One of my heroes, Sir Edmund Hillary, has died.
It wasn't so much the fact that he was the first to summit Mount Everest that made me admire him, though that was certainly impressive. What made him hero-worthy to me was that he always stayed humble and unassuming, and used his fame to do good in the world. Here's a snippet from an Associated Press article...
"He inspired people to climb, but he also inspired people to do more than just climb," said Francis Slakey, a physics professor at Georgetown University who reached the summit of Everest in 2000 and was married at the Thyangboche monastery. "He used his world stage to actually improve the lives of people throughout the Khumbu. It's impressive."
...Hillary was a model for other climbers to try to follow. It took decades for others to catch up to his class act. Where many climbers left behind trash, Hillary left a legacy of education, health care and bonds of friendship.
Here's a paragraph from an article in Time describing his efforts to make his world a better place.
Beginning in 1962 he began working with the Nepalese sherpas who had so often helped him. Raising funds through his Himalayan Trust, he helped install bridges and pipes, built nearly 30 schools, two hospitals, 12 medical clinics, two mountaineering clinics, restored monasteries and planted more than a million seedlings in and around the towns of the rugged and poor Solu-Khumbu region of Nepal. Much of the last years of his life were dedicated to the work of the Trust, which opened offices in New Zealand, the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Germany. Even into his 70s Hillary spent an average of five months away from New Zealand every year raising money through lectures and visiting the projects in Nepal. He still felt uncomfortable with his knighthood and fame but realised their advantages and the obligations they brought. "I would like to see myself not going [to Nepal] quite so often," he told TIME in 1996. "But at the moment... the responsibility is there. It has to be done."
Sir Edmund Hillary, thanks for all the good you did, both directly and through the people you inspired. I hope when it's my time to check out I can say the same, in some way, about my life.
Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM
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