The Journey of Life

"Life is a journey, not a race"

Recently I have been thinking a lot about the pace and quality of life. The terms running through my head were 'fast', 'slow', 'quality vs. quantity' but somehow the word 'journey' slipped my mind. But the word 'journey' very much defines the pace too. A journey is undertaken to explore, experience and take the most of a defined period of time, just like life.

Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the idea that we need to chase after chance, success or whatever our goals are. Even though it is important to stay ambitious and go after one's dreams, it is equally as important to embrace the mistakes, have a look around, open our eyes a little wider to see more of our surroundings, just like during a trip. Ultimately, the more we see and experience, the more we live.

I heard the above quotation in a very cheesy interview preaching the often repeated phrases like: "follow your dreams", "believe in yourself", "don't let others tell you what to do", etc. which are all very cliche, but actually quite vague in the sense that due to certain circumstances they might be hard to follow. However, when I heard "life is a journey, not a race", my mind = blown. I thought that this is it, this is the solution to my speed-of-life-debate. It was so simple and so obvious that I was surprised that I hadn't thought of it myself.

Just think of life as a journey. In the end, all that we do matters, it shapes us who we are, leads us to where we will be in the future. Just like during a journey, there is going to be bad weather, inconveniences out of our control, but we need to learn to embrace them, take the most of it and experience as much as possible before the trip ends.