Thread: Welcome home Jessica Watson

Originally Posted by subasurf

Yeah, god forbid the media shows a feel good story for once. Shame on them. I hate it when something inspirational is on TV.

Oh and you clearly cared enough to post on a forum about how much you don't care.

Better things like Wii? Gotta love the wii wonder if you can get, world sailing, wouldn't have to leave the house, would be a good game to compliment simwashing or vacuuming '10

16yo old girl sails around the world and some can only **** and moan, what an acheivement

Originally Posted by willem

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Witness Roger Bannister, ran the four minute mile, long considered an impossibility. Now everybody does it - well except me! .

So it is with Jess - she has put it out there for kids. Look what can be done, if you just want to have a go. Open your minds past your computer games and see that there is a whole world out there to discover.
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I was intrigued and impressed when I heard Dr Roger Bannister interviewed on radio a few years ago.

He was in Australia for a brain surgeons' conference. I think the interviewer mentioned the four minute mile and Dr Bannister commented that he hoped he would be remembered for the difference he made to people's lives through the brain surgery he had carried out rather than for his four minute mile.

He understands what really matters.

Ms Watson has shown what you can achieve if you are sufficiently determined and your upbringing provides you with the experience and the resources you need to achieve your goal. If the comment in yesterday's paper by the bloke who repaired her yacht before she left is accurate, it also helps if someone is prepared to do $90,000 worth of repair work free of charge when you go to sleep and bump into another vessel on the way to the start line.

I notice that one little girl who was interviewed at Sydney Heads yesterday, said she would like to sail around the world when she was bigger. The reason she gave for doing it was so that she could become famous. Doesn't anybody do anything these days for the sheer satisfaction of doing it or maybe even because it will benefit others?

The number of children who, when asked what they want to be when they grow up reply,"I want to be famous," makes me have serious doubts about what inspiration a lot of young people will get from Ms Watson's impressive feat. I suspect that many will just want to be famous too.

The list of qualifications that Ms Watson has is quite remarkable. She has obviously devoted a lot of her time and energy to gaining the experience and qualifications she believed she needed to achieve her goal. I would be astonished if more than a handful of young people in Australia are aware of the courses she had to complete and the qualifications she gained on the way to this achievement. All most of them see is the fame she achieved, not the work she had to do to achieve it.

Fame used to be something you achieved if you did something notable. Since the advent of the very inaccurately described "reality TV shows", like Big Brother, we are producing a generation of young people who think that fame is an end in itself rather than a byproduct of some worthwhile achievement. I think there are too many Paris Hiltons and too few Jessica Watsons in the world.

My apologies if this post encourages the moderators to move the thread to the Soap Box, but as a Grumpy Old Man, I feel qualified to hold such views and obliged to make such comments.

Originally Posted by 87County

It occurs to me that just as the NSW Premier (K Keneally) has turned out to be merely a puppet for her masters, so is young Jessica (for her sponsors)... is this becoming the way of the world these days?

Of course it is - and has been - for quite some time now. Did you see who was next to her in the yacht on the way in? Charles Woolley from 60 minutes - tick tick tick...

Was there much mention of her over the last however many months? Not really. They all jump on board now though. And unfortunately, no doubt in true Aussie tradition...there will be those who will eventually attack her by way of the "tall poppy" syndrome, as her star continues to ascend.

Originally Posted by vnx205

I was intrigued and impressed when I heard Dr Roger Bannister interviewed on radio a few years ago.

He was in Australia for a brain surgeons' conference. I think the interviewer mentioned the four minute mile and Dr Bannister commented that he hoped he would be remembered for the difference he made to people's lives through the brain surgery he had carried out rather than for his four minute mile.

He understands what really matters.

Ms Watson has shown what you can achieve if you are sufficiently determined and your upbringing provides you with the experience and the resources you need to achieve your goal. If the comment in yesterday's paper by the bloke who repaired her yacht before she left is accurate, it also helps if someone is prepared to do $90,000 worth of repair work free of charge when you go to sleep and bump into another vessel on the way to the start line.

I notice that one little girl who was interviewed at Sydney Heads yesterday, said she would like to sail around the world when she was bigger. The reason she gave for doing it was so that she could become famous. Doesn't anybody do anything these days for the sheer satisfaction of doing it or maybe even because it will benefit others?

The number of children who, when asked what they want to be when they grow up reply,"I want to be famous," makes me have serious doubts about what inspiration a lot of young people will get from Ms Watson's impressive feat. I suspect that many will just want to be famous too.

