How to Design a Life Worth Smiling About: Developing Success in Business and in Life

CHAPTER 4

HOW TO MOVE BEYOND YOUR AUTOMATIC THINKING

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits one-self, then Providence moves too.

—W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)

Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program, and the third that was intended to land on the Moon. I say intended, since it never actually landed there. Because of a series of horrible malfunctions, the crew had to turn around and come back to Earth. One of the major challenges the mission faced involved something called the air scrubbers. These were the devices that took carbon dioxide ...