Too much weight on the destination and not the journey.

October 4, 2011 by phillip.

There’s a psychology term known as cognitive dissonance. For some reason people seem to equate where they are and where they think they should be and the further they see themselves from it the the more it starts to effect them. This is common human behaviour. I used to do this a lot until a couple years ago when I read a book that corrected my way of thinking (The Pursuit of Perfect). The problem with me was that I was trying to always be perfect with everything I did. I still believe in trying to be one of the best at whatever I do but to a much lesser extent than before I read this.

This perfection also changed the way I looked at reading. Most of my life I read books to get to the end.  I started a book by looking at the page number of the last page and set myself on a course to reach that page. Many TV shows showed cultures that believed that an assimilation of knowledge taken in a huge gulp made you a new and better being. Think: Borg from Star Trek, linking into the Matrix in the Matrix movies, and chopping off the head of a Highlander and you’ll gain all his knowledge in Highlander. This was my goal. The destination being the last page.

Life isn’t about being at the last page. The last page is the day of your death. Have you given any thought to the path to that day?

I rarely fell asleep during our long car trips when I was a kid. Falling asleep till you got to the destination made you miss the most amazing things along the way. Look at those cows and sheep! We never get to see those. Look at those mountains! Amazing what God has made. Look at the sun set on the ocean or a field of waving wheat. Amazing.

You’ll get to where you want in your career, your life, etc. Just stop and look at what you’re doing right now so when you get there you’ll have many great stories to tell about how fun that trip was.

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