CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Friday 10 March 2017

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?

2 comments:

  1. I think you covered it really well Sarah. Thanks for writing this. Jaq xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. To always expect the unexpected.

    ReplyDelete