Whether we’re questing towards a big goal or just trying to get through the day, life is a neverending series of interlinked journeys.
One begins. One ends. A new one starts up in the next moment, pulling us onwards.
It’s a rhythm as consistent as a heartbeat. And just like our heartbeat, it only ends when our journey draws to a close.
One moment flows into the next. Delineating between them is an arbitrary process. This is true, even when the process of division is useful.
For instance: consider how we use calendars and clocks to shape life into discrete, measurable units.
Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries… and everything in between.
Morning. Evening. Night. Day.
Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.
Good times for this. Bad times for that.
We do this for multiple reasons:
- To coordinate with others.
- To measure our progress over time.
- To exercise a level of control over where our path is taking us.
This delineation can be useful. We can benefit from doing it. But as with anything else, we can have too much of a good thing.
Case in point:
The more something matters to us, the easier it is to think that, when we finally reach it, the journey will end.
Whatever motivation put us on the path in the first place will no longer matter.
The rhythm that drove us onwards will fall silent.
But that’s not how it works.
What looks like a finish line when it’s far off in the distance is anything but when we get close enough to see it.
The forces which compelled us to move forward in the first place don’t have an off button.
There’s is no disengaging from the process.
And no matter what delineations we develop in our imagination, reality remains the same.
This isn’t a nihilistic view. It’s the opposite – an empowering one.
When we recognise that the journey never ends, we’re less focused on the outcome… and more focused on the process.
We care less about the rewards we attain for reaching the milestone.
Ee care more about the quality of our experience as we approach it.
We worry less about the people around us slowing us down.
Instead, we take the time to consciously engage with them, moving at a pace we can sustain. One that allows us to both progress towards the things we desire while also enjoying the here and now.
If the journey never ends, there’s no need to rush to the finish line…
Because that’s nothing more than a mirage that dissolves on approach.
Life is happening here & now. And that’s worth paying attention to – not an imaginary end goal we’ll never get to.