What if you cam't figure out what your dream is

Dear Bloggers,

I have to make a lot of decisions at the moment and find hardly any time to follow my dreams. And I think it’s a lot less about “What if” and more about “Why don’t I know what my dream is?” and probably more importantly “Where can I find my dream?“.

If you don’t have a dream and don’t care about not having a dream – well then you probably aren’t reading this anyway. If you don’t have a dream and you do wish you had one. Then I believe that wish for a dream is actually a sign that you do have a dream… it’s just buried under some other stuff right now.

I’m going to share some possible scenarios of what could be happening here and some ideas for what to do with them:

Scenario 1: You know what your dream is, but you are scared to admit it to yourself or to others. This is completely understandable! Having a dream is scary. Having a dream and going after it means everything in tour life could change. Having a dream and going after it means taking big risks. By not admitting that you have a dream, you can avoid all of this change and risk and uncomfortable stuff.

And yet...well, it’s still uncomfortable, isn’t it?

In avoiding change and risk you also avoid the joy of the dream come true. Mostly you avoid doing the thing you really want to be doing.

Your dream isn’t a superficial thing. It’s important. It comes from your heart and your soul. It’s tied to your purpose for being here on this planet. Avoid the dream and it will not go away. It will only grow more and more difficult to avoid. But all that stuff you are avoiding? It’s real too. And it’s scary. Pretending it’s not there is not a good plan. 

 

What may work here: Admitting it very quietly by writing it in your diary or your agenda. Start to give the dream just a little bit of space. You don’t have to tell anyone else about it and you certainly don’t have to do anything about it. Just give it some space to be and see what comes of that. Baby steps.

Scenario 2: You know what your dream is, but don’t believe that you can have it, so it’s kind of uncomfortable to think about it.

Awww. First I just want to give you a hug. Everything I said above about your dream is true: Your dream isn’t a superficial thing. It’s important. It comes from your heart and your soul. It’s tied to your purpose for being here on this planet. And also: Avoid the dream and it will not go away. It will only grow more and more difficult to avoid.

That last part is even more true in this case. Your dream is really important and it is asking you to work through your fear that you don’t deserve it or can’t have it for some reason. It is asking you to believe. What may work here: Asking “What if?” What if it was OK for me to pursue this dream? What If if was OK for me to have this dream? What do I think I deserve? What would have to happen in order for me to believe I deserve more?

Forcing yourself to go after your dream won’t be helpful here, working on changing your mind about what is possible for you will be helpful. Taking some slow baby steps towards your dreams may be helpful too. Sometimes that “I don’t think I can have it” starts to fade when it sees evidence that you really can have it.

Scenario 3: There is so much that you want to do, that you can’t pick just one to identify as “your dream”. Well this is actually a fantastic situation to be in, even though it doesn’t always feel like it. I really believe it’s better to have too many ideas than too few. I always have way more ideas and dreams than I can possibly work on.

Sometimes this “I have so many things I want to do I can’t commit to one thing” is just a way of sabotaging yourself, usually due to one of the fears mentioned above, so you may want to check those out and see if any of the ideas there feel like they may be helpful to you. If that’s not it, then what is happening here is a bottleneck. Too many ideas, too little time/resources and nothing can get through. You relieve the bottleneck by choosing some dreams to work on now and putting the other dreams aside for now. If the thought of putting some dreams aside makes you freak out a little: look at what is really happening here.

If you focus on one or two dreams for now, and actually bring them to life, then it becomes much easier to go back to those other dreams and bring them to life as well. With each dream come true you become more experienced at bringing dreams to life and you open up new possibilities for how to bring your dreams to life.

But still, choosing can be hard. What may work here: Asking yourself Which dreams am I most passionate about? This might help to narrow it down. If you start to work on the dream that you are most passionate about, all that passion can help to make it happen faster, so you can get back to the other dreams.

Or you can ask yourself Which dreams feel the easiest to work on right now? which is, of course, the easier way to go. Pick the low hanging fruit. Start with the easy dreams and work your way up. It could be that nothing feels easy but something is bound to feel easier than the others.

It can be hard to put some dreams aside. I have a desktop computer that is my place to put all of my opinions, ideas and dreams in. This way it doesn’t feel like they are lost, they are waiting for their right time to be brought to life. And sometimes, because creative dreams are magic, those dreams sitting in the notebook come true all on their own. Because they’re been taken out of the bottleneck! Dreams stuck in a bottleneck tend to not come true.

