Vision

NASA DIRECTOR:

. . . This could be the
worst disaster NASA's ever experienced.

GENE KRANTZ (FLIGHT DIRECTOR - WHITE):
- With all due respect, sir. I believe this is gonna be our
finest hour.

I've been seeing things all wrong. As I look back over my posts and my thoughts for the last several weeks, I know I have been worrying about potential difficulties and obstacles that the weather or the course or happenstance might throw in my path to make this Ironman unsuccessful. I've been worried about doing worse at this one than in the first one. I've even been worried about not finishing this one because conditions turn out to be more difficult than the first one. Some might call that type of vision realistic. I call it cloudy, cowardly even.

The people I admire--that we all admire--in history and literature don't ignore the difficulties and obstacles; but, they always seem to see beyond them to the outcome they desire. In seeing life like that, all the obstacles and difficulties simply become stair steps or ascents--the more difficult or steeper they are, the greater the victory or success when they are overcome.

We see that kind of vision in Gene Krantz, flight operations director for the Apollo space program who doggedly worked to bring his astronauts home. Contrast Krantz with the NASA engineer in the movie who seeks only to cover his butt by refusing to take responsibility for procedures and equipment that had not been tested under these conditions. He was the bureaucratic realist. Krantz was the opposite. Breakdown after snafu after screw up conspired to make it seem impossible, and yet Krantz saw past the hurdles to the outcome he wanted, and rightly foresaw that it would be NASA's finest hour.

We see that kind of vision in Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech where, outnumbered by the French, King Henry does not bemoan the troops he lacks. On the contrary, he bids any reluctant participant to depart:

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
* * *
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

Henry had the common, English long bowman who was more than a match for the French cavalry. "All things be ready, " he declared, "if our minds be so." He was right. The French were cut down before they could even engage. Henry and his "few, [his] happy few" garnered glory that Henry (at least the Shakespearean version) foresaw. They became the eternal archetype for the "Band of Brothers."

Finally, we see that kind of visionary leadership in Winston Churchill, who knew very well that his countrymen were about to be pummled to within an inch of their very existence by the worst that modern warfare had to offer at the time. He called for a kind of sacrifice that this country, by all modern observations, would never tolerate in our current mindset. But he did so while seeing past the obstacles to the British Empire's "finest hour."

Now, I fully recognize that triathlon and Ironman are nowhere near as important or as significant as warfare or the saving of human life. Nevertheless, these far more serious pursuits have something to teach me. Starting now, I'm through with my old way of thinking. If the lake is cold, it's cold. The colder it is, the greater the accomplishment in overcoming it. If the course his hilly or windy or hard, so be it. I will find a way, and when I do, the finish line will be all the sweeter.

In the words of Sir Winston, "Do your worst, and we shall do our best."