Along This Cobbled Road

We often find ourselves growing up without a compass, a directional reading, an internal GPS for where our lives should end up. And by “growing up,” I just mean the process of getting older. We all do it, in fact, it’s inherent to our humanity, contemplating the meaning of life, what road we’re on, and why. However, it has become increasingly difficult for me to believe that life can be compartmentalized that way. If the meaning to my life is making someone else’s life miserable, what kind of meaning is that? Yet, for so many individuals today, that is obviously what they’ve understood of their life’s meaning, because that’s precisely what they spend the majority of their time doing.

So why can’t life be just the journey, not with some end result in mind? Why must we always think that the journey must inherently lead us to a prescribed destination? I have been studying people lately who fit into this category of thinker, the ones who throw caution to the wind, the ones who embrace their todays because for them tomorrow is unimportant. You’ve seen them standing on queue at the water ice stand, chatting with their friends. You’ve watched them sailing through the air in the lead car of a large roller coaster, hands in the air. You’ve observed them at the doctor’s office, nodding to the beat of music no one else can hear. You’ve seen them and you’ve probably passed them off as irrelevant, but maybe they’re the ones who have the true meaning to life: that there’s really no meaning.

And they’re the happiest people on earth.

Sam