The Journey is the Reward (Five-Minute Flourishing)

Craig 00:00 

Welcome to Live Well and Flourish. I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke.

“The journey is the reward.” Steve Jobs made that quote famous, but he certainly didn’t originate the sentiment; the idea goes back a long way. The same idea has been expressed in many ways, including James Taylor when he sang, “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” Surfers have a similar philosophy. Ride the wave, don’t fight it. Regardless of who said what, the idea of the journey being the reward is a powerful maxim for living an excellent life, even though we sometimes have to remind ourselves of this particular bit of wisdom.

Early in our marriage, Tracy and I took a trip to beautiful Aruba. When we got there, I was appalled by the prices. That is one expensive island. I was complaining about how expensive everything was and Tracy gave me that look. You know the one. I knew I had a choice. I could fight the expenses and have a terrible time or I could just accept what was and enjoy the ride. So, in what I call my Aruban moment, I decided the heck with the money, let’s just have fun. And have fun we did. My brother Glenn was working in Venezuela and he flew up to join us for part of the vacation. Glenn was a lot of fun, so we had a fantastic time. We didn’t really do much of anything that was noteworthy, we just let the journey be its own reward.

Craig 01:37 

Here’s the big secret that let me make the switch from stress to enjoyment. I knew I couldn’t change the prices, but I could change my attitude towards the expense. I decided to live for the moment and just enjoy the ride. You may recognize my “secret” which isn’t really much of a secret, it's a core practice of Stoicism … recognizing that some things are in your control and some are not. The prices were NOT in my control, but my mindset and attitude were. So, I adopted a “journey is the reward mindset” and a let’s just enjoy the ride attitude.

But my Aruban moment went beyond just accepting what I couldn’t control. I also decided to live in the moment. As I said, we didn’t really do anything all that special. We just hung out, relaxed, and had fun. It was glorious. 

Craig 02:39 

Of course, most of life isn’t made up of vacations in an island paradise. We live in the real world. The journey can be the reward in the real world as well. The first step to doing this is acceptance of two things, that most things are beyond your control, and that events sometimes run against you. Accepting that things don’t always go your way is what the Stoics called amor fati, or love of fate. A military saying puts a bit more bluntly, embrace the suck. But it's the same idea. Don’t just accept fate, embrace it. I know it’s trite but turn life’s lemons into lemonade.

Craig 03:25 

Once you accept these truths, set yourself to controlling what you can. One good example of this is setting goals. As I’ve mentioned before, external measures for success are a recipe for woe. Whether you achieve external goals is to a large part out of your control. You probably know of instances where you or someone else did everything right, but still didn’t achieve some goal. That’s why you should tie success to inner goals rather than external indicators. Here's another one that may sound a little bit trite, but it's true, if your goal is to do your best, you’re always in control of whether you reach that goal. But if your goal is to get some job or make a certain income, you’re not in control and that feeling of being out of control keeps you from enjoying the ride.

Craig 04:19 

It’s not just the Stoics who held these beliefs, the same idea of radical acceptance of one’s fate is reflected in Buddhism and Daoism. Both emphasize the importance of living in harmony with the moment. But there’s a little bit of a danger here. Living in harmony with the moment and accepting fate doesn’t mean living an aimless life. To flourish, you still need to live a life of purpose. The rewarding journey is a journey of purpose and right action.

I’ve talked about the importance of purpose a lot, so I’ll keep this short and just mention two things. Your purpose serves as your compass, giving you direction and the means for making good decisions. Your purpose also serves as an anchor, always giving your journey a solid foundation, even when times are rough.

Craig 05:13 

Alright, so purpose is important to a rewarding journey, but what about “right action” … But, what does that mean? Well, to me right action means acting according to your purpose and according to virtue. Right actions are those that align with reason and virtue and that help you live up to your purpose and to the values you seek. It's really pretty simple.

Find meaning and satisfaction not in external things, but in doing what’s right and pursuing your purpose to the best of your ability. That is the meaning of a successful, rewarding journey.

When you face your own Aruban moment, what will YOU do, fight the wave or enjoy the ride?

Until next time, enjoy the ride my friends.