Carrying along on the theme of time passing which we discussed in the last blog (Tick Tock Says the Clock) I recently came across a statement that resonated with me.
In Bobby Jamieson’s Everything is Never Enough he has this to say: “A time to open and a time to shut. You won’t always know when it happens, but, sooner or later, every door shuts for good. In the end all doors prove self-locking”.
This is a pretty simple statement of fact. As we move through life, time will close and lock doors behind us no matter what we want. But I remind myself that to close a door behind me, it must have opened in front of me first. And to come back to the discussion on being intentional, which doors do you want to open and walk through?
We live in an amazing country that provides us with so many choices-too many you could argue. It is a well-documented fact that more choices can cause us to make no choice at all. (Google the Jam Study by psychologists Sheena Lyengar and Mark Lepper). With so many doors available to us how do we make a decision on which ones to walk through? Well, that is up to you. My only hope for you is that you do decide and then step through.
And to finally loop this conversation back to boating, as all conversations should, it is difficult to know when the door on your boating may be closing. Some folks get interested but think it is “too late” to start. Some boaters bail out too early then have to restart. And some hold on tooth and nail until the door slams on their fingers. Yes, I am talking to you-oldster with a boat that has bunch of deferred maintenance and consequently a value of exactly zero.
Obviously, it is different for each of us, and I don’t have any magic formula for discerning what your timing should be. But I found the door metaphor to be helpful, and it is good to be aware of your timing and your doors so that you can be (again) intentional. And if you try to return to a door and find it locked, give it little thought, rather move on to the door that is open.
Todd Powell Boats 