DREAMS DO COME TRUE
Forbes reported, “With 13 months on the clock, Jessica Nabongo has set herself up for a lofty goal: to visit every country in the world. This millennial Black woman who earned her Master’s in Economic Development from the London School of Economics first went abroad when she was four years old and has since lived on four continents in five countries. Nabongo, a first-generation American of Ugandan descent, is known as someone driven by curiosity and freedom. Traveling to every country in the world was Jessica’s epic challenge that she’d wanted to undertake for at least a decade before she attempted it in 2017. In her interview with CNN Travel, she mentioned she wanted to do it on her 35th birthday. She ended up leaving five months later, the month of her late father’s birthday. The Ugandan-American travel influencer touched on her experiences traveling as a Black woman in her book memoir, The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman's Journey to Every Country in the World, released June 14, 2022, noting that representation is hugely important. Jessica was curious to see what it would feel like as a Black woman to travel the globe, considering she would be one of the few Black women on board most flights she took. She learned that it was possible, although not without challenges, and she learned from and enjoyed the experience. And she would like to share wisdom to inspire others. “I wrote my memoir not to inspire you to travel the world, but to let you know that your biggest dreams are possible,” Jessica mentioned on her Instagram. Essentially, the valuable lesson we learn from Nabongo’s life and memoir is that we can achieve great things if we do something meaningful that will help us live, learn, and grow in a larger way. Adopt a growth mindset, and understand that the big dream you end up fulfilling may be one you never even considered but discovered along the way. But you’ll never get to that big dream if you do nothing in your life to commit to expanding and experiencing yourself in a new and bigger way. Ask yourselves, “What am I doing today to get me closer to where I want to be tomorrow?”
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