Did I fail in this life?

Dear Bloggers,


This week I have been transfered again to my old station and had to pick up on my knowledge again. In a way I feel happy on the other hand reality is that they could not find anyone else. I have at this moment the feeling that the things that happened in my life so far have only brought me more and more worries about the future. How do you know if your life is a failure or a success? Many queries are bubbling up in my brain, it is busy in there it’s like a real autmn storm in my little grey area.

Or, maybe instead, how do you know if your life is a success?

What are the criteria? Who gets to decide? Is your life a failure if you are send to prison? If your kids go to prison? Are you a failure if you don’t do what you want to do for a living? If you don’t do what are you supposed to do for a career? Or if you made once a mistake do you get the blame forever? Unless you are being protected by people on higher positions you might have a chance to make some mistakes.

When is it too late to fix it?

Considering that a life includes many stages and levels, maybe the answer is always subject to qualifications and/or temporary current circumstances. Maybe a person can always make amends and change. Or, maybe it is part of the human condition that we are always just a few degrees away from either success or failure…and the decisions we are always making are constantly swinging the pendulum back and forth.

The person that goes to prison can reform. The person responsible for a drunk driving accident can make amends. The person commiting adultery can quit. The person engaging in destructive behaviour towards other people can stop. It is a kind of nature that we are like wolves, if there is no strong pack leader the other ones might tear you apart.

Or, maybe they cannot?

Maybe the criteria are locked and fixed. Maybe the hands of fate don’t allow for a second and third chance. Maybe our flaws are too many to overcome. Maybe even those with apparent success are hiding significant faults.

Is it only at death that we are judged as good or bad, success or failure?

Decisions made years ago, and early in life, have a bearing on incidents that happen later in life. No one is ever truly able to escape their past. Decisions made at one point with the confidence of correctness can later be determined as incorrect. Time marches on. Nothing is ever over. Does this knowledge force us into a state of intellectual paralysis?

Does enlightenment occur from the knowledge of this pendulum of good versus evil and success versus failure? Maybe those that are aware of the precarious balance are thus successful as a result, while those who are oblivious are failing…will fail…can’t stop from failing.

You need to set some goals in this life. Altruism, kindness, generosity…those are universally recognizable and realistic goals. Those are goals that benefit both the individual and society as a whole. Pursuit and realization of those goals should probably allow a person to be considered as successful.

Failing to follow those guiding principles…well, failure is as failure does.

So, are we feeling sorry for those that don’t get it? Can we help those that choose to make mistakes? Can we look the other way while they fail? And, are we then also failures as long as there are those without the knowledge of this path to enlightenment…those who fail to see it…those who fail to do what is right…those who just fail? It’s a philosophical thing that keeps my mind running.

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

My thoughts might sound kind of negative somekind of dark and people may call me a doomthinker. I really wander how can I change things into better prospectives? I feel that I have failed on many things in my life. It has been a long time ago that i felt successful.

On the other hand i did do in a way quite well. But who am I kidding actually as the last few years everything went downwards. When I had to stop sailing my income fell with more than 40% in a year, I got a body to live in that only works on half power and is painful every day. Yes I became trapped in my future plans and there is no light that guides me to the end of the tunnel. Now I am renting myself out to get my hours filled as the holiday season is coming. For crying out loud no one cares about you or your feelings.

“It is no use lying to one’s self.”

I have trouble to stay positive in this jungle of emotions. Must I just stay positive when everything in life turns you down? I live in a house that is hardly sellable, a job with an uncertain future, I drive an old car which I cannot replace due to less and less work. My family suffers from it as well and everyone has it’s own needs. Are we slowly going our own way and what happened to the unity?

Honesty and the right action determines success…regardless of the endeavour…anything and everything short of that is failure.

The Old Sailor,

winter is on the way

Dear Bloggers,


This morning it was five o’clock to get up and get to work. As soon as I had my breakfast and rubbed the sleep out of my face, I open the curtains to few the world who looks brutal and dark at this time of day. When I walk to the car I feel the cold air tipping on my nose. It is a big difference to last week as temperatures have dropped to 6 degrees Celcius.


It’s getting cold. The nights are starting to draw in while the mornings seem to take forever to stir. I’m beginning to slow down, to curl up in bed for ‘just 10 more minutes’ in the mornings, to seek out sleep earlier in the evenings. I’m walking slowly, as my body is getting stiffer more painful again but surely this will be my first winter in a better shape than the last couple of years.

I’ve never found winter an easy season. Everything seems stark, minimal and asleep. My hands and feet wish to retreat into my body as they become freezing cold and numb. The layers I have to wear drive me nuts because I’m too hot inside and yet freezing outside. I feel constricted by all the clothes needed to keep me warm and I long for the days when I can slip on a pair of flip-flops, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt .



