The Destination Defines Our Journey and The Price We Pay

Well, I left my happy home
to see what I could find out.
I left my folk and friends
with the aim to clear my mind out.

Well I hit the rowdy road
and many kinds I met there,
many stories told me
of the way to get there.

So on and on I go,
the seconds tick the time out,
there's so much left to know,
and I'm on the road to find out.

- Cat Stevens

When all is said and done, you will stand at the top of a mountain and look down at the long, long road you traveled over your lifetime. That road will not be a straight line.

As you scan the patchwork of terrain stretched out below, you’ll marvel at the richly varied landscape: the rolling hills of growth and ambition, the deep, dark valleys of failure and chasms of grief, the raging white waters of anger and fear, the brutal, blistering deserts of poverty and lack and the cool, towering, majestic forests of abundance and joy.

Several landmarks will catch your eye. They’ll be familiar; you’ll recognize them all – even those you haven’t thought about in many, many years. These are all the choices you’ve made – your life’s goals and dreams and desires, the destinations you set out to reach. Friends, lovers, schools, jobs, what you learned, what you lost, what broke your heart and what soothed your aching soul. Each one of life’s chapters is a signpost along the way.

The winding, wandering road that is your life journey will have touched some of these milestones, but not all of them. It will have missed many. Your path may turn abruptly left or right just before you reached your goal, or perhaps circle a place once or twice before heading off in another direction – towards another goal that you may or may not have attained.

How will you judge this life you lived? Will you keep score? Will you tally up the number of times your road connects with your chosen destinations? Don’t make that mistake. That’s a narrow view of success.

A life well lived is never a straight line. It is circuitous and convoluted, carved with turns and detours and twists of fate. Did you leave home and make a cross-country move to follow a career ambition? Maybe it was a dream that crashed and burned and broke your heart.

But did you not meet the love of your life there, in that place of bitter failure, get married and start a family? Would you have met your mate had you ignored that quiet voice in your heart that urged you to leave home? Sometimes we don’t hit the target because we were meant to aim for a different one.

The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. - Robert Burns

Our goals start us out on the road of life. Maybe that’s the point of our aspirations – to get us moving. We need to take that first step, and then the next and the next and keep moving forward. Because the people, places and things we encounter along the way as we are headed to where we think we want to go – these detours and disappointments just might be the most valuable lessons and truest blessings of our lives.

Take a moment and think about your enemies, if you’ve had any, or at least those people who tormented you in some manner. Maybe it was a schoolyard bully or a boss from hell or a friend who betrayed you or a lover who was unfaithful or a money manager who robbed you blind – toxic individuals who you thought had sabotaged you. This may come as a surprise, but their purpose was not to punish you.

They were your teachers.

They smartened you up; made you tougher. Maybe you didn’t get burned twice. Or the fourth time; some of us need to learn the same lesson over and over. The unexpected challenges and terrible surprises that struck doubt and fear into your heart – they were actually golden opportunities offered up by the Universe. There was a price to pay for each of these challenges, to be sure. But no matter how punishing the sacrifice you made, it was the correct price for your evolution at that place and time.

It is our very human nature that compels us to want to know the end at the beginning. We need a target to hit, a goal to define our aspirations. We need a direction to face, a destination to point ourselves toward before we embark. Remember that life is dynamic and change is constant. It may not seem like a change for the better at that frightening moment when the earth moves under your feet, shaking your confidence to the core. But when you reach the mountaintop and look down at the path you followed, you will have a new perspective. And you’ll see it was all for your Greater Good.

Well in the end I'll know,
but on the way I wonder
through descending snow,
and through the frost and thunder.

I listen to the wind come howl,
telling me I have to hurry.
I listen to the robin's song
saying not to worry.

So on and on I go,
the seconds tick the time out,
there's so much left to know,
and I'm on the road to find out.

- Cat Stevens