Day 15: Creative Writing Challenge

This is a 30-day writing challenge for the month of March where I will write a new post about a picture/video/idea each day.

At First Glance

Is that Elon Musk?

Boy is wearing a cardboard helmet reading a book.

There are a lot of nice stars visible along with a gorgeous looking moon.

The boy appears to be standing on a rooftop of a building in a city.

The boy is smiling and appears to be happy about where he currently is.

The Story Behind the Picture

Before Space X and Blue Origin entered the space race, there was a young boy who shared a similar life goal. It was 8 year old Dan and his interest in space that drove his passion to want to see what was on Mars.

Growing up, Dan wanted to be an astronaut. He loved everything about space and read all the books he would be able to get his hands on. Dan rented books from libraries, asked his parents to buy him space related things on his birthdays and for Christmas, and created his own space exploration club at his elementary school with his tools.

Dan started learning about Mars when he was around 5 years old and learned that it might be possible to live on a different country, other than Earth. Dan had loving parents, two older siblings who took care of him when the parents were away, and lots of friends at his school. He loved Earth, but wanted his life pursuit to be finding a way to get to Mars.

He spent ages 6 — 7 to read up on everything he could about Mars, and what it takes to sustain life on another planet. Dan, at aged 8, was interested in learning about rocket science and learning about how he can get to other planets.

As he got older, Dan’s dreams kind of took a turn. He ended up going to college for Physics and became an Engineer for a fin-tech company in New York. The job paid well and he was very good at what he did. Dan however, was not fulfilled.

At age 30, in 2006, he learned about a company called Space X who shared a similar passion that he did growing up. Dan looked at this opportunity as a sign that he should be doing what he loved. He already spent so long as a child theorizing the idea of living someplace other than Earth and wanted to continue that pursuit all over again.

With school, relationships, and financial concerns Dan was unable to pursue his passion growing up. After finding this company, he fell in love with the field again and brought a collection of new books and courses to help him learn how far he had come in his career.

Dan started a blog highlighting all the cool things he had learned while learning about Space. After about 2 years of constant learning and posting, he received job offers from Blue Origin and Space X. Both companies shared the same vision Dan had so it was a difficult decision to make.

Dan opted to go with Space X as it was the company that brought him back into his passion for space exploration. He is currently the Director of Research Technology at Space X and loves waking up each morning.

When you follow your passion and showcase those ideas to the world, someone eventually will find you. In the meantime, you continue to enjoy what you love doing and pursue it with all the energy and heart that you can. The money can come after. Most people feel that they can no longer pursue their dreams after college. This is just a great short story to show that you can pursue your passion — even if it doesn’t make you money. Because in the end, Dan got a great position at a prestigious company all from just following his passion. Even if he did not end up getting a job, the time he spent learning about a field he had interest in did not go to waste.