What One can Learn from John Goddard and his Life List

            John Goddard is a fascinating person to learn about, and in my opinion an explorer worth studying. He may not have been someone as famous or as influential as either Christopher Columbus or Marco Polo. However, John Goddard can serve as a great example of how to live one’s life.

            When John Goddard was fifteen, he sat down and wrote over a hundred goals, a list of things he wanted to do in his life. In an interview with LIFE magazine he said, “When I was fifteen all the adults I knew seemed to complain, 'Oh, if only I'd done this or that when I was younger.' They had let life slip by them. I was sure that if I planned for it, I could have a life of excitement and fun and knowledge.” And by the time he died back in 2013, John Goddard had accomplished the vast majority of his goals.

            Most of these goals revolved around travel and adventure, and he accomplished many of these by working in careers that revolved around travel. When he became an adult John Goddard joined the Army Air Forces, serving in World War II while stationed in Italy. After serving his country, he then served his religion by becoming a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John Goddard then studied at the University of Southern California, majoring in both anthropology and psychology. He then spent the rest of his life working as an anthropologist and a writer. He went on countless adventures, kayaking rivers, climbing mountains, and studying so-called primitive people around the world, while writing about his adventures in books and articles for magazines like “National Geographic.”

            While most people may not go on nearly as many journeys as John Goddard did, I think it’s worth looking at and examining what he called his “Life List.”

            Personally I think everyone should travel at least a little bit in his or her lives. Granted, not everyone has the time or money to travel even close to the amount that John Goddard did. If you’re a single mother with three kids and are working multiple minimum wage jobs to just get by every month, then I totally understand if you’re not planning a trip abroad anytime soon. But if you’re say a wealthy person, or at least someone with a little extra time and money, and you’re like, “Oh, but I don’t know anybody there,” or “I’m afraid of air travel,” or “Eh, I can just watch the Travel Channel,” then I have no sympathy for you.

            John Goddard desired to travel and explore so much that he decided to make his career revolve around it. He became an anthropologist and used that to go explore most of the world. He made it so that for at least some of his travels, he was able to get paid for it. Many people do this with their careers, whether they’re pilots, flight attendants, members of the Peace Corps, or English teachers.

            John Goddard put his life list into categories. The vast majority of them did revolve around travel, with titles including “explore,” “climb,” “visit,” “swim in,” and “photograph.” But I’d like to talk about his last category, titled “accomplish.” I find that category interesting because the goals there are a little bit more varied, and many of them can be accomplished by the average person (with a little discipline) at home.

            Some of the goals on the “accomplish” section are physical goals. These include, “learn to fence,” “learn jujitsu,” “perform 200 sit-ups and 20 pull-ups,” and “weigh 175 pounds stripped.” One doesn’t necessarily have to travel to either China or Japan to learn martial arts; there’s probably a dojo or a nearby community center where they’re taught. And even if one doesn’t have a gym membership, most people could practice doing sit-ups and pull-ups at home, or do so with similar exercises like jogging.

            In the same category on his life list, John Goddard also wrote down goals for expanding his mind, for becoming more familiar with literature and music. He wrote down, “Read the Bible from cover to cover” (which he did) and, “Read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica” (he didn’t read the entire thing, but large chunks of it). Goddard also put down, “Read the works of Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Dickens, Thoreau, Rousseau, Conrad, Hemingway, Twain, Burroughs, Talmage, Tolstoy, Longfellow, Keats, Poe, Bacon, Whittier, and Emerson,” along with, “Become familiar with the compositions of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Ibert, Mendelssohn, Lalo, Liszt…” A person can easily go to the library and check out books from any of these authors, and grab recordings from those composers too. Honestly, one can now easily go online and read and listen to any of these works, and over time one can become very familiar with the world’s most infamous writers and composers.

            Some of his other goals included “Become an Eagle Scout” (which I’ve actually done!) and “Type 50 words a minute” (if they can’t already do that, I think most people could easily acquire this skill). There’s also, “Marry and have children.” Personally I think that’s a very worthy goal; at some point (I’m not sure when) I plan on hopefully having a wife and kids myself. I will point out though that I don’t think everyone should have children or even get married, and that some people aren’t necessarily meant to be spouses are parents; nor should people feel pressured into getting married and having kids.

            Before ending this article, there is one more goal of his that I want to point out to. Near the end of his list John Goddard wrote, “Visit the Moon.” It’s one of the few goals he didn’t quite accomplish in his life, although to be fair so far only a dozen people have actually placed their feet upon the lunar surface. What I find great about the fact that he wrote this particular goal was that John Goddard wrote it down back in 1940, years before even Sputnik was launched into orbit. At that point a few scientists were discussing the possibility of landing people upon the Moon, and a lot more were science fiction writers were doing the same. I think it says a lot about a man like John Goddard that he put that down on his list, that he wrote it down fearlessly.

            I think there’s a lot one can learn from John Goddard, or at least a lot to be inspired by. Even if one doesn’t do nearly as many things as he did, or travel as far as he did, they can still write down a list of worthy things to do with one’s life.