Do Hard Things

What a great title for the article I just read in ESPN The Magazine. It's on Zac Sunderland, a 17-year old who is just about to complete a solo sailing trip around the world. Such a great article. Here's an excerpt:

He had found that whenever he stopped -- in Grenada, in St. Helena, in Cape Town and Mauritius and Hawaii -- people hardly ever asked him about the places he'd been; they were more interested in where he was going. And the funny thing was, most people, most strangers, assumed he would fall back into an ordinary life. They assumed that, despite doing this one incredible thing, he would follow it by going to college and getting a job. Then he would retire, and then he would die; that was the accepted order of the universe. Except the strangers had no idea, not the way Zac did, just how big that universe was.

"When you talk about sailing 25,000 nautical miles at six knots, it's almost impossible to contemplate," he says. After all that he's been through, it is just as impossible for him to contemplate staying in one spot for more than a breath. Zac's worst nightmare has become standing still. "I'd rather be caught in a storm than caught in the Doldrums," he would tell them.

There's no doubt that this experience will change this kid's life. As I read it I thought a lot about his parents. Crazy parents...awesome parents. I hope that I always encourage my boys to dream, risk, live lives of adventure, and, do hard things.

For more on Zac, check out his blog.