The people I admire most

I was recently asked to name the people I admire most. It took me a while to come up with a few. It's not something I go around thinking about, or a list I have in my head. (I won't share the whole list here, but Yoda is on it.) As I went through the names, I tried to identify the common features, and then I hit upon it. All of the people on my list have successfully let go and soared, in some way or another. Maybe that's what I admire because that's what I seek.

It reminded me of one of my favorite stories, and I realized the story embodies this principle that I admire:

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.”

The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!”

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!”

And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”

But they cried the more, “Savior!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior.

Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

I love this story. Every extraordinary person was once ordinary. You just have to have the courage to let go.

Is there a common thread among the people you admire most? Write about it on your blog and leave a comment here so we can come read.