Here’s what I will take away from our 30 minutes with Commander Chris Hadfield:
Hadfield recounted being nine years old and thinking, “I want to be an astronaut.” From there he got an engineering degree, joined the military, became a test pilot and eventually the first Canadian to command the International Space Station and first Canadian to walk in space. However grand his dreams were as a nine-year-old, I have to believe he achieved all of them.
As we talked I couldn’t help but think that when he was nine, there must have been thousands (if not millions) of other kids who said “I want to be an astronaut” as well. Surely some of them continued chasing that dream for longer than it takes a thought to flutter from a child’s head. And a few must have been as dedicated as Hadfield to their schooling and training. And for whatever reason, it didn’t work out for them. They never got to fly to space/become an Internet legend/write a New York Times bestseller. There has to be a certain degree of luck and ‘right time, right place’ that goes into Hadfield’s heroic story.
Hadfield said if he had never been able to go to space, or command the International Space Station, his life still would have been a success. Sure there wouldn’t be close to a million followers on Twitter, but he had so many great experiences along the way that were so precious to him, they are the reward for his decades of hard work.
We may not achieve the success we have in our wildest dreams. Almost certainly I will never call a college basketball game alongside the legendary Dick Vitale. But so many wonderful things have happened as I chased the goals of the 14-year-old me that I will have no regrets.
I thank Commander Hadfield for reminding me of something Ernest Hemingway once wrote:
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
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