It Takes Two

I’ve been thinking a lot about the type of fortitude and gumption it takes to make a drastic change in one’s life. Many of us have big plans and even bigger dreams. We start off life saying things like, “When I grow up, I’m going to be an astronaut!” or “Someday I’m going to be President!” As we get older, we start getting more realistic. Maybe not an astronaut, but perhaps a scientist. Maybe not President, but perhaps a lawyer.

For most of us, the world starts beating us down almost as soon as we make these pronouncements.

You can’t be President because you’re a girl.

You aren’t good at math…do you really think an astronaut is a good choice?

You start second-guessing yourself, and pretty soon you settle for what society deems an appropriate career choice, given your gender, your social standing, your geography, your education, your culture.

Given all those restrictions placed on you, usually by complete strangers, it is no wonder that so many of us give up on our dreams and spend the rest of our lives convincing ourselves that what we settled for is what we wanted all along.

So it takes a tremendous amount of courage to stop what we are doing, which seems rather comfortable and normal, and start planning for something completely different. I will be the first to admit that I have an incredibly lazy streak. I will work very hard to maintain a level of comfort, but I resist making changes that make me feel awkward or out of place. It takes someone with a great deal of patience to push me out of that comfort zone and into a new way of thinking.

Fortunately, I am married to just such a person.

I have gotten very used to living with the personality I developed to combat the strangers who kept telling me what I could not do. Like the proverbial bull in a china shop, I tend to run roughshod over people who get in my way. Unfortunately, sometimes that means I run over people who are really trying to help me.

Leaving the traditional trappings of American society takes gumption, and in my case, it also takes two. I would not embark on this journey to sail to parts unknown alone. I would not have thought of it myself, I would not have worked hard to make it happen, and I would not have made the changes to my lifestyle and my outlook on my own. That took Captain Joe, who has been the driving force behind everything that has been accomplished thus far on our plan. There should never be any doubt as to who is running this show. If it had not been for Captain Joe making the radical suggestion that we sell everything and go cruising around the world, it never would have happened. If it had not been for his research and hard work, we wouldn’t know anything about sailing or sailboats. If he had not reached out to other sailors, we wouldn’t have any experience at all.

In my case, it takes two to make dreams a reality: One to dream big and work like crazy to make it happen, and another to stop every once in a while and congratulate the dreamer on all he has accomplished. I know I will continue to knock things over as I push my way through life, but I hope that I will learn that at least one person isn’t telling me what I can’t do, but showing me what I CAN do.

The Nauti Professor