Streams Are No Place for Sleeping

When I was a lad… I was in a program that most Brits would recognise called the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. In what was a sort of tiered version of the boy-scouts the ‘DofE’ would set young men and women off on noble pursuits of self betterment, encouraging us to engage in various physical and charitable labours. It still runs, and is pretty awesome (What is the DofE? - The Duke of Edinburgh's Award) (not paid promotion…!)

Part of these awards was a hike over multiple days with limited-to-no adult supervision. We had to plan the route, carry everything we would need for the trip, and then in theory only check in with our keepers once a day at camp. From drop off until that point, it was all on our little shoulders to not fall from a hillside path, drink from a puddle, or accidentally eat donkey poo or something. For teenagers, this felt like real responsibility.

On one particular expedition, a three-day, two-night outing, I was in a group with two special souls: James Peak and Moira Fall (not real names). More than twenty years later I still remember the expedition for the different approaches of these two would-be-mountaineers.

James was a slight fellow. He was not a physical sort either. In fact, here doing DoE, he was a pretty long way from what I imagine his comfort zone was at the time. He had, perhaps consequently or perhaps ignorantly, catastrophically overpacked. Days and days worth of spare clothing, spare tubes of toothpaste, litres of preferred soda, and quite possibly a le creuset casserole dish, but my memory fails me a little.

Within moments of starting our adventure, it became clear James would not make it the first mile, let alone the first day, with everything he had packed. The other hikers therefore dutifully shared it out amongst ourselves. All-for-one, and all that.

This was of course completely (completely) fine, but as day one turned into day two, and all the other liberated trailblazers were trying to get choruses of ‘un kilometre a pied’ off the ground, James was just dragging heels and whining incessantly. Despite all his cargo now divided among the group, James still needed extensive emotional and physical support to keep him going.

As we approached the camp-site towards the end of day two, we were all getting excited. We had found a small lake bordered by some nice flat land a long way from the beaten path that would serve as an idyllic spot to camp, set a fire, sing the evening away and wake up to the dawn chorus. The last major obstacle between us and this camp site was a pretty trivial brook. A small stream coming off the lake, maybe ten metres wide but barely a foot deep in the middle.

The average camper found a way across by stepping stone. The bravest simply walked straight through. A couple found a spot a hundred metres or so downriver, where it was a bit narrower. James got about halfway over at the point where most other people were crossing - and decided that spot, that spot in the middle of a river, that spot in the middle of a river twenty metres from the campsite - was the point where he would give up. He fell to his belly, laid prostrate in the stream, and just stopped. We had to go in and drag him out, and everyone who did got wet and tired and angry in the process.

James was taken home that evening, and the rest of us soldiered on. As we were nearing the end of the final day I realised that Moira was wearing only sandals. I enquired as to why and she said that not long into the hike she realised her boots were giving her blisters and playing with her achilles-tendonitis. I asked her why her foot was bandaged, and she said that not long into day two she had stepped into a bog and cut her foot on a rock hidden beneath, and had had to dress it up to keep going.

Not one single time had she mentioned either the boots or the cut. She had taken on a share of James’s excess weight. She had helped James out of the water. She had made it to the end of the course without so much as a grimace, let alone a complaint.

Still, all these years later, I tell myself and everyone around me, “don’t be a James, be a Moira.'“

The Point of it All

Let me lead off by saying this is NOT a story about suffering in silence. Moira was not brave for suppressing something important, and there is nothing to praise in a group that cannot be spoken to for fear of reprisal.

This is a story about behaviours that strengthen groups, and behaviours that do not. Going into something cack-handed and with the persistent expectation that you will be bailed out is a very particular sort of evil. Doing everything you can to carry your own weight and the weight of others is one of the greatest forms of good. Teams filled with the latter will flourish wildly. Teams with just-too-much of the first will fail.

There are many iterations of the story of the people who act in a way that we cannot all act, or we would all be dead. The tragedy of the commons and social contract theory, to name the obvious two. A world of James’s is a world dead on arrival. Get rid…

A world of Moiras, on the other hand? What a bliss that is. #BeMoreMoira should be an absolute staple hashtag in all leadership tomes. A few wise men and women along the way have talked about giving more than you take - and that is what Moira did that day. I still think about her - what a hero.

In the Retelling

A note on telling stories: This is obviously a first person anecdote - but it can be for you too. If you want someone to think a story is wise, simply start it with, “my Dad once told me that…” If you want to tell this story for yourself, you can start it with, “I once had a friend who…” The great bit about that second one is that it’s true! We are friends, and you are welcome to this story if it helps you get a point across.