Discovering your purpose: Why Your Journey Is More Important Than The Destination

Life opens you to so many experiences.

It can take just one experience in life to change the direction in which you’re headed. At times I look back, and imagine how the course of my life would’ve turned out if maybe I had a different start to life, what would’ve happened if I decided to not take up a particular job role or where would I be now if I had not made that one decision. You may find yourself asking similar questions.

I’m someone who loves to plan out every part of my life, literally down to the little things. But you come to realise that it doesn’t matter how well planned out you are in life and how much you want things to go a certain way. It won’t always work out the way you want it. Life happens. And that’s fine. One minute you could be living the time of your life, next thing you’re being bombarded with a ton of problems. It may seem like everything that you could ever imagine to go wrong starts happening, but how often do we realise that it could be for a greater purpose. In the moment it may not seem like it, this is why I’ve decided to become more optimistic in everything I go through. A person’s mindset has a huge influence on how they perceive the world around them and how they approach certain situations. You’ll always be faced with challenges in life, but if you don’t learn how to approach them with the correct attitude and mindset you’ll be stuck for a while.

Upon starting my undergraduate degree programme, fast forward a few weeks into the introductory and welcoming sessions we all got the chance to get to know each other a bit more. I met a few mature students, some with children the same age as me and some even already had grandchildren. They had already gained a plethora of knowledge and skills from various experiences and professions. Being quite naive at the time, it made me question why they were willing to go back into education and do a course, most often times completely unrelated to the field of work they’ve previously been involved in. Also bearing in mind that quite a few actually came from well-established professions, had a steady stream of income and have achieved quite a lot in their lifetime. The response I often got was for “a change in career”, “to do something they’ve always wanted to do/pursue their passion”, “start afresh, try something new to gain new skills”. The most common response was to do something they’ve always had the desire to do, something that would just give them a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment regardless of the salary or what they might get back in return.

These responses actually made me re-evaluate my own personal goals and desires, I don’t want to eventually reach my goal/ ”destination” only to find out that this isn’t really what I wanted or just not being able to find fulfillment in it.

A while ago I came across an article that addressed the issue with people becoming so obsessed with the destination and forget about the journey. We all have some amazing aspirations in life but when things start popping up unexpectedly that delay the process of us getting there, we become frustrated, angry, depressed even sometimes feel isolated. We see this phase as a burden, our perspective becomes obscured that we’re unable to see the blessings, lessons and opportunities within them. For others it’s a problem of struggling to find their purpose, and they feel like they’re constantly chasing something so out of sight. This is because life is a constant process of self-discovery. The purpose is birthed through the journey, it’s discovered overtime through life’s experiences regardless of how long it takes. But when we’re constantly trying to avoid every situation life throws at us, we sometimes miss those little blessings and opportunities in disguise. Learn the virtue of patience.

A person can be 40/50 years old and sacrificed so much, accomplished quite a lot in their lifetime, worked extremely hard to finally get a top job position with a very high paying salary only to realise that they can’t find actual fulfilment in it. Yes the salary is good, but they can’t find any satisfaction in what they do. And this actually brings me to another point of why we shouldn’t let money be the only determining factor in our future decision making. It may bring satisfaction for some time but how long for? Pursue something you love, that you’ll find fulfilment in and brings you happiness.

There’s always going to be pressure all around forcing us to make decisions out of fear that we may not reach the right destination or achieve our goals on time. I find that those who succumb to these pressures end up chasing purpose in the wrong places and end up not finding fulfillment in it. The race you’ll run through your journey is different from that of another person. Don’t be in a hurry. Literally. Take your time. Don’t make a decision without thinking things into perspective. Make decisions for the betterment of yourself not because of what others are doing or what people will say.

I see a person’s journey as a very vital phase. It’s like a training ground, preparing you for where you need to be later on. Every step is just as important. Your journey is the refining process that prepares you for your future self.