the way...

people spend their lives consumed by the "next step," the future, their blueprint for how their life is supposed to go or was supposed to be...I only ask, for what?

..."I felt numb as I said farewell to my team in Arizona and boarded a jet, heading back to Berkeley, and Socrates...I looked aimlessly at the clouds below, drained of ambition. All these years I had been sustained by an illusion - happiness through victory - and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no happier, no more fulfilled, for all my achievements.
Finally I saw through the clouds. I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life I had been busy seeking happiness, not finding it...
'Wake up! If you knew for certain that you had a terminal illness - if you had little time left to live - you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you, Dan - you DO have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason - or you will never be at all...'
...be content with this knowledge: There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor, and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life; just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too!...Wake up, regain your humor. Don't worry, you are already free!"

Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior