The Grave Stone Exercise

Don't let the title fool you, this isn't about dying. Rather, it is about one's passion and what is truly important in one's life. Heavy stuff for a kayak blog, to be sure; but this was inspired by a kayak event which will be explained in a few of these blogs. But first things first. Let's discuss our grave stones.

In men's work we have a grave stone exercise in which you are told that you can only afford the smallest of stones. Because of the stone's size you will only be able to engrave a few words. In fact, you are limited to,   "Here Lies A...". The exercise is to choose only one or, at the most, two words to complete the stone. When I did this with my men's group a number of years back, they all smiled when it was my turn.

Surely, one man thought, I could not boil this down to one word. They reminded me of my passionate talk around photography, my Zen like state when playing jazz, my deep involvement in my medical practice and so on. No way, so they thought, would I be able to pull this one off. I was surprised. In my mind, this was an easy one.

All I had to do was ask myself the question, "What is a common denominator of all my interests and pursuits?" I looked at them and said, "Here lies a teacher." Just like that.

If you have ever received an e mail from me you may have noticed at the bottom is always the line, Teaching is my passion. And it is. My life is full of teaching moments, and little makes me happier than seeing a student of mine become a fine paddler, roller, doctor, nurse, judoka or better person. Teaching, passing it on and giving back are the simple guidelines that make my life so wonderful and decisions so easy to make.

That's the foundation of this story which I will continue in the next  post.

Paddle safe...
DS