As summer fell into the crisp days of autumn, and our clocks fell back an hour, I found myself falling into a long overdue list of chores last week. My first job - cleaning the basement. What seemed like a daunting task turned out pleasantly after rediscovering my old childhood book collection. There were Boxcar Kids and Bernstein Bears, nursery rhymes, and my personal favorite, the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. I loved those! In the books, everything was a chain reaction created by you. When you got to the end of a section you had a choice to make- either jump to a new page or continue reading- and you made selections all the way until you had chosen your own ending. They were practically different stories every time you opened the book.
 
Why am I telling you this? When I was little I always wished we lived our lives like “Choose Your Own Adventure” books (especially the way I played). If I didn’t like the path I was on I could just backtrack to my last location and try again. While life isn’t quite that easy, we are still in charge of choosing our own adventures. And while it seems like common sense, it took me a deep clean of the basement and a conversation with a Red Cross volunteer to realize it.
 
Earlier this week I spoke with Red Cross Volunteer, Dave McFarland. Dave teaches health and physical education to hundreds of students a year at Parkway South High School. With Dave’s classes, students are offered the opportunity to not only receive school credit, but earn Red Cross CPR and life guarding certification. For a while, Dave and his staff relied on the Red Cross Team to provide an instructor, come to their pool, and teach the kids for him (Now, if Dave’s life was a Choose Your Own Adventure book, here’s where the first choice comes in).
 
Dave thought, “It would be nice to have an instructor/trainer within the district so we don’t have to rely on the Red Cross all the time.”
 
So Dave chose to become certified himself. After receiving certification, Dave was able to teach and certify his own students and provide them with more resources and better opportunities, like summer life guarding. After a few years of teaching, Dave began to notice a pattern.
 
“I have a lot of my students that lifeguard over the summer who received their credit and certification through me.”
 
So now, not only has Dave provided his students with life-saving lessons during the school year, they are returning for more lessons and re-certification. Some return over the summer, some the next year, and some may return years from now.
 
What a great adventure! In Dave’s “Adventure” he has made choices that lead to a positive chain reaction. Dave chose to be certified by the Red Cross. The Red Cross taught Dave, who in turn chose to teach his own students. Dave’s students then chose to continue life guarding and as a result, teach everyone they’ve helped about the Red Cross message. All things considered, this allows the Red Cross to teach more people, thus starting the cycle over again.
 
Dave recollects, “You hear their excitement when they’re like ‘Mr. McFarland! I was able to use my skills’. It’s rewarding to see when the skills are applied to real life.”
 
While this is real life, and not an Adventure book, Dave’s story proves that we, just like the books, are in charge of writing our own stories. Every decision we make has a direct impact on someone else’s life, especially our own.

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