Design your own Life
The best thing in a one night stand is that it is a 12-hour stand at best, while the best thing in a relationship is when you voluntarily develop the will to have a long term stand with someone . The worst thing in a one night stand is when you feel you want more than just that physical attraction. The worst thing could happen to any relationship is when you no longer care about where, this, is heading to, which could be looked at, as a series of one night stands but with the same person.
What I am trying to say: its YOU who might decide to take a one night stand experience and turn it into a beautiful relationship, or you may choose to turn a beautiful relationship into a series of one night stands.
It doesn’t matter where we start from, it doesn’t matter what the end will be, its the journey that counts, living the bets we make, the choices, the decisions, this is what living is all about. Its never about where you come from, or where you are heading to, its about what you do in the middle, its about which road you decide to take, and what you decide on doing while you are walking that road.
Many out there are destination-focused. A question for those: has everyone who made it, deserved it? The answer, realistically, has to be a big NO. This can even translate into: if your destination is success, fame, or wealth among many others; not all who got there has earned it. Not every true talent has turned into millions of dollars, and not every president deserved his seat! On the contrary, the longer we live, the more “unearned cases” continue to appear. We live in a world where those who got power, money, or a certain connection has made it but not necessarily earned it. Even Facebook has recently introduced the Promote function for individuals’ statuses and posts. This means even if your point of view is real and different, the system would swallow it down all other posts unless you pay for it to stay on top.…I totally understand the initiative for an SME’s page status or business promoted posts, but personal opinions and personal contents? I don’t fathom that!
The second point, in my effort to support the importance of the journey over the destination, is that any destination is relatively measured; and has no proper benchmark so you can officially and publicly rank yourself among your fellow peers. You can be called Rich with 50k in your bank account relative to millions of human beings and someone with islands and private jets among his personal assets is considered rich too. You will always find someone who is richer than you are; smarter than you are; wiser than you are, and more equipped in general. You will never reach a destination where you have it all. Have you seriously thought you can catch the rainbow one day?
Therefore, its the how I got there-no matter where there is- what actually counts and what actually largely contribute to who you ever become. Its the journey, more often than not, that we forget to live. Its by our nature that we take the most important people and sometimes the most precious moments in our lives for granted..we fail to embrace the little tiny moment, which in a moment, is going to be a memory!
As a result; the poor, the fat, and may be the less-privileged kid who managed to improve, work on, and educate himself with a comprehensive guide of business and life ethics in his pocket has a superior journey to someone who was born to a wealthy family and with time he failed to learn the value of money and although he is somehow successful still, his journey was little of him in it, little about his choices, little about his own challenges, and little about connecting and feeling with the majority others. If you start with a million dollar and ended up with 100 million dollars I would admire that. But if you start with nothing, and end up with half a million in your bank account, that is something I respect and I salute even!
If each one of us starts from a point made by him, not for him, and only exited for his own start, if everyone has his own destination and no 2 destinations are alike, then why most of us end up comparing themselves to others based on where they come from and, at best, judging them based on where- they think- they are heading to? In a nut shell and as I usually look at it: have they made so many things out of nothing? or have they made almost nothing out of so many things?
Now, if we understand or agree on the concept of the journey of each one of us, rather than our beginning or the final destination, we actually can understand more and may be, differently this time, can relate more to the concept of equality; We are all equal. It doesn’t matter if you belong to a certain family, a social status, or even stuck with a horrible past. What actually matters, is what you make out of what you’ve started with. I always find this mere thought liberating and its at the heart of the concept “living”.
The concept of one’s journey does mater the most, simply because it makes us appreciate the most positive values in life as it focuses on what I made for myself. It makes us all fairly benchmarked to each other no matter where we came from. Even without an actual tangible achievement, you still can be successful and your journey would be honorable and worth living, much more than those who were tagged along someone else’s achievement.
Let’s presume someone has lived his life trying to achieve something he has passion for and strongly believe in, despite the fact, he never actually managed to go there all the way to the end with a solid achievement, in his hands, as he always dreamt of. At least his journey was all about his dreams, with lots of trials towards an achievement. It reflects his individuality and would be looked at as a journey of a builder or one of a fighter.
Now, if each one of us has his own journey to live, and they are all measured by the added value they brought to one’s life, we, then, can basically derive the added-value by subtracting the beginning value of your assets/life at the starting point of your journey from the end value- or the sought after destination. The bigger the positive difference, the higher the value of your journey and the better choices you have taken. All else is equal.
By adapting such a logic, you no longer easily feel jealous of others, you no longer easily judge a fellow human being and you start to understand that whatever you have got and you never earned doesn’t count..its already deducted and is not part of your own creation. Stretch this thought further and you will easily see that your family, your name, your religion, and anything you were born with is not really the best deal you have got. It was simply forced upon you. How do you feel when you hear someone saying that his/her name is the best name in the world? You would laugh, unless you feel the same, then I rest my case! Like your name, like all other adjectives you were born with.
We are all very similar yet we are very different. We think that what happens to us doesn’t happen to others, but we are mistaken. To think that a successful businessman has it all, then you are presuming that he is a successful husband/partner or he is a great father or brother…which is not true. No one can be the best on all life’s fronts. One positive shiny front should not out shadow many others and the opposite is true. By the same token, just because someone in your building or workplace works as a Janitor, it doesn’t mean you are luckier than him or better off or your journey is worth living more than him. He might be happier, more satisfied, and a braver fighter than you are.
If I managed to highlight the importance of one’s journey over other common success-related benchmarks, I am obliged to highlight the fact that you can’t judge a journey in the middle or based on a random slice of along trip. You have to look at it as a whole, and to do so- quoting Steve Jobs- “connecting the dots, only, by looking backward”. Don’t look down at journeys that are in their lows, forgetting that you are living a temporarily high. One of the best equations I ever come across and learned about was during an emotional intelligence course: [U + Others+ Circumstances = Your performance] and since we all know neither “Others” nor “circumstances” can be all-time-perfect and in our favor; our performance during our own journey should not be always perfect and upward, rather it should fluctuate. The most important thing is for the over all journey to add value to yourself and others.
Enjoy sculpting your own journey, but beware, you only get one journey in life and therefore you better commit to it and make it worth living. In other words “You were born original, try not to die a copy”.