Passion, Perseverance and Resilience (PPR) – that’s how to strive high and far in life.
In the photo above are two men who inspire me the most with their PPR mindset.
The one in the background screen was my father. When barely even an adult, he (and many young men his age) had to join the army, and within his time in the military, participate in wars (he as tank commander).
When away on military duty days, he took many photos (I now have those albums), as an amateur photographer, kind of like his personal documentation of life in war time – through the photos though, you can see how he kept his spirits up considering the situation. Years later, as a father for the first time, I, his firstborn, became the subject for his photography hobby (if only smartphones were around then!).
He saw beauty everywhere; he believed in peace.
So much so that he didn’t want his children to go through war (live in it or be part of military), that he took the bold decision to start life again in Canada.
A little risky, with no relative or friend on this new continent, we didn’t speak French or English, a new school in the middle of the year, and for my father, an entry to the country through entrepreneurship (that alone a little risky for anyone doing it, let alone in a new country).
But he was adventurous by nature, resilient, and passionate. And just wanted to move forward in a safe, peaceful, free [of conflict] environment.
Sadly, just one year after coming to Canada, he tragically lost his life in a work accident (when I was seven years old).
The man sitting on the chair is Alan Stern, my partner in life.
An executive in the space industry, a scientist, a technical expert in his field, but his career is more than work – it’s his lifestyle. That alone defines passion.
His perseverance as PI (Principal Investigator) of the NASA New Horizons mission, the mission that took a spacecraft to the farthest planet of our solar system, Pluto, speaks for itself. (Read the book “Chasing New Horizons” written with co-author David Grinspoon, to really grasp on this concept of “perseverance”).
The resilience is overcoming all the obstacles he faced in his journey, and to still want to strive forward.
Back to passion, in many, including for my father and for Alan, it’s about being adventurous too.
In just a matter of a little over a year in between, Alan both: dove down to the wreck of the Titanic and went to space as researcher on a Virgin Galactic spaceflight. (I won’t go into details here on either, but those are both extreme explorations and definitely adventurous things to do.)
The photo at the top of my father was the last slide in a talk Alan gave in New Zealand (I didn’t know he was going to share it). He spoke about his Virgin Galactic spaceflight, the suborbital industry and space industry in general.
He showed it because the dog tag my father is seen wearing, Alan had brought to both: his submersible ride down to the depths of the ocean, as well as on his spaceflight. (A bit of a tradition to bring something of importance of your friends and family to that venturous place and then give back when safely returned from trip.)
He ended his talk with that slide as a personal note, to show how the activities he spoke of, although with risk involved, were also special, (where less than 700 humans have been to space , 200-something have dove to the Titanic – and only just six have done both!), more importantly for Alan, space, where he dreamed of going all his life, finally happened – a special experience for him but also, taking with him a momento of mine.
In the days my father wore those dog tags, he never imagined where they would one day go.
In his lifetime, the Titanic’s sinking spot was not known, much less was the Titanic even visible.
And although people had gone to space, mostly only part of the Apollo missions of the 1960s, there was no space station or any regular presence of humans in space. There were no rockets as we know them today, or suborbital spaceflights, nor did we have any of the many gadgets and tools we rely on thanks to the space innovations of today.
In his days, we did not yet have the Internet, or PCs for that matter, and if the ATM banking (“Interact” in Canada) was around, it was only just beginning!
The exponential growth of technology can be mindboggling when looking even to the not so far past.
My father, with his almost fearless way of being, if only he could see what life is like today! He would have loved it!
Life is short and delicate, and when we’re gone, we are just not part of those experiences of tomorrow.
But living life with passion, perseverance and resilience (love, friendship and happiness too) as much as we can, is all we can really do for a fulfilling life.
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