Since we are on Challenge # 63 today, I chose this year, 1963 as a tellingly significant year in my personal history. I lost my leaders, my parents and my family. This is the year that was chosen that I be put up for adoption among hundreds of thousands of other children in my native country of Seoul Korea. I was in fact adopted and taken away from my native country to live in the US, the western world, a life very different than what might have been. I was given a new life in a very tiny town in the midwestern state of Ohio, where at a very young age, learning to live with uniqueness became necessity, my survival.
With an innocent visual to represent the year 1963, of what brings to mind a simplistic, semi-rural Mayberry USA, The year in pictures actually held alot of complicated and rich US and global history, and in parallel to my life, alot of ...loss. Most memorably in the US, it was the year in which JFK was assassinated. Significant social, political, technological and environmental events pressed on and by years end, the entire world was in shock as a major national leader was now gone. 1963 also witnessed the death of Pope John Paul XXIII at the Vatican. Globally, political problems in Vietnam were mounting and South Korea had returned to civilian rule. Hurricanes in in Bangladesh, Saipan and Haiti caused massive flooding and killed almost 30,000 people. Earthquakes in Libya and Yugoslavia killed hundreds and destroyed cities. Polio vaccines were given in the US and UK with a lump of sugar. Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his "I have a Dream Speech" and Kenya gained independence from Britain.
And, in pop culture, some may recall the song from 1975 by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, "December 1963, Oh what A Night".
So, I challenge you to take a look at a significant year for you and see what happened in history. Allow the flood of memories to soak in and realize that you too are a significant part of history. It's not just the people around you that you think made history, you are historic in your own, by just being. Stand in your moment of importance and realize that you are here on earth to make history even greater....
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