I still hear the Donegal man as if it was yesterday. 'Perfection can be to your detriment'. He had spent 7 years in America, meticulously crafting a traditional wooden folk boat with the intention of sailing it back to Ireland. A wonder for all, the pride of seeing his dream set him free and took him home across the ocean waves to Donegal, it was to be a rainbow's end. But as years went by and life's pressures found healing in alcohol, his dream began to slip. Attempting to complete the project he threw his last red cent into the boat, only to sell the almost complete ship for the price of a flight home. His words sent shivers through my spine and on our return home in the car from a weekend spent with him, I turned to my wife and relayed the story told. Horrified at the man's tale of woe, she dismissed it to a point of hammering a box of hilty nails into its head. Similarities in the story between him and us were little or none, she quickly said and she was right. I never wanted to sail to Donegal and I haven't enough money to take to alcohol, but so many of his experiences I have crossed. Perhaps the simple fact that my boat is in my garden and as I walk out my door every day I see it, is the reason that I haven't yet run. But there is still time, I have only another few weeks......
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