Scenario 4: You really just don’t know what your dream is:

Ask yourself: If I could have anything you want, what would it be? If you had no limits. None at all. Where would you live? How would you live? What would you do? How would you spend your days? How would you feel? What kinds of hobbies would you have? What would your social life be life? Your romantic life? Your finances? Your health? Your creativity? Your spirituality?

Somewhere in all of that there must be something you dream of. Something you want to build in your world. Your dreams are about so much more than wanting things to be different than they are. Your dreams are how you express your purpose and authenticity and uniqueness. Your dreams are healing. Your dreams can make a huge difference.

You don’t have to know what your dream is before you start working on it! I know, that sounds kind of crazy but it’s true. You can make finding your dream the dream you work on! Give your dreams a chance and live them you will be so much happier.

The Old Sailor,

When your boss is wanting to destroy you.

Dear Bloggers,

Imagine the scenario - a woman goes into work one day and her manager acts in an abusive and malicious way towards her. This is so shocking that she spends the next three years suffering from the consequences of that incident. She cannot sleep at night, she has frequent flashbacks and nightmares, she turns into a different person. The way she has been treated by her colleagues at work creates an ongoing condition that requires serious psychiatric support. If she would not have done anything but she knocked on every door that she could find to ask for help but no one reached out to stop this mentally disturbed manager who did everything in his power to destroy her mentally.
Is it right to talk about this as a complex post traumatic stress disorder (Severe PTSD)?

I compare to a dog. This dog was good and it was loyal and if something might be wrong it would bark for a while to be heard. If it looks like a dog, if it barks like a dog, and if overall it behaves like a dog, then it is most likely to be a dog. In the case of PTSD caused by bullying and abuse at work, this is a particularly black dog that has been beaten with a stick until it either shut up or it would attack and could be put down.

But most of our images of Severe PTSD come from much more 'obvious' and dramatic causes of such shock. When we think of PTSD we are most likely to think of the soldiers in Afghanistan who have suffered from exploding devices or have been subject to combat and personal loss.
In the cases of PTSD at work, then the obvious examples are of fire-fighters, on-patrol police officers, and other emergency workers who have had near death shocks in extreme circumstances. Each of these clearly are people who may be suffering from PTSD.

So is it fair to use a diagnosis of PTSD for someone whose mental health has been severely affected by bullying at work, rather than some more easily identifiable event or incident? On the other hand, let's give some thought to how a person who has been subject to workplace bullying may feel about themselves.

If we are all used to thinking of PTSD only in terms of combat veterans and violent and near death experiences, then a PTSD sufferer is also very likely to feel that their own suffering and experience is 'trivial' in comparison to the more obvious triggers of PTSD. Unfortunately, someone with PTSD is already likely to have feelings of self-worthlessness and somehow a diagnosis of their condition as PTSD may only serve to make them feel worse.
The starting point for this is to recognise the problem.

Thankfully, the issue of bullying, abuse and harassment at work has become firmly acknowledged in many respects in recent years. (Although it is shocking that it was only in 1988 that it was given the term 'workplace bullying'). The psychological harm this can cause to someone at work is recognised, but it is still rare that such harm is understood in terms of PTSD.

It is becoming recognised that PTSD can be caused by abuse in non-extreme contexts. For example, the case of my dear wife she has been mocked by her former manager that she was smelling. So after a few weeks she went to the doctors office, who could not find anything and send her to a dermatologist and there was nothing to be found. Strange thing was that i did not smell anything either and I sleep next to her every night I kept telling her it looks to me like bullying.

'Traumatic experiences or strains imposed on us by others can often hurt more than accidents.'

Indeed, the manager was replaced inside the company and my wife entered a new team in the mean time she went to a psychological centre and got treatment from great psychologist. Her new manager got the bills for it as they wanted to keep it out of sight of their headquarters and placed the bills under education bills. After being halfway the sessions she needed her manger told her that it should be enough and they would not pay for it anymore (he probably ran out of budget) My wife disagreed and called our health insurance and they picked up the bills. 

