You were supposed to sing and dance while the music was being played.
World famous philosopher, Alan Watts once said:
"When you reach middle age, you will realise that you feel exactly the same as you did before you started. You may even feel cheated that ‘making it’ was all a lie."
Having reached middle age, I find myself (begrudgingly) agreeing with Mr Watts.
There is no 'goal' as such. There is no parade or fireworks show. You only realise how far you have come, once you start looking back over everything that you've achieved.
In fact, the only person who thinks that you've 'made it' is every single other soul besides yourself, especially if you happen to possess something they do not.
If you have a nice car, then the novelty would have probably worn off a couple of weeks after you drove it off the lot. To someone else who is using public transport or has to share a car between several family members, you probably look like someone infinitely more successful.
It's only during those moments of retrospection that you realise just how much better you have it now, compared to how your life was when you were a struggling student or teenager.
"An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit".
- Raymond Reddington, from the show, The Blacklist.
This leads me to one of my favourite sayings, the attribution of which is impossible, as it has been quoted by nearly everyone:
"It's all about the journey".
Hitting all of your desired goals is great, but don't forget that you spend nearly 100% of the time on the journey towards reaching those goals. Once you've reached them, the feeling of completion is very short-lived.
It's far more beneficial to look for internal happiness and focus on your progress via 'milestone moments, instead of some great big 'validating moment' which will never come.
It's great to have a goal towards which we strive every day, but it's also important not to get fixated on that goal. It's only a direction - a heading, if you will - a marker that you use to check if you're still on track. The goal should never be something that we obsess over, and you are always allowed to move the goalposts if you want to reach a different goal. You have to be flexible, not rigid.
With that, I will end this post with one of my favourite Alan Watts quotes:
"Life is not a pilgrimage to some sort of an end.
Life is a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing and dance while the music was being played. It’s all about the journey. In the same way as playing music is all about being completely involved in the production of the sounds as they go along, without hurrying them to reach the end."
Enjoy the journey, everyone!
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