Dreams are dangerous things. Sometimes they take over your life.
I spent more than thirty years sailing on the ocean of my dreams. For most of those years, my feet were on dry land, but in my mind, I was sailing the seven seas.
I've sailed around the world dozens of times in my mind with Joshua Slocum, Harry Pidgeon, and Bernard Moitessier at my side. I've survived the savage seas of the high southern latitudes with the crew of Tzu Hang as they were pitchpoled in the waters off Cape Horn. I've been with the Pardeys and the Hiscocks as they sailed on their voyages of discovery. I've deployed parachute sea anchors and trailed drogues hundreds of times in the storms of my mind. I've dropped my anchor in Paradise and snorkeled in enchanted atolls. I've even escaped from pirates - buccaneers of the mind who tried to steal my dreams.
In my mind, I practiced sailing around the world for more than twenty years before I actually cast off my dock lines and set sail on my eleven year circumnavigation.
So how did it feel to make my dreams come true?
First, I would have to admit it was a bit scary to drop the dock lines and set sail.
This was a voyage of exploration into our unknowns, and unknowns were in abundance.
During the trip around the world, we often ran out of wind, sometimes we ran low on diesel fuel, but we never ran out of unknowns.
I didn't know how much the trip was going to cost. Working for eleven years in Saudi Arabia paid for my boat and supplied me with enough freedom chips to weather any financial storms that came our way.
I knew that the trip was going to cost a lot of money, especially with college coming up for my kids. Some days, I wondered if I could really afford to make the trip, but on most days, I KNEW THAT I COULDN'T AFFORD TO NOT MAKE THE TRIP.
The currency of my youth was in short supply, and having an awesome adventure with my family was worth any price. And how do you count the richness of your life anyway? Dreams or dollars? Which will it be. I'll take my dreams any day.
Second, I had never made an ocean passage before I started the voyage. I had only sailed my catamaran six times before I started out on the trip. I was unproven and my yacht was unproven.
The biggest things I had going for me were that I had a positive attitude, a positive family, and I had already sailed around the world dozens of time in my mind.
I quickly learned that sailing a catamaran isn't rocket science, and if we can do it, anyone can.
A conservative amount of sail and a positive attitude will take a sailboat just about anywhere you want to go.
Third, in my mind, I was afraid of pirates, tsunamis, and hurricanes.
As it turned out, we never met a pirate, we survived one global tsunami in Thailand totally unscathed, and there was nary a hurricane that threatened our eleven year voyage.
The worst thing that happened on the entire circumnavigation was a car accident in New Zealand that broke two legs, fractured five ribs, and punctured one lung. It took me out of commission for nearly a year, but it didn't stop the voyage of Exit Only.
After the fractures healed and I learned to walk again, we set sail for Fiji and continued sailing for nine more years before we completed our trip around the world.
Dreams do come true, and making them happen is within the capability of ordinary folks who have extraordinary dreams.
A positive attitude and unstoppable persistence allows anyone to sail on the ocean of their dreams. All they have to do is do it.
All you can do, is all you can do, but all you can do is enough.
It's a lot of work to live your dreams, but that doesn't matter, because when you live your dreams, your life is worth living. Your life keeps getting better, and before long you realize there is no limit to how good your life can become.
Today is a good day to learn the Magic of Dreaming Big!
Many times I felt like I had taken things to the limit, but on further examination, it was clear I simply had enough. I was done and was unwilling to do whatever it takes to continue. Hitting the wall of absolute limits has never been a problem. The envelope of possibility is infintely large, and the likelihood of encountering absolute limits is infinitesimally small. There are no limits. There are only limiting beliefs.
In the grand scheme of things, my grand schemes seem fairly insignificant. In a global sense it's easy to feel as if my life counts for nothing, or at most, counts for little. When someone tells me that I shouldn't be doing things that are important to me, and that I'm wasting my life, they are really saying that my dreams don't count in their scheme of things.
I am a daktari without borders. I am not sure when and where borders disappeared from my mind, but sometime in the last quarter century, I became a citizen of the world. Wherever I am on planet earth, I feel at home in my borderless world. Find out what it's like to live without borders.
When my life is over and on judgment day I stand in the final line up with all the rest, I hope millions of people can point their finger at me, pick me out of the line up, and say, "He's the one. That's definitely him. He's different from the rest. He didn't conform, and he is guilty of living his dreams.
You are never safe from negation. Unchecked negativity can rapidly flush the achievements of a lifetime down the drain. If you ever reach your dreams, it will be because you stopped listening to the voice of fear and negation. You stopped looking at your limitations and stopped constructing barriers that exist only in your mind.
Faith isn’t something that must be present before you move in the direction of your dreams. Rather it’s something that develops after you start moving. When you start out, you don’t see how your dreams are possible. Nevertheless, the moment you take the first step, faith instantly comes into your life. Never look at faith as the path to a life of leisure. God gave you faith so you could see things other people can’t see and do things other people can’t do.
I could write an entire book called, "Things I Feared That Never Happened," and follow that up with a second book entitled, "I Feared The Wrong Things." Almost always, fear is a waste of time. Most of the things you fear will never happen, and you fear the wrong things. When the hobglobins of fear start dancing in your mind, it's time to refocus on other things. Learn how to squelch the voice of fear with a positive focus!
For me, the dream is all about adventure, freedom, and being really alive. Although I like seeing the sights wherever we go, I think it's the sense of adventure coupled with the freedom to do what I want to do with my life, seasoned with a pinch of adrenalin that makes it all worthwhile.
The first step in moving toward your dreams is to doubt your limits. Once you doubt your limits, it's almost as if you are born again. You get an entirely new life with radically different rules of engagement. You enter the Promised Land of Imagine, Believe, and Receive. I know this to be true because I have been there.
WHO IS DR. DAVE AND WHY IS HE BLOGGING?
More than two decades ago, Captain Dave (aka Dr. Dave) started writing and creating websites as he sailed around the world on his sailboat, SV Exit Only. Those early websites and books evolved into the Positive Thinking Network you see today.
Captain Dave lived overseas for twenty-eight years in his globe trotting lifestyle until he became a Flying Doctor with the Indian Health Service working for ten years in the American Southwest flying out to deliver health care to the Apache, Hopi, Hualapai, Havasupai, and Colorado River Tribes.
Dr. Dave completed his work with the Indian Health Service in Arizona, and now runs the Positive Thinking Network full time either from his catamaran or his Land Rover Defenders as he travels around the world
The Positive Thinking Network has a global outreach sending a positive message to 196 countries, and it is your definitive source of positive thinking on the World Wide Web.
With hundreds of positive websites, and more than a million pages and podcasts downloaded each month, it's where you come to learn everything you want to know about positive thinking. The Positive Thinking Network focuses on positive self-talk, positive spirituality, winning the battle against depression, PTSD, and positive adventure.
Hundreds of family safe websites stand ready to fill your mind with positive things.
Dr. Dave and the Positive Thinking Network work around the clock to change the world, one person at a time, one web page at a time, and one podcast at a time.