After a while the manager got the reports of the psychological centre as well. So he was informed about the case totally and started a even harder campaign on my wife to get rid of her with no extra costs. In November 2013 something snapped in her brain and she was not able to do her job anymore as a call centre agent. They gave her different job tasks in the mail room, but the bullying continued. In February 2014 I called her boss that she was too sick to come to work. He straight away told me that she should agree to sign off. I informed the Union and they told me not to panic as in the Netherlands you can be sick for 2 years and the employer must do everything to make you reintegrate into work. Either in or outsourcing.

Well you probably can guess what happened they did not see it as their problem and they believed of course their own manager.


A psychiatrist put this to me very well: It is already recognised that PTSD can be caused by experiences that are outside of the extreme shock of a life-threatening situation (such as combat or an accident). That is, there are many people suffering from PTSD due to various forms of personal abuse particularly domestic and/or sexual abuse. Such PTSD may have been caused by a single incident of abuse, or a series of events stretching over a period of time, even many years.

And so if domestic abuse or school bullying can cause a person to suffer from PTSD, it should come as no surprise then that PTSD can also be caused by abuse in the workplace. We might like to think that the workplace is a safe enough place where people behave with respect and do care, as perhaps we used to assume was the case in the home and at school. Many employers would like us to think this. But this is simply not the case. People can be nasty at work to their colleagues, just as they can be at home with their families.
For many people, the workplace is a site of bullying and abuse by their own workmates and managers, and is not a safe place at all.
If we give this some thought, most of us can probably pinpoint one or more examples of such bullying we have seen in our own careers - either done to us or others. It might not always cause PTSD, but the consequences are always nasty. 

 
The employment tribunal system has slowly begun to pick this up and use what powers it is given to redress some of the wrongs caused by employers against their workers. The most high profile of I know is the case of my wife who was subject to a nasty campaign against her by her managers and senior colleagues over a number of years. She suffered from this to such an extent that she was diagnosed with severe PTSD, and until now she is covered by the law that she can be on sick pay but this will stop in the month of April 2016. If it is up to me, she should receive compensation of €285,000 in order of lost wages, money that she could make until she could go on pension benefits in the year 2037 just towards this personal psychiatric injury, as part of a larger award amounting in total to €500,000. as all our family members suffered from the direct effects of the PTSD.

Our claim is that she is suffering from a post traumatic stress disorder and depression after being ridiculed by co-workers and managers in the call centre department of big telecom provider. My wife had had to endure a 'hostile and degrading' environment in a company which had 'lacked empathy'. It had left her in a state where she was unable to do the simplest of household chores.
In some respects, when it comes to a law suit the process will be hard and emotional and let us hope we are fortunate (if we can use this term). The system should be able to help us at this stage. It is a kind of abusive discrimination. If there had not been that element to the abusive behaviour of their managers and colleagues, it would be much harder for us to be compensated for the PTSD that her workplace has caused.

But I think most would agree that although bullying is harmful and nasty, there are many other forms of bullying and abuse that do not involve any particular forms of putting some on down and a make you feel undetermined.
It is estimated that at least one in ten people in the workplace suffer from bullying, but not all of them develop PTSD. If we can take the figures for this we should do more as employers as they are in some way indicative of the problem, then perhaps one third of these people may have some form of PTSD. This calculates as 3.3% of the working population suffering from PTSD caused by workplace bullying. With a workforce of around 7 million, that means nearly 231000 people in the Netherlands are perhaps experiencing PTSD caused by workplace bullying and abuse. That is a lot of people, and a lot of time lost from work by the people suffering the terrible consequences of PTSD (and of course it also time lost from their normal lives). It is a complete waste for everyone, apart from those who do the bullying.

It is simply the case that many people suffer the terrible experiences of PTSD due to bullying and abuse in the workplace (as can also happen or at school or at home). Although this has been happening for years, and is likely to continuing happening in future, there needs to be much more recognition of this problem and the harm it causes.

Such recognition of workplace PTSD needs to be acknowledged particularly for the sake of those with the PTSD, and also for those around them, their families, their friends, and also their employers. It is no one's interest for someone to suffer from PTSD without recognition and support.

Bastards are all over the world, maybe we should hang them.

The Old Sailor,

Why do people become so mean?

Dear Bloggers,

Last evening I found myself on the couch hanging out on the Internet with a good friend of mine chatting about various subjects, like our lives, life as a general topic, other people's lives and finally about the people that surround us in all these sophisticated places like pubs, restaurants and where ever we might go. I don't know how it always happens, but every time I go out in a place like that I end up talking about the other clients. And especially how they are treating other people, I am annoyed by the fact that serving staff is considered being garbage or lower class people. Could it be just me or is this an ordinary feature of all people nowadays? 

