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STORMS COME AND GO
Cruising is about focus.
It’s all
too easy to focus on the storms of life and worship at the altar
of fear. It’s easy to forget that storms come and go, but dreams
can last forever.
In more than thirty-three thousand miles of offshore sailing, we
have had winds to fifty knots on only three occasions. That makes
about six days of gale force winds during an eleven year sailing
voyage around the world. I think that our experience is fairly
typical for people who do trade wind circumnavigations. If you
stay out of the higher latitudes and don’t sail in hurricane
season, it’s unlikely you will ever encounter a storm that poses a
significant threat to your yacht. That’s the real world of
sailing.
The fear mongers would have us live in a very different world.
This year, they predicted that hurricane season would be one of
the worst on record. There would be more storms and storms of
greater severity than at any time in recent history. Fear makes
you tune in to the Weather Channel so that you can listen to their
forecasts of doom and gloom. The Apostles of Fear would have you
believe that we live in a dangerous world, because fear is big
business. Capitalism has embraced fear and wants you to buy their
particular antidote to fear.
I am not
buying what they are selling. Whether I am on land or sea, I am
not afraid, but I am tired of listening to the fear mongers. I
wish they would go away or go silent. They are boring me with
their negative and toxic palaver.
I listened to the fear mongers tell me how dangerous it was to
live in the Middle East, and contrary to their prophecies of doom,
I lived in Saudi Arabia for sixteen years without a problem.
I listened to the fear mongers tell me about the perfect storm and
how dangerous it was to sail the seven seas, and contrary to their
predictions, in eleven years, I never sailed in winds over fifty
knots.
I listened to the fear mongers tell me that catamarans were
dangerous to sail offshore, and I sailed one around the world
without a problem.
I have
figured out that when people tell me that I should be afraid, they
either don’t know what they are talking about, they are trying to
control me with fear, or they want to sell me something as an
antidote to the fearful world that they are trying to cultivate in
my mind.
I’ve got my mental ear plugs in, and I’m no longer listening to
their gospel of fear. I won’t let them control the focus of my
mind or steal my dreams.
Instead,
I’m focusing on my dreams. I’m projecting my dreams onto
the motion picture screen of my mind so they can expand into my
life. I know that life is good. I live in the Land of
Possibility, and I sail on the ocean of my dreams where there is
no limit to how good my life can become.
I
have been tested in the crucible of life, and I know the truth.
There is nothing to fear, and focusing on the storms of life is a
waste of precious time. Storms come and go, and they are few and
far between. Dreams are different. They go on forever. That’s
why I focus on my dreams. That’s why I live as if my dreams are
possible and work each day to make them happen. That’s why I’m an
Unstoppable, Consistently Positive, Endlessly Persistent, Doer of
Dreams.
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