Do old, retired cruisers have any valid input???

Seems to me that some cruisers posting here are really no longer cruising. 
Take Bruce in Bangkok, for example. He admits he's thrown in the towel and

has been living aboard tied to a dock in Bangkok for several years. Prior
to 
that, he engaged in some limited attempts at cruising which resulted in
his 
being stuck where he is now in a backwater, third-world country a few 
thousand miles downwind from his departure point. Why, any old Rube on a 
balsa raft could have accomplished that kind of thing!

One must wonder if his failing to succeed at cruising causes any advice he

has to offer the group to be suspect? After all, would you listen to
advice 
from a lawyer who lost every case or was disbarred? Or a doctor who had
lost 
a number of malpractice suits? Or a professional sports figure who failed
to 
make the cut?

Yet you seem to listen to failed cruisers and take seriously what they
have 
to say? Is it because you are so undiscriminating that you identify with 
failures? Or is it that you seek out persons who are likely to be on par 
with your own low expectations and abilities and their failures help
comfort 
you and assuage your own repeated failures and thus make your own lack of 
success seem normal. Perhaps this is why Skip Gundlach seems to have
little 
or no motivation when it comes to doing things right??? How can one expect

professionalism from those who seek out and identify with mediocrity?

Shouldn't you folks more readily identify with successful cruisers and
seek 
out advice from them? Why identify with failures when many good role
models 
are available? Why support those who don't see failure as anything to be 
ashamed of or avoided? Simply by associating with failures you tend to 
become one yourself.

Success breed success! Try not to forget it.


Wilbur Hubbard