Every weekend, we pick the best stories published in Goodmorning Runlovers, the newsletter edited by Andrea Corradin that you can read in less than a minute. It arrives in your inbox every day Monday through Friday, by 8:30 a.m.
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“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
How many times have you been asked this? How many answers did you change as you grew up? We don’t know how Jonny Kim answered when he was growing up, and who knows if he ever thought he would one day find himself doing what many children dream of doing: astronaut. But the great thing about this story is that before he got there, his life held other surprises for him. To which he always responded well, no matter how heavy some of them really were. You never know if you will be an astronaut someday.
And not only there.
Social media has given us the “chance” to witness the lives of thousands of people. Athletes, influencers, often strangers, whose goals we see only. What runner feels like posting when he or she is injured? What person paws at telling the world about a recent failure? Few. None.
Except to find out later that “real life” is not going according to (almost) anyone’s plan.
Everyone faces difficulties and falls that become part of the journey. By facing them we discover who we really are.
Let’s take the story of Jonny Kim. He is only 40 years old but has already achieved extraordinary things. He was a Navy Seal soldier, then graduated from Harvard Medical School, and finally was chosen by NASA as an astronaut.
That is, I’m turning 37 this year and I still haven’t learned how to fold t-shirts properly 😅
His seems to be a path of increasing success, planned in detail. But this is not the case.
Born in 1984 in Los Angeles to a South Korean immigrant family, his father ran a liquor store, and his mother was a nurse. Jonny grows up with an alcoholic and abusive father. He beats his wife and sometimes, when he is not satisfied, he and his brother as well.
They are terrified. In 2006 the situation comes to a head when the father with a rifle tries to take out the whole family, but is killed by a police gunshot. Somehow Johnny is saved. But he is a traumatized boy.
“I was a scared kid. I was afraid of the world, afraid of relationships, afraid to talk to people, afraid to go to school, afraid to have my own opinions, to speak out or to fight for what I believed was right.”
By chance at age 16, he discovered the existence of the Navy Seals, the legendary American special forces. To be part of it becomes his dream. To become invincible and protect his mother and brother from any danger. He succeeds. He passes training and participates in more than 100 military missions around the world, including the Iraq War.
He begins to suffer from the atrocities he witnesses. He loses a great friend in a firefight. Maybe he doesn’t belong there. He decides to change his life: he wants to specialize in emergency medicine. He enrolls in college in San Diego and in 2016 he specializes at Harvard. In the meantime, he gets married and starts a family. She starts working as a physician in Massachusetts. Then he meets Scott Parazynski, a U.S. astronaut who puts it in his head that his military and medical skills would be ideal for NASA programs. He participates in the very difficult selections. He passes them. Along with 17 other astronauts, he begins training for a space mission scheduled for 2025. Life almost never goes according to our predictions. Sometimes, this can also be fortunate.
“I didn’t plan any of this. I never imagined I would become a Navy SEAL, a doctor or an astronaut. It happened because I let my curiosity and desire to be useful to others guide me.”