In a small mountain village in the western United States, a teenager from a poor family wrote his extraordinary lifelong wish at the age of 15:
To explore the Nile, the Amazon, to climb Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro...
The boy's name was John Goddard. After writing down 127 wishes, he said to himself, This is my life wish.
From then on, John Goddard would carry his dream catalog with him wherever he went. As soon as he has time, he will take it out and see it, imagining how he will realize his dreams.
At the age of 16, he and his father went on an expedition to the Okfinokee Swamp in Georgia, where he fulfilled his first wish.
At the age of 18, he left his hometown. At the age of 20, he became an Air Force pilot and flew 33 combat missions over Europe. At the age of 21, he had traveled to 21 countries and had made it possible to dive in the Caribbean, Aegean and Red Seas.
In 1954, John Goddard completed the full course of rafting on the Colorado River. In 1956, he sailed the Congo River in Africa. In the wilderness of South America, Borneo, and New Guinea, he lived with tribes that cut off enemies' heads as trophies and ate people.
In order to raise funds and realize his desire for adventure, John Goddard actively developed his career, becoming a filmmaker and orator.
In the process of fulfilling his wishes one by one, John Goddard has had countless experiences of escaping death.
While climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, he encountered an avalanche and was even chased by ferocious snow leopards; Attacked by hippos and crocodiles in the Congo River, he almost died in the belly of a fish; In the African savannah he was rammed by elephants and rhinos and nearly killed.
In Egypt, he was robbed by river robberies, in the Sahara Desert, encountered a sandstorm, almost buried alive, survived in the desert with a temperature of more than 140 degrees but was trapped in quicksand, contracted malaria and dysentery, etc.
In the amazon primeval forest, he was bitten by a rattlesnake and nearly stoned by a group of hostile natives.
He also experienced a plane crash and nearly drowned in rapids and deep-sea diving four times.
But John Goddard still survived this thrill and continued his glory.
At the age of 22, John Goddard discovered an ancient temple of the Mayan civilization deep in Guatemala's virgin forests. That same year, he became the youngest-ever member of the Los Angeles Explorers Club. He later became a member of the Royal Geographical Society and enjoyed a high reputation as an explorer.
Not only that, he also wrote down his adventure experience and completed the creation of two books, "Nile Drifting Boat" and "Survivor".
By the time John Goddard was nearly 60 years old, he had fulfilled 106 of his 127 wishes. This is a miracle in the eyes of an ordinary person.
John Goddard said: "I don't want to live a life of conformism, I want to constantly challenge the limits, like an eagle, through these experiences, I feel the meaning of giving practice and the value of life." 」 ”
John Goddard's success was largely due to the goals he set as a teenager. All his thoughts were tightly pulled by the wishes of that life, and after countless tests of life and death, he had turned a dream that was difficult for ordinary people to reach into a reality.
He embarked on a legendary career as the greatest explorer and dream come true in history.
