Stop searching the world for treasure,
the real treasure is in yourself.
Pablo Valle
New Year’s Resolutions? Ha!
It is the still early in the new year, and many people are trying to work on their resolutions to do better. You know, the usual things we obsess about- to lose weight, quit smoking, begin writing, etc.
But, what if the obstacles you face aren’t just a matter of learning to say, “No” to something or altering your mindset. What if your obstacles cannot be manipulated or fixed by journaling, positive self talk and bathing yourself in positive affirmations? What if your new challenges mean finding whole new ways of walking through life, through pain and fear? Or in the case of the men and women I am about to tell you about, what if your new challenge means you have to learn to fly through it?
What happens when it is not just your mind that has been ravaged, but your body has been broken as well. Broken by accident, trauma… or war?
Standing at the rock and hard place
You know that old saying when it looks like there is no place to turn. In case you don’t, it is called “standing between the rock and the hard place.” Life’s difficult positions. But, no matter what thing ever befalls any of us, we only ever have two choices, two roads, two paths before us. You must eventually step on to one of these roads because you cannot live at the crossroads forever.
Some people only have to make the hard choice every couple of years or months. Sometimes you will find yourself in places and spaces where you have to choose between the difficult and the hard every few days, or moments. You must look inside and choose how you will respond to your current situation or set of circumstances.
What are your choices?
First, you can choose to buckle under the weight of the new challenge. You can choose to skulk away into a dark corner, and hide. This you can do physically or mentally, or sometimes both.
Or, you can choose to use what you have left and rise to meet the trial head-on the best way you can.
The Team
Over the next few months I want to share a few stories with you some stories about an amazing group of men and women who are embarking on an equally remarkable journey. People who have been wounded, maimed, broken, and have lost much, but still continue to fight back to live fuller lives than most of us ever dream of.
This is a company of inspiring men and women who have worked, sweated, and literally bled their way through rehab, learned to use their bodies in new and interesting ways, trained to fly special airplanes to prepare for what sounds like an impossible goal. But, if anybody can pull this off, these are the people I’d put my money on!
And… Do you remember Captain Luke Sinnott from the Para-Olympics?
He is on the team!
The Mission
The missions sounds “simple” enough. Take severely wounded pilots, all with very different physical challenges, teach them each to fly a micro-light airplane, change the controls of each plane to meet the individual’s physical needs of each pilot, culminating in an expedition to the South Pole. Every single pilot will fly their own specially retro-fitted plane to the Pole, and home again.
The focus of all of this training and the mission itself, is on their amazing courage, resilience, fortitude and abilities; not their disabilities. It puts a whole new meaning to the phrase that we are more than the sum of our parts.
I am stoked to have been asked to follow the journey, and to lend a few words to chronicling what living heroes are capable of doing.
Comment below and join us…. http://flyingforfreedom.org/
All photos supplied to me by and used with the express permission of “FlyingforFreedom.”
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