Day 5: What to Do When Lost
- Jim
- Jan 5, 2019
- 2 min read
“Using a faulty paradigm is like trying to find your way through Chicago with a map of Detroit.” –Eddie Brown
There is a tendency for us to recognize someone else who is lost, while denying our own lost-ness!
On Summit Expedition courses we almost always ended them with a “final exam” that went like this: One night toward the end of the trip the instructors would simply disappear. The students would awaken to a note that simply explained they were on their own for the final. They were to use the skills that had learned during the previous three weeks to find their way, as a highly functioning team, through the wilderness to a spot that we had indicated on the map that we would leave next to the note. We insured them that we had abandoned them, they were on their own, and that we would meet them at the final destination.
We lied! For safety reasons we would attempt to stay out of sight and follow them to insure the group’s safety. (A goal that was rarely accomplished … most of the time in our attempt at remaining undetected we lost the group in the wilderness and had to pray they would make it to the meeting point.)
Invariably the groups that got most lost were the ones most sure that they were not lost. They were sure they were going the right way. They misread the map, but as a group they were certain of their bearings (often because a charismatic or bombastic leader convinced them) and off they went. They were absolutely convinced that they were at this point on the trail going in that direction when in actuality they were at an entirely different place, going an entirely different direction.
The first step in getting “found” is admitting you’re lost. It wasn’t until the group went through the process of accepting their “lost-ness,” which included transitioning through denial and blaming (the charismatic or bombastic person often got thrashed for leading). The successful groups would rally and begin to read the map more carefully.
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