Does it sometimes feel that we are living to work? Instead of working to live?

I seem to have so many BIG objectives at the moment, some writing, some personal and most private.

Time to get back to one of my annual resolutions for 2010 – FIND THE JOY!

Those of you out there with big goals of your own—do you often think about the journey?

If we know we can enjoy it for what it is, without any other reward, surely we know we’re on the right track?

Poet Mary Oliver knows how this works; read her encouragement for fellow wanderers below.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Thanks to Chris for his link to this poem.