Unless you give yourself a destination, you’ll be adrift. Let’s think together: where are you headed?

Head home.

There is somewhere which for you is home. And it may not be the home of your youth or even the house where you currently live. But there is a place to which, when it is allowed, your heart is drawn. But unless you identify that place, you’ll chase one shiny object after another. And come to the end of your day or your week or your life feeling disappointed with yourself.

Identify your Ithaka.

There’s a powerful poem by C.P. Cavafy callled Ithaka. In it, Cavafy takes the ancient story of Odysseus and translates the longing for home into a more accessible concept, helpful for your heroic journey. Of course, you could read the Odyssey. But here, for you, is the essence of that story’s longing for home, to carry with you.

Ithaka

BY C. P. CAVAFY

Translated by Edmund Keeley

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

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.

So please do this.

Give yourself the gift of 15 minutes to watch this captivating talk by Pico Iyer on the meaning of home, and then come right back for today’s takeaway.