The list of qualifications that Ms Watson has is quite remarkable. She has obviously devoted a lot of her time and energy to gaining the experience and qualifications she believed she needed to achieve her goal. I would be astonished if more than a handful of young people in Australia are aware of the courses she had to complete and the qualifications she gained on the way to this achievement. All most of them see is the fame she achieved, not the work she had to do to achieve it.

Fame used to be something you achieved if you did something notable. Since the advent of the very inaccurately described "reality TV shows", like Big Brother, we are producing a generation of young people who think that fame is an end in itself rather than a byproduct of some worthwhile achievement. I think there are too many Paris Hiltons and too few Jessica Watsons in the world.

My apologies if this post encourages the moderators to move the thread to the Soap Box, but as a Grumpy Old Man, I feel qualified to hold such views and obliged to make such comments.

Hmmm. I wonder how much attaining the four minute mile influenced his later success as a brain surgeon. He is quite right to want to remembered for the greater achievements in brain surgery than in achieving the four minute mile, but achieving the four minute mile may well have been a major effect on his later success.

I also wonder whether the achievement of the four minute mile was a greater inspiration to others to achieve in their particular field than his greater work of brain surgery was, simply because it was more well known. If there were others - and I reckon there were many others - who were inspired by the 4 minute mile and then went on to greater achievement then that achievement may have had an even greater influence than his subsequent career.

And so for Jessica. Who knows what career she goes on to, what she achieves in life because of the changes deep within herself because of the experience gained? And who knows what others will be inspired to achieve in their fields and grow and go on to other careers because of their experiences?

Seeing others achieve and having your own dream kindled to achieve - that is a powerful and wonderful thing!

Well done, Jessica, for giving us all a vision of what the human spirit can achieve.

Willem

I noticed how we are all created differently, we aspire to do different things and god forbid, if we were all the same.

Jess is young, she was alone and she did something that none of us will ever be able to understand, simply because we are not her.

Jess has given so many people hope and inspiration to do something, to try something and to dare.
Better to have tried and failed than to never have tried I say.

What she did was huge, if we think of it as wrong or right or too young is irrelevant, in some countries girls have kids aged 12-14.

Lets not sweat the small stuff as I once read. Good on you Jess. You are an inspiration to many if not all.

It'll be interesting to see...

will she make a success of it, will she fall into obscurity, get herself killed doing something else "challanging" or will she crash headlong into narcotics like a lot of other famous people?

Originally Posted by big guy

.. ... ... ... .

Jess has given so many people hope and inspiration to do something, to try something and to dare.
... ... ... ... .. ..

Lets not sweat the small stuff as I once read. Good on you Jess. You are an inspiration to many if not all.

If it inspires someone to "do something", that is good.

My worry is that the only way it will inspire some people is that they will aspire to be famous, not that they will aspire to "do something".

I bet there are more young people thinking. "I would like to be famous like Jessica Watson," than there are thinking, "Maybe I will devote years of my like to gaining the experience and the qualifications i will need if I am going to attempt something significant and if that makes me famous, that will be a bonus."

Originally Posted by willem

Hmmm. I wonder how much attaining the four minute mile influenced his later success as a brain surgeon. He is quite right to want to remembered for the greater achievements in brain surgery than in achieving the four minute mile, but achieving the four minute mile may well have been a major effect on his later success.

.. .. ... ... ..

Well done, Jessica, for giving us all a vision of what the human spirit can achieve.

Willem

Since Roger Bannister was already studying at Uni top become a doctor when he broke the 4 minute mile barrier, I don't think he needed any sort of inspiration to succeed as a brain surgeon.

I am not entirely convinced that people are inspired to become successful doctors, financiers, lawyers, chemists, geologists, teachers or parents because of someone's sporting success. I bet just as many doctors graduated from Australian universities the year we won no gold medals at all in the Olympics in Canada as any other year.

I would like to think that Dr Fred Hollows would be more likely to inspire someone to become an eye surgeon than Ian Thorpe or that Australian who just won the world snooker title.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the human spirit". If you mean just having a dream, a goal, an ambition, then I disagree. If by "human spirit", you mean having a goal which you have done enough research to be convinced that it is realistic and having the drive to do the necessary preparation and having wealthy enough parents to provide you with the opportunities you need and having people around you who are prepared to help you with the resources you need, then you may be right.