Theodore Roosevelt said, "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
This past weekend, we led difficult lives as we eked out survival on Elm Island on the Potomac. The difficulty in the journey made the views more impressive. The labor needed to build lean-tos made us thankful for the coverage. The need to purify our water caused us to appreciate that normally we take for granted modern infrastructure that provides clean, potable and palatable water with the turn of a knob. Cooking our dinner over open fire made the meal more delicious.
Sometimes those things we did not earn carry little value, where those things we scrimp, save, fight for, and earn prove to be our treasures. I hope your weekend of rigor serves to remind you of the importance of our natural resources and of how we should appreciate being members of a society where we have ready access to our basic needs.
A Scout is Thrifty.