Wherever You Go, There You Are

Years ago I read a book titled,”Wherever You Go, There You Are,” and for some unknown reason the title always resonated with me. I thought it had a lot of meaning, especially for me.

Wherever you go, there you are. No matter how good or how bad you are, no matter how pleased or unhappy you are with your life, remember that wherever you go, there you are. There’s no escaping from you. This thought is scary only if you’re not pleased with yourself only if you don’t come to terms with yourself. Many of us tend to point to others for their unhappiness but wherever you go, there you are. There’s no escaping you unless we ask the Lord “to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

There’s an airline commercial that’s been playing for a while and it shows people in various stages of embarrassing moments and as soon as one of these moments occurs the voice over says, “Do you want get away?”

Yes, you can get away from an embarrassing moment. Yes, you can run and hide. Yes, you can escape something you’ve done or something that was done to you, but as much as they try to tell you that you can get away, they’re wrong. Some go to the extreme escapism by killing themselves and others as the unfortunate situation that occurred in California yesterday. Did that person really get away? You can never get away from yourself. Wherever you go, there you are.

Leo Buscaglia tells a story of how on her death bed his mother chastised him for crying. “What are you holding on to?” she asked. It took him a while to understand that she was telling him to get on with life; her time had passed while most of his lay ahead. He had a hard time of selling his home in which he had lived in for over forty years and then started thinking of his mother’s question.

He states that he simply closed the door and left and found it so simple. He realized that the memories and dreams he valued were not hanging in the closets or hiding in the drawers; they were in him and he would be taking them wherever he went.

It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship. -Norman Vincent Peale

Wherever you go, there you are.