On daily basis, we would wake up early, get ready, and go to work. We would come home to our loved ones (could be your pet, your significant other, or even yourself), and get ready to close the day. Sometimes, we would think about how close are we to our goal, or even think about what we are actually trying to achieve. We would also think what will happen to my life when I fail to achieve my goal, where would I go or what would I be.
Thinking about it, I think most of us associate life with our goal. We position our goal as the finish line and where we could finally enjoy life; where we should finally living the life.
But, if that’s really the case why do we do things that could make ourselves feel better on daily basis. Simple things like why do we get a fancy car just to go to work, why do we buy that $6 coffee every morning before we walk into our day, why do we get the concept of weekends, why do we try to meditate or do yoga every morning when we woke up, why do we even take days off or vacation.
I am a very goal oriented person, for me it’s always about what I need to do to get me to my goal. It is obviously influenced by how I was raised; the education given to me, the way my mom would get me whatever I want when I get to a certain goal, or the household that allows me to do whatever I want provided that I achieve great score at school.
No matter what it takes I will always thrive to get to my goal. No matter how crazy the ups and downs would be. No matter if I had to move away from the people I love.
I was raised to associate life with goal. To set goal as the direction of my life, and as the finish line.
The older I am, the more I can see that I do not have 100% control over my life or even how to get to what I want because things will not always go my way. Things have their own way. World has its own way. The universe has its own way. The people around me have their own way.
There are tons of things that are beyond my control. I always knew that but I have never accepted it until very recently.
My biggest question is: if we are not here to achieve our goal, what are we supposed to do then? If it’s not about getting to where we want to be, why do we even living this life? Why am I here and what am I looking for?
Last night, as I was staring at my bedroom ceiling, the realisation came in. I realise that there is no real finish line in life. Even when we get to be so successful we do not need to “work” anymore, we still need to do something to keep that success intact.
Just an example, I probably get a little out of topic here, people said buy property and rent it out and you will not need to really work to make money. You’ll get passive income. But, think about it, as a landlord you will need to worry about maintenance, making sure you get the right tenant, making sure you repaint your property, dealing with tax; imagine if you have 10 properties, it would be tons of work. I am not making this up, I get to know this from my landlord who I met couple weeks ago.
Life requires constant efforts. Our constant efforts are the life itself.
Back to my question, I think it’s all about the journey. I think we are all here to have a wonderful journey, to live the life. Yes we can have goal but life is not about getting to our goal. Life is about enjoying the journey. Enjoying the years we are given on this earth, make the most of it on daily basis.
There is no finish line, the only finish line is when we finally closed our eyes forever to be part of mother earth.
What I am trying to say is we may need to try to shift our perspective, from the goal post we thought we should achieve to the journey/the process to get there.
I do think our goal should be to make sure our journey is enjoyable; we can do so by prioritising ourselves.
Life has its own way, and I think we will enjoy the ride if we can work towards enjoying the journey.
