the journey we call life...

I feel like i'm standing in front of this fork in the journey of life, straining my eyes to see down each path. Craving happiness-believing that it will be at the end of one of these paths. Then, sad and disappointed, each of the horizons look similar. I am wanting the end to be placed before me instead of choosing a path and finding happiness and joy along the journey.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”-George Bernard Shaw

Happiness isn't an ending point or something that you only get to as your life or journey comes to an end. I need to use my agency and choose a path and find joy along the journey. The prophet Joseph Smith has a wonderful quote about this very principle. i'll have to find it and post it later.

"We have so much to smile about, be happy about, yes, even to laugh about.

So many of us are always waiting to be happy. 'If only I could graduate, if only I could afford a car, if only I could get married …' For too many, happiness is just over the horizon, never reachable. Every time we climb one hill, happiness beckons just beyond the next.

It is a terrible thing always to be waiting for tomorrow, always depending on tomorrow, always excusing our todays because we are sure that only in the future will we possess the things that will fulfill us.

Don’t wait for tomorrow. Don’t wait for the right job, the right house, the right salary, the right dress size. Be happy today. Be happy now."-Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

Each of the paths i have before me will lead to good places. It is up to me to choose one. i know all of this, and yet my legs and feet seem to weigh a million pounds and my eyes keep squinting that much more in hopes that something or someone will miraculously be there on the horizon summoning me to take that path. Nothing is nudging me, there are no voices, there is no figure at the end of the road as far as my mortal eyes can see.

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”

Then as i start to look around i notice small un paved paths with no horizon in sight; however, there is an inkling of a small unworn path that cuts through the under brush and trees. One to the left and one to the right. There is no end in sight, but a soft light glows from the path and makes them look inviting and some what adventureous. Should I embark down one of those paths and use all the preparation I have had thus far and just blaze the unknown.

Do i do it alone? Or do i wait here at this place for another traveler to go with me?

“You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”

President Monson gave a guide to this predicament in life. In an address called "In Search of Treasure" he gives 3 main guides for our "treasure maps" aka the journey through mortality (see article). I've never really thought of life as a treasure map. i guess you could say i have had a bleak outlook on life. what have i been missing out on due to my limited and confused eternal perspective? And what about this obsession with thinking that i would have to just trudge through life eventually ending up in a place called "happily ever after"? i really do need to start to view this path that i am on, this fork in the road, as part of my treasure map. what treasures does my maker have laid out before me?

"One day, each of us will run out of tomorrows. Let us not put off what is most important."-President Thomas S. Monson

i can find joy in the journey.

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be”-Abe Lincoln