My Favorite Lines

When I first looked at this piece of low-laying jungle land years ago, 350 yards from the closest dirt track, only reachable through dense tropical forest, bamboo knots, and brambles filled with all sorts of nasty and biting vermin, I knew I wasn’t man enough tackle the project of establishing a homestead deep in the backwaters of nowhere, certainly not on the shoestring budget that I had in my pocket at the time.

Then, one day, I was looking through an old journal (the basis of which became “A Theory of Flight”) and found a line I had written as a younger, more idealistic man:

“All those who failed have one thing in common: they believed enough to try. It is the same for those who succeeded. Perhaps, you cannot decide your fate, but you can decide whether your faith is equal to the attempt.”

I took a deep breadth and plunged headlong into the project. It was the most challenging project I’d ever attempted. It took nearly three years. It took more than I had ever imagined. It was one of the big journeys of my life.

The lesson: Don’t re-read stuff your younger idealistic self wrote!