Want things. Want them enough to get up early for them, sweat for them, and build your year around them. Just keep your happiness from hanging on whether you get them. Once it hangs there, the thing you wanted starts steering your life.

In 1968, a British newspaper offered a prize to the first sailor who could go around the world alone without stopping once. Nine men set out. One of them was a Frenchman named Bernard Moitessier, and he was one of the men to beat. He spent seven months alone on the ocean and survived the storms off Cape Horn, the most feared waters on earth. From there, all he had to do was turn north and sail home to England. The fastest man would win £5,000 and a golden trophy.