It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. —Ursula K. LeGuin…
Goals give direction to our lives. We need to know who we are and where we want to go. But the trip itself, the steps we travel, offer us daily satisfaction moment by moment–fulfillment, if we’d but realize it. Too often we keep our sights on the goal’s completion, rather than the process–the day-to-day living that makes the completion possible.
How often do we think, “When I finish college, I’ll feel stronger.” Or, “After the divorce is final, I can get back to work.” Or even, “When I land that promotion, my troubles are over.” Life will begin “when”–or so it seems in our minds. And when this attitude controls our thinking, we pass up our opportunity to live, altogether.
Looking back on goals already completed in our lives, what so quickly follows the end of a job well done is a let-down. And how sad that the hours, the days, the weeks, maybe even the months we toiled are gone, with little sense of all they could have meant.