Chapter 8: Lighten Up!

In this post I'm going to write about chapter 8, whose strategy is "Find something to celebrate and something to laugh about." Even though we are not under the survival conditions in our everyday life, I think lighten up is some kind of commodity, something reaaaaally important to us. I need to be lighten up right now because the submission of my paper(Chemical Basis of Nature) is due in about 3 days, and I just started... :'(

In this chapter, Shakleton and his crew of the Endurance celebrated the day of December 5, 1995, which surprised me. A year had passed since they started their expedition, and they were supposed to be on their way home then. The situation was quite hard for them. However, Shakleton(I suppose he did feel disappointment like other members) did not forget to cheer his crews up. His word "If you can't fix it, feature it (Perkins 115)," seems so true. The condition won't change so easily, but the way of seeing it is varies. So, if you were one of the members of the expediton, facing up to the hard situation and look for something to celebrate will definitely contribute to keep your faith and endurance.

Yet, if I were in the hard situation, my head would know that but my heart would not. I think I need to practice this in my daily life. Perkins states in his book that "Shackleton's ability to use celebration and ceremony to boost team morale seemed to come naturally (116)." Maybe I can start celebrating and cheering up just by remembering the sweet things happend to me during the day before I go to bed!