IS YOUR LIFE A JOURNEY?

Is The Direction You’re Headed Forward?  

“Don’t look back you’re not going that way,” Unknown

Probably everyone has been told at least once that “Life is a journey not a destination.” If life is not a destination, does it matter where you are going? A journey is: “The act of traveling from one place to another.”To be on a journey is a process of going from one place to another place. How can a journey be a journey without a destination? By definition, a journey is going to a destination.

The reason “life is a journey not a destination” is considered wisdom is that it puts the focus on the journey, not the destination. Someone once said: “Most people don’t know where they are going until they arrive.” To focus on the destination implies that you might miss the journey. The purpose of the journey is to reach a destination; but enjoying the journey could also become a purpose. A personal purpose. Enjoying your journey might well be different than enjoying my journey. And: “The comparison of joy is the death of joy,” Mark Twain. Your journey and my journey are not the same journey. 

On your life’s journey you need to forget about comparison. Your life’s journey is your life’s journey. It is not someone’s else’s life journey. You are you, not someone else. You are on a path, going to where you want to go; not where someone else wants to go. But remember, it is during the journey where you have some influence. This is where you are making decisions. Decision making is using what you know to get what you want. 

It is important to know what you want. But it is also important to know what you know and what you don’t know. Knowing what you don’t know, of course, is the hard part. How can you possibly know what you don’t know? But it isn’t just what you don’t know that is the problem: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure tat ain’t so,” Mark Twain. Be careful what you know for sure. Remember Positive Uncertainty. 

As long as you are going forward, you are on a journey; going toward a goal; a personal destination. Don’t look back, but look around you, smell the roses. You don’t have blinders on, like the horses, to prevent them from seeing the periphery. Enjoy the process. Living your life is a process.  

“It is better to travel hopefully than it is to arrive,” Japanese proverb