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The Outcome Or the Process?
by Bradford Glass
This article is reprinted from Brad's Newsletter, "Purposeful Wanderings".
Visit his web site,www.RoadNotTaken.com, ©2004 Bradford L. Glass

What do you want out of life? Chances are, your first response will focus on an outcome, a result of some kind, as opposed to a life ex-perience, or process. We're taught to strive for achievement, even to the point that our definition of success is most often achievement-related. Often, however, the feelings we have as a result of achievement, valid as they are, leave us disenchanted, perhaps hungry for more.

If your life is built around achieving a result (money, house, relationship, etc.) and you haven't stopped to examine what's under-neath the drive, now is the time. Don't get me wrong here; I'm all in favor of achievement. What I want to expose in this article, how-ever, is how we tend to live in desperation, driven to "the result" and attached to an outcome, unaware of the toll it is taking on us, and unaware that the satisfaction we believe will come from our effort just isn't there.

Here's an exercise that can help to highlight this perspective for you:

• Create a time of true silence with yourself (see last month's newsletter if you're not clear on "a time of true silence").
• Think of a time when you felt the pride of achievement. Allow the scene and the feelings it evoked to come back to you as fully as you can. Place yourself back in that place and time.
• As you feel, see if you can then discover exactly what about the achievement evoked the feelings. Don't stop at the obvious - as in, "it felt good that I had done it." What felt good? How did it feel leading up to your achievement? What did you feel shortly after it was all over? How would it feel to do it all over again?
• Keep listening. Your feelings will tell you all you need and want to know.

Without taking time with this exercise, you'll probably answer the question superficially, from your "automatic thinking." But if you stay with it, here's the path I believe you might follow:

• True silence makes you feel uneasy; you want to stop. Underneath that, "not knowing" creates anxiety, another reason to stop.
• Achievement creates feelings of pride, satisfaction and meaning, at least on the surface. But keep asking.
• Underneath that, however, you find that the real joy comes, not primarily from the outcome, but from the enjoyment of the experi-ence and process of getting there; the outcome was just a [natural] product of that deep experience. Your attention to it actually detracted from both your enjoyment and the quality of the result you achieved.

Outlined above are the steps associated with detachment, one of the key concepts of every journey of personal growth. As long as you continue to live your life to achieve specific outcomes, you are imprisoned by their hold on your energy and attention. You're held so strongly because you can't truly make outcomes happen. What you do control, what will produce results, and what does offer satisfac-tion, joy and meaning is investing your energy and passion in the experience and the process of living what matters to you. The out-comes will be as they will; but your energy devoted to what you care deeply about, outcomes will be far more rich and rewarding. Your greatest successes are the products of your most joyful experiences. Note that detachment is not about "not caring." It's about releasing yourself from the constraints of the outcome so that you may care more deeply - about bringing your passion to the process. Life is a journey and not a destination.

A River Runs Through It [Life lessons offered by nature]
If you've been to Maui, you've no doubt heard of the road to Hana. Celebrated as a tortuous, 30+ mile drive that includes some 160 hairpin turns, the trip attracts many visitors. To just "go to Hana" could take perhaps 2 hours, leaving you with only moderately white knuckles and mild perspiration. But when you get there, you wonder why the heck you came: there's not much of anything there. Yet the road to Hana is a metaphor for life, and a great example of detachment. Whether it's Hana, or life in general - there is no destina-tion; all you have is the experience of getting there. As an experience, the journey to Hana is far different: breathtaking seacliffs, ver-dant rainforest, splendid tropical flowers, ancient Hawaiian taro farms, silence, the smell of moist earth and a feeling of the age-old pulse of life itself. And you miss every one of these things if you think it's about Hana. Let go. Stop missing so much. Life is what hap-pens while you're on the way to wherever you think you're going.

Quote of the Month: "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in." . ----- Greek proverb

Please share your comments and suggestions with me. For information on how I might help you live a more rewarding life, please visit my website: Also, please consult me before using this material for anything other than your own personal development.
©2004 Bradford L. Glass, The Road Not Taken
Brad@RoadNotTaken.com (508) 454-1100 www.RoadNotTaken.com