It suddenly dawned on me that people are more often drawn by criticizing on others than just minding their own business and they are also usually more into being mean and devilish than being nice and polite. My God what is happening to us. Where is the love for each other?

So here I am, in front of my keyboard, eager to write an editorial about something, anything and all I can think about is why is everyone so mean all the time? Wouldn't it be easier to behave ourselves and be friendly, calm and relaxed, or at least polite if we really don't feel like having small talk with our neighbor when we come down by stairs or elevator? 

I almost everyday start with a good morning to everyone that is on my path. I agree that there are moments when we believe there's no point in chatting with the cleaning lady or one of my silent co-workers, but sometimes these kind of small conversations might bring some light to our daily activities. Let me put it some other way: if we don't want to be kind just because "it's a nice thing to be nice", we can at least think selfishly. Just making others feel better might eventually make us feel better about ourselves by having the feeling of being nice to another human being. 

So, at least for this reason and we should be less intentioned to harass and harm other people and more happy to behave civilized and nice.
I decided to take the word NICE as a statement here. Maybe by using it more frequently I'll actually get to practice it as an alternative to being grumpy. And maybe some of you will also get "addicted" to it!

Let me emphasize my frustration by a example of pointless unkindness that makes our lives even more difficult to be bared these days. After going to work with a terrible desire of having some fun with my commuting passengers. I always start with greeting everyone that hops on and saying goodbye to everyone that hops off. I make some small talk and make some jokes with the happy people. I'm not joking when saying I was very eager to have some fun this day. I was hit for the second time yesterday by the horrible lack of politeness and goodwill. 

I pulled my coat on, hurried down the stairs, got into my car and got myself on the way to work. Being a little hungry, I grabbed some food from the fridge. Surprise, surprise! When exiting the bus stand I noticed that my lane to get out was partially blocked by a truck, whose driver was quietly smoking a cigarette (I believe he was waiting for someone to arrive) I got myself a little wound up by this guy, expecting for the smoking driver to move his vehicle just a few meters away, but guess what? 

He didn't even blink! He just stayed there, in his warm cozy indifference and watched me tormenting myself while trying to get out of the bus parking. Why would anyone do such a thing? Why wouldn't he just move his truck a little to help me leave more easily and not jeopardize the safety of his own vehicle as well (I must add that I could have easily hit his truck by accident for the space was very limited). So, after having a rough day and while heading to waiting passengers, imagine how "nice" this incident was for me! I calmed myself down in a few minutes, what could I do about this situation nothing or could I? But still I was wondering: why??? Why do people feel so good with so much malice and hostility?

Why are people so mean, for God's sake? I sometimes try so hard to understand why so many human beings do find it easier to be critical and mean and hostile, instead of being nice, but I never seem to get to any valid explanation. Is it maybe because they express their inside furies and frustrations by trying to make others feel lousy too, or maybe because they just don't care about the way their reactions affect the others or maybe "just like that".

"Why are people mean? Here's the short answer: They're hurt. Here's the long answer: They're really hurt. At some point, somebody-their parents, their lovers, Lady Luck-did them dirty. They were crushed. And they're still afraid the pain will never stop, or that it will happen again.
There. I've just described every single person living on planet Earth.
The fact is that we've all been hurt, and we're all wounded, but not all of us are mean. Why not? 

Because some people realize that their history of suffering can be a hero's saga rather than a victim's whine, depending on how they "write" it. The moment we begin tolerating meanness, in ourselves or others, we are using our authorial power in the service of wrongdoing. We have both the capacity and the obligation to do better."
We can make it a better day by just being a little friendly to each other.

The Old Sailor,

Writing is art or did it become something else?

Dear Bloggers,

The last couple of days rain has been pooring down and due to the bad weather I once again sat musing about the past and I write on a piece of "nostalgia of the long gone years" I sit behind the computer and think back to my childhood that I was laying on the floor playing with a couple of miniature cars and my mother meanwhile handled the vacuum cleaner, I still remember the typical smell of soft soap and feel the warm air blow from the vacuumcleaner onto my face. For me a reason to write my earliest memories down.

I therefore look forward to your earliest memories. And maybe you would love to share that with all of us.

