Today is the 40th anniversary of the first time man walked on the moon.
I remember when Neil Armstrong took those famous steps. I remember sitting on the floor right in front of the TV, almost as if I could climb right into the TV and walk with him. My Dad sat in his usual corner of the couch, Mom in the other corner. I was eleven. My brother was also in the room; but at the age of five, I’m not sure he really understood what was happening.
I remember Dad taking a picture of the TV screen as Armstrong stepped off the ladder on to the lunar surface, as if he wanted to be sure that the event was recorded for posterity’s sake. I remember holding my breath as Armstrong took each step; afraid the excitement might end if I exhaled! I remember laughing as Armstrong and Aldren seemed to be having fun playing on the moon. I recall looking out of the window, desperately trying to see the lunar module on the moon’s surface.
I remember feeling a sense of sheer amazement at what might be possible from here. Could we build a town on the moon? Could the average citizen go to the moon someday? Would we go to Mars, next? I wondered what it felt like to be the person who planted the U.S. flag in the moon’s surface. How awesome it was that we could accomplish such a thing.
With all of the advance publicity of network coverage marking today’s anniversary, one quote stood out to me. In 1962, nearly seven years before the moon walk, President Kennedy said,
But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Are you fully present to all of the opportunities before you? Not just the easy ones, but the difficult ones, too? Or, do you not even consider what might be viewed as impossible by others? What might you miss if you don’t follow the difficult path? Why not accept the challenge that would best test your energies and skills?
Why not shoot for the moon?
The image above was catalogued by NASA Headquarters of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: GPN-2001-000013 AND Alternate ID: AS11-40-5903, and is in the public domain.
