Do I really have nothing to say?

Six or so years ago I started a blog thinking that people might be interested in my journey. It was an interesting one. Not a lot of people actually leave their comfort zone, sell everything they own, buy a sailboat and live aimlessly traveling the eastern seaboard for 4 years.

After a few blogs I realized that I may not be so terribly interesting after all. My thought was that a blog was supposed to be for other people to enjoy. I stopped my introspections thinking I didn’t need them if no one else cared. I think after this long hiatus that my thought process was wrong. A blog is really supposed to be for me. If other people enjoy or relate to it that is all the better. So I am going to forge ahead with musings that strike my fancy. I hope, every so often, you enjoy my pondering things you couldn’t care less about.

Am I a failure?

What exactly constitutes a failure?  Is fear, intrinsically, the same thing if we allow it to paralyze us to the point of negative movement.  I occasionally struggle with this overwhelming fear.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill said this and on the surface it seems like very logical insight, but in practicality it may not always be so simplistic.

Lately I am surrounded by people who have accomplished so much in their lives.  People who had wonderful careers and have gone on to sail around the world, twice, and continue the adventure to this day.  I feel like the most boring person and my occasional paralyzing fear may certainly keep me from achieving 1/10 of even my meager desires.  But, are my fears rational.  Should I not be so excessively vigilant, looking for the flaw at every turn.  Waiting for failure playing into the fear?

By definition I can only fail by not completing a specified action.  Does being on the journey I am on qualify as that action?  Does your life, your job, your family qualify as something you can fail at?   Looking at it in this way one can only fail at life by dying.  You can only really fail at your job by quitting and the only way to fail your family is leaving.  Everything else by this definition can be counted as a success.  With that in mind I have been a very successful person.  I think most of you out there are pretty successful too.  Anyone reading this is still alive!  Embrace that success and conquer that fear.  One thing is certain, Winston, fear can be paralyzing and failure can be fatal.

Do you really need to be challenged?

 I have been thinking a lot about the journey that I am on.  For me (right now) it has been a lot about challenge.   I have been outside of my comfort zone for the past few months and it doesn’t necessarily get easier the more you stay outside that zone.  What is wrong with doing something you know and doing it well?  What is wrong with staying in the stress free “I know what I am doing” zone.  I read that challenging yourself is a foolproof method of personal improvement, but,  what if I am good enough already.  Cave men were challenged on a daily basis and they didn’t live any longer for the effort.  Maybe their brains were better off, but what was the gain.  I am not saying that a good challenge isn’t something that we should totally avoid, but maybe something benign like more Sudoku or Crossword puzzles is the answer.  I decided to do a little research on why I should continue this quest of being challenged more frequently than ever before in my life.  Here is what I discovered.

I first needed to understand exactly what a challenge is?  A challenge is something needing great mental or physical effort to complete.  Okay that seems logical enough.  For me just getting out of bed these days fits the challenge bill!  Need I do more?  But seriously, a challenge is something that puts you to the test — like running your first marathon or reading War and Peace. A challenge can be something as small as learning how to knit or it could be something as life altering as facing Cancer.  Challenge, as a verb, is derived from a Latin word meaning “to accuse falsely,” and it is still used much as it was in the 13th century, in the sense of questioning whether something is true or right.  Motivational speaker Brendon Burchard tells us:  “Challenge is the pathway to engagement and progress in our lives. But not all challenges are created equal. Some challenges make us feel alive, engaged, connected, and fulfilled. Others simply overwhelm us. Knowing the difference as you set bigger and bolder challenges for yourself is critical to your sanity, success, and satisfaction.”

Challenges can help you grow, learn and explore.  By changing the way you look at a challenge, you can significantly impact the effect it has on you.  I have started to look at a challenge as a game or an opportunity.  Let’s take docking a 15 ton, 45 foot sailboat in a swift current and strong wind.  The challenge for me is to not freak out.  Assume everything will be fine until it isn’t.  I can’t avoid this challenge so accepting and attacking it head on has been the only way to handle it.  More important is knowing how to react to a challenge.  I simply prepare as best I can and let the event happen.  A challenge can be a good and/or a “bad” thing depending on how you look at it.  If the challenge excites you, take advantage of that excitement and go for it.  If it scares the heck out of you roll with it.  Break it down and Breath.

Here is my new found wisdom when faced with a challenge:

Face it:  Don’t avoid the challenge! Accept it is happening and attack it head on. This is much more effective than avoiding it.  Avoiding it will only prolong your anxiety and possibly make it worse.

