Super Sunday: Just Do It

On Sundays I write about one of the joys of full-timing

Today's post is reprinted with permission by the man who wrote it, Randy Pickelmann. Randy and Cindy own Morning Star, a 36 foot Krogen Manatee trawler and contribute to a boating forum that Sean reads. A few weeks ago, Randy wrote to the forum:

Well, it finally happened.

When Cindy & I left to go cruising two years ago we knew that since I had two elderly parents, it was likely that we would one day be called back home. We didn't want to live our lives with regret so we ran away from home. My dad passed away unexpectedly on Christmas Day. After four months, it has become obvious that Mom needs our help on a daily basis. So after wintering Morning Star in the Keys and not using her, we are going down this weekend and bringing her back home to Clearwater.

While this certainly puts our cruising plans on indefinite hold, we have every intention of picking up again some day. In the meantime Morning Star will be used on the weekends and on occasional vacation cruises.

I guess the real message in all this is that if you plan to go cruising, leave now. Go today, not tomorrow. The hardest part is untying the dock lines. If you wait a few more years for the stock market to come back...your Social Security to kick in...your retirement to vest at a better rate...or to finish a few more projects to make the boat perfect, you might be waiting too long. Health issues for one spouse or the other can potentially put your dreams back on the shelf in a heartbeat. Nike said in their commercials, "Just Do It".

One of my favorite quotes is from actor and adventurer Sterling Hayden's book Wanderer:

"...we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, and playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice.

Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"

Cindy & I have frequently chosen bankruptcy of purse. Someone once counseled, "Go out on a limb...that's where all the fruit is!"

Thanks, Randy, for putting it more eloquently than I could. I couldn't agree more.