One of my favorite books is The Royal Road to Romance by Richard Halliburton, though I doubt many of you have even heard of it. It was first published in 1925 and chronicles Halliburton’s travels and adventures around the world following his graduation from Princeton in 1921. I’ve read it multiple times and even keep a dog-eared first edition in my office.
I have long been fascinated and inspired by Halliburton. Instead of taking the expected path, he yearned for a life of travel, adventure and the unknown. To his parent’s dismay, he announced during his senior year at Princeton that he planned on earning a living by writing books and articles about his travels and then went on to do just that. The accounts of his always entertaining and often dangerous adventures became best sellers, and Halliburton became a highly sought after lecturer and celebrity of sorts during the 20s and 30s. He died, appropriately, while attempting to sail a Chinese junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1939.
At a time when world travel was rare and visual technologies weren’t really available, Richard Halliburton’s descriptive writing became a window to the world for more than a generation. He ascended the Matterhorn despite no formal training. He trekked more than 500 miles across the Himalayas. He jumped a steamboat en route to Calcutta. He was jailed for taking forbidden photographs of Gibraltar. In short, he lived.
This morning I pulled my copy of the book from the shelf. I have always been curious about the original owner and if the book inspired him to seek adventure in his own life. An inscription on the inside cover simply reads, “To John – with a lot of kind thoughts. – M.D.M.” On page three, someone – presumably John – has underlined a single passage: “Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Be afraid of nothing. There is such a little time that your youth will last – such a little time.” I like to think that John took that passage to heart and lived a life of great adventure and exploration. I know I re-read it often to remind me about the importance of living life to the fullest and seizing the moment.
Sadly, it is next to impossible to experience the world as Richard Halliburton did in the 1920s. At a time when Starbucks has a presence in Beijing’s Forbidden City (it closed in 2007 after increasing opposition from patriotic mainland Chinese) and television and the internet make the world much smaller and less mysterious, it has become increasingly difficult to find real adventure the way Halliburton did.
I bring this up because you may have heard that Bob Wheeler, assistant dean for the working professional MBA programs, recently accepted a post as acting dean for the Karachi School of Business & Leadership (“KSBL”) in Karachi, Pakistan. KSBL is in its infancy, and Bob will play a major role in building both the physical school and the executive education and MBA programs expected to launch in 2010 and 2011.
I’m sure a few people are wondering what Bob is thinking. It’s no secret that Pakistan is not very stable. Forbes magazine ranks it as the 8th most dangerous country in the world as well as one of the most corrupt – not exactly Chamber of Commerce stuff. Yet, Bob is on his way.
Earlier this week, we had a going away reception for Bob. During his remarks, he said that this was one adventure that he simply couldn’t pass up. I thought about that for a minute and then about the Halliburton passage I refer to from time to time…and then I smiled. Bob, I thought, is living.
So, here’s to you, Bob, on your next adventure. We wish you the best and hope that – to paraphrase Halliburton – your exploration finds the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic that the world has to offer.
With a lot of kind thoughts – T.E.T
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