What are you - a journey person or a destination person?

Back in June 2023, I was travelling in Norway which is arguably the most exotic place I’ve ever been to and we decided to go the popular and notorious Trolltunga trek - a 11 km trek each way that led to the world famous “trolls tongue” viewpoint aka Trolltunga. None of the 3 of us were exceptional trekkers or runners and so we weren’t even sure that we’d make it all the way but decided to give it a shot nonetheless.

The trek is so still vivid in my mind - we trekked half the time on melting snow which was something we didn’t anticipate at all. We were easily short of water and food but filled it up with the pristine melting snow water a few times along the way. We didn’t have snow boots. We got scorched in the bright sun and didn’t have any cap. We took small breaks every 30 mins or so to absorb the feeling and soak in the surroundings and recharge our batteries. We cheered each time we passed through a km milestone post. We overtook some slow walkers frequently and were overtaken by pros who seemed to be trekking as if it's a morning walk in Cubbon Park.

We took it 1 km at a time and eventually slipped and slid our way to the eventual destination - the famous Trolltunga viewpoint with that big rock sticking out like a tongue - 800m above the lake below it. The feeling was euphoric - we did it and it was not as difficult as we envisaged it to be.

Looking back at it, I think that what I enjoyed more was the journey of getting to Trolltunga than Trolltunga itself. A part of it is also because Instagram and social media has spoilt the element of surprise in how a place looks like - you already have some expectations and imagery in your mind. But what social media does not tell you enough about is the journey itself. Maybe for some people, the destination is what really matters more but for me, the journey is something I derive more satisfaction from.

In the course of time and after a lot of discussions between my wife and I, it has become a little evident to me that she is more of destination person and I am more of a journey person.

Before I get into the details on why - you can call yourself a “destination person” if you have certain targets or goals in mind and you work towards that, and these eventual goals drive your motivation. The goals can be something like wanting to visit 50 countries before you are 50 or become a CXO of a company or have a net worth of $10 million by a certain age.

You can call yourself a “journey person” if you enjoy the here and now more without necessarily having an end goal in mind. You get a greater satisfaction in achieving mini goals more than getting the kick when you achieve a large goal. You want to squeeze more out of the moment and live in the moment. You enjoy the intricacies of the smaller things that you need do in a larger scheme of things.

Both are not mutually exclusive of course - I am also a destination person in a few things like keeping a goal of 25 books to read per year or to swim/work out at least 3 times a week. However, most of us fall into one of these 2 buckets as a broad overarching theme.

Why I am a journey person?

A friend of mine (if you are reading this, you’ll remember when you asked me this) recently asked me the question “When did you realise what is important to you - during engineering or MBA?”. I thought about this a little and said, “its neither, I’ve shaped my thought process the most in the last 3-4 years of my life”.

I was once a more of a destination person - be it wanting to get into an IIT, become the head of some society/club in my college, crack CAT, crack some important b-school committee (again) or crack some type of job. While I did achieve an odd success here and there (cracking CAT really did feel euphoric), I think the quest and glory of the “destination” made me take the here and now for granted. I was a somewhat average student in my engineering days and despite vowing to make up for it in my MBA days after 2 years of working in between, I once again fell into the same quagmire of “glory” and managed barely above average grades.

In all this while, there is always an undertone of under confidence and lower self esteem that persists in you and you try escaping the reality whenever possible and don’t think and act as rationally/clearly as you should be.

My first job after my MBA was more of a sales role wrapped in the garb of investment management and it was an uphill job for a fresher - failing continuously and getting rejections doesn’t help your self-confidence and inner belief - especially for an “elite MBA grad”. I understand why some people say “you must work in sales at least once”.

However, over the last few years and in 2 jobs since, I have become much more of a journey person - I don’t really have a material aim of becoming a CXO, earning $xxx by the age of 45 or the compulsion to show that I have made if big. I’m not saying that I don’t want to achieve any of those, I just want to enjoy getting the satisfaction of doing well and doing more each day, each week and each month. It helps me deflect those thoughts of “not doing well enough” in life. I now understand and appreciate the needs for consistency, for turning up no matter what and maybe a little bit of discipline.

When I work, I try derive more challenges and meaning from it rather than doing it as a stepping stone towards something. Getting meaning from your work is easier and gives you more satisfaction in life if you can push and challenge yourself each day of your journey.

When I travel, I don’t want to take too many photos of myself or worse, live stream my entire holiday to the world on Instagram. I want to absorb the moment, I want to read and listen to more about the places that I visit. I want to take the pain and plan every aspect of the journey myself. I want to etch in my mind - the feeling of walking in some alley alongside a canal in Amsterdam or viewing the pristine Norwegian Fjords or the glorious sunset at Pangong Tso Ladakh. I want to recall those moments with a smile in the future and a sense that “wow, that was amazing”. Basically, I want to get the best out of the entire journey - only that would make the destination worthwhile. Many people tell me that I have a gift of remembering obscure moments and maybe this is the reason why I can do that.

The point I’m trying to make it that being a journey person simply suits me better - I was once a destination person but it didn’t really suit me and give me the rewards that I wanted. I became a more confident person when I started getting the most out of each moment.

I know that there may be some side effects of not being too concerned with your destination - it may make you lesser ambitious in life than you could have been otherwise. Maybe I ought to have some broader goals in life but I’d like to internalize that over the future course of time as and when I feel the need to do so.

That is probably why you need to be able to have people around you who offer different perspectives to you in good faith that can mould your thought process for the better. My wife is probably more of a destination person than me partly because she has been a better achiever than me in life than I have been. She also believes that having a destination gives you a purpose that you can then target with more clarity.

I now know why, at each stage of your life, you keep getting told by someone older to “enjoy college” or “earn/travel as much as possible when you are young”. They are asking you to get the most out of your current stage of life because they probably have some element of regret that they didn’t.

So what are you - a journey or a destination person?

PS - If you want to read a similar article written by me - here’s the link to one of my favourite articles that I wrote in solitude in a hot afternoon in a beach shack in southern Goa.