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TASTE OF FREEDOM

Dr. David Lewis was the first person to circumnavigate planet earth on a catamaran. 

Going around Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn is a singular accomplishment on any sailboat, but doing it in a 42 foot home built catamaran is voyaging in unexplored territory.

The last people to sail voyaging catamarans such great distances were the Polynesians of the south Pacific.

David Lewis took a catamaran where cats had never been before, and he did it with his family.

David Lewis was born in England, but at age 2 his family moved to New Zealand, and he became a Kiwi. He grew up in New Zealand and the Cook Islands, and he developed a passion for adventure and Polynesian culture. 

He started medical school in New Zealand and completed medical school in England. In World War II, he was a medical officer in the Parachute Battalion in the British Army.

After practicing medicine for 22 years, he shut down his London medical practice at age 47, and he pursued a life of adventure.

That’s not to say his life was without adventure prior to shuttering his medical practice. In 1960 he sailed a 25 foot boat in a singlehanded transatlantic race, coming in third even through he suffered dismasting early in the race.

After shutting down his medical practice in 1964, he loaded his family into Rehu Moana, his 42 foot catamaran, and he did a three year circumnavigation.

From that point on, Dr. Lewis pursued his adventures in earnest. Although he was thinly capitalized, he was a fearless adventurer, and what he lacked in finances, he made up for in courage and resourcefulness.

He even learned how to navigate by the stars using the techniques perfected by ancient Polynesian navigators in the South Pacific.

David Lewis fascinates me because he was a fearless adventurer, prolific writer, Polynesian navigator, and most importantly, he did not get started until he stopped practicing medicine at age 47, and that gives me hope for my own adventures.

Some of my best adventures began in my early forties when I started traveling in the Arabian desert in Land Rover Defenders. I knew that one day I would sail around the world on my own catamaran, and I practiced my celestial navigation skills in the desert using a bubble sextant to take sights of the sun in the daytime and stars at night. I honed my navigation skills to perfection.

Then at age 47, I stopped practicing medicine in Arabia and I started an eleven year sailing voyage around the world.

I realize that I am no David Lewis, but we do share one thing in common:

ONCE WE HAVE A TASTE OF FREEDOM, NOTHING ELSE WILL DO.

Once you have a taste of freedom, it’s hard to put the handcuffs back on and let medicine control your life. It’s even harder to allow hospital administrators, insurance companies, lawyers, and the government dictate how you practice medicine. 

I don’t care if you have a bill of rights chiseled on the mantle above your fireplace, you are not free when hospital administrators, insurance companies, lawyers, and the government rule your life. That is not freedom. That is servitude and oppression.

Once you have a taste of freedom, giving up that freedom feels like Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of porridge.

Life without freedom is just existing, and without freedom, there is no adventure. You have a dull, monochromatic, frequently depressing existence. 

Sailing around the world on a catamaran is a great deal of work, but at least you are free.

Sailors live in a parallel universe where they are free.

We are few in number and that is probably why we are still free.

We are the low profile, quiet, free ones living in a parallel universe.

The meek really do inherit the earth.

Dr. Dave

AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT!

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CLASSIC BLOGS FROM DR. DAVE


Pushing back the limits in your life

Pushing Back The Limits In Your Life

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.


Grand Schemes and Other Important Things

Grand Schemes And Other Important Things

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. 


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Living Without Borders

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Guilty of Living My Dreams

Guilty Of Living My Dreams

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.


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Negative Thoughts Are A Dream Stealer

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.


Everything Possible Nothing Impossible

Impossible Should Not Be In Your Vocabulary

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.


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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!


What Woud Steve Do?

What Would Steve Do?

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.


Imagine, Believe, Receive

Imagine, Believe, Receive

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.



Dr. Dave's Eclectic Blog - Positive Thinking Doctor - David J. Abbott M.D.

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.