The best thing in a one night stand is that it is a 12-hour stand at best, while the best thing in a relationship is when you voluntarily develop the will to have a long term stand with that someone . The worst thing in a one night stand is when you feel you want more than just physical attraction. The worst thing could happen to any relationship is when you no longer care about where, this, is heading to, which could be looked at, as a series of one night stands but with the same person.
What I am trying to say its YOU who might decide to take a one night stand experience and turn it into a beautiful relationship, or you may choose to turn a beautiful relationship into a series of one night stands.
It doesn't matter where we start from, it doesn't matter what the end will be, its the journey that counts, living the bets we make, the choices, the decisions, this is what living is all about. Its never about where you come from, or where you are heading to, its about what you do in the middle, its about which road you decide to take, and what you decide on doing while you are walking that road. Some might say, how come the destination is not important? I tell you why, or you would figure it on your own, once you answer the following question: has everyone who made it, deserved it? The answer, realistically, has to be a big NO. This can even translate into: if your destination is success, fame, or wealth among many others; not all who got there has earned it. Not every true talent has turned into millions of dollars, and not every USA president deserved his seat! On the contrary, the longer we live, the more unearned cases continue to appear. We live in a world where those who got power, money, or a certain connection has made it but not necessarily earned it. Even Facebook has recently introduced the Promote function for individuals' statuses and posts. This means even if your point of view is real and different the system would swallow it down the other posts unless you pay for it to stay on top.…I totally understand the initiative for an SME's page status or business promoted posts, but personal opinions and personal contents?
The second point, in my effort to support the importance of the journey over the destination, is that any destination is relatively measured; and has no proper benchmark so you can officially and publicly rank yourself among your fellow peers. You can be called Rich with 50k in your bank account relative to millions of human beings and someone with islands and private jets among his personal assets is considered rich too. You will always find someone who is richer than you are; smarter than you are; wiser than you are, and more equipped in general. You will never reach a destination where you have it all. Have you seriously thought you can catch the rainbow one day?
Therefore, its the how I got there-no matter where there is- what actually counts and what actually largely contribute to who you ever become. Its the journey that, more often than not, we forget to live. Its by our human nature that we take the most important people and sometimes the most precious moments of our lives for granted..we fail to embrace the little tiny moment, which in a moment, is going to be a memory!
As a result; the poor, the fat, and may be the less-privileged kid who managed to improve, work on, and educate himself with a comprehensive guide of business and life ethics in his pocket has a superior journey to someone who was born to a wealthy family and with time he failed to learn the value of money and although he is somehow successful still, his journey was little of him in it, little about his choices, little about his own challenges, and little about connecting and feeling with the majority others. If you start with a million dollar and ended up with 100 million dollars I would admire that. But if you started with nothing, and ended up with half a million in your bank account, that is something I respect and I salute even!
If each one of us starts from a point made for him, not by him, and only exited for his own start. If everyone has his own destination and no 2 destinations are alike, then why most of us end up comparing themselves to others based on where they come from and, at best, judging them based on where they think they are heading to? These are all unique cases and don't define us, what is only benchmark-able and what's only worth judging someone for, is their journey and how they made it up to here so far…were they unique thinkers? hard workers? smart people? brave? irresponsible? got it all easy? fought for their lives? good people? In a nut shell and as I usually look at it: have they made so many things out of nothing? or have they made almost nothing out of so many things?
Now, if we understand or agree on the concept of the journey of each one of us, rather than our beginning or the final destination, we actually can understand more and may be, differently this time, can relate more to the concept of equality; We are all equal. It doesn't matter if you belong to a certain family, a social status, or even stuck with a horrible past. Beware, what actually does matter is what you actually made out of what you got already. How you chose to live your years …and most importantly to understand that your life is only a series of your options that you take so far, is somehow liberating and its at the heart of the concept "living". If you were seen as a loser, for example, none of your born-with privileges would actually change people's opinion of you. If you ended up being successful, as relative as that may be, then no matter where u came from and where you might go, you have made something out of what you have got, and therefore, you have achieved something.
