"Don't just make good time, but make time good." Unknown
In order to get to where you want to go, you have to know where you want to go. You have to have a destination. This though is a matter of choice and preference. Instead of a definite place on the globe you want to reach, your destination might be the journey itself. In the case of a definite place, you may have a definite time you want to get there. The destination is the thing and the journey is just a means of getting there. In this case you will usually find the shortest route to take and travel as fast as possible. If the speed limit is 70 mph, you may drive 75 or 80. You may pass go and you may collect $200, but you might not remember much about Park Place and Boardwalk. When you travel, instead of stopping to eat something good and nutritious, you grab fast food and eat it in the car as you continue to travel toward your destination.
To illustrate the difference in the destination-is-the-thing or the journey-is-the-thing, I'm going to reference hikers on the Appalachian Trail. You might think given the serenity and stunning beauty of the trail, all hikers take their time and their cameras to savor every minute. After all, this is the world- renowned Appalachian Trail. Why wouldn't you enjoy every minute and take in every vista? But this is not necessarily the case. Some AT hikers are known as speed hikers. Their purpose in hiking the trail is to break the last speed record. And some of them, not all of them, cut corners to accomplish their goal. The journey which takes most people months, they accomplish in weeks. The only thru hiker I have known personally, hiked the AT with his fiance. They had a reputation for being the slowest hikers on the trail. They followed every pig trail and enjoyed every overlook. It seems to me that this method of hiking is far superior to speed hiking, but again it all depends on your destination and your goal. When Joseph Campbell said "Follow your bliss", he didn't attempt to define "bliss". He left that to each of us.
Another thing about your destination, you have to know when you're on the wrong road. If you're on the wrong road and don't find the right road, you will never get to where you intend to go. I can illustrate this with something that happened a few years ago. I took the up ramp off of I-75 north at exit 345 to Ringgold, Georgia. About 30 yards up the ramp, I met a car coming down the ramp the wrong way. I instinctively pulled my truck across the ramp to block her entry to the wrong side of the interstate. When I got out of my truck and walked to her car, her radio was blaring so loudly that I could hardly talk over it. But she talked loud enough for me to know that she was not happy with the obstacle I had put in her path. She exclaimed, "I'm tryin' to git to Dalton!" I tried to explain to her what she was doing and that she would be putting her life and other lives in danger if she proceeded. When I convinced her that she needed to turn around and take the next ramp, she asked if she could take highway 41 to Dalton. I told her to turn around and at the stop sign to turn left on 41. I told her that this highway would take her to Dalton just as quickly as the interstate. She turned around and at the stop sign turned right toward Ringgold, the opposite direction from her destination. When she was on the wrong ramp, she was at least going the right direction, but she probably would not have gotten very far toward Dalton. Even the right direction can be deadly if you're on the wrong road.
Old habits die slowly. Most of our working lives my wife and I have both worked two jobs through the week. My church work obligated us for Sundays as well. When we got in the car for a road trip, time was of the essence. We drove as fast as reasonably possible and cut every corner of time to get to our destination (nearly always family). Things are much different now. In semi-retirement both of us work a short work week and I am no longer in ministry. Wherever there is, we have plenty of time to get there. But when we get in the car to go somewhere (nearly always family), we're still in a hurry. However, we recently stopped for lunch. We parked the car and actually sat down in a restaurant to eat. About an hour later we resumed our trip. And when we arrived at our destination no one seemed to think that we were late. Our goal is to gravitate from the destination-is-the-thing to the journey-is-the-thing or at least a combination of the two.
My friend and his fiance on the AT were brutally murdered near Duncannon, Pennsylvania at the halfway point of the trail. It's a good thing that the journey meant much more to them than the destination. The journey was all they had. They reached their unscheduled and unexpected final destination hundreds of miles before the place where they had planned.
After hurrying through everything our whole lives and we're finally standing at the Pearly Gates, St. Peter will say, "There was no need for you to hurry to meet me; I've got forever."
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