Focus on the journey

Unlike my good friend, Nancy, I never had a “hankering” for travel.
Nancy has floated down the Amazon, toured the pyramids, and visited friends in Japan. She creates fascinating scrapbooks of her journeys, which she then shares with her friends.
As for me, I’ve always preferred staying at home when possible. There’s so much I want to do here. I like it here!
Over the years, I have travelled to visit friends and family, as well as to speak. I also have enjoyed our summer and winter vacation trips to Colorado.
And I often have travelled to professional conferences with Nancy.
Nancy always knows the ropes. Take New York City, for instance. In two different stays, she planned visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, dinner at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the twin towers, and two separate trips to Macy’s.
One Macy’s trip was so that each of us could get a lady’s-sized Macy’s shopping bag they were giving to each customer at the time. The other one was so she could report to Macy’s that their lady’s purses float!
When Nancy and her husband, Clay, were visiting the pyramids, Nancy’s purse, including their passports, accidentally fell overboard into the Nile River. Fortunately, the large boat backtracked and crew members were able to rescue the purse from the waters.
The purse had floated! And their passports were not only safe but dry!
Nancy is a good example of a person who always enjoys the journey!
I hate to admit it but I would not enjoy a boat trip on the Amazon with the crocodiles. I don’t crave adventure! That’s why I’ve always stayed at home while my husband has travelled to Central and South America multiple times.
But I do enjoy my day-to-day “journey” in the safety of my own home, surrounded by trees, dogs, and people.
“Life is a journey, not a destination,” said 19th-century poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. And contemporary health writer Greg Anderson goes further: ”Focus on the journey, not on the destination.”
Yes, focus on the journey. And that’s the way to make sure you also enjoy the journey.
Journey: an act or instance of travelling from one place to another. Destination: a place to which one is journeying.
Whenever we travel, we always must keep our destination in mind, but what really counts is the journey. It’s the difference between the future and the present–then and now.
Your destination may be 1,000 miles away or one city block. Either way, your destination is in the future. But the journey is now!
What does focusing on the “now” mean, anyway? It means giving attention to the people around you. Ask questions. Learn about their lives. Listen.
Notice the sunrise and the rainbows. Enjoy a good book and also your important e-mails.
And when you travel, enjoy the crocodiles—and the friends and family you travel with or go to visit.
In other words, just enjoy! Enjoy the “now” because the future isn’t yours at all.
So always keep your destination in mind. But enjoy the journey—today and every day!
Write Marie Snider at thisside60@cox.net