It was a winter evening in Virginia, USA.
I was at a gathering.
My friend’s boss was an author and a researcher in a reputed publishing house.
We’re outside in a garden and she told us a story about how she found her amazing husband, a vibrant university professor.
At one point of her career, she was working as a sales assistant in downtown Chicago and she used to ride a train to commute everyday.
One day she became late and missed her train for office, not only that she also missed an early office meeting on that day.
She was sad, irritated, and upset and blamed herself for being lazy.
In a grumpy mood, she was waiting for another train to catch.
In the meantime, a man appeared in the train station, who was a graduate student in Northwestern University, Chicago.
Long story short, she pointed to her husband and said that if I wouldn’t have missed that train on that day, I would certainly miss this amazing man in my life.
And I was there to celebrate their 21st marriage anniversary gathering.
“Beauty of life remains in all moments of hustling, pain, suffering, and happiness, we have to observe, absorb, and assimilate all of them.”
This story taught me why we should cherish every single moment of our evolving life irrespective of the nature of our work, schedule, and lifestyle.
Life is made up of various small evolving moments which most of the time we neglect in need of bigger goals and destinations.
Actually, our life happens when we are hustling for something knowingly and unknowingly. Writer and journalist Allen Saunders said “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.
You imagine that you are attending a party for your recognition in your office because you got a promotion, and suddenly you receive a call from your mom that your dad is diagnosed with cancer. It happens, this is life.
As we all know we are not perfect, we all have issues in the family, you were avoiding your brother’s call due to a small family feud but suddenly you heard that your brother died due to chronic heart attack. I’ve seen this happened to one of my family relatives.
Recently, you got furlough, you were in stress so you forgot to call your mom on mother’s day.
These are some of the real glimpses of our everyday lives.
Since most of us have a tendency to feel good only if things are going as per our expectation, all the time we are trying to control what’s going on in our lives.
If we rush only for a future destination by brushing off pure small evolving moments, our life becomes hollow and we suffer a lot.
I think this is not the way to live a life.
Beauty of life remains in all moments of hustling, pain, suffering, and happiness, we have to observe, absorb, and assimilate all of them.
This is a process of life.
Haruki Murakami, runner and author of ‘Norwegian Wood‘ shares a sentiment that focusing on finding happiness and meaning in the present moment and the work involved is essential, destination is a by-product of life process.
“Life is an exploration of evolving paths which have no traffic signals so that our job is to figure out suitable traffic signals, sometimes slow down and sometimes speed up, but move forward by becoming happy and healthy.”
Everybody says that life is not a destination, life is a journey but very few actually adopt this mantra and apply it.
Many of us are always in rush, workloads, family schedules, kids responsibilities, and health schedules. Many of us have side hustles along with our main profession for extra income.
Nonetheless, we run around constantly trying to get something, trying to control something, and trying to find where the destination is in our lives.
We carry so much tension, anxiety, stress, and fear that we completely forget the flow of life around us.
Charles Bukowski, poet and author of ‘Ham on Rye‘ says that if we run only to catch something then we miss many things in life, life becomes hell.
There is always an interval between any two tasks, if we don’t live in that interval and always worry about the next pending task, then we are not living a life.
The interval between two tasks is actually a process of life, and many of us don’t identify it or miss most of the time or simply ignore it.
Current corporate world has also stimulated the concept that goal driven leaders recognize more of the destination rather than path. They usually say that destination is the main key not the path itself.
In reality, it doesn’t apply all the time, because life isn’t just a business result, life is a continuous mundane ritual process.
Business needs the end product faster to make profit faster, but life itself is not the business of only numbers.
Life is more of exploration of evolving paths which have no traffic signals so that our job is to figure out suitable traffic signals, sometimes slow down and sometimes speed up, but move forward by becoming happy and healthy.
“We must know how to laugh in our tears, we must know how to cry in our laughter. This isn’t complicated to understand, there is also an interval between laugh and tears, we just don’t apply it in our life.”
One day I visited my friend Nitesh’s office due to some personal reason.
He told me he had a hectic schedule for the day even though he invited me to his office.
When I reached his office, he was on the phone.
He signaled me to sit on the chair, later I knew he was talking to his elder sister.
