I first heard about the astronaut David Saint-Jacques after watching a documentary about him on television back in high school. I remember being immensely inspired by him and it then triggered within me an obsession with high-performance achievement. More specifically, he completely shattered all of my assumptions about certain career paths. For instance, I used to think that being an engineer, a scientist or a medical doctor were all very lengthy careers requiring many years of academic study and dedication to the field. Back in high school, I also realized that the most challenging subjects were both pure sciences and mathematics through witnessing my classmates struggle through them. Even my teachers in these respective fields who possessed high accolades such as bachelor’s and master’s degrees all reaffirmed these same beliefs. I then researched more on my own online about what the requirements are to achieve those degrees and just exactly what it takes to be regarded as the greatest of all time in them. Upon reading that these careers were immensely difficult, because they require a lot of dedication, I never thought that you could become all of them within a lifetime. Then, I stumbled upon David Saint-Jacques who achieved all of these very difficult disciplines throughout his life across many different countries. This was very mind-blowing to me, because getting a doctorate degree in any science field is an extraordinary feat which may take up to a decade. He first graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in engineering physics and then he went to work as a biomedical engineer in France. After receiving a scholarship to study in the UK, he completed a doctorate degree in astrophysics and then worked in the field for a bit in Hawaii. He then went on to study medicine and become a medical doctor in the Arctic. Afterwards, he was selected to become an astronaut and since then he has performed many important missions and scientific research. My favourite lesson from him is that we should identify our dreams and even if we do not achieve them, it does not matter. Having dreams makes us move forward and they eventually define us over time. He mentioned as well about how he always wanted to become an astronaut someday, but that it was always just a fantasy. He asked himself how an astronaut would make decisions in life and he lived by following that motto. He made himself happy and proud regardless if he would become one someday.
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