The phrase used in the US military for this is "Embrace the suck". Which means "The situation is bad, but deal with it."
When you're cold, wet, and tired it helps to pretend you love it. It's infectious, too.
It is actually a good feeling when you realize you're not as fragile as you thought you were. "I would have thought that I'd be miserable in this situation, but I'm actually OK" is a good thought to have.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smile-it-could-ma...
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/StrackRRR_manuscrip...
The problem with this phrase is that the U.S. military takes it extremes, telling soldiers to suppress inborn capacities for empathy, particularly in regard to civilians and "military-age males" routinely maimed and butchered in the course of its day-to-day operations. Inevitably resulting not only in mental health issues for the soldiers when they return home, but ultimately, failure of the overall mission itself.
I was lucky enough to be in a large, non-religous troop that happened to have a bus & be very well organized (4 Junior Assistant Scoutmasters!), definitely a great experience, only wish I had gotten further than life.
The aims of Scouting are: Character development Citizenship training Physical fitness
The methods used to achieve these aims:
http://www.nesa.org/methods.html
Learning to live with others is one of the things achieved via the patrol method. This tends to develop citizenship.
Still, it's a bit different for the scouts since you will live for extended periods of time together, like 10+ days for the summer outing.
I don't know where you live, but in certain places failing to pay your bills means you end up in the cold rain with nothing to eat.
That's still not the same as dying. There are homeless people who still manage to get by for years on, despite having no means whatsoever.
In my mind, that's not a different perspective. It's the same perspective, applied elsewhere.
Many other people would not make it long term in such a situation, and I'm not trying to imply it'd be an enjoyable life, but I do wish more people had skills to survive the environment just outside their homes.
you're not going to freeze to death in southern italy
For example, you might quite easily freeze to death at the top of Mount Etna! (And/or burned to death).
I do quite fancy visiting Sicily & Syracuse though!
I've only recently been noticing how applicable the lessons I learned in the Royal Marines are to software development. Thanks for putting it so eloquently.
One of my Scouts likes long-range bicycling (mountains, centuries etc). He had engraved on the headset of his bike "There's only one way to get home" to remind himself that its all up to him.
Milford?
When you're 2 days walk from civilisation, it's pissing down with rain, and you're cold, wet, hungry, and tired, you get a different perspective on life and the "soft" challenges that you face in life back home.
By "soft" challenges I mean things that aren't really life threatening, if you fail to pay the bills, you aren't going to die. If you get soaking wet and get hypothermia in the bush, you could very well die (although it's very unlikely in a structured environment like scouts).
I used to ignore problems that I didn't like, and more or less wait for them to go away, this approach obviously didn't work too well. One thing that spending a lot of time in the outdoors did was teach me that when you're in the shit, the only thing that you can do is keep on going forward. When it's dark and cold, and you're tired and your feet hurt, sitting down and resting and waiting isn't going to help you, you need to keep on walking to the hut. And there's nobody else who's going to help you; you can't phone a friend and get them to do the walking for you.
The teamwork skills you learn are different to the ones you learn in a soft environment too. Everyone works together for a group benefit, because you're all stuck there together.
I've never served in the military, but from the people I know that have, they pretty much learn to take the same attitude. I think that these experiences are something that everyone should have exposure to earlier in life. I've had some experiences where I was absolutely miserable at the time, but in retrospect have been very powerful character building and learning experiences. I spent a week cold and wet in the rain, with a wet tent and a wet sleeping bag on Outward Bound and for 2 nights I was sleeping on an open sailboat and managed about 3 hours of sleep total, I hated it at the time, but it was one of the most character building experiences of my life in retrospect.