The Great Wander

Sailing season in Colorado is over.  The weather has been beautiful, but boats need repair and you just never know when snow is going to fly, so November is the end of sailing. We have one lesson left in the 101/103 series, but we’ll get to finish up in the spring.  In the meantime, we will review for the written tests that we will be able to take in March.

Last week, we headed out to a local state park to walk around and take some pictures.  While we were there, I took a picture of the reservoir, which had a fair amount of small waves being whipped up by the wind.  In Wyoming wind is almost a constant, okay, not really, but the wind does blow a lot here.  As we were walking around the wind had a bit of a chill in it.  After a little bit, we decided we wanted to get out of the wind and headed out of the park. 

The experience got me to thinking a bit about perspective.  On a Friday afternoon, we wanted out of the wind.  It was getting unpleasant, not terrible but unpleasant.  Then I thought about the days that we went sailing and the topic of discussion was invariably how much wind would there be.  Are we looking at 5 knots, 10 knots, 15?  How much is there going to be, and I hope we get some good wind. 

Now you know from my previous posts that many of those days we learned a lot, even if there was minimal wind.  We did have some good wind a couple of times, but more would’ve been nice.  Our perspective on those days was that wind was good, because of our activity.  Friday night, wind wasn’t so great walking by the water.  We would’ve liked a little less.

Your perspective can be driven by your circumstances.  You can look at things one way because of your circumstances, it’s pretty easy to do.  But you can also make choices about perspectives, of course there are some limitations there, but in reality, if you want to put a positive spin on something, there’s a way to find it.  You can have a positive outlook on less than desirable circumstances and still try to make changes.  You can be in the middle of squall in the ocean, work to get out of the squall, and still appreciate that you are on the ocean.  You can have a rough time at work, look for a new job, and still appreciate that you are employed.  Remaining positive about current circumstances is not mutually exclusive from changing those circumstances.

We appreciated wind when we were sailing…we also appreciated the learning when we didn’t have wind and still hoped for a change in the wind.  Just like Friday night, we appreciated being in each other’s company and still wanted to get out of the wind.  It is funny though, in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be wishing for wind…just not too much!