It seems a wise advice. But have you ever thought about it or just took it to be true as you felt it is true in the first instant. In what depth can we Analyse that statement. If you haven't already the poem - To catch the Happiness before it hides, is a good starting point. Once you grasped the idea, let's go deeper.
Why it is a good idea to think about life as a journey not a destination? It seems, when we think about life as a destination it contradicts happiness as we will never be in that position until we reach our goal. In general, we spend more time trying to reach a goal than the time we savor the triumph of victory. Imagine a person training hard to win a cycle race. If he do not enjoy training, he is going to suffer a lot before even the race begins. And it is true only one winner is going to be in victory. If everyone enjoys the training, at least they all can enjoy even before the race begin. Even if you lost, the defeat is only going to be short lived. However, there are some occasions, that we will have to think about destination as well. This applies to places where you work as a team. You can read more about this in Nash equilibrium.
Now we can question the above statement in more detail. What is the difference between a journey and a destination? Or what is the true meaning of a journey?
Destination is some place, or a status. Which is a fixed in time or space. But a journey is something which moves. We are really speaking about a process. The nature of a process is that it is continuous. But when we think about a journey, in reality we can never think about a continuous process. At least our minds are not capable of understanding continuous nature. (understanding time) Let's understand this before we move on.
Imagine you talk about the last trip you did. You went on a hike with a couple of your best friends to a top of a mountain. Now think about this journey. How does it feel like? You will have some photographs, you will remember some special places, and some special incidents clearly in your memory. However, is it the whole journey? Even if you videoed it continuously from the beginning to the end, still it would be only 60 frames per second. Our minds are not capable of understanding a continuous process at all. So, when we say life is a journey, it is erroneous as well (as we are talking about destinations with short intervals compared to a real continuous function). As we can never know a real journey (which is continuous process). No matter how we tried, it will always come as frames, of ideas, thoughts and feelings. But it is not what is really happening. Even if you try to describe something like a ball rolling on a slope. We will fall into the same trap. (arrow paradox)
So, next time when someone says, "Life is not a destination but a Journey." Just don't argue with them to show you are wise. Just smile with them and enjoy your fixed frame.
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