Get It Done

We may not achieve everything we strive for, but if we strive for everything, what we do achieve will be amazing.




Dana Bate

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Hello Ken

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Ah strife. Ah failure. A frustration. All of those things we all have to face in life. "If at first you don't succeed drop it, forget it, give up and run away." Right? Wrong. Success is failing nine times out of ten tries. Knowing that and remembering it in the sweat of struggle will poke a big hole in the seemingly solid armor of frustration and futility.



Edward Phelps wrote "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything" The important thing is to not look back. You tried, you lost touch, you messed up, you failed, you learned a lesson, now get on with life. If it's truly important you will do it right eventually.



Everything starts with an idea, then follows imagination and a vision. A plan is designed and the proper tools are gathered whether they be physical, financial, emotional or intellectual.. Then a hypothesis is formed and the testing begins. At some point you or someone else will ask "Can you really do that>" You have a choice of answers, either "I don't know but I'm going to try." or "Yes."



So you begin and at first things go along great. But then uunexpected problems occur. Maybe you have to rethink your design, or maybe you have to keep going assured that it's the best plan. Thumb your nose at failure and make the adjustments you have to make. Then proceed. As you get close to your goal the going gets very rough. It's painful. It's quitting time? No. Remember Roger Bannister who broke the 4 minute mile barrier. He said "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."



So you win and you have the right to claim the joy of accomplishment. You carry the blazing torch of achievement. But this one happy fact I can tell you that I learned from my unpredictable vagabond life. No matter how much you do there is always more to be done.



Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys

Never Give Up

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Ordinary Heros

You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated, to reach challenging goals.

Sir Edmund Hillary
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Hello Jen
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Question: What is a 33 year old New Zealand beekeeper doing over 29,000 feet in the air?

Answer: He's standing on top of the tallest mountain on the Earth.

At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stepped on to the top of Mount Everest.

He wasn't Sir Edmund until he got to England and met a young woman named Elizabeth who had just been inaugurated Queen Elizabeth II. And she quickly knighted him.

Hillary had been climbing mountains since his youth and had, in fact, made several expedition climbs around Everest and other areas in the Himalayas before he ever set foot on the summit of Everest.

That brings to my mind so many other people, ordinary people, who do something extraordinary once that makes them famous. And I sometimes wonder what the rest of their lives were like.

How many other miles did the legendary messenger Pheidippides run before he was picked to bring the news of the successful battle of Marathon to the Greeks?

How many races did Roger Bannister run and win before he stepped across the finish line in less than 4 minutes?

How many hours did Neil Armstrong spend learning about space travel before he stepped on the moon?

How many wounds did Florence Nightingale patch up before she established her nursing school in England and write the book on contemporary nursing?

How much danger and brutality did Harriet Tubman endure before she escaped and began to rescue hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad?

How many hours did Rosa Parks spend sitting at the back of the bus before she took her rightful seat at the front?

These were ordinary people, like you and me, "sufficiently motivated" as Hillary put it, to face a challenge and win, not because they wanted to be famous, but because they believed in themselves and what they were doing.

There are many other heroes in the world who will never be famous, but whose lives are histories of problems solved, difficulties overcome and challenges met. Each of us may have an opportunity to join them. If it occurs, take it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys, and
never give up.
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Doing The Impossible

When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable to others.

Anais Nin
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Hello Sandy
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I went through a hellish time last week with a mountain of things wrong with this computer. Actually I think the computer was behaving itself, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. But the poor thing had been attacked by so many gremlins it was confused. There were files missing that couldn't be found, windows blocking the forward motion that wouldn't go away. strange pages popping up no one could explain. All in all, over 5 days I spent 18 hours on the phone.

One of the Vagabond Journey readers, Geo, offered the opinion that the hours I spent on the phone were ultimately going to make it easier for the next person. Certainly AOL, Verizon and HP keep records of the transactions so that other technicians can read up on what went on and how the problems were resolved. So, in a sense, I was blazing a trail for future clients with similar problems.

That makes me think about and be grateful for some of the trails I tread on that have been set down by others before me, problems solved that I don't have to face, people who struggled to make the world more tolerable for themselves and therefore for me.

In the case of one crucial file I was told that it could not be found, that it was permanently lost and was impossible to be restored. But a subsequent phone call brought me a man named Chris who did find it and restore it. He did the impossible.

I occasionally mention my elementary school science teacher who proclaimed that man would never fly to the moon because it was impossible. It was a well known fact that we could never get beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Then along came Werner von Braun and the Saturn V rocket. It did the impossible and we went to the moon.

In the film "Sea of Love" Al Pacino has a scene in which he plays two conflicting actions at the same moment. That is an impossibility for an actor. But he did it, so it is no longer impossible.

It was impossible for a human being to run a mile in less than 4 minutes until Roger Bannister did it.

Every day scientists, engineers, technicians, physicians, philosophers, artists, athletes, designers and craftspeople are confronting the impossible. And every now and then one of them does it.

There are those who would like to return to positions we have outgrown, to restore conditions that have been improved and, even worse, there are those who even refuse to believe that any progress has been made. I think the way to make the world tolerable for the human race is simply to not tolerate the impossible. What's next? If it can not be done, let's do it.

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

2 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answer.
DB
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The Race Is On

A runner must run with dreams in his heart.

Emil Zatopec



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I did some running in school but soon realized it was not the sport for me. Soon after each race began the pain set it and I realized it was an contest against pain, among other things. So I stopped. But I still admire watching good runners and can appreciate what they are doing to some degree.

The first famous runner of history was Pheidippides. The legend says that he ran from the battlefield where the very outnumbered Athenian army had just won the battle at Marathon against the Persians under King Darius. That story is probably not true, but the historian Herodotus wrote that Pheidippides did run 145 miles to plead with the Spartans to send help to the Athenians. At the end of the run he supposedly died from exhaustion. Not surprising. The Spartans did not send any help to the Athenians in spite of the hope Pheidippides carried in his heart. But the Athenians won the battle anyway.

Emil Zatopec, who is quoted above, was a gold medal winning runner from Czechoslovakia. One notable achievement of his was entering in to a marathon at the last minute, even though he had never run one before, and winning it.

Zatopec said of the start of his career, "I had to run, and when I got started, I felt I wanted to win. But I only came in second. That was the way it started."

Roger Bannister, now SIR Rager Bannister want to be a doctor. He started running as child, to and from school. He went on the astonish the world by running the mile in under 4 minutes, in spite of the myths spread that said it couldn't be done. Sir Roger said, "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."

The most recent history making runner is Edison Pena who with 32 other Chilean miners spend 69 days trapped under the ground. Not knowing for sure if they would ever get out alive, edison ran every day. He ran back and forth in that mine shaft. they were all eventually saved and Edison was invited to come to New York to watch the NYC Marathon. But Mr. Pena wanted to run instead so he did. Even though he had to stop for medical attention, he went back out and finished the race with ice taped around his knee. His time was 5 hours and 40 minutes.

Edison Pena said, "When I ran in the darkness, I was running for life. "I was running to show that I wasn't just waiting around. I was saying to that mine, 'I can outrun you. I'm going to run until you're just tired and bored of me.'"

We are all runners in this human race, and we must keep the dreams alive.

DB - The Vagabond

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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

Only 8 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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