Obstacles

The most “clever” Scoutmaster I ever heard of would routinely bring his patrol leaders in to a room with a number of chairs strewn about in random fashion and tell them to observe the area for several minutes. He then would blindfold each one and tell them to walk from one side to the other, apparently from their memory of where, exactly, the chairs were.

The catch was that, before he turned them loose, he would remove all the chairs. It was then an appreciative audience of Scouts would smother laughter while each steered drunkenly across the empty room.

Afterwards, it was common for some unlearned patrol leader to ask the Scoutmaster, “So ... the lesson was to be observant?”

“No,” their mentor would invariably reply. “It was to show you how wasteful it is to dodge obstacles that exist only in your mind.”

Exerpted from an article in the Charleston West Virgina Gazzette by Don C. Perdue