The Destination is Meaningless
Posted by Stuart at 10:14 PM on September 22, 2005One of my favorite sayings is, "The journey is more important than the destination." I always say this to remind myself to enjoy the present, even as I strive towards some future goal.
But tonight my Thai friend Ekk turned this sentence around and used it against me, showing me another layer of it that I had not considered before. Not only is the journey more important, he argued, but the destination is not important at all.
His claim was that Westerners (and hence, myself) get too caught up in the destination. Sure, they might enjoy the journey, but if they don't actually arrive at the destination they wanted, they feel as if it was all a waste. Say you are on a sports team that wants to win the championship. If you get second place, is your disappointment so great that your season was ruined? What about the last place team? Did they just waste their time or can they find some good in the journey they just took?
We are taught to be optimists. If you study hard, you will get an A. If you avoid fatty food, you won't have a heart attack. If you work hard, you will be successful. But there are examples all around us that disprove the point, whether it's the entrepreneur who puts all her energy into her business, only to go bankrupt, or perhaps the fine-tuned athlete who unexpectedly collapses on his treadmill.
We do have some control over the journey in our present actions but we really can't determine the destination until we are there. The destination just happens and is out of our control. And that drives us control-freak Westerners crazy sometimes. If we get to the end and it doesn't work out the way we wanted, we question the logic and try to make sense of it. Why didn't it work out the way we planned? I worked hard for this championship! It's not fair! It's not right! I deserved a different fate!
And those last three sentences were exactly my feelings over the past two days about Roen's death. But Ekk's point to me tonight was that you can't be upset with the destination. You can not worry about the ending, because it doesn't matter in comparison to the journey. Roen's and my friendship is over. The destination has been reached. It wasn't the ending I would have chosen, but it was the ending nonetheless. It was the ending that can not be changed.
Ekk had a point, and I knew that his logic was sound. As a Westerner, I always want to know "Why?". So it was very difficult for me to open my fist and give in and admit that sometimes there just is no logic in life; no fairness; no justice, at least not in the way that we expected or desired.
As soon as I can accept this to be true, I can re-assess my last few days. I can look back and be happy that I enjoyed the journey of my friendship with Roen. I can let go of the things I can not control. I can give up my desire to hold on to things that are not permanent.
And the same goes for my life as well. All my life I have thought about Death quite a bit. (I often wonder if everyone thinks about it as often as I do. I'm sure most do, but it's not a subject many people like to talk about.) And so what should I think about the enevitable final destination of my life? If I die tomorrow, was my life a waste? Surely not. Perhaps it's not the destination I would have chosen, but at least the journey was amazing.
And when I think of it in those terms, death doesn't seem to be quite so ominous...
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Douglas, yesterday, Ekk also said something very similar to your friend: "Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is fantasy, today is all you have."
I think that in Western culture we are trained to focus on the future. Where are we going? What are we building? What is the end-goal, the destination? And when the future doesn't turn out the way we planned, then we suffer psychologically.
It's so hard for me to admit that I really don't have much control over my life and that sometimes things just don't make sense.
Nice thoughts. I have the feeling too that this is mostly a Westerners problem, that is, to eclipse the joy of the Present by carrying the burden of both worries about the Future and regrets of the Past. I hope this mind-opening Asian experience of yours (and ours) will help you, and all who read you, understand what life is all about.
[Anyhow, have my condolences on your friend's passing away.]
What I have picked up on, is that you are aware of what is going on around, you are sensitive to the losses that people endure, you are not ego-centric, you think about the future and how your life will be affected and effected, you live for the present, and you look to the past and wonder what could I have done differently so that I 1) won't make that mistake again, or 2) I'll have to remember how I reached that success. You look into the future in wonderment, with vision, and with a plan.
I am sure that it is a Westernized way to view life, and how we measure ourselves, and then how we perceive others to measure us.
It is the journey that is a part of defining who we are as individuals, as a culture, as a nation, as a family, and a social group, as a work place ...... and it's the destination (at times) that keeps one moving forward - it's the hope and optimism of what lies ahead. We can not predict the future, but we do have a hand in it with what we choose in life.
Is there unfairness and injustice in the world --- yes there is, because we are human. While humanity exists in this world, there will be suffering. On the flipside, while there is humanity in this world, there is peace among people, there is love and friendship, there is a blue sky and green grass that can be appreciated and taken care of for future generations of humanity.
I believe we are to live our lives in the present as preparation for the future. We are to live our lives for today, because we don't know what will happen tomorrow. We pray for guidance and direction, and are continually filling our hearts and minds and spirit with faith in the Lord that He too will see us through another day. If we don't make it to tomorrow, then that is the way it is, and the way it was going to be since the beginning of time. Was it a waste? Was it a loss? Is it unfair? Absolutely not, because we are so blessed to have been born at all.
Carpe Diem, for it propels us into the unknown.
Stuart
Reflecting my Christian faith, I'm persuaded that the journey and the destination are all of a piece.
Take Abraham, for instance: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God." (Hebrews 11.8-10).
In other words, the way of living, the way of journeying, partakes of where we are headed. Is our outlook hopeful? fearful? constructive? destructive?, etc.
Perhaps when Westerners don't like to talk of death it is because they have little conception of what their own death may mean. Will it be another step in a continuing journey or merely a 'dead' end, oblivion, nothing. What say you?
Best,
Brian
Thanks for todays message. Your friend is wise. I too recently went through a journey but the destination end result was not what I planned at all. So I felt like I had wasted my journey. But from Ekk's point of view it seems I should not feel that way at all.
My Thai friend recently shared this statement with me. "There are two eternities that can really break you down. Yesterday and tomorrow. One is gone and the othe does not exist..So live for today."