Lovely morning.When we want to start something, we don’t always get the support of the people around us. Sometimes they don’t say it out of malice, but because they really care about us and because of their own experiences. For some, it may have stopped them from doing what they wanted to do.
However, people who have succeeded in something are often called pioneers, but a pioneer is someone who has set his or her own goals and objectives, blazing a trail of roses where no one had gone before. It’s only in the last couple of decades that we’ve come to a time when we have all sorts of devices that make it easy to find out about everything. Until then, the only information available to us was in the form of books and the lore of our ancestors.
And I don’t think that they supported what we wanted to do with certainty. When I think of the courage of those who set out on a voyage in a time when the earth was thought to be flat, relying on the sun during the day and the stars and moon at night, I really feel an indescribable emotion. The idea that the Earth is round was first put forward by Pythagoras and Aristotle 2,500 years ago in Greece, but it was not until the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries that the general public became aware of the Earth’s roundness.
When Columbus headed west across the Atlantic, many people still thought that the edge of the Atlantic Ocean was where the sea water fell towards the abyss. It was only when Magellan and his crew sailed round the world that everyone finally accepted that the earth was round. That was in 1522, 2000 years after the time of Pythagoras.
It must have been the sun by day, the moon and the stars by night, and the hope that they had at that time, that guided them.
Those of you who are reading my thoughts now are people who can read and think in English. If there is something you want to do, it is never too late to start a new world of your own imagination. You can grab information on a variety of devices, much less in English. The amount of information available in English can be even more formidable. Think of the advice of those around you as something you need to be aware of at the time, and appreciate the kindness of those who care about you, but step out into the world to do what you want to do, and the world you see will look different to the world you have seen before.