No One Would Ever Have Crossed The Ocean

No-one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship during the storm. – Charles F. Kettering

This quote is particularly close to my heart, and a part of me just wants to leave it there for you to read your own meaning into. But I figured I’d share what I took away from this, because it means such a lot to me.

A friend of mine was struggling with self-harm the same sort of time that I was, and someone gave her this quote, which she passed on to me, and, over time, I’ve passed it on to others. I’d never even heard of Charles Kettering, but this dude seemed to be making some sense.

If you want to cross the ocean, you’re going to have to weather a few storms. Now, to me, crossing the ocean is getting to where you want to be; somewhere better than where you are now. And that’s never going to be easy. The storms are going to be everything difficult that comes your way. Everyone who tells you you can’t do it. Every time someone tries to put you down. Every time you feel scared. Every time you feel alone. Every time that ‘where you want to be’ looks so far away. These are the storms.

But storms blow over, things resolve themselves. And even if the storm doesn’t blow over, sailors just batten down the hatches and ride it out, determined to reach the end goal, the other side.
It takes a lot to cross an ocean, both the literal and the metaphorical kind. Some oceans are wider than others. And it can be exhausting getting to the other side. But don’t get off the ship; don’t give up. Things will get better, and you’ll get to where you want to be. And when you’re on that ship, you’re there because you want to reach the other side. And while you’re there, you’re not alone.

If the first explorers had given up whenever the seas got rough and the storms were battering their ships, then we never would have discovered new worlds, and made progress as a species. Equally, if you give up and give in when times get rough, and life seems to be attacking you from all sides, you’ll never know what’s lying beyond, and make progress as a person.

This stuck with me so much that the first tattoo I got was of a ship crossing an ocean (later, it transpired that sailor tattoos were super hipster), and it was the inspiration for one of the first HATW t-shirts. Check out some of our latest merch, and know that whenever you, or others, are wearing it, you’re crossing the ocean together, whatever storms come your way. You can pick up a shirt here.

– Si