The Destination is Only the Excuse for the Journey

Today’s gonna be a fabulous episode. We’re going to be talking about that journey to whatever and we’re seeking. How do we get there? How do we feel along the way and what how should we keep our mind so I would I want to start this episode off with the poem entitled Ithic and you’ll see why. [He reads C. P. Cavafy’s poem “Ithaca.”] This is one of those poems that I always come back to. In the middle of my journeys, I need that reminder. And this poem says it all in so few words. It talking about how our journey is the joy and destination that we’re reaching for is the excuse to have all these incredible experiences. If you listen to the poem over and over again, you’ll hear the subtleties about fear. A fear is not something that that rises up within you or that you brought with you, then how are you going to encounter it?

I have a quote that says fear is the reluctant expectation of undesired eventsHow are you going to carry those ghosts with you and still expect to fully experience the present. Though part of the journey may be to learn how to let it go. Another parts of it that really resonate with me a lot is about savoring the moments. The finish line is only a fraction of a race. The finish line happens like that. It happens in a blink of an eye. Once it’s over. You give get a little bit of time to relish the achievement. Shifting into a different perspective, you can relish the whole experience day by day. The amazing and incredible people that you’re meeting. The sites that that are rare. This whole if the cup on is analogous to our life.

In the fall of 2013 I had friends who had begun College, obviously they’re a lot younger than me and so I had to impart some of my sage wisdom. I share it with them. “Find what you’re passionate about and soon as you can, so you can just pour yourself into it. If you accept college as being a vessel to impart information so that you can become a compliant worker one day, you’re going to lose sight of the greatest thing College has to offer. College I shared with them was a landscape and a place where you can experiment and play with ideas, meet people with similar ambitions. If you just go to class and get those straight A’s, which I do suggest, but at the same time, allow it to bloom in front of you allow it to open itself to you present itself as more than just a vehicle for education in the classic sense.

It can also be a vehicle for education, in the worldly sense… With who you meet with things that you try, where you really are testing your assumptions of life in this fertile landscape. This advice isn’t just for our incoming college stude, it is for you and I. As we look forward to the different phases of our career, our interpersonal relationships, and our own personal quest to become who we want to be. Let’s not think that we have to follow the formulaic structure to get there. Because becoming product driven, becoming output centric, you lose the part that really speaks to why you’re doing it. You can gain the experience. So you can test those assumptions. So you can interact with the world, and soak up the knowledge that is prepared to share with you.

When Malcolm Gladwell was referring to his 10,000 hours, he wasn’t saying 10,000 plus whatever you’re focused on, equals proficiency. 10,000 was an observation. And so if you think that you’re going to become something just by filling in the equation, no. The 10,000 hours from any of the experts, not only in that book, but anywhere in life we’re passionate, 10,000 hours, we’re at 10,000 hours fill with curiosity and adventures and failures and successes. Now let me just reform the idea of failure, failure, is it that you completely lost ran into a brick wall, and nothing can continue from there. Failure is your first attempt in learning. Let me repeat that. Failure is your first A F. A is attempt I in L learning is your first attempt in learning.

With this mindset, how can you not eventually get to where you’re trying to get to. And sometimes along the way, you’ll get more information where you realize that there’s a bigger goal down the road, maybe you realize that you might have been setting your sights too low. But that goal that you had was enough to get you on the road to allow you to see the perspective to allow you to see the landscape. This idea of Ethica exists within you and me. We’re right now in those Phoenician markets. We’re exploring the wares of the world. We’re interacting with the internet and all the knowledge and capacity it has to share with us. Are we embracing it? Or are we so destination century that we’re losing sight of the majesty to standing before us?

Some of these people will never be here again? Some of these opportunities will never be here again. Is your head down so low that you can’t see them sometimes? are you so worried? Are you so practical that you have to avoid the essence of what this poem was talking about? It’s talking about savoring life. The carpe diem, seize the moment. Imhotep’s quote “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you shall die.” That is saying seize the moment. Ithaca is a gentle reminder for us to look where we arer and be in a space of gratitude, being a space of appreciation, be in the mentality that you can savor these opportunities. While our physical existence is finite. We should soak up and savor the people, the places and the things that we get to interact with.