Small bits make better bites:  Prepare  for the challenge and look for ways to attack small pieces of it at a time.

You are never alone:  It’s OK to ask for help! Lots of people out there have possibly faced a similar challenge.  Ask how other people have handled it.

Think:  Take a moment to breath.  Reflect on all the challenges you’ve overcome in your life already.  Is this one really any larger or smaller than some of the others you have faced.  Are any of them similar? How did you handle other challenges? Remember you can do it! Be patient with yourself and give yourself the time you need to determine the best way to handle whatever comes at you.

Challenges can only be overcome by taking action, so get rid of the excuses and take control of your situation.

Do You challenge yourself enough?  Playing it safe?  No challenge no success!

Think Bigger!

Photo from: http://blog.gravity-lifestyle.com/take-up-a-challenge/

 

Trying not to run aground

Life is not always what we expect it to be.  When I started my “now” I had a vision of what was in store for me.  I thought I had a road map that would guide me through my idyllic transition from a day to day life in an office to 6000 miles of road travel to finding the perfect sailing “home”.  Table and Chairs included! But recently we ran aground. Literally.  We were where we thought we were supposed to be.  Motoring our 45 Foot Sailboat right down the middle of a plotted channel and all of the sudden “thump” we stopped.  We tried moving backwards out of the area we were in and “thump” again!  We tried moving forward to literally plow our way through.  Nothing doing.  Many attempts to un-snag ourselves were fruitless.  We finally realized we needed help.

Being aground isn’t always a bad thing.  After 30 minutes or so waiting for a tow boat I realized I was in no danger.  Nothing horrific was going to happen to me while waiting and it was actually pleasant.  Much of my life has been just like that.  Looking back on day to day life I realized that we all spend a lot of time trying not to “run aground” and sometimes we simply live parts of our lives aground.  Ideally, life should be a progression of moving forward in some small way everyday.  Sometimes we just plod along going in small circles never making any forward headway not that this is necessarily a bad way to live.  I seemed pretty happy doing it for many years.

Recognizing the signs life gives us to know when we should be moving forward isn’t always easy.   We may not have run aground if we had watched the channel markers instead of sticking to the plotted course.  Being afraid to trust what is right in front of your eyes is something that is sometimes burned out of us after years of “living in small circles”.  Trusting yourself to take the first steps in a new direction (any direction) is scary and sometimes you need someones help to pull you through.

I am trying to live paying more attention to the signs than what I thought was my plotted course.  Making the transition to this type of thinking has not been easy.  On our journey we are meeting many new people who have lived their lives in this way.  Doing things much braver than I have ever conceived.  Listening to their stories makes me realize that anything is possible and while scary, moving forward can be fulfilling.

Are you living in small circles trying not to run aground?

 

 

What does a camera see?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the art of the “selfie” something I have never personally mastered.  My sister Martha is the queen of the selfie and has been since she first picked up a camera.  Every selfie she takes is beautiful.  Very rarely have I seen a “bad” picture of her.  I do realize that the kinds of images that are considered good differ from person to person.  It’s subjective, but from my perspective her phenomenon (the art of getting it right every time) is very disturbing to me.  I can’t think of a selfie attempt I have tried that I would consider noteworthy.  Is it me or is it that the camera actually see’s things I can not normally see?

I have never considered myself a very vain individual.  Not necessarily pretty but not too ordinary.  What I see in the mirror is a healthy mix of likes and dislikes.  I don’t spend much time on that reflection.  What I see in a photograph is something entirely different.

According to Nick Stockton of Wired, my dislike of that photograph has to do with the mirror.  Here’s the deal. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we might feel like we’re looking at ourselves, but we’re actually seeing a mirror image of ourselves – which, in reality, is an inverse image.  Stockton explains the importance of one concept known as “mere-exposure,” which was developed by Robert Zajonc in the late 1960s. “Mere-exposure” says we “react more favorably” to things we’re used to, including our own faces.  After years of looking at ourselves in the mirror and stewing in vanity, we’ve become familiar with the face looking back at us — our mirror image. What’s so problematic about this, however, is that pictures are not mirror images. They show us how we really look.  We’ve gotten used to the fact that our smile sort of raises a bit on the left side and our right eye droops a little bit more than our left. So when we see a picture of ourselves with flipped features, they look downright alien.  Remember, the law of mere-exposure says that we react favorably to things we see most often, and we rarely see ourselves the way we’re depicted in pictures.  Ultimately, when we dislike a picture of ourselves, it’s not that we think we look necessarily ugly. It’s just that we find our other self — our inverse self — more attractive.

