The Journey to the End Result

I’ve been thinking about accomplishments, achievements and success, and more specifically, whether I savor the end result of the accomplishments more than the journey it takes to reach said accomplishments. What’s your take on this? What have you accomplished lately? Was the journey worth the end result? Was the journey savored as much or even more than the end result? How about this one: Does the value of the accomplishment increase or decrease based on the effort given during the journey?

I was speaking to my wife about this exact thing this morning. She has ran a couple marathons, and she stated that the emotion (and sense of accomplishment) you’ll have crossing that finish line (achieving that end result) is amazing because of all the work and training (the journey) you put into it. Heck, I remember watching her cross the finish line, and I balled like a baby because of the pride I had for her to accomplish something of such amazement. Not only was I proud of her accomplishment, but I was so excited to see her reach a goal that she had worked so hard for, for so long. I remember thinking that if I could even put half that effort into some of the things I wanted to do, I could accomplish so much. Of course, my wife is an extraordinarily focused, driven, and hard working woman, and not all of us are wired to be that way. We have to make the conscious choice to be focused, driven, and hardworking. (I know I’ve driven off course here as I’ve turned this into a bragging session about my wife, so I’ll attempt to get back on track.)

Back to the point: I tend to believe that our achievements are made even greater by the kind of journey we have in pursuit of those achievements. Don’t we tend to savor things more that we had to work hard for, as opposed to those that were given to us without much effort expelled? This seems to be a common sense statement, but then why do I (and many of us) sometimes feel that accomplishments should come easier to us? It’s almost like a sense of entitlement sweeps over us, and we forget that the journey is an important part of our accomplishments. We fail to embrace the journey. Thus, we fail to achieve. Just as we can’t just go sit in a gym and hope to get in shape through osmosis, so we can’t just hope that success will come our way by sitting around and doing nothing. We have to start our journey, persevere and embrace our journey, and finish our journey. That’s how we achieve!

Any thoughts? Any testimonies? Am I stating the obvious here, or is there more to it? Feel free to leave a comment.-