A reflection: Life is the journey, not the destination.
Have you ever wondered what you’re racing towards? Is it a completion of some kind? One where everything will be sorted?
We so often miss the beauty of the ride in this spurious race. As the great stoic Seneca highlighted so wisely, we spend our lives striving for a future time when we will be “ready to live”.
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
Alfred D. Souza
I read the quote above on a plane six years ago and it rang so true. I kept telling myself to get through this bit and then that bit, this event, this project, this week, month, chapter, and then I would be able to focus on my wellbeing, and then I could slow down and enjoy life.
The trap of the ‘to do’ list
It’s a trap you might know well: “I must do x, y, z…” and the list simply refills – every day. Always busy and never truly processing the underlying discomfort, the uncertainty. This is the mud of difficult experiences that accumulates and hardens like an outer shell. We so often distract from this inner discomfort by plunging into ‘doing, doing doing’. But there are realisations waiting to happen…
Life is now. The roadblocks, the disappointments, the ups, the downs. If we begin to embrace it all, the imperfect, unpredictable, messy nature of being human, then with less struggle, less weighing us down, the way may become lighter. We might step into life with open arms and broaden our perspective. Remember that it is always the right time to begin again and it is never too late to listen to your dreams and inner voice.
Acceptance
Once we accept who we are and where we are, exactly as we are, our lives begin to flow like water. We become immersed in the journey and not the destination.
He who would travel happily must travel light.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry