For today’s blog, I’m going to travel a littler further down memory lane…all the way back to the early eighties. It was a much simpler time. Before high school or driving or dating. In fact, my largest social network was the Boy Scouts of America. Looking back, being a part of this organization helped instill solid values that I still hold to today. Skills were honed. Merit badges were earned. And I learned how to tie about three thousand different kinds of knots (a talent which I have never used since).

But my favorite times were the camping trips. Our Troop (the illustrious Troop 15) would camp out one weekend per month and it was spectacular! We would pitch tents, build campfires, cook our own food, not shower for a couple of days, and have fun as only adolescent boys could. There was always a tackle football game far enough away from the adult leaders so that they had plausible deniability should someone get hurt. And there was always some form of hazing from the older Scouts.

This story takes place when I was one of the younger Scouts. I’ll never forget the camping trip when the old guys decided to take my good buddy, Andy Hersey, and myself, Snipe Hunting. I’m sure most everyone reading this blog knows exactly what Snipe Hunting is, but for anyone who may not be familiar with this rite of passage, I’ll explain. Wikipedia defines Snipe Hunting as a type of practical joke that involves experienced people making fun of credulous newcomers by giving them an impossible or imaginary task. Bottom line: there is no such thing as a Snipe!

But that irrelevant fact didn’t stop our more experienced friends from dropping Hersey and I off in the middle of the woods at midnight. Our task was simple. Don’t come back to camp until we had captured a rare bird known as a Snipe. We were given a trash bag and specific instructions on how to lure the bird into our bag. Whenever we heard a rustling from a nearby bush or tree, we were to flap our arms up and down like we were trying to fly and scream, “Snipe! Snipe! Snipe! Snipe!” as loud as we could until he ran into the bag. It all seemed logical enough at the time and Hersey and I assumed our position in the middle of the forest.

Before long, we heard our first rustling (which was just the rest of the guys hiding nearby, providing the cue for us to act like idiots.) Once we heard the noise, we knew that it was go-time! Hersey and I started waving our arms and running around like we were about to take flight. We were screaming “Snipe” over and over again at the top of our lungs. We had the bag held wide open for the Snipe to run into, but alas, he never did.

This happened a few more times and the results were the same. A time or two, I swear I could have heard laughing coming from the woods around us, but we were told that Snipes make a laughing sound, so that explained that. After a while, there was no more rustling. No more faint laughter in the background. We were by ourselves. That’s when Hersey had his grand revelation. “I’m starting to think Snipes aren’t real,” he said. “We should probably just head back to camp and face the music.”

I started to agree with him, but then hesitated. “But…” I began. “What if there is a slim chance that they are real. How legendary would we be if we brought one back?”

“I don’t know,” said Hersey. “It’s pretty risky.”

“The bigger the risk, the greater the reward,” I shot back.

“You know this has like a one in a thousand chance of being real.”

“Then we concentrate on the one.”

Reluctantly, Hersey decided to stay. This tragic moment would mark the first time he decided to follow my lead instead of listening to his gut. And this pattern would continue all the way through college. (I’ll share more of those stories if I ever write a Lessons From the Nineties Blog).

So Hersey and I decided to double down and we stayed. We flapped our arms harder and we screamed louder. And we did so over and over and over again. And in the end, our payoff was this: A wasted night and more ridicule from the rest of our troop. I apologized to Hersey (another pattern that would be repeated more and more over the years).

But I wasn’t sorry for what we had done. I had made the decision to go for it. I knew there was a slim chance that Snipes existed. I knew we would most likely be laughed at for our efforts. But life is stranger than fiction at times. What if we had actually caught a Snipe and brought it back to camp? It would have been well worth our efforts. Yes, that day was embarrassing, but I actually learned a valuable lesson.

We’re all going to do things in life that make us look crazy. We’re all going to put ourselves in positions to be judged by others. That’s just the way of the world. Risk Management experts will dispute the following line, but my advice is this: Concentrate on the rewards in life and worry less about the risks. Yes, I realize a balance is needed. But most of us spend way too much time worrying about the risks in life (how we’ll be perceived, the costs involved) as opposed to the rewards (what it will look like when we achieve our improbable goals).

Snipes may not be real, but our goals and dreams are. If we’re spending more time concentrating on what’s keeping us from them than focusing on what life will be like once we attain them, it’s time to change our way of thinking.

Start your Snipe Hunt today! Chase the impossible! Listen to your voice instead of the voices of the world.