I had a conversation with my older brother Eddie the other day. It was a fairly long conversation that lasted about a couple hours. The gist of the conversation was him telling me I need to appreciate the journey and not obsess over getting what I want to get done, done in the manner I had planned. He was telling me that the journey is actually better than the moment you achieve “success”.
The journey isn’t as enjoyable when you're going through it.
I was thinking to myself, while hearing him say that, and you hear a lot of older people, whether they are “successful” or not, say things like “appreciate the journey”. I’ve heard that line a million times in my life. People telling me to appreciate the bad moments and the struggle because they really make you who you are. I get where that comes from because of course the bad times are more defining than the good. But at the time, you feel a way like “no fuck the bad times, I want the end goal here. I want the finish line, fuck this race”. And at times things are just too much where it’s to the point you think that no good can come from this situation. You start to think this is all just bullshit.
I don’t know I guess the story here is nowhere near finished so I don’t know how clear my perspective on my bad times is. As of late, I was going through a period where it just seemed all bad. It was once I got back from Europe and lasted up until pretty recently. I hated everyday waking up realizing I’m in the same place as last year and it was killing me. I don’t know if anyone fully understands how much I hated it. I have so many things I want to do in different fields. I’m not one of those people that subscribe to the train of thought that you must have only one dream. I have so many things I want to do in different fields. I have so many things to accomplish and I need those things accomplished to feel satisfied with my life.
The journey is supposed to be appreciated. But notice most of the people that say that already won. And yes, when I win I’m sure I’ll have a lot of insightful things to say to people coming up whether they’re going to succeed in what they want to do or fail. I’m sure I’ll have advice somewhat similar to what my brother said to me. I feel as if going through it the feeling is just “No fuck that, this is terrible.” Bad days are REALLY bad when you’re not satisfied with what you’re doing in life. And a lot of people will point out that you control what you do in life but I believe that there are significant parts of the journey (especially early on) where you have little control and can only do so much. For someone like me, with an obsessive personality, this is frustrating. I believe you can reach a point where you love what you’re doing everyday. But getting to that point takes a lot of work.
The journey continues. Hopefully I get enough from it to make my contribution to the world something special.
