Tenderfoot Diaries

In mid January I issued a Challenge on the OBS blog.   This is my answer to that challenge.

I suppose there are a lot of ways to get people to enjoy the outdoors.  You can get them involved in a fun outdoor activity.  You can take them on a trip that passes through many beautiful outdoor vistas.  You can teach them a new skill that allows them to experience the outdoors in a new way.  You can simply take someone by the hand and tell them to look up and count the stars.  Getting people to enjoy the outdoors may involve a cool swimming hole on a hot afternoon or a chocolately, sticky s’more made over a campfire on a crisp autumn night.  There are as many ways to get people to enjoy the outdoors as there are people.

There is, however, really only one way to ensure that people don’t enjoy the outdoors and that’s this:  force them to be there.

Trust me on this one, I speak from personal experience.

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time outdoors.  We rode bikes and built forts and skateboarded down the neighbors driveway and played elaborate games of pretend that centered around the trees in our yards or the park behind our neighborhood.  By the time I became a teenager, however, my interest in the outdoors had waned a bit.  I liked to read and write.  I sang and did musical theater.  Most of the stuff I enjoyed was indoor activity, and so I wasn’t getting as much exercise or as much outdoor time as I previously had done.  I put on a few pounds and that worried my parents.

Now, I see they were trying to help.  Then all I knew was that they were constantly dragging me outdoors to go for a walk or go for a bike ride.  It probably wouldn’t have bugged me as much if there was some purpose to it, or if I had some say as to when or where we went, but that wasn’t the case.  I was told I was being forced to be outdoors “for my own good” and, like a lot of things we are told are for our own good, I came to loathe being forced to do something I didn’t want to do.

The end result of all this was to foster a rather strong dislike of outdoor activity that persisted for several years.  To me, the outdoors had become a place of obligation, not something I could voluntarily choose to experience and enjoy.  Since it had become something I was forced to experience,  I generally chose not to be outdoors when it was left to me to choose.

It was only when I was well into adulthood that I started coming to grips with the outdoors and discovering that I could find serenity and peace and even enjoyment from being outdoors and participating in outdoor activities.  These days, now that I can choose, there are days I crave being outdoors and other days when I’m perfectly content to be inside.  I’m also slowly trying new outdoor activities and knowing that I’m free to decide whether or not to continue with those outdoor activities makes all the difference.

If there is a moral to this story, and since I’m writing it I’ve decided there is, it would be this:  everyone comes to the outdoors in their own way.  If you have a child or a friend or a significant other that you’re trying to introduce to your favorite outdoor activity, make sure you give that person the freedom to choose their reaction.  Understand that not everyone likes the same things, and be willing to accept that your way of enjoying the outdoors may not be another person’s way.   There’s enough variety when it comes to outdoor activities that almost everyone could find something they enjoy.  The trick is to allow everyone the freedom to make their own choices.