There is a new movie about to be released, and the storyline has caught my imagination. It sounded like a dumb story at first, but then I learned it’s a true story. Now, just because its true doesn’t mean it can’t also be a terrible plot line for a movie. This one is about John “Chickie” Donohue and his beer run. See what I mean?! But, when you get into the story, it’s good. “Chickie” is a Marine veteran working as a merchant seaman in 1967 during the Vietnam war. During a conversation with friends at a bar (always leads to trouble!), they talk about going to Vietnam and delivering a case of beer to their buddies fighting the war as a show of support. Terrible idea. Imagine traveling from the United States to Vietnam to deliver beer in the middle of a war to six friends in active duty, and you don’t even know where they are….Impossible!!!
Chickie decided to do it. Since the outcome was already shared in the interview about the movie, I’ll share it here without spoiling it. He succeeded. The interview included Chickie and 4 of his friends. When asked if he thought it would impossible, Chickie’s response was simply, “I know how to get there (Vietnam), and I thought it would be impossible, but I had to try, and if I failed, I failed”. One of the friends who he delivered beer to in Vietnam told him, “You have a great heart; it’s your head I am worried about.” 😊This caught my attention because he did the impossible, without care of failure.
We all know it’s not easy to do the “impossible”, but how do we know something is impossible if we don’t at least try? Chickie knew success was not likely, but was not afraid to fail and tried it anyway. He disregarded the attempts to dissuade him, set aside the belief that it could not be done and the fear of failure, and just did it. As he said, if he failed, he failed. But he had to try.
This made me wonder, how often do we not even try because we assume it’s either impossible or too hard? Why would we limit ourselves that way? Impossibility is challenged every day, more often than we think. Most notable innovations started with what seemed to be an impossibility. Consider the Wright brothers with flight, Kennedy and NASA landing on the moon, and Roger Bannister with the 4 min mile. The list goes on and on. Consider what we could all accomplish if we set aside fear of failure and assumptions of impossibility and just got started? That is what caught my imagination—the world of possibilities that opens up when we set aside our assumptions and fears to simply get started.
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” – Walt Disney
What do you think is impossible that you will tackle and see, it is possible?
Have a great weekend.
-Vijay