His nephew was selected for the national championship for swimming competition.
He expressed his happiness and support for his nephew and sister for their achievement.
He ended that call in less than two minutes but I felt that those two minutes talking were really thrilling and encouraging.
I asked him, “Did you finish your presentation this morning?”
He replied, “Yes, I did.”
It was fantastic and the client appreciated his strategy and hopefully they are going to sign the contract very soon.
He added, “I have another presentation at 4pm.”
Looking at his freshness, energy, and enthusiasm I asked him, “Nitesh, how do you manage all of this?”
He replied, “What do you mean?”
“You are so fresh, so energetic and you accomplish so much so easily” I added.
He replied, “There is nothing new, I just keep things in perspective, I know how to utilize the moment and how to accomplish it without burning my life, not much worry about the final result.”
He added, “To be honest, those two minutes which I spent with my sister on the phone was my interval time between my two tasks, those two minutes were best for the day and that keeps me moving my whole day smoothly.”
He further told me that there are two types of people in this world. One type who stop their work due to rainfall even though they work from home. They hate it and blame the rain for their mood and spirit.
The other category of people who enjoy every bit of moment, even the rain and snowing.
They enjoy every passing moment and accomplish their task at the same time.
They say, “Oh it’s raining, so nice, rain is wiping out the dust of the environment, so fresh.”
“I am in the second category,” he added.
“I can enjoy my life in seconds, I don’t need minutes to enjoy it.”
This whole universe is around us for more than 13 billion years, any natural processes around us were here before we were born and will remain here until we die.
The acceptance of each moment is amazing so that we must accept the natural flow and natural result.
We become more energized and excited in our task if we cherish the interval of life happenings.
We can not avoid and mostly control the happening moments.
We have to accept them as they are.
There is beauty in acceptance.
In the autobiography of Charlie Chaplin, a greatest actor and comedian, emphasizes that we must know how to laugh in our tears, we must know how to cry in our laughter. This isn’t complicated to understand, there is also an interval between laugh and tears, we just don’t apply it in our life.
“If we appreciate every single moment whether it is a painful or happy moment as a life process, amazing things start to appear in our mind.”
Interval is about understanding where we’re going, and destination is the road we’re planning to take but still don’t have defined traffic signs. Interval comes first because we have to make traffic signs to reach the final destination.
The important thing is that we don’t have to find our final destination at once, and we can avoid wasting a lot of time and worry trying to find a destination.
Destination is not a once and done product.
It’s a continuous polished process.
If we don’t cherish every evolving and passing moment, we move towards boredom, and destination without inspiring and happy process leads to destination without further clarity and direction.
If we focus on what is happening around us rather than what isn’t happening, our progress becomes exponential, not incremental, this is a positive mindset.
One simple example.
Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, the founders of groundbreaking transportation today, Uber, were freezing at night in the streets of Paris because they couldn’t get a cab.
The moment was painful for them but they translated the moment of pain to revolutionary transportation business without owning a single car.
They have just one app.
If we appreciate every single moment whether it is a painful or happy moment as a life process, amazing things start to appear in our mind.
Conclusion
We shouldn’t suffer and bleed in the natural process of life, which is very simple; enjoy every bit and piece of it.
As we all know many people during their time said that two brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright were stupid.
Their destination of making a “flying machine” was criticized by many as a dead idea and impossible task.
Instead they enjoy every single obstacle they faced during the process.
They accepted and appreciated every single moment of not having the sufficient resource that they needed for their final result.
They never finished high school formally.
They were self-taught by themselves.
David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize winer author of ‘The Wright Brothers‘ said “The only thing kept Wright brothers moving forward was the excitement of the process of making a flying machine.”
Loving the process of life rather than final destination is our tool to change the status quo.
Process itself should be a catalyst for passion, excitement, and fulfilling life.
Every single evolving moment around us is a process, so nurture it, cherish it, and enjoy it wholeheartedly.
Achieving a destination provides immediate satisfaction, but the continuous process of achieving a it provides a lasting satisfaction because it keeps evolving every second.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher said “There is no destination in life, once you reach your destination, another destination appears, so enjoy the interval.”
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
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