I have a strange little quirk about me: in the past (and sometimes in the present) I’ve read the last page of a book first. Most people would say that this ruins the book because I find out, or can figure out, how the story ends. I never really saw a problem with this practice and never really knew why I had the desire to do it.

Recently, I’ve been reading the novel Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I didn’t read the last page first but I did read the last page about half way through the book. It was the first time I felt like reading ahead had ruined a book. I was bummed to find out the ending to the story. But then, I realized that even though I knew the ending, I still wanted to read the rest of the story. I wasn’t going to stop reading the book just because I knew what was going to happen, I wanted to know how it happened.

This seemed like a metaphor for life as well. We all know how our story will end; one day we will pass away. But that doesn’t stop us from living our lives. We all still want to know the story of the journey.

I don’t really still read the last page of a book anymore; this is more of a quirk from my youth. But I realize that this quirk isn’t all that bad. I feel that our society is so goal driven that we loose sight of journey it takes to get to our goals. We could all use a reminder now and then that our journey is as important, or even more important, than the end result.