Today is April 23 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is "How often do you exercise rebellion?"
Navigating the chaos often requires you to exercise rebellion in order to accomplish that which others said was impossible.
Frenchman wire-walker Philippe Petit and Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba provide two examples of individuals who exercised rebellion and accomplished what no one else ever did.
In 1974, Petit took a calculated risk, which took years of planning, and walked across a tightrope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Knowing with one false step he could plummet 1,350 feet to the ground,
Philippe walked back and forth eight times, totaling appropriately 45 minutes. Petit walked across the wire a week before his 25th birthday. As Petit said "Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every ideas as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope."
He had been dreaming of making this walk since he had read about plans to construct the towers in a magazine when he was 17 years of age. His fascination with wire walking started when he was young. By the time he accomplished "the coup" he had been practicing wire walking for over ten years. The 2009 film Man on Wire told Petit’s story and won the Academy Award for best documentary.
According to Petit “life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge—and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.”
At 71 years of age, Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba exercised rebellion and completed three solo-trans Atlantic kayak trips. He once kayaked the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle. Along the way, he was thrown from his kayak in a storm. The rope tethering Doba to the kayak came undone. He passed out.
He woke up on shore to the sound of screaming-his own. Doba does not regret this experience. He has no interest in dying in his bed. For Doba, “If you aren’t willing to suffer, you can do nothing. You can sit and die.”
At 71 years of age, Polish kayaker Aleksander Doba saw each day as a challenge and completed three solo-trans Atlantic kayak trips.
He once kayaked the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle. Along the way, he was thrown from his kayak in a storm.
The rope tethering Doba to the kayak came undone. He passed out. He woke up on shore to the sound of screaming-his own. Doba does not regret this experience.
He has no interest in dying in his bed.
For Doba, “If you aren’t willing to suffer, you can do nothing. You can sit and die.”