It occurred to me today that we need to dare more.

If you have eighteen spare minutes, I would suggest that you watch one of the most important speeches in our nation’s history HERE. Every time I watch this video, I feel an array of different emotions. Usually, one of those is inspiration.

John F. Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 is required knowledge for space geeks, like myself, who have always wanted to reach for the stars, who have recently been frustrated with our nation’s lack of progress in this regard. This speech, along with a couple of other speeches on the same topic, given around the same time, really mark the call to arms that propelled us to the preeminent place in the space race. It was a challenge to our nation, a gauntlet thrown down, to then be picked up by the top aerospace engineers and scientists in our country, almost fifty-eight years ago.

Within seven years of that speech, we’d done the job, achieved the goal.

Now, I understand that the space race was largely political, and that many Americans didn’t see the point at the time; I’ve often wondered whether or not we would have even bothered to go to the moon, if it weren’t for the fact that the Soviet Union was vying for the same piece of property. But, the idea that we set that goal for ourselves, as a nation, and then we worked to make it happen –> that idea is part of what excites me and inspires me, every time I watch that speech.

The more I think about it, this speech should be something that everyone in America is required to watch. Despite the topic of the speech being about the space race to land someone on the moon in advance of other countries, who were racing us to do the same thing, the deeper meaning of the speech, beyond its particular context, is about striving, about daring. Whether or not we do the striving and the daring in competition against others, as we did in the space race, there is a whole lot to be said about reaching beyond what you think you can accomplish, to do even more.

Part of what has always inspired me about space is that it represents adventure. It is a place that we can’t get to without striving, and –when we were striving to get there– it brought the country together. Ambitious goals have a way of doing that; they unite us behind a common task to accomplish so that the team can see the mission and execute the plan.

To be honest, I think that America has not recently been daring, at least not the way that we used to be.

* * *

We must do what is hard, because the energy that we use when we do the hard things is energy that is spent, so that we might not have it to use for ill.

What I mean to say is this: I’ve noticed, in different organizations that I’ve belonged to, at different points in my life, that people who are not working hard to move forward, to make progress, are often gifted with energies –that they should have been spending on advancing– that they end up deciding to spend on endeavors of negativity. Maybe you’ve seen this, too; at your workplace, or in your family, or in some other organization to which you’ve belonged. In fact, I’ve seen it in so many instances that I am picking up on the trend.

When we are moving, as individuals, or as organizations of various kinds, in the direction of development, that pursuit gets our effort, it gets our energy. We don’t have the zeal for back-stabbing or gossip or pessimism or in-fighting when we are pursuing a goal, so those things end up happening less, in my opinion.

If you’ve ever been in an organization where this type of negativity was common –or maybe you are in an organization like this right now– let me ask you this question: “Was that organization, and its members, committed to making progress?”

The answer is no, isn’t it?!?!

Pursuit of a common goal tends to unify people in such a way that it becomes less appealing to be negative toward each other. With a communal vision in front of everybody, cooperation, teamwork, problem solving, and optimism are much more likely than they are when people are wondering what they should be doing.

* * *

We need goals, but chasing goals is dangerous, especially when we become uber-focused on the goal; take our space race as an example. We looked to the moon, we set our eyes on the moon and the plan was to land on the moon. And while we certainly achieved the goal, we haven’t been back to the moon in more than forty-seven years.

Sometimes, when you reach a goal, it doesn’t take long after that before you’ve lost interest in the striving. Without the next goal in place, the striving stops and the complacency sets in.

Or take my running as an example.

I set a goal, back in January, to get back in shape, to get back to running. In fact, I wanted to run a mile every day in 2020 (366 miles total for the year). As daunting as that might sound, especially if you are not a runner, it’s really not that hard if you put your mind to it. I was probably back in decent running form by March. But then, I wanted to get back to regular 5K running, and I ended up getting there in late April. Then, I wanted to achieve what I’d never done before, the 10K run –> I’ve done it four times in the last month.

The problem is: now what?!?! I’m not sure what to do next. It seems I’ve become fixated on goals; having met one, and then the next, and then the next, you keep having to set up a new carrot in front of yourself.

Rather, why can’t I just focus on advancing?

In my humble opinion, I think that we should commit to the concept of making progress, rather than chasing this goal and then that goal. If we can commit to just getting better, just improving, just surpassing, then the goals become almost secondary to the mission of moving ahead.

* * *

So, having written eleven hundred words on the subject, I haven’t even gotten to the real point of this post, the point I was wanting to make when I first sat down to start writing it. I took a big risk yesterday, and I wanted to talk about what being daring has taught me; alas, I’ve not even gotten there yet. So, more tomorrow on the subject of boldly going where no one has gone before.