To The Dying Flower,

I can’t save you. I simple don’t know how. I feel guilty and angry. All I can do is watch and let time pass as you wilt away. Please hear me when I say, I will do better next time. For tomorrow and the rest of my days I will come up with a million and one ways of how I could of saved you, my dying flower.

Recently, I’ve been working on my wilderness first aid training as a part of my study abroad curriculum. Being trained in wilderness first aid gives me the opportunity to take control and stay calm in the face of trauma or a medical issue. These two abilities, taking control and staying calm, can be directly transferable to being an effective leader. First off, a leader is able to take control of a situation and provide order. One of our classroom scenarios involved students responding to a lightening strike that resulted in chaos. Having control in a situation like this can be a challenge, but in order to minimize fatalities, a leader be able to gain the upper hand. Another aspect to being an effective leader is staying calm. When presented with a difficult decision with high stakes, it important to keep composure. If a leader is stressed or unsure, these feelings may be passed on to their followers, which would just make matters worse. While there are many other aspects of wilderness first aid that are transferable to leadership, it is my strong belief that keeping control and staying calm are the most important.

When our group goes on break from learning, we often continue to talk about what we have learned. We ask questions and try to figure out what if scenarios. Although today during lunch we were served delicious mangoes which shifted the conversation momentarily. One of our mentors began to tell me how important mangoes are to some of the people in India. While I thought there was only one kind of mango, there are actually 283 different types of mango in India alone. I found out that it is quite normal for people around India to argue over whose mangoes are better. So of course my instructor argued we have yet to taste the sweetest one. Apparently the mangoes should be at their sweetest point when we get back from our trek that will last 12 days. I am excited to taste another type of mango, and to see if it really is possible to get anything to be more sweet than the one I ate today.

While I wasn’t able to save the dying flower today, maybe someday I will know what to do. Through research and experience I will learn what it is I can do.

<3/ The Girl in The Silly Green Hat