Started typing and got carried away! ! ! Almost the first chapter of a book.
Interesting on dreams. I am a counsellor and one of the workshops I do is on Vision/Dreams/Goals. My clients are unemployed and often with no sense of direction. In the classroom I have a picture of a 25' Coronado and a Porsche 914. Inevitably someone asks about the pictures.
I then tell them about my passion for toy sailboats as a child. Sailing models in tidal pools, adjusting the
sails and chasing the boat all day from one end to the other. I tell them of my lifelong dream to sail. At 53 I decided to sail. Went out for 4 days of instruction (very fearful, 1st time on a boat), LOVED it and found what was missing in my life (adventure, challenge, freedom). I bought myself the Coronado as my 54th birthday present. The Porsche 914 is my second lifelong dream car. I am looking daily for ones
for sale in my area. I WILL GET IT. Then I will
work 5 more years, earn my CYA instructors certificate and teach sailing part time on my newer 30'
sloop. The class tends to go "WOW, thats amazing". It is at this point I tell them "5 years ago I was unemployed, I had worked at minimum wage jobs for 30+ years and was tired of it. It was time to focus, develop a goal and do what I had to, to achieve it- too make my DREAMS a REALITY". This leads into SMART goal setting, how I determined my goal, the steps necessary and the re-evaluation continuously. I succeeded and so can they.
If I ground my boat tomorrow and it sinks to the bottom, it doesn't matter. I will have achieved my dream. I will just create a new goal and continue living my dreams. I will sail to
California in the future and maybe even to
Hawaii. Never been there and why fly when I can sail.
Someone asked me "what about
retirement, pensions, living expenses when you retire". Whether I have a boat (liveaboard) or a house, I will have expenses. I have chose to spend my
retirement doing something I want, rather than worrying about the
repairs to the house, sitting in the retirement centre, grousing all the time, or complaining my
kids don't visit me.
If people put everything into their dream goal and fail and give up, it never was their real dream, it was a fantasy. The alternative is IT IS THEIR DREAM, and its time to rework the plan. It wasn't failure, it was discovering one avenue that doesn't
work. Real dreams and goals will never die and nothing will stop you from realizing them. I fantasize about a 60' fantasy yacht (win the lottery), but it isn't my dream. My dream is to sail,
cruise, love and live life.
The woman in the next slip, takes her boat out 2X a year for a day 'cruise', but spends every weekend on it. She loves it, it's her escape from the world. It's her little piece of heaven.
Quote:
You can't always be running away from one thing, with the idea that sailing is somehow easy or an escape. It's usually a hell of a lot harder than land life both physically and mentally.
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You can't ever run from things, they will find you in your new location. You can run to things though. Sorry, but sailing is an escape. It's an escape from the rat
race. I challenge myself only. My opponents are the
weather and the world, by sailing, I face the world on the worlds terms. As for being harder than landlife, that is a perception. It is as easy as you choose to make it.
My first time soloing, I ran into difficulty. Instant PANIC, I am going to drift to
japan. I am an idiot, why did I ever think I could sail... A few moments of terror and then sanity returned. WHAT can I DO to fix the situation. I contacted my marina (I wasn't that far from my base, but things could have gone downhill fast), advised them of my situation and they inquired if I needed assistance. Not at this time. I took control, did what was necessary, thinking of what I had been taught and doing the correct actions. In the back of my mind always was "what if I mess up, will I die, am I a fool for thinking I can be a sailor" and sure enough I was tested. Obviously since I am typing, I did not die, nor did I give up sailing. I faced my challenge and beat it.
THAT to me is what life is, facing your onus in life. Success is facing it, not necessarily beating it. Having the courage to step outside your comfort zone.
I have digressed from dreams. If it is YOUR dream, you will never regret doing it, no matter the outcome, you will succeed if you keep pursuing your dream.
If you have no dream/goal, you will be forever living someone else's dream and bound to be disappointed and frustrated.
Make your "Bucket List" and start doing it now.