Today, our entrepreneurship professor ended his class by citing this poem. Its a poem about a man who sets upon a long journey towards his island home - Ithaka.
In a subtler sense each of us are on our journeys to find our own homes (treasures) - wealth, fame, happiness, position, power.. The point is to realize that we get rich not by arriving at Ithaka, but by undertaking the journey to reach Ithaka..
Am reproducing a few lines of this poem below..
"Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you're destined for. But don't hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you're old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you've gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. "
You can read the full poem at
"http://homepage.newschool.edu/~wrightd/cavafy-ithaka.html"
