If you eliminate the distance, you eliminate the journey.

The innocence of youth can be precariously blinding.
“I want to be a billionaire at 25. I want to retire at 30. I want to win the Nobel peace price at 40.” An intricate road-map, planned down to the most minuscule checkpoints. A life lived in the pursuit of milestones — and riddled with the inevitable failure to derive enjoyment from each step along the way.
As an avid mountain climber and trail runner, it didn’t take long for me to realise that what I love the most about climbing is the fact that all else fades away and you are only obliged to focus on your very next step. It is the pinnacle of “the flow state,” a concept discussed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow, wherein he examines exactly what leads to enjoyment. It is the lack of this focus and appreciation for the next step in life, which may find us feeling somewhat confused and unfulfilled when we do eventually reach our goals.
And living in this rapidly paced society, it is not uncommon to hear about a new “quick success formula”, or to be bombarded with news articles about the latest successful prodigy. We’re always trying so hard to get somewhere so fast, that we lose the fulfillment of just simply trying to go. Alan Watts draws a comparison between life and music in saying that the point of listening to music is not to get to the end of the composition, or to reach some point in the song, it is simply to dance to the tune.
My aim, from this day forward, is not to live a directionless life, but to remember that to eliminate the distance is to eliminate the journey — and the journey is where all the joy is found.
