We’ve All Screwed Up, Right?!?

It’s hard for me to think of a single voyage where I did not make at least one mistake. This came to me the other day when I was asked at a seminar, “What was the worst mistake you ever made?”

I don’t even recall where the conversation went from there, but later it hit me. People really worry about making mistakes. I think that’s why they laugh so hard when they see someone screw up when they are picking up a mooring or dropping a hook. They are laughing with relief: relief that they are not the ones making a fool of themselves.

But you know what, mistakes are a part of being human. I found a long time ago you have to appreciate your mistakes for what they are: life lessons. And as the years go by you find these life lessons can only be learned the hard way.

That is, of course unless it’s a fatal mistake. Then you have to hope that others can learn from it.

I think the biggest mistake you can make is to take what you do wrong too seriously. I mean, okay, so you can be ashamed of mistakes, nothing wrong with that, but dwelling on them will only make things a lot worse. When you mess up, just learn a little from it and then it’s not a mistake at all, it’s a lesson learned.

I can tell you for a fact that instructions can be a good thing, but they cannot even compare to the learning curve of messing something up one time. And the worse the mistake, the better the lesson learned, right? Mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.

What I am trying to get across here is, I think the biggest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one. Just acknowledge that you failed, learn your lessons from it, and then you can use it to your advantage and hopefully make sure that it will never happen again.

So back to the original question. What was the biggest mistake I ever made? I assume the question meant while sailing, so I can leave out the day I told Martha Pearson I had another date, and thus gave up the only chance I ever had to take her out. ( Hey, we were only 9, but she was HOT!)

I will have to say that probably the biggest mistake I ever made while sailing was in returning from Crete when I started to run out of money. Looking back at the 13 years I’ve wasted since then, I truly wish I had just stayed out there and found a way to make a buck or two while cruising instead of returning to my home base. If I’d stayed out there I would still be living the dream, instead of dreaming it.

But that just proves my point all the more explicitly! The reason I can say it is the biggest mistake I made is because it is the one I learned the most from. Life out there is a dream, and when I was out there and thought of life not cruising, it all seemed a nightmare. Since that’s the strongest lesson I’ve learned, I would have to say that had to be my biggest mistake.

But it’s a mistake that can be rectified. And I think that’s the point. Ever since I came back from the cruising life I have been striving to get back out there. I have managed to go out sailing all over the world, albeit for just a week or two at a time, but those brief respites are what keep me sane, and it was the cruising life that I lived that taught me I needed to be out there. In other words, I learned my lesson, and therefore it was all worthwhile and not wasted.

So as you venture forth “out there” don’t worry. Caca will occur! You will forget to switch fuel tanks, or you’ll put a water pump on backwards (yes, I did that more than once!), or even ram a dock or two (the dockmaster at Grand Bay in Bara de Navidad won’t forget that day for awhile!). But each time something happens a lesson will be learned, and the chances of that happening again will dwindle.

We won’t say that it won’t happen again. That WOULD be a mistake. But the chances of me pulling into the wrong bay in New Zealand, or forgetting to close the sink petcock as we cross the Pacific, or any of a thousand things I have totally screwed up over the past 30 years ever happening again, have dwindled.

No, there are no real mistakes except for the big one: the failure to learn from your mistakes.

Yup, there is a moral to all this verbiage, and it is a simple one. Only those who do nothing at all make no mistakes. Of all those who have ventured forth before you, out onto the waters of the world, there is one common bond: we have all screwed up. So at least let’s enjoy it.