Think Like An Astronaut
Be faithful to that which exists within yourself. Andre Guide
From the time as a young boy, staring at the television screen on that magical July night in 1969, watching spellbound as Neil Armstrong stepped down from his spacecraft and placed his foot on the lunar surface, Chris Hadfield was determined to be a astronaut.
It was a long, arduous journey from then to the time Commander Hadfield, perched high in the heavens in the space station in 2012 sang his famous rendition of David Bowie’s Space Odyessy to countless millions of people down on earth.
Only after reading his book, a gift from a special friend who herself knows how long the journey can be, was I able to even begin to comprehend and appreciate the number of years, study, personal sacrifice, countless hours of hard work and devotion that resulted in his amazing achievement..
No overnight success story. It wasn’t easy. There was nothing ‘instant’ about his journey. Getting to space was about so many human qualities and values, among them competency. It’s a word we hear little about this days. Describing the effort it took he wrote:
“……. The upshot of all this is that we become competent, which is the most important quality to have if you are to be an astronaut – or, frankly, anyone, anywhere, who is striving to succeed at anything at all. Competence means keeping your head in a crisis, sticking with a task even when it seems hopeless and improvising good solutions to tough problems when every second counts. It encompasses ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.
Astronauts have these qualities not because we’re smarter than everyone else…. it’s because we are taught to view the world – and ourselves – differently. My shorthand for it is ‘thinking like an astronaut.’ But you don’t have to go to space to learn to do that.
It’s mostly a matter of changing your perspective.”
Page 36. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life. Chris Hadfield.