It Really is the Journey, Not the Destination in Life
Ever hear of Scottie Scheffler? He’s arguably the best golfer in the world right now. In 2025 alone, he won 6 PGA events, and he has been ranked #1 in the world for more than 150 weeks. It must be great to be the best, right? Well, if you listen to this, maybe it’s not as great as you think:
“I’m not here to inspire somebody else to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point? This isn’t a fulfilling life. It’s fulfilling in the sense of accomplishment, but not from the deepest places of your heart. A lot of people reach what they thought would fulfill them, and then once they get there—becoming number one in the world—they suddenly ask, “What’s the point?” And I really do believe that. Why do I want to win this tournament so badly? It’s something I wrestle with daily. Showing up at the Masters every year, I ask myself why I want to win it so much, or why I want to win The Open so badly. I don’t know. Because if I win, it’s going to feel amazing for about two minutes, and then the next week someone will ask, “Hey, you won two majors this year—how important is it to win the FedEx Cup playoffs?” And we’re right back where we started. We work so hard for such little moments. I’m kind of a sicko—I love putting in the work, practicing, and living out my dreams—but sometimes I just don’t understand the point. I don’t even know if I’m making sense. I love the challenge, and I love being able to play this game for a living; it’s one of the greatest joys of my life. But does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart?”
You’ve heard of dopamine, right? Many people think it’s something our body produces when we accomplish things. That’s close, but it’s not exactly right. Dopamine is actually something our body produces to make us WANT TO ACCOMPLISH things.
This is from the description of the book, The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity-and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race (which is very good, by the way):
Dopamine is the chemical of desire that always asks for more—more stuff, more stimulation, and more surprises. In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. Dopamine is the source of our every urge, that little bit of biology that makes an ambitious business professional sacrifice everything in pursuit of success, or that drives a satisfied spouse to risk it all for the thrill of someone new. Simply put, it is why we seek and succeed; it is why we discover and prosper. Yet, at the same time, it’s why we gamble and squander.
From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not the having that matters. It’s getting something—anything—that’s new. From this understanding—the difference between possessing something versus anticipating it—we can understand in a revolutionary new way why we behave as we do in love, business, addiction, politics, religion—and we can even predict those behaviors in ourselves and others.
In other words, you are never going to climb that one mountain, accomplish that one thing, reach that one goal, or meet that one person and have everything be good on the other side of it. Instead, for the most part, just like Scottie Scheffler, you’re going to feel great about it for a few minutes or a day or a week, and then you’re right back to life.
No matter what peak you hit, just over the horizon, there’s another peak you’re going to want to hit.
For example, just yesterday, I was talking to a local businessman who had just raised his prices 17% not very long ago. He’s worth it, so he didn’t really lose any business. To him, the idea of making more money seemed really exciting. For a short period of time, he felt like he was rolling in cash. Except, then he spent some to fix something, his kids needed things, he took his wife out to eat, etc., etc., and he felt like even though he had more money, he was just treading water.
This is naturally how life works. If you go from 50k per year to 100k per year, it will feel amazing, but soon you’ll feel like “success” is 150k per year. If you’re bad with women, get better and finally lose your virginity, you’re not going to spend five years going, “Yes, finally,” you’re going to go, “All right, let’s get laid again.” If you win a championship in anything from throwing darts to bodybuilding, you’re going to love it, but you’re also going to start thinking about doing what it takes to win next year.
Granted, there are some exceptions to this. Sometimes you can have ENOUGH love, dogs, or a nice enough house to satisfy you, but there will still be plenty of other things where this applies. We humans are like plants with most things. We’re either getting ripe or getting rotten.
If you’re waiting for that magical day when you meet the right man, and he changes everything, or you finally retire from your job and everything will be good, you’re making a mistake because even if those things happen, there’s an awful lot of life to be lived leading up to those things.
Are you enjoying that life, or are you thinking, “I’ll do this for a few years, then I’ll do that thing and be happy,” because that’s just not how it really works for most of us. Elon Musk wants more money, Taylor Swift wants more hit records, Joe Rogan wants a bigger audience – but you think you’re going to be satisfied? No way.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in my life was, “Find something you love so much you’d do it for free and turn it into a career.” I did that, and it worked out really well. Even if you can’t do that, can you do something that you enjoy? Something where you feel useful? Something you at least find meaningful?
Very few people enjoy suffering, but can you at least learn to deal with enough discomfort so that your day isn’t ruined if you have to do something you don’t want to do? Are you that person who spends an hour in a bad mood because they get flipped off in traffic, or the person who forgets about it two minutes later?
The point isn’t to become a hedonist or live your life for pleasure because that’s ultimately unsatisfying. However, can you design your life in such a way that you generally like each day? Are you finding a way to push the things you like the least out of your life to make more time for the things you enjoy?
Nobody lives a perfect life. All of us have problems and bad days, but what Anais Nin said was true:
Live your life so deeply that even if you never get to your ultimate goal because you get hit by a bus tomorrow, you’d be able to look down from heaven and say, “There was more to do, but wow, I had a good run!”
The key blessing and curse of the human condition is this tendency to reset to a new normal and want more. Low-income people cannot understand why a billionaire would work to become a trillionaire. But the desire for more is ubiquitous. I was on cloud nine when my boss called me into his office and promoted me to Vice President at age 26, That lasted about six months and I was back into the competitive slog to earn more responsibility, title and pay.
The desire for more is why we explore and invent and progress. However, it is also why we have wars and terrible behavior based on greed for power and money.
People look at Scheffler and think "wow, he is so accomplished that his life fulfillment tank should be constantly overflowing!" But then there is that Hedonic Treadmill thing where he has to reset forgetting about that last win to focus on the next round. He has to be constantly hungry to win to perform at the top level. And the public expectation for his performance keeps rising with his success.
This is a similar situation for well-off people. The less well-off people project some level of individual bliss because they would have that for a while if they were sudden winners of the lottery. But life is life and the trials and tribulations of life tend to exceed the money in the bank account. Yes, having less money or not enough money sucks and can be the consuming desire for more. However, the actual pursuit we are all striving for is self-actualization... life meaning, purpose, relationships, love, etc. Those low rung needs are generally taken care of even if on government assistance. Not for the homeless, but for most everyone else.
Live your life so deeply that even if you never get to your ultimate goal because you get hit by a bus tomorrow, you’d be able to LOOK DOWN FROM HEAVEN and say, “There was more to do, but wow, I had a good run!”
...OR, WHY NOT "LOOK UP FROM HELL"?!