How far can you go back with your memories? I cannot tell that as these imprints are absolutly different per person. I know that there were quite a few events in my childhood that I can pick up as they are forever printed in my mind. Just everyday things, nothing special.

For example, I remember that I once stood in the dining room in front of the table and I was determined to sse something on the table. Just standing on my toes and holding onto it I was able to look at some items on the table. That was the first moment to me of being proud as I felt very big because I could look across the table for the first time instead of looking against it. No idea how old I was, but it os strange that you remember that moment and that feeling.

I have two sisters and one brother, I was the youngest. My father worked in a factory and my mother was a housewife so we were an ordinary family. I was dropped of every schoolday by my mother at the kindergarten, who continued with groceryshopping and housework. My mother made the most delicious coffee and my father was reading the newspaper in the cozy living room in a lovely big armchair. Then the TV came on to watch the evening news. Life was not that complicated at those years. If you wanted to comment on something you had to do that in person or write a letter to newspaper and send it by mail to them. It would make you think first. 

 

These are sort of my earliest memories. So they go back to my fourth year of life. I wonder how far you go back memories. In our present time everything is much more hectic. We have become terrified of missing something, the so-called FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

In the opinionstorm of print and broadcast the storm continues to print paper and the role of reflection. And the people who really read, can often write better as a matter of fact.

Besides seeing writing as unique art or craft that can teach many, there is a third form: thumb typing. That is everywhere. We live in a time when everyone writes and no one reads. And gives opinions. Published in a second. What is the function of editorial pages as the slow process of printing and paper making way for fast printing and sending?

In the summer of 2008, I first came into contact with the iPhone which at that time was for the first time in the Netherlands for sale exclusively for the phone company T-Mobile. This device accelerated ease the mind revolution that was going on in evening talk shows, blogs and reader comments in the Internet published pieces.

In those days you rather read a book as many other passengers on the bus or train or they were hiding behind a small free or paid large newspaper, suddenly everyone was putting himself or herself to writing. At first only textmessages, but soon via mobile internet we could write on almost anything. With the iPhone and its imitators were also Facebook and other platforms accessible. On train platforms and in waiting rooms and train chairs in rows for cash, bike and even in the car you see people sitting fixated tapping their small personal screen. Even Her Majesty Queen Beatrix had noticed this: "People communicate through rapid brief messages," she noted in her Christmas speech 2009.

The newspaper editors were to be exempted to remove a sludge of invective between the reader comments. For direct response digital was something different from the classic letter to the newspaper. Every drunk could, once ended up at home, his twaddle hurtle directly to a site without a stamp and without any reflection. He did not even had to count to ten.

The late ramblings in the pub became public. Anti-Semites, racists, violent characters, many anonymous.

The question is: Is there someone out there who reads three hundred reactions on an article about asylum seekers still? We thought we let everyone have their say. But the people under our articles appeared to consist of a dozen people who responded to each other, including a bitchfight between an artist from Rotterdam and a lady from Spain.

A number of sites managed to perfect the art of swearing to a profession, and sometimes it's funny too. All authors. More and more people made their own little newspaper on Facebook, some with thousands of "friends". It could even shorter, with 140 characters on Twitter, launched in 2006 and 2009 really established in the Netherlands.

Everywhere you had to respond and scold became an art how can insult someone as hard as possible and then preferably also anonymous. Yes those are the real heroes in our society. However, it takes all this attention only briefly. Because they are greedy for sensation and as many people should be destroyed. And after a day or two it has been all forgotten again. Because you have to be on time with the new little storm.

In this digital bath full of hissing fury remains a printed and online opinion page in the newspapers regularly a stunning slow journalism island. Submitted papers to read and talk about and corresponding. Checked information. Topics devise and get there in the best possible author. That can come from the Netherlands, but as well from the US, Germany or Peru. Preferably not someone from the editors, because they are having enough text elsewhere in the paper. Many experts, writers and essayists that protrude above the mass opinion. That show what the reflection of paper for printing and has the nervousness of Twitter and a blog. A good opinion piece is simple: it contains a clear opinion contained in an argument with examples.

If that is in theory.

If authors are skilled with the pen, they quickly in the newspaper. Knowledge and expertise is a recommendation, but it can also turn against the author. Too much knowledge is assumed to be known, you get lost in details. Others are afraid to upset colleagues so alone desirability as "sustainability" or "future-proofing". Which often mean the opposite of what is intended. With opinion pieces is no diplomacy businesses.