The concept of one's journey does mater the most, simply because it makes us appreciate the most positive values in life as it focuses on what I made for myself. It makes us all fairly benchmarked to each other no matter where we came from or what destination we will end up at. Even without an actual tangible achievement, you still can be successful and your journey would be honorable and worth living, much more than those who were tagged along someone else's achievement. Let's presume someone has lived his life trying to achieve something he has passion for and strongly believe in, despite the fact, he never actually managed to go there all the way to the end with a solid achievement, in his hands, as he always dreamt of how things would be and worked hard on everything in between to achieve what he wants to achieve. At least his journey was all about his dreams, and what he sought after the most in life. It reflects his individuality and would be looked at as a journey of a builder or one of a fighter. On the contrary many people with degrees, with exposure, and with money, haven't managed to live one moment of fighting for a dream, or working hard on what they really want the most in life, simply because they never knew what they want or they never felt its that important to leave a valuable establishment, of any sort, behind their current existence. Others may have been busy with the silliest details/things in life, and may be for some creating a healthy and loving family might be their ultimate goal in life, and hell yes, its an achievement of a high rank too.
Now, if each of us has his own journey to live, and they are all measured by the added value your own journey has brought to your life, we, then, can basically derive the added-value by subtracting the beginning value of your assets at the starting point of your journey from the end value- the destination. The bigger the positive difference, the higher the value of your journey and the better choices you have taken.
By adapting such a logic, you no longer easily feel jealous of others, you no longer easily judge a fellow human being and you start to understand that whatever you have got and you never earned doesn't count..its already deducted and is not part of your own creation. Stretch this thought further and you will easily see that your family, your name, your religion, and anything you were born with is not really the best deal you have got. It was simply forced upon you. How do you feel when you hear someone saying that his/her name is the best name in the world? You would laugh, unless you feel the same, then I rest my case! Like your name, like all other adjectives you were born with. Full stop.
We are all very similar yet we are very different. We think that what happens to us doesn't happen to others, but we are mistaken. To think that a successful businessman has it all, then you are presuming that he is a successful husband/partner or he is a great father or brother…which is not true. No one can be the best on all life's fronts. One positive shiny front should not out shadow many others and the opposite is true. By the same token, just because someone in your building or workplace works as a Janitor, it doesn't mean you are luckier than him or better off or your journey is worth living more than him. He might be happier, more satisfied, and a braver fighter than you are.
If I managed to highlight the importance of one's journey over other common success-related benchmarks, I am obliged to highlight the fact that you can't judge a journey in the middle or based on a random slice of along trip. You have to look at it as a whole, and to do so, quoting Steve Jobs, "connecting the dots, only, looking backward". Don't look down at journeys that are in their lows, forgetting that you are living a temporarily high. One of the best equations I ever come across and learned about was during an emotional intelligence course by Change Zone: [U Others Circumstances = Your performance] and since we all know neither a human being nor circumstances can be all-the-time perfect and in our favor, then our performance during our own journey should not be always perfect and upward, rather it will fluctuate. The most important thing is for the over all journey to add value to yourself and others.
Therefore, if you are working in a family business just because you have to, never forget about what you really want or aspire to be, and while each to his own circumstances, try to create the right chances to pursue what you want the most in life. Don't look at others who are in a favorable working position, because he/she might be that person who, although had the choice of what to do in his life, found himself/herself marrying that woman whose chosen for him by his mom or part of a business deal at best. Next time you are about to envy that acquaintance of yours for the fancy car he changes every year-not that you have the right to- think of all other real life factors that he might not have on other fronts; the will you have, or the idea you came up with, or even your passion to life all together. Take the time to focus on what you are building for your ownself through out your own beautiful journey. If everyone especializes in what he does best, do you think the term unemployment would have been heard or discovered? No most likely you wont.
At last, and although I still have a life time to learn about happiness and how one can sustain happiness, I like to think, for the time being, that happiness is all about having the will and the early awareness possible about creating your own journey in life, and enjoy living and learning from the decisions you make, not made by others on your behalf, no matter how significant of others they are, during which, you keep adjusting yourself along the way to be able to continue making the right set of decisions and therefore maximizing the value of your journey regardless of the endless possibilities/destinations that you might end up with/at.
Enjoy sculpting your own journey the way you want, but be careful, you only get one journey in life and therefore you better commit to it and make it worth living. In other words "You were born original, try not to die a copy".
Yazan Hijazin
29th Oct 2012