Tag Archives: destiny

Feeling Lost Because You Are

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Everything is fine and life is good and then it happens. Waking up one morning, the middle of the night, or at the most unexpected moment, it happens. Without any apparent reason we feel like crying. Not just a few sniffles, but a body shaking, alligator tear crying that wants to go on without end.

After some time, you start to notice that even though you are being racked by sobs of anguish, and your pillow is soaked. You really have no idea what it is you are crying about. Everything seems to be going well, and there is nothing wrong.

fuzzyOur parents suddenly look older and tired. Our brothers and sisters are growing up, or have grown up. Our friends are growing away from us. We feel ourselves on the outside looking in at the life we used to know. Overwhelmed by this feeling we want to curl up into a ball and cease to exist. Or perhaps retreat into the safety of the world as we knew it before we jumped on the carnival of life and were swept away.

Up until this moment, we have been living life as it comes at us. Our world has changed and we missed it happening around us. Suddenly we now see how everything has changed while we weren’t paying attention.

While it feels at this moment of being a piece of driftwood in the middle of a lake, no shore in sight, and our anchor rope is not long enough to reach the bottom and stop our drift, nothing is further from the truth.

I think what happens is we are so busy with our life up until this very moment that we have not given any thought to our life. Suddenly it seeps though our subconscious that we have been very busy, yet our life has no direction. We don’t even know the process of how we arrived at where we are.

What happens next is your future, and to some extent your past. While we may want to climb into bed and pull the blankets over our head and take comfort in the warmth and darkness, now is the time to wake up and take action.

While it feels terrible at the moment, it is time to start thinking about where we want our life to go. What do we want our future to be, and what are we going to do to help make it happen. It should obvious at this moment if we need to think about we feel so listless and lost, to what our our destiny is.

Destiny is waiting for you. Destiny has given you a whack on your head, and it hurts. Destiny is calling you too look at your life path and make the changes you need to make to become who you are to be. At this moment as you feel so empty, it is because you are. It is time to start living the life you are meant to live.

It is time to understand that you are unique, and you have a destiny waiting to be fulfilled. Take this moment when everything is hazy, and begin to forge your future. Once you determine what your real life can be, your view of the world and your place in it, will become clear again and focused.

Let the word destiny roll off your tongue until you see what you are meant to be and do. Start to feel your destiny and your life direction. Start making plans to live the life you were born for instead of floating aimlessly and feeling lost.

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Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

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The anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is almost here. The Edmund Fitzgerald sank on November 10, 1975, and her crew of twenty-nine went to their death in freezing water when the Fitzgerald went under during that stormy evening.

I have some guilt that comes out around this time of year because of three of the men that died working on the Fitzgerald. Their names are Bruce L. Hudson, Paul M. Riipa, and Mark A. Thomas, good men all.

I am not sure how I feel now knowing their names. I haven’t looked at their profiles, although I imagine I may some day. In 1975 I was living in California, when in mid summer I left and made my way to the lower Iron Range area of Minnesota. There was a family friend at the time who sailed on the Great Lakes for United States Steel Corp. He heard I needed a job, and made it possible for me to get my card so I could sail too.

I worked on the John Hulst in the fall of 1975. She was an old coal burner, one of the last of her kind to still ply the Great Lakes. The John Hulst would take on a load of Taconite pellets from around the Duluth area, and unload them in the Chicago, Gary, or similar area. It was hard work, and demanding as you spent little time anywhere other than steaming around from dock to dock. The thrill went a way about the beginning of October for me, but I stayed until the John Hulst docked for the winter.

The family friend who helped with my merchant marine card asked me if I was interested in winter sailing? Lake Superior freezes over in the brutal cold that drops down on her, but a few ore boats would continue to work for most if not all of the winter. It was dangerous work naturally, but the pay was increased and it was a lucrative offering. I asked if he would be sailing too, and he said yes he would. So I said sure, why not, I thought it would be more fun if there was someone on board I knew. My friend set it up and we had our report date to sail on the Edmund Fitzgerald as she made her transition from summer to winter sailing.

One night about five days before we were to report, my friend said he was not feeling that well, and he was not going to report for winter sailing. I replied, well if you are are not going, I am not going either, and it was settled just like that. I do not think I spent five seconds thinking about what I said. I knew I did not especially care for that life, so it did not take much to keep me off the boats in the winter weather.

The rest is history, except I remember this time of year, that a snap decision over a bottle of beer caused a man to die in my place. He may of been married, had a family, or wanted to earn money to buy a house, or any other number of wants that drive a man to do dangerous work. Of all the things a man should die for, I hope the man that took my place, had more noble reasons for winter sailing than I did for staying home.

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