Larry was a truck driver, but his life-long
dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force
in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. So
when he finally left the service, he had to satisfy himself with watching
others fly the fighter jets that crisscrossed the skies over his backyard. As
he sat there in his lawn chair, he dreamed about the magic of flying.
Then one day Larry Walters got an idea. He went
down to the local army-navy surplus store and bought a tank of helium and
forty-five weather balloons. These were not your brightly colored party
balloons, these were heavy-duty spheres measuring more than four feet across
when
fully inflated
Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach
the balloons to his lawn chair, which was just a typical aluminum lawn chair,
the kind you might have in your own back yard. He and some friends anchored the
chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with helium. He took
a CB radio, sandwiches, cold drinks, a camera, and his pellet gun, figuring he
could pop a few of the balloons when it was time to return to earth.
His preparation complete, Larry Walters sat in
his chair and cut the anchoring cord. His plan was to lazily float up a couple
hundred feet, spend awhile enjoying the wonder of flight he’d been dreaming
about all his life, then float back down to terra firma. But things didn’t
quite work out that way.
When he cut the cord, he didn’t lazily float up;
he shot up as if fired out of a cannon! He didn’t go up a couple of hundred
feet, either. He rocketed up and up until he finally leveled off at 16,000
feet. That’s almost three miles straight up into the atmosphere. At that height,
he was afraid to risk deflating any of the balloons lest he unbalance the load
and really experience flying. But after 45 minutes, he did shoot several
balloons, then accidentally dropped his pellet gun overboard. He slowly
descended, and got caught in some utility lines, causing a twenty minute
blackout in a Long Beach neighborhood. But at least he was able to climb down.
Unfortunately, while up there, Larry had drifted
into the approach corridor for Los Angeles International Airport, which put him
in violation of FAA regulations concerning flying in an airport zone without
maintaining two-way communication with control, so the minute he landed he was
arrested. As he was being led away in handcuffs, a television reporter called
out, “Mr. Walters, why did you do it?” Larry stopped, eyed the man, and then
replied nonchalantly, “A man can’t just sit around!” (Wikipedia)
It’s hard not to have some degree of admiration
for a man like that. Sure, his idea was crazy and foolishly dangerous, pretty
ludicrous. But the fact is, flying was his lifelong dream and he decided to go
after it. When you consider how many people in this world are satisfied to risk
nothing, to try nothing, to imagine nothing, you begin to appreciate someone
like Larry Walters. You begin to respect that he was someone consumed with a
mission. And not only did he have the vision and strategic plan to carry it
out, he had the passion that was willing to take risks in spite of the odds. “A
man just can’t sit around!” As a matter of fact, Mr. Walters was in brief
demand after his stunt, as a motivational speaker.
So many people are satisfied with a life mission
of simply trying to make it to death safely. But in the end, when they look
back on their life, do you think they feel satisfied and meaningful?
Howard Hendricks puts it this way: “A mission is
a charge, a guiding mandate that defines a task. In fact, ‘mission’ derives
from a word that means ‘to send’ or ‘sent.’ Thus a person with a mission is a
person with a purpose. He is out to accomplish something. He feels a sense of
responsibility to fulfill that purpose, and if he is genuinely dedicated to it,
it guides his actions.” (Hendricks)
This is how it worked with Larry Walters.
Everything he thought and planned and ended up doing was guided by his one
mission and purpose in life – to fly one way or another. Imagine the thinking
and planning he had to do to accomplish this. Imagine the risk of ridicule he
faced as he may have shared his plan with others. What do you think those sales
clerks said when he bought 48 big weather balloons and the helium to fill them
up? How about that airlines pilot? Mission-focused living is risky. But in the
end, it’s the only way to live successfully and effectively.
So have you ever asked yourself the question,
What is my purpose in life? What is my mission? Why am I here? Why am I using
up oxygen on this planet? What is my life all about?
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