooting film again, which is really fun as it makes you really think about what you are shooting because each shot costs money. But the quality of film is different from digital too, which I also really appreciate.

Chapter 3 "Optimism and Reality"

For this week, given that I have already mentioned my thoughts on Chapter 2 in class yesterday, I will focus on Chapter Three, "Optimism and Reality." 

My response: 

Chapter 3, “Optimism and Reality” is an important one as optimism was one of Shackleton’s most noted characteristics. In addition to “You’ve damn well got to be optimistic” quoted in the text, Shackleton also once said, “Optimism is true moral courage.”

This second quotation is one that for years I have carried around in my head and try to live by. The word “moral” in this quotation suggests we have an obligation to be optimistic for the sake of those around us. This is true for me—as a teacher to my students, as a colleague to my peers, as a father to my family, as a friend to my friends. We have to believe that what we are doing is leading to something good, and, of course, such an attitude helps ensure that positive things happen. Perkins quotes Henry Ford (a famous American industrialist who started Ford Motor Company and many modern manufacturing techniques such as the assembly line): “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right” (qtd. in Perkins 43). The idea here is that our attitude (optimistic or pessimistic) directly affects what actually will happen.

It is also said that optimists, on average, live approximately seven years longer than pessimists.

So being an optimist is fundamental to my approach to life.

But it takes “courage” to be optimistic, and sometimes I struggle to find this courage. There are times—in my marriage, in my work (there are a lot of politics in the ELA), in the direction my life is taking—in which I lose my sunny optimism and find myself instead in a very dark place. Getting myself from the dark place back to the light takes some work. One thing I tell myself is that bad times are always followed by good times, and being older I have plenty of experiences that have proven this true. Another thing that helps me is a quotation from Lance Armstrong, the once great but now deposed bicycle racer, “Turn every negative into a positive.” The idea here is that negative experiences have to be viewed as opportunities, specifically opportunities to learn—about why you might be in conflict with someone else, about what caused you to fail in some activity and what you can do to improve, about how not to repeat the same mistake, etc. Because of our text, I am also interested in Martin Seligman (cited in Perkins 43), who founded the field of “Positive psychology” and is an expert on helping people become happier. To see more about him, please check out his bio-sketch, related links, and video at TED. I am currently reading a book of his called Authentic Happiness, which I have found enormously enlightening.

So that is me, and I look forward to you sharing your thoughts on how to deal with difficult situations in your life.