A week ago people hopped on the bus wearing t-shirts, summer dresses and shorts. Today I saw the first ones wearing gloves, hats, caps and scarfs. The air is cold and chilly and slowly night is turning into day. The hard blue sky is bautiful and explains the bittter cold breeze that hangs around. You can imagine that they were quite happy that I had turned on the heater in the bus. It is strange that in such a short period the leaves have turned colours and cold weather took position, weather men predict a cold and snowy winter. And that will spice up the job again as delays give trouble and I think that it is really funny.

For me, winter is all about slowing down, about stripping bare, going back to basics. It’s about inventing new ways of living a full life that focuses the majority of the time on indoor pursuits. It’s about connecting with friends and family, sharing the warmth of the holidays together. It’s about generosity with your neighbors, wishing each other well in this darker season. It’s about ruminating on the fact of life that everything one day will die.


We are still a good couple of months away from ice, winter woolies and the festive season, but already I’m preparing myself for the shifts my body and mind will need to take in the coming months. I want to take the next few months as an opportunity to reflect on my life thus far, to question ‘who I am’ right now and who I will be when this body also sheds its last leaf.

I want to take more time to sit, to question, to think about the circle of life, the parts of me that are dying in order for me to be reborn again next spring and who that makes ‘me’ when the old is perpetually falling away to make room for the new. It makes me sad as i realize how many people that have left us in the last couple of years. On the other hand I see my eldest daughter turning into a woman. Someday there will be the first love and a new circle begins.


I hope that the winter will not be to harsh and not to many snowdays as they only cost money. I start the car and drive into the darkness of the early morning with the radio playing softly and the heating is on full power. So, when I’m up in the dead black of the early morning and nothing is stirring, what will my first thoughts and actions be in that moment? Who will I choose to be when the world appears to be so still as if it’s not yet breathing? How will I make those moments count at a time when it’s much easier just to indulge in the warmth of my bed and my dreams?

The Old Sailor,

On the bike with no wheels

Dear Bloggers,

This week I started with getting in shape again, as I am not the richest guy I looked for some good bargains on the internet to buy a exercise bike. The cheapest that I found would cost me € 30.00 when I called the advertiser he said that he was sorry and that he brought the stuff to the local thrift store. I bought the thing for €7.50 but it needed some work to get it all running. So I spent the whole morning in the garage as I had my day off. Ok it is not new but it runs perfectly and I don’t have to be scared of not making it home, as my body might fully block. Also the dark season is coming with the heavy rainshowers and stormy weather. So there will be no excuse. Only question I asked myself was when I would bike? I need a manageable schedule.



For those who bought a new piece of exercise equipment for the family, be aware that all your good intentions will only work when there is a solid commitment and a manageable schedule the home trainer that you bought for an at home exercise program as you don’t feel like going to the gym. It should be a purchase that you do not regret. The phrase manageable or reachable goals is part of the buzz these days. That is what you are doing when setting up an exercise program for your household, creating reachable, success driven goals, and then making it work!



Here are some simple ideas to consider for making a manageable, success driven home exercise schedule:

Early Rising: Exercise before showering and getting evereyone else up. It will mean getting up about forty five minutes before the rest of the family. It could be peaceful, and you can watch the early morning local news and mentally prepare for the day.

Preschool Hours: This is a built in time each week time when your children are busy and is plenty of time for mothers or fathers time to work in an exercise session in between child free grocery shopping.

Working Families: Parents can coordinate and use the home exercise equipment while children are doing their homework, and children can use it while dinner is being prepared and it is not their turn to load the dishwasher.



Flip Flop Parents: One parent could be getting dinner ready, while the other is using the “bike” and watching the early local news or a popular talk show. After dinner flip flop, and the cook exercises while watching the evening newscast and the other parent cleans up after dinner.

Family Room: Most home exercise machines these days are pretty quiet, so working out during prime time television shows could be a great scheduling moment. Other people can be in the room, just like normal. Take turns using the bike or treadmill and the timing is based on the prime time schedule. Evening game shows and the half hour comedies are perfect to use as scheduling guides.

Your goal is to get everyone using the machine three times a week for at least half and hour, so schedules can be on alternate days and adjusted to other outside activities. It goes without saying that it will be wise to make good use of the weekends when everyone generally has a bit more time.



If you use these ideas as a guide, and make it your own you can see that the decision to buy something like a exercise bike or another piece of equipment to use at home can actually work and will not be a waste of money. Making the commitment and sticking to it in the first month will also help develop a routine, that once set is easy to keep going. At least that is what I think.

Let us see what the future brings?

The Old Sailor,