One needs to have a good plan to accomplish the goal, but sometimes, life happens, plans change and maybe the goal too.
The rub is, it’s even easier to change the goal, then to make a better plan for the circumstances.
But changing goals is a slippery slope; so easy to do, but before you know it, you’ve accomplished nothing.
In 8th grade I decided I wanted to be a meteorologist. Seven years later, in my last year at the University of Washington, I hated school, I was bored and tired of not having any money. But unlike many of my college friends who dropped out, transferred or just disappeared, I persevered.
I had a goal to accomplish. Three Master’s degrees later, each one to further some career goal, I look back and am satisfied with the goals, though some of the plans to accomplish those goals should have been re-thought.
Dauntless has been in my life for 5 years now. Inexplicitly, it doesn’t seem that long at all to me at all, it still feels like yesterday or at least last year.
The goal to take a boat to Europe and then S. Korea is even older, maybe 9 years. That goal drove the search for the right boat. A boat that could not only cross oceans but do it in a manner that I could afford on my meager pension.
The original plan was to cross the North Pacific this coming summer and arrive in Yeosu, S. Korea by October 2018. Instead, I find myself agonizing over how to get up the Pacific coast of Mexico. The North Pacific seems further away than ever.
But the goal doesn’t change; though the plan must.
I now have some intrepid fellows helping me with the first and hardest, part of the cruise north. Having good crew can put a lot of wind in your sails. It also allows me further tweak the plan. Maybe I can get to San Francisco Bay sooner, rather than later. Then, I would be able to spend some of this summer and fall cruising with good weather and friends.
So maybe some baby steps are in order for the next few years, but the destination remains the same.
Dauntless at Sea 