The value of walking forward

“I’m just a normal guy doing a really long walk”.
This statement summed it all up for me, and I knew it as soon as it was said. These wise words came from my younger brother after being asked the reason he was doing this “long walk” across Spain; the walk being El Camino de Santiago or The Way of St James. My sister and I had come across the Atlantic from South America to meet my brother on his first overseas adventure, and attempt to complete the popularised pilgrimage from St Jean Pied de Port, over the Pyrenees into and across Spain to Santiago.
Many people follow this ancient path seeking physical, spiritual and/or emotional growth, and in the long hours and countless footsteps many are forced to confront and overcome the challenges they have set themselves. I take my first step with any particular goal, but before long I decided the last step must be my primary goal. I found this indulgence very hard to justify initially. Why should I be spending my days just walking and talking and thinking with no goal of improvement or an altruistic cause? Is this not a waste of time and of life? These questions slapped me hard in the face at the beginning of our Camino before I made peace with my decision, and when my brother put my peace in such a simplistic statement, it became the most memorable quote of those 800km on the road. I had made my destination my justification and now could simply experience the road. I chased my shadow all morning, caught it at lunch and ran from it all afternoon. I ate cherries ripe from the trees. My desires at the end of the day were fulfilled by simple things, a place to sit, a cool drink. I watch locals go about their lives and took pleasure from this. I struggled, but at the end of each day another Spanish sunset turned the country to gold and I was growing.
At the end of our month of meetings, farewells, bedbugs, blisters, laughs, tears, countless bocadillos and cañas con limon (sandwiches and small shandies) and all else our Camino demanded, we all felt much more resilient and settled into ourselves. It was here in the shadow of the towering Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela that it became clear how without setting a target one can hit bullseyes along their journey. I believe it is absolutely fundamental to give life meaning - often in the form of goals - and finding meaning in the little occurrences of daily life can transform the way you live, and there is often no better catalyst to this than the input of travelling.