Amelia Week 2: Communication is Key. Pun Intended.

This weekend, I read through an innumerable amount of poems, wrote down a list of fifteen feasible ideas, and asked everyone I can imagine for an idea for my blog post. I thought of countless ideas from Taylor Swift to Bee Movie, but none of them excited me. This was until today, of course, as I am writing this now. Today, I went to an escape room with my friends and learned about the importance of communication. 

The escape room we were doing was jail themed, and we started in two cells. Two people were in one cell and three people in another. Especially since we were unable to exit the cells and look at the other half of the group’s clues and codes, it made it especially difficult to figure some of the puzzles out. Luckily, though, we could communicate across cells, help the other half with their clues, and figure out how to combine our clues to get out. We were not done after that; we found our way to a few other rooms where the clues got exceedingly tricky. There were puzzles where one person had to lay under a bed and tell someone the code underneath it so they could put it in, there were ones where someone had to spin a wheel while people in another room told them what direction and how fast to spin it, and there were ones where one cell had half a code and the other cell had the other half. What all of these puzzles have in common is that they prioritized communication, and we wouldn’t have been able to solve them without it. One of the best feelings I got after we escaped the maze of rooms was the feeling of pride, not because I thought anybody did the best, but because I knew we all worked together as a team and everybody chipped into escaping. 

Once we got out, one of the workers congratulated us and told us what the next hardest level would be if we decided to return. One of my friends said something along the lines of, “We finished with only a minute and a half left. How would we be able to do an even harder level?” To that, the worker responded, “Well you guys had really good communication skills!” That’s when we realized that communication was the main reason we were able to get out.

Communication is not only something that can be used in team building exercises, such as this, but can be carried throughout all aspects of life. I think the most important thing about learning is that you don’t only comprehend the information but you apply it to your everyday life in a way that benefits you; since the escape room, I have already used the communication skills I’ve learned to benefit my connections with my friends. Any successful relationship relies on it; it is the key out of an escape room and the key to my restored friendships. 

What is a major skill that you’ve now been able to fully comprehend, and how did it impact your life?