14 - Ideas for personal narrative

When I think of ways I've changed in my life, the biggest thing I think of is when I worked to earn and eventually earned my Eagle Scout award. It was an extremely stressful experience for me, but I from that I learned a lot about dealing with stubborn and forgetful people and coping with intense stress. I would honestly rather not write about such a bad experience for me, but I definitely changed for the better.

To describe a particular scene, I think of where I did my actual Eagle Scout project. It was summer time in Texas, so the temperature was on average a 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity was intense. We were working at a community garden, which I had done server hours for several times before, which lacked good organization. There was dirt everywhere, uneven ground, tall grass around the plants, water from hoses and rain moistening the ground, it was very hot and wet. There were also yellow jackets all over inside the community greenhouse, so I advised people to avoid it.

My task was to lead a group of about 20 people to do the complicated task of cutting and attaching water sprinkler hosing all over garden beds and run pipes through underground tubes I'd had set up as part of the project previously. When we arrived, a lawn mowing crew was finishing up mowing the grass, which was nice since we had shorter grass to deal with, but not so nice because I had to yell as loud as I could (I'm a quiet person) for anyone to here my safety and labor instructions. Once the lawn crew left, things weren't as bad, but they weren't any less stressful. The tasks required that specific steps be completes in succession, so it was very difficult to keep everyone busy at once, and my scout leaders were getting onto me constantly for not giving everyone instructions.

From this, I learned that a good plan must be laid out in preparation for group meetings and projects. But a large part of what I learned was from before the project, calling people over and over and over again to ensure they heard and would respond to me. People forget... like really easily. That's a big thing I learned.

As it turned out that, everything was fine in the end. My scout leader came to me some days later and told me that he was extremely impressed with my ability to stay calm and give orders, and was constantly probing me on keeping people working just to test my patience and abilities. I was also able, apparently, to entertain and impress the Eagle Scout board of review members, and as it turned out, they accepted me into the rank.

Since that time, I feel that I have been more able to communicate with people.