Mother and Son Sports

While on vacation Kaden and I visited the Omaha Nebraska Zoo and were able to watch the Imax movie, Flight of the Butterflies. The movie told the history of the Monarch butterfly and it’s migration patterns. What does a butterfly have to do with sports you say? Absolutely nothing. What does it have to do with Mother and Son Sports? Absolutely everything! First let me tell you the story.

The man featured in the movie and responsible for discovering one of the hidden secrets in the migrating patterns of monarchs was Dr. Fred Urquhart. Dr. Urquhart had a love and passion for monarchs starting at a very young age, and pursued his childhood dream into adulthood making it his career. As with most hobbies Dr. Urquhart started small, a two man team if you will. For many years it was Dr. Urquhart and his wife tagging monarchs, following the patterns, and focused on discovery. “In 1952 he issued the first appeal for volunteers to assist with the tagging and over the next 20-odd years thousands of people participated.”

At the end of over 40 years of research and with the help of thousands of volunteers Dr. Urquhart and his wife did reach their goal of discovering where the butterflies (monarchs) migrated every year. This finding was monumental in the science world and “now over a dozen sites on five different mountains have been identified as winter habitats for monarchs and are protected as ecological preserves by the Mexican government largely through Urquhart’s influence and early advocacy. One man – one dream – huge results.

What I took from this film, and wish to convey to you (my readers) is to follow your dreams. We live in a money hungry, give it to me now, fast paced world. It’s easy to get caught up in what society thinks we should be doing, and how much we should be making.  Many of us have “settled” in jobs that we don’t love living pay check to pay check and just getting by. Ask most people if they are doing what they dreamed about as a kid and I guarantee the answer will be no. Somewhere between our teenage years and twenties life happened and many of us find ourselves off course and steering further from the path that we once dreamed of taking.

This film also served as a wake up call for me and reminded me of the importance of not chasing the dollar and doing what you love. I started Mother and Son Sports a few months ago to refuel my passion for sports and to pursue a dream of writing about sports. Starting at the age of three basketball was my number one love and my passion for everything sports only grew from there. My dream was to play basketball at a division one college and go on to have a coaching career. I fell a little short of that dream and while I enjoy the profession I am in I always go back to sports in terms of what I am really passionate about. This website is a way to get back to what I love, to share my passion with others and to hopefully make an impact.

As the days go by and I continue to put my heart and soul into the website with little to no readers (thank you to those who are reading) it can get discouraging and I have the tendency to want to give up. The Flight of the Butterflies movie gave me a new sense of purpose and serves as a constant reminder that patience prevails. Dr. Urquhart spent years simply developing the tagging system for his butterflies, and then years after that painstakingly following their flight patterns. He received little to no attention for his research, some results, and I would have to guess that he wasn’t being paid millions to tag butterflies. Yet this didn’t matter to Dr. Urquhart because he was doing what he loved. I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself and want to see immediate results therefore completely undermining the reason I started the website in the first place. To follow a dream and write about sports.

Dr. Urquhart is my new hero these days and I hope to emulate the same passion and persistence he had for his “hobby”. It’s not difficult to find myself getting off track and pursuing things that don’t line up with my dream. In order to stay the course I now have a sign up on my front door, reminding me to Remember The Monarchs, and to do what I love.  Following your dream should be easy but as many of us have found out this is not the case. The actual dream may be easy, but it is the doing that takes diligence and a plan.

What dreams have you abandoned for your family and the stability of the 9-5 job? What do you love doing? Find your passion and start living it. I am not suggesting that you quit your job or abandon your family, please don’t do this. What I am suggesting is that you turn off the television, start small and start living intentionally. Include your kids in your passion as well and encourage them to follow their dreams. As previously stated many of us are in jobs that we dislike, and we don’t want the same results for our kids. Let’s make following our dreams part of the daily conversation and watch more movies like Flight of the Butterflies instead of Despicable Me 2.

Remember the Monarchs – Stay the Course – Do What You Love

by Stacey Atkinson