I’m pretty cut and dry.  I think I prefer images of me that are just like what my eyes see or are capable of seeing — the mirrored version.  Other people prefer images that show them what they cannot see.  Because the camera’s “eye” is better than my own, the best pictures show the very things I don’t want to see.  This is probably what bothers me most about the selfie, what the camera saw or is capable of seeing — is the realistic image.  Not my once a day mirror enhanced version.

If “Mere-exposure” is a real thing the answer to my dilemma may be to take lots of selfies of myself until I get used to seeing this inverted me or I could stop looking at myself in the mirror.  Either way, understanding why the camera “sees” things differently has made me better understand my loathing of the selfie. I prefer to think that the human eye (and brain) is better.  I know it probably is not, but with that in mind, for now, I will forgo the selfie and stick with what I see in the mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joy and the art of organization…

We have actually been living in our tiny space for  3 weeks now and it has truly been an adventure…in organizational skills!

It is really funny here, in this marina with 40 or so live aboard families, that the first question they ask new “residents” is how big is your storage unit.  They seem to be shocked when we tell them that we don’t have one.  When we left Kansas City we sold pretty much everything we owned.  We kept only what we thought would be useful on our new boat and limited that to what would fit in a Toyota Sienna minivan.  We sent countless items to Goodwill and other thrift stores, and still, in trying to stow all of what we thought was very little to begin with we find ourselves getting rid of even more.

Marie Kondo’s book “The magic of tidying up”  essentially asks us to be certain that the things that we keep add value (spark joy)  in some way to our existence.  In the situation we are in there is little room for the items that spark joy.  We pretty much only have room for what is essential, though I have found great joy in these essential items.  Ms. Kondo’s book also suggests that you gather like objects together.  I have found that to be the essence of organizing our boat (that and a map of where everything was stored).  No actual food is stored in the galley of our boat.  It is all stored behind the seat backs in the living area.  Canned goods are stored in 2 gallon zip lock bags by kind (veggies in one bag, beans in another).  Tools and parts are stored under the seats.  Every nook and cranny is used in a thoughtful manner.

Our 45 foot Freedom sailboat is pretty cozy.  Our main living space (saloon) and kitchen (galley) is about 10 x 10 give or take.  Our Master cabin is 9 x 9 ish with a built-in queen size bed and our guest cabin (V-berth) has only about 2 x 3 feet of floor space, but does have a king size v shaped mattress that narrows down greatly at the feet.  It is currently being used as a catch-all while we continue organizing!

Some of the joyful items I chose to bring with me are a duvet cover, pillow covers and blanket from our master bedroom.  You might think these were essential items because we have to have them and you would be right.  Yet they do spark joy for me.  I also brought a Fisher Price Piggy bank and a throw blanket that were given to us as wedding gifts 36 ish years ago (thanks Serena Kester and Jim and Bill Fehr), a small brass cigarette box with the Parthenon on it that was in our house growing up.   It has interesting memories for me (thanks Mom).  We didn’t know what space configuration our boat would have so I did not bring pots and pans or dishes (dishes have always brought me great joy) and bought them here after we chose this vessel.  The choices I had were very limited and don’t necessarily spark any emotions for me (plain white Corelle ware), but I will tell you that the less I have the more I appreciate everything.  It is even more interesting to me that the menial tasks in life give me great pleasure.  Doing dishes, cooking dinner, these things provide a thoughtful time and truly bring joy in an otherwise busy day.  In a truly small space you must conserve water and be very organized to accomplish even simple tasks.  I don’t think I felt this way in my large home.  Not a lot of thought was required to perform everyday chores.

I know that all of you who have spent time camping, backpacking or in an RV probably understand the space issues that I am dealing with.  For 30 years we had small sailboats that we spent a great deal of time in, but, in that situation there was always a home to return to.   I am home!  That is my joy.

Joy is a choice.  Choose to make your large or small space joyful for you.

***Watch for my video walk-through of our new home on Facebook!  If you like my blog please subscribe and share.

 

Am I supposed to be learning something?

When I was 10 or 11 I discovered my first power tool.  It was a skill saw and I used it to take some leftover wood, lying around our outdoor shed, to make a bookcase for my bedroom.  I was really proud of that bookcase, even though I didn’t understand the concept of bracing and the case leaned a little.  None the less I used this bookcase for many years.  The lesson I learned was that I can do anything I put my mind to.  No one told me I couldn’t make a bookcase.  I certainly didn’t tell myself that I was incapable.  I knew enough to know that all of the sides and shelves needed to be symmetrical.  I studied other bookshelves before making the first cuts, but it wasn’t until I realized that the bookcase needed bracing that I realized what “learning” really was.

