What's Your Ultimate Challenge?

[Minggat]

That's one FOOT in front of the other. Duh.

[Pelagic]

To carry Dejef’s thoughts further and to try and answer Minggat’s question, I think it is easier to think of our journey thru life as transiting different types of roads from superhighways to goat paths.

We all experience crossroads in our life and whatever new direction we take; it usually involves a change in road conditions that forces us to speed up… slow down… and above all… modify our priorities and expectations.

It is not an overnight adjustment to the 3rd world mindset of basic sustenance… but a slow evolution full of blisters and boiling impatience that detoxifies your need for instant gratification in a credit card economy. However, you do have the funds to enjoy the best of what that simple community can offer.

It is simply a matter of taste! Free range eggs and delicious fruits with spots… over jumbo perfection and waxed apples wrapped up in a convenient marketing campaign.

After 5 or 6 years whenever you go back and travel on that superhighway, you find you have changed and wonder …’What’s the Rush?”

Travelling and sailing gives you the opportunity to enjoy both but I have found that the slow road gives me more pleasure.. (spots and all)

[Soft Air]

Minggat you are getting there

I never used a car when flying for a third world contry airline, my coworkers considered odd that an airline pilot running errands in buses during my days off lol. I considered it perfectly normal and it was also my silent way to show my disagreement. I found myself strange when trying to chat with other crew members in the cockpit, all conversations were about: The money they don't have, the cars they don't drive and of course the women they want to have haha

I find myself very gifted for being that odd, perhaps the result of the way my parents raised me and also maybe also due to a cancer treatment during my young years...

I see the rat race as something very, very crazy, even more than myself...

[Celestialsailor]

I really enjoy these kinds of threads. I think that was one of the other things which attracted me to sailing was the depth of thought of most of my sailing friends. Looking at my library, it is not only shelves of sailing related topics but those of philosophical views. One book that has both topics and I would highly recommend it's reading is "TAMADA and the ALLIANCE" by Bernard Moitessier. He stresses being true to one's self.

[anotherT34C]

I suppose my answer is a bit more esoteric. These days, I want to understand (if?) how the universe appears to be computable.

[maxingout]

One of the things that I like about cruisers is that to one degree or another they are living at least part of their dreams. They have taken up the challenge and are working on it every day. They don't just talk about it. They actually do it.

Most cruisers have turned off their cultural autopilot so that it no longer controls their lives. They march to the beat of an inner drummer that only they can hear.

[phoutz]

Had a 61 Landrover 110 for 18yrs. No one would work on it but my husband Adam. Gave him enough confidence to become a sailor. We have a Cal 39 and we are looking forward to sailing the world. Thanks for the encouragement.
Pat & Adam

[TaoJones]

Originally Posted by maxingout

What's your ultimate challenge?

A graceful death, with no regrets.

TaoJones

[Waterborn]

Thanks everyone. Wonderful reading.
My ultimate goal was realized two years ago.
I kayaked around Lake Superior. All 2,000 kilometers!
I had dreamed of it for 8 years and planned it for 2.
When I returned home I realized I had better find a new goal because what I also really enjoyed was the dreaming and the planning. I also now feel that although I felt overwhelmed on the first morning of the trip, looking back it doesn't seem like as big of a deal.
Now I want to follow the same path in my sailboat. I am more intimidated by the thought of this though. I think it is because in my kayak I could always get off the lake when I wanted to.
Anyway, I think dreams are fine. I would just reccomend that setting an ultimate goal is not really possible. If there is any life left in you at the end of it, you will certainly want for more.

[maxingout]

These are great responses to the ultimate challenge question. They make me inspired to keep working on my dreams.

I am constantly amazed at the similarities that unite Doers of Dreams.

You reach a certain stage in life where you have enough experience to draw significant conclusions about the game of life. In most instances, the conclusions seem more similar than they are different. At least that's the way it appears to me when I read the stories in this thread.

I am convinced that at their very core, people want to be good, most of the time they are good, and they choose to do the right thing. Most people will move heaven and earth to help someone else in need. Furthermore, when people give themselves permission to live their own dreams, they rise up and live extraordinary lives.

It's inspiring to hear the stories of other people who actually live their dreams.

[dana-tenacity]

Making my wife happy.


