Single handing through life

My first real single handed trip last autumn gave me time to do a lot of thinking. A lot of that was making up a fairy story, but thats another... well, another story.

Single handing was a very positive, and, dare I say it (because of the very real risk of sounding tossy), even a profound experience, which, I realised, provided a lot of useful parallels with life in gereral, especially for someone like me who has never felt entirely at ease in the social world.

Whe I got back, I jotted down a few of those points, and I recently came across that notebook again. This is a very personal take on things, but these are some of the things single-handing means to me, whether it be in boating or in life:

• Embracing solitude and finding strength in it.
• Enjoying meeting other people and spending time with them, but not being dependent on them.
• Taking responsibility for everything I do.
• Standing up for doing things the way I know, or feel, to be right.
• Being self-reliant, but...
• Asking for help when it's really needed, and...
• Accepting help gracefully even when it's not.
• Appreciating the moment.
• Setting my own boundaries and being clear about them.
• Setting my own pace and not being rushed.

What lessons from boating would you carry over into life in general?