Setting out on a Journey

I’ve been thinking recently about the idea of life as a journey.  It’s a metaphor that seems very appropriate when we think of what we go through in our short times here on this planet.  I’ve also been thinking about ways that we live our lives and things that we do in the process.  So much of what we do in life is very similar to the choices we make and actions we take while on a journey.  Don’t we stop regularly for refueling?  For rest?  Don’t we see all sorts of scenery, beautiful and magnificent as well as tedious and somewhat boring?  Don’t we meet different types of people and learn new and different things from new situations, people, and locations?

I’d like to think that if we can look at life as a journey, then we also can learn the value of the metaphor and take some of the lessons that we learn on the road to help us to live our lives in the best ways that we can.  For example, when I think of what we need to do before we take off on a journey, I know that the first thing that we need to do is prepare.  And we need to be completely aware of what kinds of preparations each type of journey requires.  If I want to travel spontaneously without any plans, then I need very little preparation other than getting my clothes and toothbrush packed, to arrange for transportation, and to make sure I had enough money.  On the other hand, I may want to get from one point to another as quickly as possible; in that case I’d need to plan the roads to take as well as taking care of some of the other basics.

My life’s journey is starting right this moment.  The past already is gone; the future awaits.  The beginning of this journey truly is in every moment I live, if I wish it to be.  So how am I going to prepare for the journey?  Do I need to plan a lot and made sure that everything is ordered and ready to go for me?  Or do I want to go with the flow of life for a while and allow each moment to bring me what it will, and then make the best I can of what each moment brings?  These are just two ways to approach the life I’m about to live, and today I can make the decision about how I'm going to approach my future.  This awareness of the need to make such a decision can be one of the most important things that I have in my life, for only this awareness of the need will cause me to make life decisions that can bring more value to who I am and the life I live.

This is a metaphor that I shall take further, for it’s one that’s close to my heart–one that is very important to me.  Now that I've realized that awareness of the need to decide how to approach the journey, as well as awareness of many of the choices available to me, is a vital element of making my life all that it may be, I can look at the options and my decisions much more clearly and make great contributions to my life as well as the lives of others who are within my world.

Find your true path.  It’s so easy to become someone we don’t want
to be, without even realizing it’s happening.  We are created by
the choices we make every day.

Bernie Siegel