Why

I get up in the morning, focus my eyes and I go to work. Quickly, I have lunch at the midday and then off to work again. In the evening I try to find what’s left of my strengths and I try to devote my time to some, so called, hobby for a little while. I eat my diner on the go and, finally, I fall to bed exhausted only to wake up in the morning by the sound of the alarm and repeat the work cycle again. So, that’s how the days go by, followed by months and years.

I like working, I do my work the best I can and I like to see results. But, it seems to me that there is a precious little of the time outside of work. I have many plans, aims, and dreams and they keep spawning faster than I can realize them. The fast pace of living has entered our lives and we barely manage keeping up. To save time we postpone, ignore or forget our own selves, our intuition, needs, desires, dreams and wishes… We deliberately abandon our own values and we swap them for the values of others; values about which we were told that are true, right and important for us. Where’s the mistake? Where will that leave us?

Of course, it’s much easier to follow the crowd and go in the direction of everyone else. It allows us to stop thinking. It allows us to solve things quicker. And that’s what the demand is all about nowadays, after all. Resisting individuality. We are under the influence of what we think is expected of us and what we think should be our aims and values and we live gravely afraid of loss and failure. We often inhabit our own past or future. We consider living for the present moment as a waste of time or a luxury that we can’t afford.

When will the endlessly repeated mantra “IF I …“ come true?

Ach. Right. There’s just one bug. The little word… IF!

So let’s just STOP. The end, enough! No more IF I…! Simply, let’s live NOW!

So, I resurrect an old travelling idea about sailing around Europe in a sea kayak. This thought is truly an old-timer and it’s quite dusty. When it got born I was still at high school. I think it was my first year there. It meant many evenings and bottles of good wine that we spent with my friend while nourishing the idea. But in the end we cursed ourselves with the mantra … „It’s not possible now… The time is not right… IF WE have time one day…”

More and more often I stumble upon people who confess that they used to have a similar idea or that they still have it somewhere deep inside of them. Nevertheless, only a very few people manage to put the idea into practice. Still, I think that the idea deserves a chance. And I decided to rekindle its fire.

When I share the idea with my partner it gets her interested. She’s mainly intrigued by the freedom, simplification and slowing-down of our lives that the journey is sure to offer. The preparations took almost a whole year. Sometimes more or less serious complications emerged. But it’s possible to deal with most of them with the help of good people. And there were more and more of those and the idea’s getting stronger and stronger. When the date of setting off got closer my partner decided to go her own way, which, however, was nowhere near of mine. So we wished each other lots of luck and strength and we continued separately.


“Dear Jiřina, I thank you wholeheartedly for your time, love, understanding and help.

I wish you that your steps are accompanied by confidence, strength, good people and beloved animals.”

Jiri