"They Said I Couldn't" (page 5 of 6)

Forget It -- Do Something Practical

The 16-year-old schoolgirl dreamed of a profession studying wildlife in Africa, but the school's career counselor was "horrified" at this impractical idea. She thought taking pictures of people's pets would "make a nice little career."

But Jane's mother said, "If you really want something, you work hard enough, you take advantage of opportunities, you never give up and you will find a way."

Never giving up meant traveling to the other side of the earth. It meant enduring physical hardship in the mountains of Tanzania. And it meant surviving a raid in which rebels captured people who worked with her and held them for ransom. All survived, and so did Jane Goodall's dream.

Her research documented the complex social behavior of chimpanzees -- animals that greet one another with a kiss or a hug, and make and use tools. Dr. Jane Goodall became known worldwide, and she changed the way we think about these remarkable creatures, all by doing the impractical.

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