“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
When I was five, everyone called me "Zac."
He was the protagonist of a book mum would read to me at night, a boy who battled imaginary dragons to save his town. Inspired, I would run around in a cape terrorising the neighbourhood. Once, I lugged our cat “Sootie” up a tree, so that I could subsequently rescue him. Instead, dad had to salvage both of us with a ladder – one sobbing, the other shrieking.
I am petrified of losing the passion for exploration that I thrived on as a kid. They say a baby smiles over 400 times a day, an adult merely 17 times. An army of suits has replaced my cape, back surgery has substituted cartoon Band-Aids, and I can't remember for the life of me the last time I built a sandcastle.
Today, I answer to Tom, but more than ever before I aspire to live my life with the zeal of Zac. My promise is to never cease to treat life for what it is, an adventure. To discover new ideas. To imagine great things. To be an entrepreneur, write a book, start a blog, paint, and climb a really big mountain. To slay, as it were, imaginary dragons.
— Tom Humphrey