If you want to go far...

There's an African proverb that says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

I'm not sure if that is always true.
I've come to embrace that I am a loner -- not just an introvert, but a person that truly enjoys being alone. While I don't feel uncomfortable in social situations, there is no doubt that Chris is more the social one of the two of us. She is the one that wants to go out. She is the one that has friends.
In our nearly 40 years of marriage, most of "our" friends have been her friends. I don't think of it as a good thing or a bad thing; it's just the way it is.

I've been thinking about this African proverb and wondering if that applies to our spiritual journey through life. I'm thinking that maybe we each have our own journey and have to go it alone. That's not to say that we don't have teachers or that we don't teach others along the way, I'm just not sure that we actually make the journey with others.

I'm not in a hurry to bust through life and get to its end, so that isn't the purpose of going alone. Nor am I saying that I don't visit with others along the way. I have had (and still do) many great teachers along the way. Some have purposely taught lessons while others have been more subtle or even unaware of the lessons they've taught me in our brief encounters as our journeys intersected for a time.
Perhaps I've been able to teach others a few things, as well.

I have benefitted greatly from being in a community of worshipers. I have enjoyed the fellowship and grown through the partnerships in service and in learning. I have also learned that the nature of most people (and organizations run by people) is for self preservation and personal (or corporate) growth and not to meet the needs of others that might upset their (its) balance and purpose. 
That's cool -- as long as we all recognize that we are responsible for our own spiritual growth. 

The Jesuit priest/philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

I wonder if that African proverb applies to spirit journeys, as well.
What are your thoughts on this spiritual journey? 
Do you travel it alone or with others? Or perhaps one and then the other at different places along the way? 

John