Choose to Take the Journey

“If you always put limit on everything you do, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
-Bruce Lee

Most people view life as a mountain they have to climb. Their hope is that once they’ve reached the top, they can then take it easy, forever. For most, the summit promises a wife and kids, a stable job, and a big house where they can just relax for the rest of their days. After they have “made it,” there is an expectation that nothing will change. They cling to this expectation, but when it is smashed to pieces by reality, they are thrown into an emotional whirlwind. However, for the few that choose to take the journey to mastery, to excellence, to a lifetime of learning, the path bestows growth, happiness, and purpose. The world always moves, always changes, always evolves. As it does, those who have chosen to seek mastery will move, change, and evolve with it.

What do I mean by mastery?

Mastery is simply an ideal. By definition, an ideal is unattainable. It is not realistic. It is, well… ideal. However, to set your sights on an ideal will put you on the path to constant and never-ending improvement. Distinctions will be made that will allow you to take the next step, the next step, and the next step. Unlike life, the endpoint of which is death, the journey has no endpoint. The mountain reaches into Heaven itself.

So if the mountain has no apex, why even embark on a journey in the first place?

The truth is, all of us began a journey, a very similar one, the moment we were born. This journey was imposed on us by the demands of a society that needs to sustain itself. Watch how a child develops his mobility. He learns how to swing his arms and kick his feet. He learns how to crawl, to walk, and then to run. Some will even continue this journey to become sprinters, climbers, or swimmers. Watch how a child develops his ability to communicate. He learns the linguistic building blocks, the grammar, and the contextual cues that affect his choice of words. Some children will go on to become linguists, writers, or polyglots. Watch how a child develops his social skills. He learns how to emulate, to compete, and to cooperate. Some will keep with it until they become role-models, leaders, and trend-setters. Unfortunately, for most people, their journey ends once they have achieved a level of competency that appears normal. The demand to evolve is removed as they begin to serve a function in society. That is when they settle into routine: the same job, the same hobbies, the same friends… forever. They allow their various social groups to do their thinking for them because as far as they are concerned, they are “done.” They have already put in their work and now it’s time to relax.

The flaw in this kind of zombiesque mentality is that joy is but an occasional rainfall in an otherwise barren existence. That is because even if you decide to stay still, the winds of change will push you down the mountain. If you do not continue to eat right and exercise regularly, you will eventually become fat, sick, and unhealthy. If you do not continue to learn new skills at work, you will eventually get laid off as your usefulness to the company begins to erode. If you do not continue to challenge your mind, your thoughts will eventually become rigid, robotic, and uninspiring. Even knowing this, most people will still choose not to do anything until the winds of change have pushed them down so far that they can feel the flames of Hell licking at their feet. The experienced ones will periodically scramble back to where they were when they find themselves slipping. They may have heard that even the depths of Hell have no bounds. They may have heard that the farther down the mountain you are, the more people there are to grab at your ankles and pull you down the mountain even further. Or they may have just experienced it firsthand and decided not to experience it ever again.

Perhaps you will escape Hell by continually renewing your commitment to stay at a certain level whenever you can feel the heat from below. But remember that you are not the only one on the mountain. A successful business owner who does not keep up with his competitors will soon find himself out of business. An athlete who does not understand his opponents will find himself retiring early even if he was once a champion. A happily married man who does not continue to reinvent himself will find his wife growing bored with him (the reverse is also true). So standing still in a world that is always in motion is not even an option.

You have only 2 choices: to grow in courage, strength, and wisdom, or to wilt from fear, ambivalence, and lack of control. You can either take the journey toward Heaven itself, or get complacent and allow yourself to gradually slide into Hell. Not only are you either doing one or the other on a daily basis, but also over the course of your lifetime. Naturally, you will need to rest and it’s important to do so every now and then, but from a big-picture perspective, if you do not choose to take the journey, the choice has already been made for you.