Someday Means Never

Bob Bitchin

Oops Wrong Way - NOT!

I think that life gets the most interesting when you turn left instead of right. Okay, so you are now scratching your head wondering what the heck I am talking about, right? Turn left? What’s that mean anyway? Well, in a nutshell, I have found that whenever I have had life-altering events, it was because I did something I normally would not do; turning left out of a doorway instead of right.

That’s how I got into sailing. I was happily living my life and had never really given any thought to sailing. I’d lived over 30 years without ever setting foot on a boat. Life was good! Then one day I’d gone to lunch down at the marina, where I had lunch two-three times a week. After lunch I walked out the door

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Starboard Attitude and instead of hopping on my bike (I lived for motorcycles back then) I walked over and was looking at the boats. I don’t know why. No reason really. Was just kinda enjoying a Southern California day. At the end of a dock there was a guy putting a For Sale sign on a small sailboat. The name of the boat was Rogue. It was a Cal 28. I didn’t know anything about boats, but thought it was cute. I called to the guy, and he walked down to the gate and let me in. This is where my life changed forever. The hardest part of the turning left theory is knowing when it is the right time to make that turn. I can’t even imagine what my life would be like if I had not turned left that day, so long ago. Would I recognize me if I were to come face to face with the man I might have been? The truth is, opportunity may knock only once, but how are we to know if it’s opportunity or temptation? It will be life altering, but will it be altered for the better? I think good luck is when opportunity knocks and you answer. Bad luck is when it knocks and you don’t. Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them. I can look back and recognize where my life changed for the good and for the bad. There is one thing I know for a fact, the adventure of living is spiced by both. As Mark Twain said, “Twenty years

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Bob Bitchin from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” The fact he used sailing as a metaphor is not lost on me. Sailing is, for me at least, the ultimate in adventure and life. It allows us to dream of a fulfilling adventure, while all the time knowing we will have adversity thrown at us from time to time. The real adventure is in the fact that we know that, yet we still go out there.

The majority of people will never have a true adventure because they are afraid to turn left; to alter their course from the safe and steady life they know. To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is probably the most difficult part of turning left instead of right. If you do decide to go for the adventure, you will find more and more you will be choosing the path less traveled. I remember when I first started sailing. To me it was an adventure to cast off the lines to sail the 26 miles across the Catalina Channel. I felt proud the first time I made the voyage. After a number of years it took more to make the juices flow. Soon I was sailing to Mexico. Adventure! I loved it! But then, after a few years, it took a little more. To cross an ocean - that would be

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Starboard Attitude an adventure, and so I sailed to Hawaii. How kewl! I got the same feeling after that voyage as I did the first time I sailed to Catalina Island. It really never ends. The more I “turned left” and did something I’d never tried before, the more I realized what I got from it. Facing a new challenge made my life more interesting. Overcoming those challenges? Ah... that is what made my life more meaningful. After all these years of sailing I still enjoy the feeling when I cast off the lines, whether it be to sail to Catalina, or to sail around the world, or even just for a day sail. But to really get the feeling of adventure, I know I have to turn left instead of right... or should I say turn to port rather than starboard? For me, the opportunities that have been presented in my life all came to me when I altered the norm. When I turned left instead of right, knowing that the easy course is not always the best.

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