There is no image for human life more ancient and more widespread than the image of life as a journey or quest. The journey always begins with dissatisfaction; a radical inadequacy of personal existence. Something is missing; it lies not here but there, beyond the horizon or deep in the ocean depths. It prompts a voyage of self-discovery.
The search for meaning involves risk-taking. Some seek it in the dangers of mountain-climbing, in acts of outstanding courage, in complete dedication to some ideal, in self-effacing service to other human beings. Some seek meaning in addiction to material possessions or in the drugs of extensive wealth chemical substances where a seemingly richer world is glimpsed and then lost.
A Taoist master wrote that at the end of the Way lay stillness and predicted that a day would come when human beings would cease their travelling and spend most of their lives in one village.
Perhaps, in the last analysis, human beings are drawn to leave the familiar and the safe and to set off into the unknown, out of a profound evolutionary drive. Perhaps it is a drive to conquer fear, to conquer death.
People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within. (Ramona L Anderson).
They say a person needs just these things to be truly happy in this world: something to love, something to do, and something to hope for. (Tom Bodett).