My dream life stems from surfing. I began surfing when I was around 10 years old and stemmed from a family who loved going to the beach. We never really lived near the beach, but we were always within an hours drive and went to the beach every year for vacations in the summer. I never had the greatest time just screwing around on the beach, so I looked to the water. Long story short, I fell in love with surfing, and it has stayed with me to this date. Surfing has and will probably remain the biggest passion in my life. There is so much to say about surfing and what it has done to influence the person I am, so I will keep that for another time.
Luckily, I had already summarized this dream in a previous blog. It was written about a year ago, and since then things have changed, and this blog will address that. So here it is:
For those who have known me a while, you obviously know I have been getting real into sailing lately out of nowhere. I usually come up with new things to involve myself in every once and a while, but this one means a bit more and is hopefully leading to a major life change in the next few years. A long time ago I decided that the one goal I would like to pursue above anything would be to sail around the world in search of surf, sights, experiences, and seeing what this place has to offer. Why take a few trips overseas when I can sail all 7 of them and see the entire world on my own?
Back in high school I used to read Surfer Magazine religiously. The walls of my room were always completely covered with Surfer Mag pages, posters and photos. And yes, I actually read the articles too. At one point they printed an article with a preface written by one of the editors. He wrote that the following story was found as a journal in a glass bottle picked up by a boater in the Pacific. What he had found was a story of a man who sold everything he had, quit his job, said goodbye to loved ones and just sailed away. He sailed across the the Pacific to Polynesia in search of surf. This is, in essence, every surfer's dream: to surf private, perfect waves on your own time without any other worries in the world. The guy eventually went insane and was lost at sea...but we will ignore that for now.
The article definitely was one of the greatest stories I have ever read. It was his full journal about the journey and it detailed the voyage, the surf, the islands and his eventual insanity. I decided back then that I want to eventually have my own boat and search for surf in some tropical sea. The thought remained with me ever since and has evolved over time. At first I thought it would be a neat thing to do for retirement. Eventually I thought if I won the lottery or stumbled upon fame and fortune, I would get the boat and go as soon as possible. The past few years I have seen my life settle into the daily grind and have started to be able to set realistic goals for myself. The sailing dream moved up in my life as a hope to do so in mid life and eventually start a charter business out of the whole deal. In the past year, however, everything changed.
The latest dream has been a combination of being in a great place in life (friends, living situation, social life, job) and having once again invested a lot of time into finding myself and what I want out of life. Earlier this year, I decided if I wanted to do this sailing thing eventually, I need to learn how to sail! So I did just that and set out to learn. This summer I took the first step and begun getting my ASA (American Sailing Association) certifications. The certifications will help me become proficient to skipper a boat around the world and will allow me to charter boats in the mean time to gain experience. I have so far finished 2 out of the 7 that I need. I am reading books all the time to prepare myself and have begun completely obsessing about it all. The thought of sailing around the world has consumed my thought process and I have even finally started turning my financial life upside down to start saving for the journey.
So what will the journey entail you ask? As of now...I dont know. Im sure the more I learn and the more time goes on, I will start to formulate exactly where I want to go. As of now, I have a rough shell of things I want to accomplish and where I want to go. In essence...I want to go everywhere on the globe. I am planning on a 2-3 year journey and have my goals set for 3 years from now (I will be 28). If I can do it earlier, I will.
I would like to do the trip with friends and family. But a commitment like that is nearly impossible for others to make and this I understand. I fully expect to solo parts of the trip and whenever someone can fly out and meet up with me, I would enjoy the company and crew. So if you are interested in being part of this, feel free to start asking me questions. I have more of this thought out in my head than I feel like writing out right now, but I'm sure the more I get into it I will start to type it all up. Of course, it would be great to have met a girl as adventurous as me to share the journey with, but I am not going to bank on it. I can hope though.
I have had a lot of goals and aspirations in life. So far, anything I have really set out to do, I have pulled off. Most of the things I think of doing (and pull off) even my closest of friends have not believed that I would actually go after. I think many of my friends and family have come to realize that when I set out to achieve something or start a new (weird) hobby, that it will either not get beyond my imagination or if it does, I am full steam ahead and will finish what I started. This is my greatest dream as of yet, hopefully all of it works out.
And there it is, my dream, my idea of the life I want to live. Over the past year I have learned an incredible amount in terms of persuing this dream, and have developed a rough plan of exactly how I can do this. This blog will start to lay the plan out and will develop over time.
That is all for now though, gotta get some work done.
1 comment:
wow this sounds amazing, and im gonna stay tuned to see what more you have in the way of planning. i think its everyones dream to leave the comfort of their daily humdrum life and get away for two-three years, but it sounds like you just might actually do it. good luck man.
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