

Mike Replies To A Slightly Offended, Not Very Enthusiastic Scout. - Sukotto
http://www.mikeroweworks.com/2010/06/mike-replies-to-a-slightly-offended-not-very-enthusiastic-scout/

======
dkarl
_Given your excellence in school, your commitment to physical fitness, and
your desire for higher education, that confession strikes me as a bit out of
context. I mean, why would a guy who’s so passionate and deliberate about
everything else in his life invest his time doing something for which he has
so little enthusiasm?_

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.

~~~
minouye
"The most valuable lesson I learned in Scouting, was not merely the importance
of trying things I didn’t enjoy, it was the ability to learn how to enjoy
those same things."

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.

~~~
CamperBob
_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?'_

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.

~~~
sophacles
In this case, the hoop holder is a group dedicated to preparing teens for
adulthood. I think the hoops are not designed benefit the BSA -- seriously,
they don't get much from forcing a 16 year old to weave a basket or shoot
archery. I think instead those silly hoops my be meant to emulate something
else.

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.

------
Sukotto

      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.

~~~
hugh3
What if your strategy in life is to pursue whatever arbitrary goal is placed
in front of you by some authority figure despite the complete lack of tangible
rewards for doing so?

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.

~~~
chromatic
That sounds like a false dilemma.

~~~
hugh3
Perhaps, but then again so is "Become an Eagle Scout" vs "be a loser your
whole life".

~~~
mikeryan
Is that how you read Mike's response? Because I thought he took pains to
clearly not tie those two together.

~~~
sprout
Somewhat crassly stated, but Mike's argument is equally false, even if more
polite. Basically, Mike's argument was "either you're afraid of failure and
you need to suck it up, or you need to quit because you don't belong in
scouts."

------
tptacek
I had no idea Mike Rowe was this engaged with the Boy Scouts. He has a really
interesting life story. And _Dirty Jobs_ is one of the very few decent
arguments for paying for cable. Follow the link to the form letter he sends
Eagle Scouts; it's just as good as this post is.

------
jbarciauskas
So, my question is, what is the problem with enjoying an activity as a social
activity rather than a goal-achievement activity? If he chooses to spend his
social time in a softball league rather than Scouts, is he doomed to
mediocrity for not training to become the best softball player he is capable
of? Why didn't this conversation end at "sounds like Eagle Scout isn't for
you, just make sure to be really good at something else"?

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?

~~~
caryme
I completely agree. I hate when people ask me if I am an Eagle scout because I
feel like they consider me a failure, or at least that I gave up, when I say
no. But I don't feel that way myself. I had different priorities and different
goals within scouting.

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.

~~~
SwellJoe
_I hate when people ask me if I am an Eagle scout because I feel like they
consider me a failure_

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.

------
Splines
Every time I see something from Mike Rowe I'm always impressed. From Dirty
Jobs, his TED talk, this email correspondence, and even his early days as a
QVC presenter, he has always exuded a sense of class and gentility.

~~~
trafficlight
It's okay. You can say it. You have a man-crush on Mike Rowe.

Don't worry, so do I.

------
Aaronontheweb
One of the biggest regrets I have from my childhood was leaving the Boy Scouts
when I had to make a hard choice between attending the annual week of summer
camp (was made mandatory for advancement when I became a freshman in high
school) and hell week for football, both of which occurred at the same time
every year (late August two weeks before school started.)

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.

~~~
CamperBob
Or, you know, you could move past both Scouting _and_ high school football.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
If "move past" means learning nothing from your life...

~~~
CamperBob
Which it doesn't.

------
julius_geezer
As someone who dropped out after 2nd Class (probably would've kept on to 1st
but we moved), I'm with the kid. It took me forever to make 2nd Class because
I had other commitments on Saturdays. But I had a bunch of friends in the
troop.

G.K. Chesterton somewhere wrote that "Everything worth doing is worth doing
badly." I'm with dkarl on this one.

------
JoeAltmaier
Eagle Scout does not manufacture a committed, resourceful individual; it
recognizes one.

~~~
whyenot
As long as you aren't gay, atheist or agnostic. If you are, the BSA doesn't
want anything to do with you.

~~~
SwellJoe
It makes me really sad that the BSA has chosen their current highly
politicized position.

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.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The rules were probably the same or worse when you were younger. Open-minded
local leaders have considerable lattitude.

Consider: refusal to participate and let youth see your good example hurts
only the boys. And really helps no one.

~~~
earl
Refusing to aid bigots only helps children by demonstrating, amongst other
things, the value of civil rights, integrity, and principles. Your strategy of
letting bigots slide because they don't hate you does the opposite.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Rufusing to help bigots is invisible to children. You're not there, helping
kids grow and learn leadership. Yes, the gay boys too.

------
protomyth
“Everybody-Gets-a-Trophy” part is particularly rich. I still think the biggest
problem with it is that children will not find what they are really good at /
really enjoy because they are not allowed to fail and success is cheapened.

------
kenjackson
This ain't the MikeRoweSoft kid?! I wasted my time reading a letter from the
guy from Dirty Jobs? I was kinda wondering why people were writing that kid
letters.

------
slamo
My headline would have been different:

Mike Rowe arbitrarily defines success, denounces otherwise high achieving boy
for not meeting it.

~~~
Semiapies
Blogger writes post requiring complete reading to understand; HN reader TL;DRs
and does not.

