A lovely friend and client of many years has given permission to reflect on guidance offered her, and I am grateful.
What is life but a journey to goals, not the goal itself. It is peculiar to the human condition, that we set goals and become so focused on them that anything in between is secondary, even ignored or assessed as less than the goal we hold in such high esteem.
Yet the journey holds all the substance of life. It is the reason for being human. The journey is the substance of learning, achieving, of becoming all we can be.
We hold up in admiration the explorers who reached their destinations, their goals. Yet many of them were taking a journey without foreknowledge of the destination they would one day reach. Reaching it, they celebrated, and perhaps the difficulties of the journey paled in comparison, so their stories have been recorded to laud the goal and have set us an example we emulate.
Yet, if we were to read journals written by these brave souls, we would find the substance of human growth on those pages. We would observe how they overcame obstacles, how they managed relationships, how they managed their own loneliness, physical and emotional hunger and persevered against all odds. This, System says, is the reason for taking on the challenge of being human.
And further, we will never reach the satisfaction we imagine the goal represents. Being goal oriented, we will never reach a goal that satisfies. The goal reached will pale compared to the dream, so we will find another to pursue in hopes the next goal reached with at last satisfy the hunger we have to succeed.
Goals are fine, to set intention. But goals pale in comparison to the journey. Set a goal, then entirely surrender it. Tending to the goal is an attachment. Attachment to anything comes from fear; fear that we will fail. Breathe and surrender any goal, attending to the moment, trusting Self more with each and every breath. Live the journey wholly.
The goal is not the substance of life. Now we are awakening to know that the substance is in the journey; to live in the moment, honoring and respecting self for persisting, whatever the obstacles. The inner, true satisfaction is in the moment as you experience it; whole in itself and the reason for being.
Until next time, Breathing with you,
I am Phyllis, Becoming
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