As the saying goes, enjoy the journey on the way to your destination .. is the journey more important than the destination? And, if you do not have a destination, how does that make the journey feel?
We had dinner out this week with a couple of friends and had a great laugh about life, nerf guns, guinea pigs and beards ... we also chatted about our lives and the journeys that we are on and the dreams that we have for ourselves.
Faith in our ability to achieve those dreams has been a thread that has woven its' way through this blog one way or another for a while. Seeing life as a breeze, for example, is pretty hard if you are struggling with the way things are going (the journey), or having issues with the direction life is taking you (the destination).
My thinking is that you cannot really split the two - one builds on the other. Clear direction and passion for achieving or arriving at a particular place in life will only bring happiness if you are enjoying the ride along the way. Similarly, enjoying the ride travelling aimlessly through life could result in you ending up somewhere that you don't particularly like.
That said, as we move along the road, we have continuous opportunities to make decisions and change direction now and again, regardless of the 'vision' or destination we are aiming at. We can choose to change direction and head to a different destination whenever we wish.
Some will say that we cannot, that sometimes circumstances beyond our control (or other people) take us in a direction that we did not choose for ourselves. Is that a valid way of thinking? At an early age, we are cared for by our parents or guardians, we are learning about life and behaviour and what is acceptable and not acceptable. We are good and naughty, rewarded and punished, happy and sad - we learn to adapt to our surroundings and the people in our lives. As we get older we feel that we have more direct control over our lives - what we eat, where we go, what we do and say.
We had dinner out this week with a couple of friends and had a great laugh about life, nerf guns, guinea pigs and beards ... we also chatted about our lives and the journeys that we are on and the dreams that we have for ourselves.
Faith in our ability to achieve those dreams has been a thread that has woven its' way through this blog one way or another for a while. Seeing life as a breeze, for example, is pretty hard if you are struggling with the way things are going (the journey), or having issues with the direction life is taking you (the destination).
My thinking is that you cannot really split the two - one builds on the other. Clear direction and passion for achieving or arriving at a particular place in life will only bring happiness if you are enjoying the ride along the way. Similarly, enjoying the ride travelling aimlessly through life could result in you ending up somewhere that you don't particularly like.
That said, as we move along the road, we have continuous opportunities to make decisions and change direction now and again, regardless of the 'vision' or destination we are aiming at. We can choose to change direction and head to a different destination whenever we wish.
Some will say that we cannot, that sometimes circumstances beyond our control (or other people) take us in a direction that we did not choose for ourselves. Is that a valid way of thinking? At an early age, we are cared for by our parents or guardians, we are learning about life and behaviour and what is acceptable and not acceptable. We are good and naughty, rewarded and punished, happy and sad - we learn to adapt to our surroundings and the people in our lives. As we get older we feel that we have more direct control over our lives - what we eat, where we go, what we do and say.
The question is whether we have that control over our lives from the day we are born. Whether we are born into the world with a destiny, with the unseen subconscious ability to direct our lives, to take us on the journey we desire to the destination we dream about. I think we do.
In the words of a number of authors 'we choose how we feel, we choose the emotions we feel, we have the ability to alter our perception on life'.
It is about the journey and the destination - and it's our choice how much we focus on each.
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