It’s Time to End the “Journey”

In a world where every struggle is framed as a journey, have we lost the ability to simply live?

At some point in the past decade, everything became a journey. 

It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly this buzzword boomed in popularity, but somewhere between the rise of self-help culture and social media dominance, it became the go-to word for any process with a beginning and an end. 

How did we get here? The word “journey” originates from the old French “jornee,” meaning “a day’s travel”-- itself derived from the Latin word “diurnata,” meaning “by day.” The concept was simple: a journey was a physical trip measured with tangible concepts of time and distance. According to Lisa Miller’s article “When did Everything Become a ‘Journey’,” the most common modifier for the word “journey” between 1990 and 2005 was “return,” with “train,” “night,” and “bus” following. It was not metaphorical in any sense. However, between 2006 and 2019, “return” is now closely followed by words like “faith,” cancer,” and “love.”

Language shapes our narratives. This linguistic shift of the word “journey” is reflective of a broader trend of our increasingly narcissistic desires to yoke greater meaning from commonplace. From career trajectories to skincare routines, and from relationships to trying a new food, the overuse of the word “journey” has reached such saturation that even the most personal and mundane struggles are wrapped in the word’s glow. The word seems to have become a marketing tool to package hardships into something sellable. 

Perhaps this is why the term thrives in spaces that market self-improvement–say for example, corporate branding, wellness, and fitness industries. Weight-loss is no longer merely dieting or exercise, but a “wellness journey.” Even grief is often framed as a “healing journey,” as if mourning is yet another linear process that ought to be documented. Calling something a journey implies that the process itself is meaningful, not just the outcome. The word suggests struggle, growth, and an almost preordained arc of self-discovery that appeals to many who desperately search for purpose in life. 

But does slapping the brand of “journey” on something actually make it meaningful?

Our “journey through Middlesex” is simply nowhere near the epic magnitude of Odysseus’ arduous “journey” back home in The Odyssey. Yet in today’s lexicon, these two drastically different experiences exist on the same plane. By elevating every experience to the status of a "journey," this inflation pressures us to extract profound meaning in everything we do. 

Frankly, I have to admit that I fell into this mindset myself when I came to the US two years ago to attend my dream boarding school. Inspired by endless social media videos describing the life-changing experience that studying abroad brought them, I envisioned every moment I spent here a step towards a grand revelation of who I was meant to be. Reality was bitter, but it was in the midst of chaotic adjustment that I discovered that growth doesn’t always come from neatly packaged narratives. Sometimes, it emerges from the messy dregs of life. It's in these imperfect, chaotic moments that we truly find our humanity.

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with the perhaps overly inflated buzzword. Language is meant to evolve, and words take on new meanings as society shifts. But the ubiquity of “journey” is worth contemplation. 

A journey does not necessitate a destination. Sometimes you move forward, and other other times you circle back. Sometimes, you stay still, and that’s okay. Perhaps, instead of forcing every change into the shape of a journey, we can allow life to be what it is——unruly, nonlinear, and in its own right, meaningful. 

Jessica Wu