When I watch the sea without judgement, it reveals something important, nothing needs to be controlled. The waves carry their own rhythm, and in surrendering to that rhythm, I breathe more freely.
There are mornings when I step onto the deck and the sea is so still, so quiet, that it feels like it’s holding its breath. On other mornings, the wind arrives before I do, tearing through the dark as if reminding me that nothing in this life stays gentle for long.
Living on the water has taught me something simple, something I never heard in school or in books, life moves like the sea. It rises, it falls, it crashes, it calms. It never once asks for our permission.
Growing up on the Mediterranean and now working these colder northern waters, I’ve learned that fighting the sea is pointless. You cannot force a wave to soften. You cannot bargain with a storm. The sea does not listen to your fears or your hopes. It just is. And strangely, that truth can be a comfort.
People often ask how I deal with hard days, lonely nights, and the weight of responsibilities waiting back home. But the truth is, I don’t “deal” with them in any special way. I watch them the same way I watch the water.
A wave comes. A wave goes.
A thought comes. A thought goes.
A moment of sadness appears, a moment of strength appears. Neither stays. Neither belongs to me.
On the trawler, when the rain hits hard and the cold bites deep, something inside me becomes very quiet. In that silence I notice that most of the pain we carry isn’t created by life itself but by the stories we tell ourselves about how life should be.
We want certainty in a world that was never built on certainty.
We crave calmness from a sea that has always moved.
We expect permanence in a life that is constantly shifting.
But when you stop demanding anything from life, even for a moment, something opens. You see things as they are, not as you wish them to be. And in that seeing, there is a strange kind of freedom.
I don’t pretend to be a teacher or a philosopher. I am just a man who goes to sea and returns home when the work is done. But the sea makes you honest. It doesn’t care who you are, what you’ve achieved, or whether you think you’ve failed. It strips away the noise until only the truth remains.
And the truth is...
You are stronger than the waves you fear.
You are more adaptable than the storms you face.
And you are more alive in the quiet moments than you realise.
Whenever life feels heavy, I step onto the deck and look at the horizon. The line between sea and sky is never straight. It wavers. It blurs. But it is always there. A reminder that even in the uncertainty, there is direction.
Life, like the sea, asks only one thing of us: to show up. Honestly. Fully. Without pretending to be anything other than what we are in this moment.
And perhaps that is enough.
If you’re reading this and going through a hard time, know that you are not alone. The sea moves, and you will move with it. Not because you must, but because it is in your nature to rise again.
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