Deep Thought: Life II

I can honestly say I was dreading this entry, mainly because I didn't know where to improve on Life I. I had already explained why I think it is we keep on living, but I didn't know where I would take that next. Then it hit me. Maybe it's not the chase of a dream that drives us, it's the chase. If you look at a lot of people, they have a "life goal" and work everyday to reach it. Once they do they say they can "Die a happy person.", which led me to think that it's not necessarily the end the justifies the trip, but the trip that justifies the end. For example my "life goal" would be to have every person I meet think better of me and the world than before I met them. Now when I meet that goal, be it possible or not I will likely be at the end of my road so to speak. Would I get more enjoyment knowing that I'm at the end of my trip, or would it be the trip itself that made me feel good about what I accomplished? So I started thinking on a smaller scale, a different goal, graduation of high school. Most kids want to graduate for whatever reason, and their parents want to see them succeed as well, graduation being an integral part in most cases. Now on Graduation Day every involved is a plethora of feelings for obvious reasons, one of them being a feeling of accomplishment. But thinking back is it the fact that you are graduating that you feel accomplished, or is it the 12+ years of prior schooling that molded you into who you are that day that makes you feel like you can do, be or conquer anything that is more fulfilling? In this case are you more proud of that 15 second walk across a stage or years of the good, bad and ugly parts of your life? In these terms it seems to me that you would be proud of the years of work you put in, but on a smaller scale the entire system is flipped. Imagine your goal is to make a sandwich. Would you savor the eating of the sandwich more than making it? In this case does the trip justify the ends more so than the ends justifying the trip? I have noticed that the grander the 'goal' than the more the end becomes irrelevant and the process of getting there is more important. If you want to walk from you TV to the front door then the trip is unimportant to getting to the door. But if you wanted to say become a billionaire it would matter less becoming the billionaire, but the values you learned along the way that you can spread to future generations. So I dare to ask you the reader this. What you in this game we call Life for...the trip, or the end?