The End Is More Important Than The Means

It seems so obvious to me, the end is really more important than the means. Yet when I am in the thick of things, I frequently miss the end for the means.

No, I am not saying the end justifies the means. That is an entirely different statement, which has the connotation that it is all right to use any means as long as you achieve your end.

What I have in mind is that, when we set out to achieve an end, we focus, we care, we think too much of the means until we forget that we were trying to achieve a certain end. Take for example our relationship with those whom we loved. We love them and we want to do something helpful to them, that is undoubtedly our end. But often the means we use to achieve that end do not bring about the desirable result. When that happens, we fail to see that the means we use are not right for obtaining the end. We feel hurt, we whinge, we say that the other party does not appreciate our love and our efforts. We are only concerned with the means that we use, we have completely forgotten the end.

In the Dalai Lama's reply to the question of the best religion in the world, I get the message that the end, which is to become a better person as a result of getting closer to truth, God etc, is more important than the choice of a particular religion or the ways of practicing the religion. Implicit in that message is that it is not necessarily useful practicing religion according to the rites but in the end you are still who you are.

Deng Xiaoping had famously said this, it does not matter if the cat is black or white, if it can catch mice then it is a good cat.

不管是黑猫还是白猫，能抓耗子的猫就是好猫。

The cat is our means, the mouse is our end.