My morning routine has become pretty streamlined:

• iPhone alarm goes off (with any song I choose).
• Get a quick workout (just do what my fitness plan says).
• Shower, dress, breakfast (an app already gave me the weather forecast).
• Take a look at the inbox (some of which is pre-sorted).
• On the drive in, Google watches traffic for me and Spotify takes care of music or a podcast.

Almost all of the friction has been removed.

The rest of the day follows suit. Lunch can be delivered with the click of a button. Climate control at home is scheduled. Streaming shows are queued.

Life is a finger tap away, and the world runs on convenience.

Life still has rough edges

The trouble is, friction still finds a way in.

We all know the list.

Flight delayed. Uber cancels after 10 minutes of waiting. The package you need is now a day late. Power goes out, and there goes everything in the fridge. The Wi-Fi drops right at the deadline.

Kids have their own version. Missed the bus by 37 seconds. Wore the skirt when everyone else got the memo it was jeans day at school. The vocab quiz looks like a bunch of mystery words.

When that stuff happens (and it will), we might have fallen out of practice. Friction feels more friction-y in a world where everything else got so much easier.

Kids have grown up in our world of convenience, so sometimes even the small issues land harder.

Preparing, the fun way

Which brings me, of course, to camp.

No need for a big case here. Just that, among all the fun, a little friction is still built in.

• Lake LBJ can be a bit cold first thing in the morning.
• A camper might not get their first choice of bunk in the cabin.
• There are spiderwebs up in the bathroom rafters.
• Their team might lose the Trojan-Spartan Games.
• The food is good, but it might not be the exact thing they would’ve picked that day.
• There might be a cabinmate they don’t get along with perfectly.

All of this is the healthy kind of friction. These are small problems, in a safe place, surrounded by people who can help.

Camp leads with fun, but that doesn’t mean that every small inconvenience is engineered away.

A camp with no friction left would just be a very nice hotel.

Someday the Wi-Fi will drop, the flight will get canceled, the plan will change, or life simply won’t cooperate.

And when that happens, it helps to have practiced making it a great day anyway.

Erec Sir