Thinking big

By Lynette Sowell
 
You can’t just send a toy up into space...or can you? Most of us keep pretty busy with the usual stuff of life: work, family, kids, pets, household “stuff,” etc. We don’t wonder about things like that. A lot of us spend our time wondering if Wal-Mart or HEB will have a parking spot, if the latest movie will be decent, if our kid’s nose will quit running.
 
When do we stop asking questions that make us pause and wonder about possibilities? When cleaning out our shed some time ago, my husband rediscovered one of my old treasured possessions, an autographed print by the late astronaut James Irwin. The print shows Irwin standing on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission. He wrote me a simple message: “Dream big!” I remember meeting him more than 20 years ago when I was a young undergrad and listening to his stories of preparing to do what few on earth have done, go to the moon.
 
The print traveled with me to Texas and somehow during life’s twists and turns, it was buried in a file folder and put in storage. However, I always knew it was there, somewhere. Now that I have a home office, the print is going to be framed and hung on the wall, right where it should be. I always thought dreaming big was a great idea, but somehow circumstances can make our day-to-day lives seem very small.
 
But dreaming big, thinking big. We don’t do those things very often because I think we’ve lost the childlike faith in possibilities. Two 17 year old young men from Canada, though, reminded me of the importance of not just dreaming big, but thinking big. They wondered: Could they launch a Lego man higher than any Lego had been before?
 
Not for a school assignment, but in their spare time over a four-month period, the two friends spent $400, purchasing a weather balloon, three poin-tand-shoot cameras, a wide-angle video camera, and a cell phone with GPS. Their Lego man holding a Canadian flag was strapped to their makeshift creation. They researched weather and wind conditions, intending to launch their balloon and retrieve it (if possible) when conditions were right.
 
The boys’ contraption worked, capturing amazing footage and soaring to a height of 80,000 feet and into near space. It took 65 minutes to reach that altitude, then just over 90 minutes to return to earth and land about 75 miles away.
 
The video Lego Man In Space has been viewed over 1,800,000 times on YouTube.
 
For Lego Man to go anywhere, the boys had to not just dream big, but think big. They gave up Saturdays and free time. They invested what money they could in the project. They definitely got out of their comfort zone. Most 17 year olds run the other direction if something feels too much like a school project. As a reward, doors opened for both of them and their big thinking was rewarded. Canon offered them cameras, their project was paid for, they heard from NASA and the Lego corporation.
 
Enough about them.
 
How much we will miss if we ignore the idea of thinking big. Imagine what could happen if we followed that little idea out of our little worlds, took a few steps away from the mundane routine, and turned the dream into a goal?
 
“A goal is a dream taken seriously.”
 

 

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