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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
This is one of the ideals of the Knights Radiant, as told in Brandon Sanderson’s incredible The Stormlight Archive (I’m halfway through book 2).
It’s a little melodramatic for sure, but I’ve found myself repeating the last bit to myself in various different occasions these past few weeks.
Journey before destination.
It’s very easy for us to continually chase that next goal. But happiness isn’t found on the next rung of the ladder, it’s created in the here and now.
I think about this whenever I find myself feeling the need to churn out another YouTube video but not really being ‘in the mood’. In these cases, I remind myself that the journey is more important than the destination. That being a 'creator’ is a marathon, not a sprint. And that there’s very little point in working towards arbitrary goals (views, subscribers, revenue) if I’m not enjoying the process of doing so.
Sure, we can work towards goals all we like. But while doing so, we should regularly reassess whether we’re enjoying the journey. If we’re not, we should do something to change that or reconsider whether the goal is really worth the sacrifice. In many cases, it might not be.
Whether we’re studying, working, or even just living day-to-day life, there are always those goalposts in the distance: exams, internships, jobs, mortgages, marriage(s). Perhaps if we all paid more heed to the journey than we do to the destination, the world would be a happier place.
I talked about this ‘journey before destination’ stuff, amongst many other things, in a 50-minute interview on Social Colours, a new podcast that features 'real world examples of people crushing it online’ (lol). I’ve never been interviewed before for anything so this was a pretty novel experience and super fun as well. You might like to check it out :)
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