Keep Grimacing You Old Bastard

Perseverance, endurance, resilience.

You can get into semantics about these attributes, but in my head they're all sharing one core, grit. Putting the shoulder to the wheel and leaning in until the destination is attained. 

In my senior years I'm now aware how the thing you're grinding away at alters over a lifetime. As a kid it was surfing more solidly, running faster or scoring more tries. (Interesting that commercial sports media is all about these achievements.) 

But when your an; adult, student, parent or employee, the goals are set by others. They say jump, you jump. Then as a retiree you realise a lot of that jumping was just useless as far as your personal ideals are concerned. We got sidetracked somewhere, we forgot where we were going, we lost the habit of setting exciting challenges for ourselves. 

So now, any remnant goals can become vague and distant. Faced with the daunting prospect of reinventing the wheel you can feel lazy and unmotivated. Just like your spent. What you have you force yourself to do is to set little goals and not be upset or sidetracked by illness, loss, bureaucrats or even stupid changes in the way you need to do things nowadays. In 1996 my Marine HF licence was a 10 minite chat onboard. To refresh it in 2025; several weeks study at an online course (which cost a bomb), then enrolled to do the exam with an invigilator's fee of $100, then wait two weeks and pay another $90 to get your physical license. So, something as simple as "getting your license", a minor step toward s bigger goal, can test your brain, freetime, wallet and tolerance, to the nth degree. As a graffiti artist cum philosopher scratched into a writing desk at uni: " nils bastardio carborundam". Or don't let the bastards grind you down. Apparently a good student of Latin will correct the translation, but the point is made. Don't let naysayers, "friends" or relatives, definitely not the bureaucrats, prevent you from achieving your goal. 

Some strategies I have adopted:-

* Use a smaller boat. Rougher at sea, but can be man handled and is simpler.

* Use an outboard. Slower, noisier, but no throughhull fittings, stern gland, filters or other expensive complexities. 

* Simple electronics. No point and click function, but simpler, affordable and more easily understood. 

* Go alone. No one to help, but also no people around to destroy, delay or confuse the goal. 

And so on.

My old dog. He's not actually smiling, he's grimacing because I grabbed his leg and woke him from his doggy dreams.  

TIP OF THE DAY: Keep grimacing you old bastard.