Don’t live for the final product. Live for the journey
I’ve spent the last year incredibly focused. ie building, creating. In fact, I’ve spent my whole life building and putting countless hours into my all skill-sets. And hopefully when I leave this world, I would have made a difference to someone and left it in much better shape than I found it. Now obviously I know that I’m not unique in this way, we all have ambitions and are all working toward positive changes in our own lives.
Three weeks ago, I decided to head over to the beach for a family vacation, taking some much needed R&R. Summers turn to fall and I just wanted to get one last trip in and kind of bring closure to an amazing summer. So after spending some time in the ocean enjoying nature, I walked back up to the shore and found my kids completing a sandcastle, you know, putting the finishing touches on it. My oldest son, admired it from a distance, yet guarded it from his younger brother and anyone else walking too close to it. He feared someone coming by and ruining their sand castle that was their magnum opus. He was proud of it and somehow expected it to stand forever.
This seemed a little disconcerting to me, because I realized that we all have this natural tendency to want to preserve our legacy and the effort that went into building it; Yet the more and more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that the true beauty of it all, was not in this sand castle sculpted or molded to perfection. They’re only symbolic.
The beauty was in the family time that we all enjoyed while it was being created. We don’t live for the final product. We live for the journey, the adventure and the joy of the process; and tackling the unknown and turning it into something of beauty. What an epiphany! That’s why we get up every day and that’s why landscapes, oceans and skylines run away with our imagination. They are all representative of what makes us all feel alive.
Sometimes it becomes extremely easy to forget that the college degree, the executive position, promotions and all the things that we seek are only validation, but they are not life. What we do everyday is life and how we turn simple ordinary things into the extraordinary; That is what makes us amazing beings. We reach out and touch lives everyday just by plugging in to our place in life or our communities; weather at work, churches or our home life. Cherish the time you spend building positive relationships because there is nothing more important in this world. Castles in the sand won't stand forever; and the tide, the wind or a million other things will assist it in bringing the sand back to its original form.
Just like us, its time is finite, but the joy of creating memories of such a masterpiece can never be lost. That is why we build. That’s why we create. So don’t build your castles in the sand expecting your achievements to last forever. Just build for the sake of building and enjoy the journey for what it is. And if life’s elements happen to tear down what you worked so hard to build. Then rebuild and do it better and stronger than before. You’ll be amazed at what starting over with a new perspective can do. What will you build today?