I’m trying something new today....
I will be adding things here as the day unfolds. Largely unedited, I’m going to try to capture the flow of some of my thoughts, see how they evolve, and watch where they end up without anything particularly preconceived guiding the way. …will use my phone, too, so could be some typos (just saying).
For starters, it seems to me that having the end in mind is generally pretty helpful, especially given the sometimes-tyrannical nature of the moment.
But, once you’ve lived a while, it is hard not to also recognize the tenuousness of much of life and, therefore, at least some of its outcomes.
An anticipated or desired end certainly can (and does) happen. But, more often than not it seems, whatever that is isn't what actually happens, while at the same time something else does.
Assuming this isn’t an aberration, the question could be, why (especially given our goal-oriented tendencies)? Why do things happen more like this, after all? Is it because it generally takes us a while to truly learn that any particular end is not quite as important as what is learned in the process of getting there? Or, perhaps as it is often more popularly put, is the journey more important than the destination?
One would wonder, though, how different what happens on the journey would be if the destination you set out for was actually something else? In other words, isn’t what happens along the way distinctly impacted by the direction one heads in the first place? It doesn’t seem hard to argue, for example, that the content (if not quality) of our current experience is often impacted or influenced by what has happened to us (good or bad) before this particular moment.
So, what do we make of this dialectic — do we set hard-and-fast goals and relentlessly pursue them or do we go-with-the-flow because it doesn't matter anyway?
First of all, always be aware that things presented in binary form are likely missing something important.
I am in Chicago today for business. As I drove through it, I couldn't help but reflect on what it took to make everything the way it is now in this big city. On the one hand, a lot of vision — staying on track. And, on the other, a lot of other stuff along the way — being flexible with the challenges and opportunities that were happening at any given moment. The city is still changing right now, in fact, even as it both resembles and defies what some of those who had vision for it, before it began, had in mind.
Final thought (for now): The more we observe this dynamic between these two phenomena, the more we can acknowledge it and embrace the notion that, actually, both are important. This lends itself to making room for each and considering when they might be best applied, either by context or at differing points in time.
At a more personal level, the most compelling data comes from our personal experience — wouldn't you agree? What I planned to do and where I've ended up are, in fact, quite a mix of things partially anticipated and nothing I could have imagined. How about you?