On a sailing theme I'm in trouble. I wanted to go offshore cruising when I was 13 years old after a chance meeting with Eric and Susan Hiscock. After school I spent many years doing just that.
Then realized I had had enough - a bit of a shock , I thought I 'd do it forever.
Then I worked at a real job for 8 years, that didn't work either, so I took wife and kids and went cruising for another nine years, but I was a bit disappointed at what had become of it.
Back on land now , should be in a position to take off again in 3-5 years, but what do I do?

[maxingout]

Originally Posted by dana-tenacity

Making my wife happy.


On a sailing theme I'm in trouble. I wanted to go offshore cruising when I was 13 years old after a chance meeting with Eric and Susan Hiscock. After school I spent many years doing just that.
Then realized I had had enough - a bit of a shock , I thought I 'd do it forever.
Then I worked at a real job for 8 years, that didn't work either, so I took wife and kids and went cruising for another nine years, but I was a bit disappointed at what had become of it.
Back on land now , should be in a position to take off again in 3-5 years, but what do I do?

Tristan Jones said that a voyage must have a purpose, and I agree with him. Sailing without a purpose quickly becomes stale, boring, and repetitive. A beach is a beach is a beach anywhere in the world.

What constitutes a sufficient purpose for a voyage is an individual thing. For some it's to set a sailing record. For others it's to have an adventure pure and simple. Some sailors do volunteer work in the islands.

What the purpose is probably doesn't matter as much as the fact that you have one. Tristan Jones said that the purpose of his final voyage was to help young people in Thailand learn that they could live with their disabilities - (lost arms and legs).

I have Land Rover Defender trucks in storage ready to drive around the world, but what I don't have as yet is a sufficient purpose to make it happen. For me, pure adventure is great, but not quite enough. When the purpose comes, the trip will happen.

What should you do in 3 to 5 years? Once you have a purpose, the answer will become perfectly clear.

[Hyprdrv]

Dock my new to me boat without breaking it.

Steve

[Sandero]

Having a purpose or goal is something driven into us from a very early age. We must acheive "something" and our early years are presumably spent in acquiring the skills to accomplish a series of goals. We are driven to by the peer pressure to acheive many goals: education, a family, a house (property), money and wealth, material possessions, a circle of friends, fame, special skills, various forms of hedonistic pleasure, and a legacy of accomplishments to leave to our family and our community.

Most people just assume that that is what their live is about and follow the usual paths and take pleasure in reaching the above (and more) various mile stones. Some people are extreme achievers and many of these people make our own lives richer. Most people are basically consumers of what others produce, physically and intellectually. Most of us know the pleasure of an accomplishment and the pain of failure.

As someone who has thought about why we are here, what are we supposed to do with our human potential I have come to some conclusions. Learning about and understanding the world around me is a deep pleasure surpassing the more temporal ones. (learning rocks!) Understanding both my dependence upon and my independence from the society and the physical universe is the path to my increased understanding and freedom.

What I love about sailing is that to me it represents a culmination of a vast amount of knowledge embodied in my boat, and all the data about the world which is now available to me and a set of skills which allows to to explore, and be almost anywhere on the planet touched by water. My sailboat is like a personal exploration vessel. I probably don't have the courage the explorer's of old had as they sailed into uncharted waters to find the new. I get to find the new, but I know in an intellectual way what I might find. Nevertheless there is so much out there and sailing, as nothing else, let's me have access to it. And since I am not following a road as I travel, I always have a sense of forging into the wilderness. It's a silly feeling, but something traveling by car I never feel.

I don't need challenges any more. I need the time to simply enjoy the environment around me, the natural one. I don't need to go basic and back to nature. I am very happy to have eye glasses which let me see better and a sail boat which opens up the world to me.

One day at a time.

[anotherT34C]

Originally Posted by defjef

As someone who has thought about why we are here, what are we supposed to do with our human potential I have come to some conclusions. Learning about and understanding the world around me is a deep pleasure surpassing the more temporal ones. (learning rocks!) Understanding both my dependence upon and my independence from the society and the physical universe is the path to my increased understanding and freedom.

You should come sailing when I take a bunch of my colleagues (physicists from BNL). The conversations are about as deep as you can get, and backed up by actual knowledge (no faiths allowed).