Reflection of Initiative #2: THE INVISIBLE MAZE

I thought that this initiative was better than the last initiative, because I was more involved than I was in the human knot initiative. I tried to give some advice, though it was limited since we could not speak for the first part. The main feeling I had during this experience, however, was almost a claustrophobic feeling. Not space wise, but I felt that everyone was talking at once, and pointing a million different ways. I felt like my advice was useless because every one was presented differing ideas. In this event, I was somewhere between a spectator and a participant. I found it difficult to rise as a leader, just because of the millions of voices all speaking at once, but I did try to help the others, and I think, at some points they heard me and listened to what I had to say. Other times, however, I was a spectator, because I felt like my voice didn't count and I kind of gave up. I don't like to scream or raise my voice typically.
I felt that it was easier to be an aide on the outside of the maze. I could remember the steps that way, and guide people, and I felt like I was helping out more by doing that. When I got to walking through the maze, I started to forget the steps, however, and I relied on the other people to guide me through. I did rely on the group a lot to get through the maze. I was the helper for others, but I definitely had difficulties remembering the path once it was my turn to go. It was the help of everyone and the courage people had in messing up and trying to find the way that made our group able to accomplish this task.
This activity related back to every day life because in life, you don't always know which way to go or turn. Sometimes to get to where you want to go, you have to make mistakes, or you have to rely on the help of others. Like in the game, you should not go backwards, but just make the mistakes and move on in a different direction. I also learned from this initiative that problems are often easier to tackle if you take a step back and look at it differently, or get out of the middle of it. This problem was more difficult to tackle when actually taking the path, but was much easier to tackle when helping others and stepping back to look and observe the path to take.
There were positives and negatives to both talking and not talking. For instance, when talking, it was easier to get ideas and directions to the person walking the path, but the noise was overwhelming, and claustrophobic, as everyone was talking at the same time. Without talking, it was easier to concentrate on the task, but it was difficult to take directions from people who were pointing in a million different directions.