A quote has drifted through our house all year: “The journey is the destination.” Credit goes to my son’s AP Chemistry teacher—who turned out to be a philosopher cleverly disguised in a lab coat.
At first, this saying drove my son absolutely nuts. Like eye-rolls, sigh-heavy, mutter-under-your-breath kind of nuts. He is a practical kid. He likes goals, benchmarks, checklists, and quantifiable results. Being told that his grueling senior year was meaningful simply because it was hard? That was a tough sell when facing sixty multiple-choice questions in ninety minutes and seven free-response questions—with over forty subparts—in just over an hour and a half. But here is the twist. Somewhere between the endless practice problems, the impossible labs, and the occasional existential crisis over stoichiometry, he started to understand.
This year, my son tackled what amounts to the academic equivalent of scaling Mount Everest in Crocs: AP Chemistry. AP Calculus BC. AP English Language and Composition. AP Microeconomics. He essentially earned a minor in Overachievement, amassing enough college credits to start as a sophomore and positioning himself to complete his B.A. in five semesters. Yet, somewhere along the way—often mid-rant over poorly worded questions or during those tired-but-triumphant post-exam conversations—he discovered something surprising: it was not about the score. Not really. Sure, he earned the grades. All A’s. But the real work—the meaningful, unglamorous, quietly transformative work—was learning how to learn.
This was the year he became a scholar of process. He learned to read questions like a lawyer dissecting a contract: What is the question really asking? What is it not saying? Where is the trap? He trained himself to write answers that did not merely sound good but made logical, unassailable sense — especially under pressure. He spent seven to twelve hours a week—per class—learning to be precise, to structure his thoughts clearly, and to back up every answer with solid evidence and clear reasoning. He stopped skipping steps. He started reading directions (finally!). He learned to manage his time, pivot when necessary, and stay calm even when a question blindsided him.
We even strategized together. Parent-child bonding over College Board rubrics—every parent’s dream, surely. We tackled each AP test like a military operation. He learned to let go of the questions that took too long to complete in the short time allotted, and to tackle those that played to his strengths. He stopped trying to be perfect and started being strategic. And what a glorious, liberating moment that was. The most beautiful part? By the end, he no longer obsessed over the numbers. When he walked out of those testing rooms, he was not preoccupied with whether he had earned a 4 or 5. He knew he had done his best. He felt proud. He felt complete. He felt—dare I say it—fulfilled.
Because the truth he once mocked had finally settled in: the journey really is the destination.
And that journey, it turns out, is paved with frayed notebooks, countless problem sets, long study sessions, sarcastic complaints, occasional meltdowns, and—eventually—moments of quiet triumph when a teenager looks up and says, “Wait—I actually understand this.” So now, as he prepares to head to college, carrying more than one year’s worth of credits on his transcript, we feel not just proud, but grateful. Grateful to have witnessed the transformation—not of a transcript, but of a young mind learning to wrestle with complexity, tolerate uncertainty, and emerge stronger and wiser on the other side.
In the end, his teacher was not just right. He was annoyingly right.
The journey is the destination.
And sometimes, it is even better than the test score!Ilene Brookler, a Boca Pointe resident and Columbia Law School graduate, brings over 30 years of litigation experience to her role as a certified mediator. She founded Family First Divorce Mediation Services with the goal of helping families navigate divorce quickly and affordably. She can be reached at [email protected]. For more information, visit http://www.familyfirstmediate.com.
