Trying New Things Research Paper

Trying New Things Leads to New Experiences I believe that trying new things can often lead to positive new experiences. This belief of mine was strengthened when I chose to attend a whitewater rafting trip with my Boy Scout troop near the beginning of the last summer. When I first learned about this trip, I hardly even considered it as a possibility. I had no prior experience with whitewater rafting, and none of my friends in Boy Scouts chose to attend the trip. Ultimately I chose to go on the trip since I always enjoyed kayaking and canoeing. After making this decision, I felt the excitement over the prospect of being able to experience something completely new to me. However, my excitement was still hindered by doubt as I was uncertain if I would enjoy white water rafting.
The trip started like any other Boy Scout camping trip I had been on, aside from the fact that none of my friends were on the
trip. We met up at the parking lot of our troop’s meeting place, discussed a few things, and arranged rides. I was assigned to a car with Kevin, Ryan and Lucas. By the time we finished our six hour drive and reached Pennsylvania, we had all started to know each other well. The next day of the trip was scheduled as our first day of whitewater rafting. We woke up, ate breakfast, and proceeded to make the drive to our rafting location. When we got there, the first things we had to do were to put on safety equipment and watch a lengthy safety demonstration. I paid careful attention to every part of the demonstration, since I had never rafted before and wanted to know how to do things correctly. To my relief, I discovered that each raft would be guided by a trained guide who would be on the raft, and I concluded that whitewater rafting is actually much simpler and straightforward than I had previously thought. When the safety demonstration was finished, I realized that we now had to divide up into groups of six with each group occupying a raft. I didn’t know who I should be in a group with because I didn’t know too many people that well, until somebody called for me and asked if I was in a group. It was Kevin, one of the kids in the same car with me for the six hour drive. He was looking for people to be in his group, and wanted to know if I would like to be in his group. I told him that I would be more than happy to be in a raft with him.
As we pushed the raft into the river, I couldn’t help but be exhited. I felt pretty confident in my recently acquired knowledge about whitewater rafting, and I was looking forward to trying something new. After my group climbed into our raft, we reviewed the basics of whitewater rafting before doing a small practice run.
Soon, my group was cleared by our guide to begin traveling down the river. The raft headed downstream towards the first rapid of the trip. As we neared the rapid, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when we hit it. Would the raft flip, or get caught on a submerged rock, or would everything be fine? I waited in anticipation until I saw a raft in front of me go down the rapid with a huge splash, and noticed that everybody seemed fine (if not a bit drenched). Keeping that in mind, I braced myself as the raft traveled down the rapid. Everybody was drenched, but from this point onwards I came to the conclusion that whitewater rafting was something that I really enjoyed. We went down the river rapid after rapid after rapid, with each rapid presenting something different. One rapid called Swimmer’s Rapid was a rapid that people could lie down in feet first and be carried down by the rivers current. I jumped into the river and tried it out. Traveling down the rapid felt like a waterslide, and was probably the highlight of my entire trip.
The second and final day that we went white water rafting, experienced scouts were given the chance to use inflatable one-person kayaks called duckies to go down the river. I decided to take my chances and use one, even though our guide said that “nearly everybody falls out of their kayak at least once the first time they try it.” Going down the river in a small inflatable kayak versus a comparatively larger raft was a lot more difficult. I had to do a lot more paddling and got splashed in the face by the river a lot easier, but going down rapids was much more fun in a kayak than in a raft. Unfortunately, this thrill came with a price when I fell out of my kayak on a rapid called Dimple Rapid. By mistake, I paddled my kayak down the rapid sideways instead of straight down and the kayak capsized. I fell off the kayak and held onto it until I passed through the end of the rapid and climbed back on. Despite falling off of my kayak into the chilly Youghiogheny River, the extra thrill of going down the river in a kayak was worth every second that I spent in the cold river.
White water rafting was something that I had never experienced ever before this trip, yet I grew to enjoy it so much during the trip.
The anticipation of heading towards to the top of the rapid, the thrill of the moment when going down a rapid, and the feeling of relief after reaching the end of a rapid all made me love the trip in the end. My attitude towards white water rafting had completely turned around. Instead of being remembered as the only part of the trip that I wasn’t entirely confident from my prior experience, whitewater rafting is remembered today by me as the obvious highlight of the entire trip. Had I failed to have taken this opportunity of going on this trip, trying something new, I never would have gone on this trip and never would have been introduced to whitewater rafting. But because I chose to try something new and attend this trip, I was able to enjoy a new kind of experience and meet some new people in the process. This is why I believe that for every new experience, there is always something to be gained and something to be
learned.