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I will turn 42 this week. This summer, I bought my first boat. It was a deeply humbling experience - I was quite happy not to take out a row of boat motors whe
by japhyr 12y ago
I will turn 42 this week.
This summer, I bought my first boat. It was a deeply humbling experience - I was quite happy not to take out a row of boat motors when trying to get out of the harbor for the first time. I didn't make it out of the harbor the first time I tried - I got to a corner, decided I wasn't quite ready to make that corner at mid-tide, and returned to try again at high tide. I'm reasonably competent now in mild weather, but I was scared those first few times out in a way I haven't been scared in a long time.
I am really appreciative of having found something that takes me back to those formative experiences of my late teens and early twenties - new adventures that shape the soul. Getting out on the ocean on a regular basis is renewing as well.
I watched my parents stop living when my brother and I graduated high school and left home. They stopped going out as much, they stopped trying new things, and in general they grew more fearful of the world as it changed around them. I vowed to never give in like this, and now that I'm at the age where I saw them stop living, I always check in and make sure I'm learning new things, and taking appropriate new risks.
I'll never be 20 again, and I don't want to be. But I'll be a 40 year old who's living each day with a similar outlook and enthusiasm as I had in my 20's.
- jurassic 12y agoGreat story about boating. I get a similar humility and fear experience from foreign language study and practice.
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- mhurron 12y ago> I bought my first boat The two greatest times in a mans life, when he buys a boat, and when he sells it.
- falcor84 12y agoI wasn't aware of this nice saying, so I googled and found this nice page: http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_two_happiest_days_of_a_mans_lifethe_day_he_bought_the_boat_and_the_day http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_... Not very surprisingly, that page says that this was originally applied to being married and to holding political office.
- rlease 12y agoThis story makes me smile. My father retired a few years ago, and immediately went to work on a kit airplane he and a friend bought together. He flies it semi-weekly, depending on the weather, and is working on building another plane on days he can't fly. I fear the day he stops doing "stuff" will be the day he dies, but I don't think that day is coming any time soon.
- ChuckMcM 12y agoToo bad for your parents, while it can be 'weird' again to have the house to yourself it is quite liberating as well. Stepping outside your comfort zone, as you have with the boat, is also a great way to uncover new frontiers to conquer. My challenge is like Charlie's everything is grey now in terms of information. Few things are 'good' or 'bad' in a way that they were in my youth. Having seen a lot you come to appreciate how bad things can result in good outcomes and good things in bad outcomes. That can be oddly frustrating at times. It affects the firmament of belief such that you have a hard time believing in something when you can argue yourself both for and against it. And of course deconstructing past beliefs is, I suspect, a proximate cause of many mid-life crises.