[nukkad] Inspiration Moment -Paul Rokich...

[KOMAL JAIN <komaljain@infy.com>]

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Inspiration Moment 
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Paul Rokich...
Paul Rokich is my hero.. 

When Paul was a boy  growing up in Utah, he happened to live near an old
copper smelter, and the sulfur dioxide that poured out of the refinery  had
made a desolate wasteland out of what used to be a beautiful forest.
                     
Paul Rokich vowed that some day he would bring back the life to this land.
                     
Many years later Paul was in the area, and he went to  the smelter office.
He asked if they had any plans to bring  the trees back. The answer was
"No." He asked if they would let him try to bring the trees back. Again, the
answer was "No." They didn't want him on their land. He realized he needed
to be more knowledgeable before anyone would listen to him, so he went to
college to study botany.

At the college he met a professor who was an expert in Utah's ecology.
Unfortunately, this expert told Paul that the wasteland he wanted to bring
back was beyond hope. He was told that his goal was foolish because even if
he planted trees, and even if they grew, the wind would only blow the seeds
forty feet per year, and that's all you'd get because there weren't any
birds or squirrels to spread the seeds, and the seeds from those trees would
need another thirty years before they started producing seeds of their own.
Therefore, it would take approximately twenty thousand years to  revegetate
that six-square-mile piece of earth. His teachers told him it would be a
waste of his life to try to do it. It just  couldn't be done. 

So he tried to go on with his life. 

He got a job operating  heavy equipment, got married, and had some kids. But
his dream would not die. He kept studying up on the subject, and he kept
thinking about it. And then one night he got up  and took some action. He
did what he could with what he had. 

This was an important turning point. 

Under the cover of darkness, he sneaked out into the  wasteland with a
backpack full of seedlings and started  planting. For seven hours he planted
seedlings. He did it again a week later.  And every week, he made his secret
journey into the  wasteland and planted trees and shrubs and grass.But most
of it died. For fifteen years he did this. 

One day the whole valley of his fir seedlings burned to the ground because
of a careless  sheep-herder, Paul broke down and wept. 

Then he got up and kept planting. 

Freezing winds and blistering heat, landslides and floods and fires
destroyed his work time and time again. But he kept planting. One night he
found a highway crew had come and   taken tons of dirt for a road grade, and
all the plants he had   painstakingly planted in that area were gone. 

But he just kept planting. 

Week after week, year after year he kept at it, against   the opinion of the
authorities, against the trespassing laws,  against the devastation of road
crews, against the wind and   rain and heat...even against plain common
sense. He just   kept planting. Slowly, very slowly, things began to take
root. Then   gophers appeared. Then rabbits. Then porcupines.  The old
copper smelter eventually gave him permission,   and later, as times were
changing and there was political   pressure to clean up the environment, the
company actually hired Paul to do what he was already doing, and they
provided him with machinery and crews to work with.   

Progress accelerated. 

Now the place is fourteen thousand acres of trees and  grass and bushes,
rich with elk and eagles, and Paul Rokich   has received almost every
environmental award Utah has. He says, "I thought that if I got this
started, when I was dead and gone people would come and see it. I never
thought I'd live to see it myself!"  It took him until his hair turned
white, but he managed   to keep that impossible vow he made to himself as a
child.  

What was it you wanted to do that you thought was impossible? 

Paul's story sure gives a perspective on things, doesn't it?

The way you get something accomplished in this world   is to just keep
planting. Just keep working. Just keep   plugging away at it one day at a
time for a long time, no matter who criticizes you, no matter how long it
takes, no   matter how many times you fall.
 
Get back up again. And just keep planting.

Just keep planting.

- Author Unknown 
Contributed by Anita Jayaram


 Thanks  a lot Anita  for sharing this thought provoking story with us.



"Never,never,never,never give up !"
- Winston Churchill
             


 Celebrate Life .....Great Day....


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