Everything is a Journey

A recent article in NYT talks about the use of the word 'journey' to describe any event or experience in people's lives.  No longer a word that connotes a physical trip, the word now becomes a metaphor for whatever experience or challenge occurring in one's life.  Several journeys or stories are happening in my life at the moment. I say story because the word 'journey' is really about storytelling, to depict one's challenges as a sort of voyage of salvation, redemption, or transformation. The struggle must be difficult otherwise the experience is trivial.

• Journey #1: transfer to a new department, adapt to new people and ways of working, and learn and lead a project in a new area of the company

• Journey #2: leave behind my old team without rancor, anger, revenge-seeking, or bitterness and, instead, be grateful and not disdainful of their success; be big-hearted and proud of their progress;

• Journey #3: to adapt to new tools and techniques like artificial intelligence, building a second brain, Microsoft 365 co-pilot, Google Gemini, and ChatCPT, to be outgoing and more open to people and follow new ways and not succumb to ageism being middle-aged;

• Journey #4: continue to progress in extracurricular activities that will increase my understanding and appreciation of the wider and not just consumed by work: play golf in the company league, participate in Toastmasters, watch Opera and National Theatre;
  
  
• Journey #5: continue to meditate and practice mindfulness, focus on my health by going to the gym, swimming, biking, running in 5k races, and managing my mind not to keep churning thoughts about perceived slights from friends or office politics or envy or focusing of trivial internet surfing and self-debasement plus continuing therapy and self-reflection;

• Journey #6: continue the effort to write a book and use the latest tools to be a writer, attend online lessons in writing and continue lessons on various topics to let me be a better writer have a regular routine, and foster a disciplined writing craft;

This weekend my mind was again churning with too many thoughts about work, friendships, projects, and planned hours improvements all under a cloud of paranoia, dark desires, low self-esteem, and plots and the flights of the ego; of being the center of the world and wanted time due to thoughtless abuse and shameful pleasure.

There is too much thinking, worry, daydreams, external stimuli, and ambition that meditation and mindfulness help me control, and listening to Gregorian chants and church music helps alleviate and soothe the mind. Again the solution is Just Do It following the Nike commercial because one has the experience knowledge and success being in the place that one is in today. However one must have compassion and self-love that one cannot do everything.