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As I rode my bike over the winding roads of North Haven, Maine, I considered this question. Would I make a better lighthouse keeper or sailor? As a lighthouse keeper, repetition, sacrifice, and awareness are critical. You have to maintain a good daily routine, be flexible, and often sacrifice serendipity, exploration, and adventure. Yet, a lighthouse keeper can maintain a beautiful home with wonderful scenery. As a lighthouse keeper, the consistency of place and the repetition provides predictability and stabilitity too--I imagine that despite the exhaustion that job includes, it is a good place to raise a family.
The sailor, however, has a life of adventure and exploration--a life that introduces an individual to new places and people. It is an inconsistent life that requires some repetition to sail the boat, but much less repetition than that of a lighthouse keeper. It would be more difficult to maintain relationships or raise a family as a sailor.
Of course, in today's world, you can balance the two--like a lighthouse keeper, you can maintain a home in a same place, raise a family, and nurture relationships, and as a sailor, you may take time off for adventures and explorations. You don't have to choose one or the other, but instead include some of both roles in your life's journey.
Yet, most of us have to consider multiple financial and other limitations when making decisions about how we live life--we don't have the means to be both the adventurous sailor and dutiful lighthouse keeper at the same time. So how do we choose? As I consider these two choices, I suspect that I'll lean in the direction of lighthouse keeper as an individual who chooses a lovely place to live, maintain, and entertain, and then I'll occassionally adventure like a sailor with travels now and then.
If you had to choose, what would you be--a lighthouse keeper or sailor? If you choose both, where will you spend most of your time?