You might think that I had learned many things before that point in my life.  I learned to walk, talk, read, write, tie my shoes and I learned that I should try not to be at odds with my mother!  The operational stage of learning,  being able to use logic to solve problems, view the world around me, and plan for the future, hadn’t sunk in until that moment.  Learning is “the acquisition of knowledge through experience, study or being taught”.   I was acquiring knowledge without fore thought up until that point.

I have always been a “Do-er” and I have always believed that there was really nothing I couldn’t learn to do.  This has been born out in years worth of taking the initiative and trying everything and anything that struck my fancy.   Some things came easy and some things required in-depth study and lots of initiative.  Most everything is doable!

Right now I am living in a state of doing little.  It is an unusual state for me.  I lived constantly “doing” something.  I can’t remember a time in my life that I didn’t have a project.  Whether it was home improvement, helping friends with their home improvement, crafts or any number of other things.  I was constantly in a state of learning and I loved it.  Even if I had done a project time and again, each time was a learning experience.  For me I am not learning something unless my hands are busy.

I now understand the saying “idle hands make idle minds” (I am frequently misquoting everything, so let me know if this is not the correct adage).  Even if it is not correct it is how it feels to me.  I am trying to learn new things, but, as we travel (what feels to me aimlessly), anything I try to absorb seems uninteresting.  Even the process of reading is laborious.   I can’t wait for our new adventure to really begin so that my hands can be busy again!  Leave me a comment of when you have felt this way or tell me what you are learning now?

For Cynthia Lasswell Riley

T. S. Eliot wrote: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. ”
I have had a placard hanging in my car for the last few years that pretty much says the same thing.  So when you referenced basically the same quote it only made me think about how much our lives must still be connected.

I have never been one to look back, worry, fret or really even think for too long about the past (the end is where we start from).  There are no endings only beginnings.  This philosophy has served me well. At least  I think it has, but, every now and again I think about the relationships in my life.  Relationships that I have given up and relationships that continue to thrive.  I sometimes  wonder why some relationships withstand the test of time.

I know, that as I was preparing for the journey I am currently on, I started to purposefully distance myself from some of the important people in my life.  I am not sure why, but, it just felt like the thing to do.   I thought it would make me feel  less vulnerable, less emotionally distraught.   Maybe I just felt that if I chose to leave first I wouldn’t be disappointed when other people forgot me.

We all enter and leave each others lives for reasons.  When we knew each other I badly needed the laughter that you provided me.  You had what seemed to be the most happy home.  I truly can’t remember how we drifted apart, but as endings become beginnings it most certainly must have been a most natural thing.

I believe that we both give and receive a small piece of our spirit to the people we meet in our lives.  A little light or a little darkness.  We are a compilation of these events.   Thank you for sharing your light with me.

 

We’re off to see the Wizard!

I thought I would ask the Wizard for Brains, but what I really need is a large dose of courage.  Courage to leave the home I have known pretty much my whole life.  Courage to leave friends, who I am afraid will forget me.  Courage to embark on a new way of life.

The whirlwind that started this journey down the “yellow brick road” was almost as forceful as a tornado.  6 months of selling everything we owned.  Cutting ties with much of the material “stuff” in my life.  Stuff that literally defined me.

From the time I was  very young a table and chairs symbolized who I am.  Those who have known me long enough will remember the Barbie table and chairs in the back window of my first car.  A plastic table, chairs and toy food all anchored in the back window of a blue 1970 Maverick.  I don’t think I really knew then why these things meant enough to me to put in the window of my car, but it was a sight to see!  I now think I was traveling with these things looking for my home.

I always made a table and chairs available to the people in my life.  Whether that meant casual dinner parties or full blown events. These physical comforts were somehow my link to the emotional stability I may not have been able to outwardly show to the important people in my life.  I could show people I cared by how well I set my table.  Home is where my table and chairs are and right now I have no table or chairs.

I find I do not miss the physical table and chairs.  The time in my life when these things are truly necessary is over.   My emotions are still swirling around in the tornado that will take us to Oz.  When we find the Emerald City I can have my table and chairs again.  But now, I am looking forward to traveling the Yellow Brick Road.  I hope that all of the important people in my life will travel the road with me even if they are not sitting at my table.