Ask for a clear piece is sometimes like you are strapped with your hands on to a bicycle and get on it. Politicians rarely want to give a non-predictable opinion. Timing is also part of their profession. There is the distinct ideology of a party, but everyone knows already. Not surprisingly, the ANWB who wants to build more roads. And every article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raises many reactions against but the arguments are the same age and known as the battle itself.

I've got respect for the men and women who send every day ten to fifty pieces and letters in the electronic mailbox of the newspaper to ensure their voices. Especially men like me, middle age or older, who want to share their experiences. In good spirits, while only two pieces of post, internet with it some more. Brave they fall for the papers firing squad, and the rejection they take on in a sporty way.

Why women dare to come less often with their opinion? Besides being less confident it should also be efficient: why do all that work to do with a very uncertain outcome? At least that is my opinion,

Fortunately, there are people who can still be thankful sitting down with a real newspaper who are still being made for real readers. They can often also write well. They know a lot, point out mistakes, put in a letter of two hundred words telling you the difference between a piano and a keyboard or the possibilities of a vacant building.

That kind of spontaneous reactions, surprising authors, new topics, deliciously absurd entries and commentaries I will miss, because more and more newspapers are getting in trouble for the simple fact that people no longer buy one to quietly sit down and read. Now I have myself thrown in the army of millions of enthusiastic writers. And I secretly hope that someone actually will read my stories.

The Old Sailor.

They call me an old sea dog.

Dear Bloggers,

As most of my readers will know that I have been a sailor for more than 13 years and yes I loved my job and my family was happy with what i was doing. Although the last period was pretty though as I developed fibromyalgia and a few years later I was diagnosed with diabetics what has fucked up my life even more. 

If you had three guesses you’d still never get my job. Not because that I don't look like a sailor, but because I look exactly like a sailor you’d think it must be something else. Yes I have the muscled, tattooed forearms, folded across my substantial torso; 

No I am not having the neatly-clipped, old sea dog approved, snow white beard and moustache; Yes my hairs are grey and clipped short as a navy short-cut and when I have one eye glaring and one partly closed looking towards the sun, like I am the captain on the bridge, and yes when I am on to it I have a voice like a foghorn, a voice so penetrating it could stop a polar bear, a bar fight, or maybe even both.

Passengers my friends, that’s your real bitch of a cargo,’ What they bring on to get something for free. ‘Metaphoric, you see. they’ll suck the juice right out of you.’ You just can snap your fingers, to demonstrate either the speed or the sound you’d make, I’m not sure. But all off sudden you are in a fully hazardous environment

 ‘Mind you, American passengers ‘ain’t such a walk in the park, neither. That was one time I was almost a letter home. There ‘ain’t any room for error in between when you’re embark and disembarking them. We were sailing with giant heart attack risks when it came down to it. You did your calculations right, though, you focused – and you’d make it through. And the living was good. Must’ve been. I did it 13 years or a bit more.’

Unfortunately I had to lose my sea legs until the day of today, though not through rum or cannon shot or a collision, as you might think, but by other, less exotic means.

‘Damn health bloody diabetics. Bloody’ useless,’ I would say, I am struggling to maintain my weight or to even get it down a couple of kilogrammes. You can see that I lost a great part of power on my arms. ‘Ask the wife, she’ll tell you. I’m not good for nothing no more but chumming overboard.’

My wife Trientsje oversees the whole situation, telling me to be quiet, putting all my medication and other necessaries neatly into the daily containers, making arrangements for the next few days, giving instructions and making notes in my cell phone.

‘Now don’t go upsetting anyone,’ she says, kissing him on the head. ‘They’re doing their best. Don’t go annoying anyone with your endless stories. And don’t forget your reading glasses.’ ‘No dear,’ and ‘Yes, dear.’ Then: ‘I tell yer what, mate. I’ve seen a typhoon chew up a ship and spit it out again in the Pacific Ocean, but I’d rather stand on the deck of that with nuthin’ but me thumb up me arse than get on the wrong side of my wife.’ 

I am leaving the house and go of to work. I am happy to do my new job on the commuter bus but I still miss the life at sea. The people that I have met out there are all special to me. Not that everyone is liking each other but to me they were like a family.

The Old Sailor,