In my Leadership class the other day we did a really fun activity. We got into groups of three to create a tower. We were each given a bag of straws and a long piece of tape. We were asked to build the tallest freestanding tower out of straws and tape.

At first it was hard to figure out how to start. We knew that we needed a strong base to make the rest of it stay up. Some of the groups were complaining about not having as many straws as some other groups. After a while we figured out what we wanted to do with our tower so we started to make some progress.

Then after a few minutes of building, my teacher passed some scenarios out to us. Groups got a bunch of different ones like more straws and tape, less straws and tape, having to start over, etc. My group wasn't allowed to talk. It wasn't that bad because we weren't talking that much anyway.

Everyone successfully finished their towers and we decided on the winner, whose tower was 98 cm! Afterwards we had a discussion about it. We talked about why the winners had won. We said that they had built their tower on a strong foundation. Then we talked about why my teacher gave us the challenges. I commented that it is because sometimes life throws us things that we are not expecting and we just have to go with it. 

I was thinking about how much this relates to life. Our lives are like the towers we were building. The different things we are experiencing everyday are the straws and the tape we use to put our lives together and figure out who we are. And the scenarios we got are the unexpected trials and challenges that come in our lives.

I know we can't always be prepared for the things that come our way, but I've learned that we can always find a way through them if we have hope and never stop trying. If we do this, we can build something wonderful out of our lives. Don't give up!!




Always have hope,