Remember when you were small and you had a dream of what you might want to be, like an astronaut, fireman or woman, work a cash register, whale trainer etc ?
Well over the summer I had the pleasure of watching one such dream come true.
For the last few months I've been following the around the world sailing trip of Zac Sunderland. Zac wanted to be the youngest to ever circumvent the earth in a sail boat. He was 17 at the time.I was fine tuned into his blog so when he arrived at his global goal on July 17th I was absolutely thrilled. It was a journey which had many twists and turns.
I didn't expect that his record would be broken only a month later by another younger 17 year old Mike Perham. As I was watching his story another voyage was announced......this time a 13 year old girl ,Laura Dekker, is trying to thwart the child protection agency of Holland by becoming a New Zealand citizen, just so she can sail around the world by herself.
For whatever reason their stories greatly inspire me. It brings back the age of exploration. It's on a grand scale like climbing Mt.Everest, Columbus heading towards the horizon even when those around him thought the world was flat. Perhaps the greatest part of their journeys are to discover themselves. I cannot think of a better example of child-lead learning. As outrageous and dangerous as these trips sound there had to be a lifetime of preparation for these two young people to be able to succeed in their goals. They didn't just wake up one morning and get in a boat and start sailing. It was a test of an already established life.
Could I send my teen out on a sailboat to go around the world? Not today,but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't support a major goal with the appropriate prep time and work. Like playing piano in a foreign country, or taking photos in a recently quieted war zone, studying in a different country, going to the moon as a tourist or building a school in Africa.
In our family, whatever our dreams of the moment are, we support them fully. Is there nothing better than to create a dream into reality?
what dream would you like to become real ?
