The Hard Work of a Better Future
“Houston, we’ve had a problem here!” Astronaut John “Jack” Swigert said during the Apollo 13 mission on April 13, 1970. The movie Apollo 13 changed the phrase to “Houston, we have a problem!” which I must admit rolls off the tongue a little easier. I’ve recently had several conversations that have brought up space travel, moon landings, and the possibility of getting to Mars. I don’t know how we managed to get there from a discussion in the Gospel of John, but I digress. It did make me think about NASAand the audacious idea of putting a person on the moon, though. It is definitely something that I don’t normally expend intellectual energy on.
As I revisited the idea, I was drawn to the brazen vision of doing something that no one had done before, which many thought was impossible - or necessary. The idea of taking a chance and convincing a group of people to take the chance together for the betterment of everyone. It takes courage to share an idea and even more courage to invite people to join you in it.
President John F. Kennedy did that during a speech at Rice University to promote his plan of putting the Johnson Space Center in Houston and to use land that Rice owned to accomplish this task. 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?” Then he added another impossible goal, one he had jotted in the margin only minutes earlier: “Why does Rice play Texas (in football)?” He ended his speech by saying, “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 … .”
This led me to reflect on being a leader. Leading is hard. Everyone knows what they’d do if they were leading, but not everyone (most actually) will choose to lead. I was thinking about our city and county leaders and how they are in a position to lead us to take some bold steps now so that we can experience a better future. It also means that our kids and grandchildren can experience a better future, too.
Consider these - reestablishing our hospital, trying a four-day school week, building new parks, trails, and recreational facilities (swim, soccer, baseball, softball, and more), redoing a water and sewage system, and on and on it goes. Those are hard. Not everyone is willing to put in the hard work and take on the responsibility and ridicule that come with leading. However, our leaders continue to lead because they genuinely believe that the hard work will ultimately lead to a better future.
We are not going to be building NASA and sending people to the moon here in La Grange, but that does not mean the dreams are not big and important - maybe even more critical. I’d love to ride my bicycle with my grandkids down the sidewalks to the city pool and watch them splash the day away, or be able to go to the emergency room here in La Grange if ever needed. It is not possible today, but through some hard work, it can be.
Our leaders have big dreams - for a better tomorrow - and many of the projects are going to be hard. We can settle, complain, bicker, and hold on to the way we’ve always done it, or we can dare to do something many say is impossible. Let’s work together to do the impossible - be modern-day astronauts. LG? Fayette County? Are you ready for launch . . 5 . . .4...3...2...1...Blastoff!