The Journey That Is Your Life

I do believe that life is a journey. And like any journey it can be fantastic, harrowing, boring and everything in between at times. Life surely won’t be one of those things all of the time. Over time life offers many experiences and opportunities to people. Above all though, it’s wonderful to be alive!

Over the forty plus years of my life the one thing that has been most important to me to figure out is this. How do I stay at peace inside while on this journey? Because if you think about it if you are at peace inside many many things in your life seem to come together. Whether it’s sunny out or pouring. Whether it’s hot or cold. Whether you’re healthy or sick. Whether you’re wealthy or broke. Internal peace (or peace of mind) is something that allows people to not only manage but appreciate where they’re at and what they have at any given time.

I guarantee you that there’s someone sick in a hospital bed right now who has been through some rough times recently but still values their life a heck of a lot more than another person living in a mansion with good health and great financial resources. The difference between those two people has to do with the level of peace that they feel inside.

Internal peace is a difficult thing to consider because you can’t see it and you can’t measure it precisely but I guarantee you that each person can feel it!

I can’t say that I have all the answers (No one does and if they say they do then beware!) but I can say that there’s one thing that has helped me to find internal peace more and more as I’ve gotten older. In a nutshell it’s this. Knowing that I’m on the path that’s taking me in the direction of my hopes and dreams. I have found repeatedly in my life that when I feel like I’m on the right track that everything falls into place. I do the right things. I meet the right people. I’m healthy. I do well professionally. And I sleep wonderfully at night. When I doubt that I’m on the right track everything is more difficult.

Imagine that you’re on a road trip all the way across the country. I like to think about driving from New York City to Los Angeles. Over three thousand miles. It’s a long trip as car trips go. It probably takes at least five days to do it safely, and even then that’s probably pushing it. (As a side note I’ve done a seventeen hundred mile road trip several times so I’m familiar with the analogy I’m offering up.) So it’s a very long trip that can be either, as I mentioned above, fantastic, harrowing, boring and a lot more. So what impacts how you feel on such a trip? Knowing whether or not you’re headed in the right general direction. Because if you start that trip by heading north on the New York State Thruway and plan to follow that all the way you’ll end up in Canada! But if you head west through the Lincoln Tunnel then you’re off to a good start.

So if you check the map when you hit Albany while heading north on the Thruway you won’t be feeling too good. Why? Because you are on the wrong road! Keep going and you’ll be in Montreal. That’s great if you want to go to Montreal but not if you want to get to Los Angeles. But if you take the Lincoln Tunnel route that heads west when you reach the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border and check the map you should feel pretty good about your trip because you’re generally headed in the right direction. So you know that with each mile you drive you get closer to your destination. Take note of the fact that while you’re not anywhere near your destination you are able to have the good feeling about ultimately reaching that destination ahead of time.

Consider how this concept applies to real life. I believe that we all need three core things in order to find a place of healthy internal peace. First, we need to have life goals (a purpose). Second, we need to understand the route to reach our goals. Third, we need to actually take the journey towards achieving those goals! All three steps are necessary. If you determine your life’s goals and work on a plan to reach them but never pull the trigger of achieving them you will not feel two-thirds peaceful inside. It’s likely that you’ll feel a hundred percent awful! I know because so many (too many) times in my life when I’ve felt restless and out of place in the world it has been because I have skipped at least one of the steps. There have been periods where I didn’t have goals. There have been periods where I’ve had goals but didn’t know how I would achieve them. And there have been times when I knew what to do and how to do it, but just never got started.

The great motivator Jim Rohn used to say something like, “Life is about more than just the passage of time.” In a nutshell that explains the importance of my philosophy about the journey of life. We are not meant to mark the time between life and death, staring at the calendar as the days (and weeks, and years) go by. We are meant to find different purposes and work on achieving them. Through this work we can cultivate internal peace. I do not believe that this is the key to life but I do believe it is a key to a meaningful life.

Obviously, there is more, a lot more, to say about this. For now I would love it if you would ponder the thoughts that I have presented above.