The Journey is the Reward, Part Two

Every day you have a choice on how to spend your time. After all, time is all we really have, right? The seconds and minutes and hours that make up today can be spent as we see fit. Yesterday’s time has already been spent. Tomorrow’s time does not yet exist. So, for all intents and purposes, today is all we have.
Many of us will choose to spend the time that we have today on getting things accomplished. We rate the success of our day on how efficiently we spent our time. We set certain goals and, as we tick them off, we have proof positive that we are vital, we are skilled and that we have worth.

However, a somewhat mindless quest for efficient goal completion may not really be the best use of the time we are given. In fact, checking things off a list is an indication that the list may be more important than the life the list depends on. We all have to “get things done”. We all have responsibilities that need to be met. However, it’s how we meet these responsibilities, it’s how we “get things done” that matters in the end. Why? Because life is what happens in between checking items off a list.

We tend to think of goals as the high points in our existence. We conceptualize reaching a goal as standing on the top of a mountain, perhaps pumping our fists into the air. This conceptualization is a mistake. It is not the top of the mountain that is important. Rather, it is the journey towards the top of the mountain that is truly important.

Every minute of our lives is spent journeying somewhere. In fact, all we really do is travel. We move from place to place. We move from relationship to relationship. We change employment. We change clothes. We change our minds. We are creatures in flux. All this movement, all of these journeys represent an opportunity. We have the opportunity as we journey to experience that movement in any way that we choose. We can travel with our eyes fixed forward on the mountain tip, never varying our gaze or our attention. We will reach the top of that mountain, but we will also miss everything and everybody that we passed in getting there. Isn’t it a better choice to look around at the world and the people in it who are an integral part of each of our journeys?