It’s the journey, not the destination, that counts | Ron Colone | Columnist
Recall when you utilized to have to clearly show your get the job done in faculty? That was to get throughout the notion that the “right answer” is important — only to the extent that you also know how you obtained there.
A distinct way of stating that similar matter is: it’s the journey, not the location, that counts.
But even even though we had been taught and informed these points, modern society looks, in so several scenarios, to treatment generally about the consequence and not how it was arrived at.
A ideal case in point is the price tag of gas.
The price at the pump is the end result that we see, but, how we get there is determined by how keen we are to continue to extract oil from the Earth, transportation it by means of pipelines and refine it into gasoline which, when burned, emits hydrocarbons that pollute our air and soil, contaminate our lakes and rivers, injury our crops and forests, endanger the wildlife, and pose myriad dangers to human well being.
Or, how about our sights on previous presidents, and the thing to consider of their insurance policies and individuality qualities. How many periods have you reported, or perhaps read somebody say — a thing to the effect of, “I never care what he explained or what he did, or how he thinks or how he functions, or what he is included in, only that he puts procedures in spot that conform to my sights and agree with my sensibilities, and supply the consequence that I am looking for, regardless of the social, political, environmental, economic or ethical impacts.”
It’s a scenario of the finishes justifying the indicates, and us remaining Ok with that.
In spite of the urgings of our instructors, and the insights of our poets and philosophers, we seem skeptical that “showing your work” and realizing how to get there can maybe make a difference as much as creating down the appropriate remedy that it really is the journey and not the place.
I think in this article about the powerful penchant Us citizens have for advantage and the prevalence of “shortcut-consciousness,” as viewed in the acceptance of fast-food stuff, packaged foodstuff, and pounds-reduction products and solutions.
The men and women who seem to locate fast health and fitness, health and fitness, and attractiveness, in a capsule, a shot or a serum — I shake my head, wondering, don’t they understand that the understanding of what it will take to be balanced, vital and beautiful comes by means of effort and hard work, action, and mindfulness? It worries me that, even if they do strike their targets and accomplish their objectives, it is not sustainable, and thus, they will probable find on their own at the time again, unsatisfied with how they glimpse and sense.
Or the individuals for whom meal preparing indicates opening a box or a bag, or a can or a jar, and popping the contents into the microwave — I sympathize, and assume, lousy them, they will never ever know the enthusiasm and sensuality that comes with preparing and slicing and cooking, and stirring and smelling and tasting, and savoring meals produced fresh new, from scratch, from the coronary heart. All simply because it requires a minor far more time and energy.
I think of individuals who subscribe to the perception that the relevance of their actions, creations, activities and expression is identified by the amount of clicks and likes and shares and these types of, so they commit their time, electrical power and money endorsing quantity about excellent.
It’s possible it’s because we now can glance up something we want on the World wide web, such as how to fix the most advanced mathematical difficulties, that we no for a longer period position these types of worth on how we get there at our alternatives.
But I will persist in believing that it matters, and proceed to boost the concept that it is the dwelling and the mastering that happens along the way, that is the genuine indicator of our encounter and the measure of our lives.