THE OUTCOMES ARE NOT ALL THAT MATTER!

Do you know why sometimes, even though we have achieved our goals, we do not have any emotions other than “Yeah… it is fun, but then what?”
Or, why are there times when we have achieved those so-called “remarkable” achievements for ourselves, but somehow our minds are still filled with emptiness?

I have no idea about how you will explain these feelings, but for me, I have concluded after many times challenging myself that sometimes, the final outcomes are not that important!

Then at last, what is truly important? Let’s clear the confusion through these two following short stories.

First story:

I have an old friend whom I have known for a long time. We are not too close, it has been a while since we last met, and the only interaction between us is communication through social networks. A few days ago, I scrolled through a post of hers sharing a series of her wedding photos from a year ago. I left a comment because I know that marriage is the result of an 8-year relationship where the couple have overcome many ups and downs together. The wedding and her current life, in others’ perspectives, is a form of a valuable “achievement” in life, because not many relationships can result in marriage after going through such a long time. I felt happy and I blessed them for their persistence in love.

Unfortunately, yesterday, she suddenly texted me and asked to have a face-to-face conversation. From her text tone, my intuition signalled to me that somehow there was something wrong with her, so I happily agreed to meet up. We finally talked after many years of only occasionally interacting with each other through the likes and comments on our social networks. After countless and endless stories I told to soothe her mentality, she finally hesitantly asked me, “Hey, how do you feel after getting married? I mean, what does a truly happy marriage feel like? Why do I always feel like there’s always something so obscure? Getting married has been one of my biggest dreams. When I walked into the aisle, I did feel happy and satisfied with my life, but somehow now, I do not feel like marriage is something as enjoyable, or magical as I thought it would be hundreds of times before…”

Hearing her confiding, I was not too surprised because my intuition had already told me that she would have something to share. Nonetheless, the strange thing is, everything I saw about her pretty peaceful and happy life on her social account was truly different from the hesitant attitude and those inner thoughts she just displayed in front of me.

I then asked, “Did something happen to you? What makes you think like that,” to which she said, “Nothing happened to me. Everything is still well. It was just me, the only one who felt as if everything was wrong.”

The conversation then was interrupted by her husband, who was coming home from work. She said it was time to take care of her family, then she said goodbye, leaving me with so many thoughts and feelings running through my mind. 

Second story:

One of my younger siblings was very fond of numbered colouring. She could spend hours and hours just mixing and colouring her favourite paintings she just bought. She would be working on those paintings whenever she had some free time or whenever she was not in a good mood. However, the nature of numbered colouring makes it so easy for people to mistake different colours together when those colours are in similar shades, or when they are next to one another in a specific area. This means that if one day, she did not pay attention or forgot to read the instructions carefully, she would eventually make mistakes with her colouring. For example, green is a unique, single colour but there will be numbers requiring light green shades, and numbers requiring dark green shades located right next to each other. Just by not paying attention, she would immediately fill two numbered areas with the same green shade.

Although it will not be easy for the audience to find out where there has been a mistake in the use of colours after the whole painting is completed, the person who finished the painting can still know exactly what went wrong. However, my sister was never upset or angry about her mistakes in her paintings, and when looking back at all her hard work and dedication, she always calmly tells herself, “Wow, everything still looks amazing! The colours are still suitable,” or “Still as beautiful as the original painting.”

For her, the completed painting with the wrong colour shades is not as important as those moments when she spent time mixing the colours while searching for the numbered cells to fill in, listening to instrumental piano melodies coming from an old laptop, and sometimes enjoying a slow sip of lotus tea. Just a few acts full of enjoyment like that had made her feel content and comfortable even if some colours in the picture were painted wrong.

You see, the outcome is not everything that matters. The most important thing is how you choose to embrace the feelings you come across on the journey to achieving that result, and whether you truly enjoy that journey or just focus on reaching for the “expected” outcomes that make you happy for only a tiny moment, while the rest would just feel surprisingly empty.

In the first story, why does my friend not feel the happiness surrounding her, even though she has achieved such an important goal in most people’s lives, which is getting married?

That is simply because what she wanted was just the feeling of welcoming, cuddling, and sometimes going on romantic dates with each other, similar to the things they have been doing during the first stages of their relationship. Besides, there is another reason why she did not truly feel the happiness surrounding her. She did not truly enjoy nor accept all the experiences that marriage has brought her after “achieving” the dream of marrying the person she loves, who seems to be very suitable for her.

Although my friend has achieved the goal of a perfect marriage, she somehow forgot that after getting married, a new journey will be opened with each person in that marriage, and they both will go on different roads with many unique experiences. Each person will also have opportunities to change into a different, better version of themselves to obtain every aspect of their marriage. It is an important time for both of them to pay more attention to their own feelings.

You can pour your heart out to love someone, can be overjoyed to be replied to, but also remember to enjoy the pain of loss, to face and overcome it when the door of separation has opened. Those are the hard points on your journey that remind people of how not every marriage will bring true happiness.

Or, if you are devoting all your energy to taking care of a person, a relationship or a project, yet the results are still not meeting your requirements or wishes, just remember to stay calm and do not be worried. Failure, loss, success and gaining many incredible outcomes will never be as good as being able to answer the question “What useful experiences have you drawn out for yourself?” The results are not the main determinants for whether you have succeeded or not, as they only help make it clearer to you whether you should keep trying to follow a certain path, or should you change your directions. Everything you have experienced in the past is always a valuable experience and a stepping stone to help you continue opening other doors to explore and conquer this world.

That is it! The feeling of successfully achieving something only occurs temporarily, yet the memories that are created on that journey, the images, and the people we have met will always be kept in our minds, which soon will have a great impact on us in life. Our job is to always enjoy the journey and be ready to face both misery and happiness along the way. When things go wrong, there is always a chance to start over!

Much love,
Truly Inspired