I don’t have much to complain about from my childhood. I was born of goodly parents who loved each other and loved and supported me in all I did.
However, they did make one mistake. It’s a mistake I suspect many loving, involved, well-meaning parents make. You see, they were always telling me that I could be anything I wanted to be.
What I wanted to be was a professional basketball player. I was obsessed with basketball and put a lot of work into it. I played constantly and my sister, Laree, exaggerates only slightly when she says that I used to measure my height every day after school to see if I grew.
I was a neighborhood legend, an elementary school star, a decent junior high player, and an average high school player. Needless to say this left me miles away from the NBA.
While my parents supported my dream they knew that it was extremely unlikely to come true. In fact, while they were telling me I could be anything I wanted, they also often told me that I needed to put more effort into school and other pursuits and be well-rounded. I responded that “I am well-rounded. I like baseball and football almost as much as basketball.”
I definitely should have been putting more work into school, and by the time I did get serious about life it took me years to catch up. In fact, even now I sometimes think about what I might have accomplished if I had got serious and aimed higher at a younger age.
While I understand that parents want their kids to dream big, they also need to make it clear that most impossible dreams don’t come true, and while everyone can be successful at something, most of us can’t become anything we want.
Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance
Ernest Shackleton’s impossible dream was to become a famous explorer. When he organized and led the “Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition” in 1914 he appeared to be well on his way. The goal of the expedition was to cross the entire Antarctic continent on foot by way of the South Pole.
However, before getting to the Antarctic Shackleton’s ship, the aptly named Endurance, became frozen in sea ice. The crew was helpless to do anything as the ice slowly crushed the ship. In November 1915 Shackleton ordered the ship evacuated as water was pouring in and it was clear it was sinking.
Supplies necessary for survival on the ice were removed from the doomed ship and the men were told they could each take 2 pounds of personal items. As the men watched the sinking ship Shackleton saw his dream of becoming a famous explorer vanish. His impossible dream now was simply survival.
As the Endurance sank Shakleton made an interesting decision. Turning to the expedition’s meteorologist, Captain Leonard Hussey, who was a banjo player, he asked him where his banjo was? When Hussey informed Shackleton it was still on the ship, Shackleton told him to quickly retrieve it, stating, “We must have that banjo. It’s vital mental medicine.”
And so it proved to be. Shakleton recognized that survival would require keeping morale high, and he saw the banjo as a key to doing this.
Shackleton and his crew spent almost 6 months on the ice flow. During this time Shackleton kept discipline and morale high. Everyone had daily chores and they would often meet together for impromptu songs and stories. During storms Hussey and Shackleton would visit every tent with the banjo to administer the vital mental medicine.
As the ice started to break up they loaded everything into three lifeboats and eventually reached landfall on small, uninhabited Elephant Island. Although they were now on solid ground their situation was not much less desperate than before.
After several weeks on Elephant Island, Shackleton, giving up hope for rescue, devised a desperate plan. Picking a small crew and the sturdiest of the lifeboats he attempted a perilous open-sea voyage to South Georgia Island, over 700 miles away, which had an inhabited whaling station.
The journey took 15 days as the ship was buffeted by terrible storms. Somehow they not only survived, but landed on South Georgia Island, an incredible feet of navigation.
Even then the ordeal was not over. The whaling station was on the opposite side of the frozen island, and an ice-covered mountain was between them and safety. Without any climbing equipment except for a 50-foot rope they ascended the icy mountain and descended the other side to reach the safety of the whaling station.
Most of Shackleton’s crew was still stranded on Elephant Island, and Shackleton set out immediately to organize a rescue. The first three attempts failed due to the sea ice, but on the fourth attempt Shackleton successfully rescued his crew.
As he approached Elephant Island Shackleton anxiously counted the men on the shore. Miraculously, everyone had survived. About 10 months after the sinking of their ship the men were safe again.
Today Shackleton is not known as a great explorer, but he is celebrated as a great leader. Speaking of Shackleton one of his crew members from a prior expedition, Sir Raymond Priestley, commented, “For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Leonard Hussey and his banjo both survived the ordeal. The banjo is now displayed in the National Maritime Museum, its skin signed by a dozen of the surviving crew members.
When Shackleton was asked how he was able to save the seemingly doomed expedition, he simply replied,
“A man must shape himself to a new mark directly when the old one goes to ground.”
In other words, if your impossible dream doesn’t come true, identify a new dream that might, even if it is simply surviving.
Additional Reading: The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition
Bruce Feiler and the Council of Dads
Bruce Feiler’s impossible dream was to become a best-selling author, but after a decade of trying and getting nowhere he was on the verge of giving up. In desperation he hired a new agent, David Black, and a string of six best-sellers shortly followed. Feiler was one of the lucky ones. His impossible dream had come true.
But life tends to throw us curve balls, and in 2008 Feiler was dealt a doozy when he was diagnosed with bone cancer. Feiler’s twin daughters, Eden and Tybee, were 3 years old at the time, and with his prognosis uncertain Feiler came up with a unique plan.
Knowing there was a good chance he would not be around to raise his daughters Feiler assembled a Council of Dads, six men from different parts of his life, each with unique talents and an assigned role in mentoring his daughters. He set an appointment with each of them to interview them for the job. He wanted to make sure they would accept the responsibility willingly and take it seriously.
One person who Feiler wanted on the council was his agent, David Black, the man who Feiler credited for helping him make his own dream come true. Feiler interviewed Black for the position of dream-maker.
During the interview Feiler said, “So it’s twenty years from now. Tybee or Eden Feiler plops down in your barrel chair. She has a dream. She wants to open a restaurant, or climb a mountain, or run a marathon, or write a book. But she’s scared. I can’t. It’s too hard. I don’t have the money. What do you tell her?”
Black responded, “I tell her, ‘Let’s sit down and figure out what’s possible. Let’s make a road map to the top of the mountain, or a business plan for the restaurant, or an outline for the book. Let’s make the awesome mundane.”
But Feiler knew that most impossible dreams don’t come true. He knew that it takes more than talent. It also takes luck. So he asked the key question: “…And if, for some reason, that dream should fail?”
“Then I tell her, ‘Let’s find a dream that can work. It may not be the first dream, or the dream of the moment. But you shift your dreams. You find a dream that might come true. And when it does, you focus on the joy of the success rather than the devastation of the defeat. Because in my experience, anybody can dream an impossible dream. But only a few find a dream that’s possible. And those are the happy ones.”
With that profound answer Feiler knew he had found the right person to mentor his daughters’ dreams, and Black was offered a position on the council.
Fortunately Feiler’s treatment was successful, and for now at least the Council of Dads is on hold. Feiler has been given the opportunity to personally teach his daughters to dream big, but to also mix in some realistic dreams along with the impossible ones.
Opportunity Responds to a False Charge
Few pieces of conventional wisdom are as inaccurate and harmful as the inane proverb “Opportunity only knocks once.” In his powerful poem Opportunity Walter Malone gives the defendant voice to respond to the false charge:
They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in,
For every day I stand outside your door
And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.
While opportunity is always waiting outside your door, it is often in disguise. Thomas Edison, who famously failed thousands of times before inventing the light bulb, reminds us why many people believe the false charge:
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Believing that Opportunity has passed us by doesn’t require any work at all but identifying a realistic dream and making it come true takes lots of it. I think Jenkin Lloyd Jones was right when he wrote:
“Anyone who thinks that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old-time rail journey – delays, sidetracks, smock, dust, cinders, and jolts interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.”
And most impossible dreams don’t come true. But that’s OK. You can’t be anything you want, but you can be successful at something meaningful and important. So go ahead and dream big, but if your impossible dream doesn’t come true, identify another dream that might and get to work. For most of us, our lives will be defined by what we do after our impossible dream doesn’t come true.