Is Life A Journey?
“Don’t let perfection become procrastination. Do it now.”
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
A journey signifies an act of travelling from one place to another. What story pops to mind? A heroic adventure ripe with danger? Journey's have a climactic "we've made it." I'm arguing that we've already arrived. This is it. This is the only moment we're alive. Despite our endless attempts at planning the future, every moment other than the present is a gift. Do you treat it like the most beautiful thing you've ever experienced in the world? It is. If it's anything like mine, you've experienced pain. What about anxiety? The kind that wraps around your head like a vice mercilessly squeezed. Or the feeling of deep depression, ironically, the only time it felt like you didn't have a future.
If we incessantly push towards the end, we miss the shit that matters. Do me a favour and picture your favourite book. Imagine a friend told you he read the last page, that's all he needed to read, it was garbage. Did he have any knowledge of the book? Hell no. He experienced a sliver. Life comes from action. The act of doing is the only thing you will be measured by in life. The awesome ideas we fail to act on are dust in the wind.
There's a ruthless villain that attempts to foil our pursuit of action. Us. No one pushes us more to failure than ourselves. Who gives up on you more than anyone else? If your answer has a name other than yourself, these are "friends" you don't need. That's step one. One of the hardest things you'll do in your life. But my God, it feels good.
You're the average of the five people you hang around most. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Throw on a podcast. You have access to the greatest Mastermind group in existence. Tim Ferriss. Reid Hoffman. Tony Robbins. Kevin Rose. The list is endless. I count each of those guys as being in my personal Mastermind. Except for the fact, we've never met and they don't even know I exist (yet). But none of that matters because they all want you to succeed. They share their knowledge because they want us to change the world. What change do you seek to make?
Here's the hard part, listening with the intention to act. Their desire is for you to act and impact the world. Enough people think and do nothing. We have far too many of those people. We need people who act. Not because it's the easy thing to do but because it's the right thing to do. They inspire you to face your fears, rise to them and experience what waits for you on the other side. Shear fucking bliss. You did what next to no other human does. You did what you said you were going to do.
I urge you not to wait. Don't wait for a new job, raise, partner, friend, a day of the week, the start of a new year, money, or conversation to happen. Be who you want to be today. Every moment gives you the opportunity to be who you want to be. It all starts with being a better person. Especially in how you talk to yourself. Think. Thought. Action. Around the Merry-Go-Round we go. Until we break the nasty habit of internalizing that we're not good enough, we'll never see what we're capable of. Spoiler alert, the answer is anything.
What do people say when they talk about you? What do you stand for? Do you do the impossible?
Kaihōgyō, is a 1000-day pilgrimage performed by Tendai Buddhists. The pilgrimage has been completed by less than 50 monks in over a century, and traditionally, any monk who cannot complete it must take their own life.
1st year:
100 consecutive days of 25-mile runs, beginning at 1:30am, each day after an hour of prayer.
2nd and 3rd year:
100 consecutive days of 25-mile runs.
4th and 5th year:
100 consecutive days of 25-mile runs, performed twice for a total of 200 days.
6th year:
100 consecutive days of 37.5-mile runs.
7th year:
100 consecutive days of 52-mile runs and 100 consecutive days of 25-mile runs."
The fact that they make this journey on foot does not mean the movement is the goal—it is just a means to reach enlightenment. They lose themselves in the trees, rivers, purity—entranced by the rhythm of the mountain, awakening their spirits with the pace of nature from night to sunrise, day after day.
