Pandemic Walk Hiking Pilgrimage Camino de Santiago
By: Erick Lopes
Tags: Hiking, Pilgrimage, Camino De Santiago, Beyourself, Mwc Death

My family (mom, dad and my younger brother) always liked to take vacations and travel together. But in 2020, the pandemic brought several restrictions on our traditional travel schedule to some crowded beaches. So, my mom had an astonishing idea:

“What do you think to we face a challenge, a 320km pilgrimage to start 2021 in a different way analyzing the most dreadful year of our lives?!”

We thought about that proposal, but nobody had a better or safe idea regarding the moment. Let us try this!

We decide to face “The Faith Way (Caminho da Fé)” that treads in the Sao Paolo’s and Minas Gerais’ interior of Brazil. This pilgrimage bases on the famous “Way of St. James (Camino de Santiago de Compostela).”

We decided to face this long walk how a self-improvement opportunity. And precisely at this moment (when we said yes), the journey to our interior started.

One of the most important things to organize some months before the travel is the backpack, and here we have the first lesson that we will apply in life:

“Choose very well the stuff that you want to load!”

First, the material things, the authorities in the theme of hiking suggest that you limit the backpack’s weight to 10% of your bodyweight. I thought: “Only this?! No, this is bullshit. I will take one book to read and some extra t-shirts, blah blah blah”.

I remember that I regretted this thought and that “excellent” idea to take some extra luggage. Each kilometre could be more light with some grams, pounds and kilograms less. The walk simulates life!

This episode helped me realize that we have things that are not essential in specific moments of life and carry them all. We are naturally accumulators, and we have to ask ourselves constantly: “I really need this shit?!”

This lesson applies to many aspects of life (I prefer not to specify and let you think about it). We sometimes need to reassess our connection with things, tasks, jobs, and people. We only need to load what allows us to move forward.

One pilgrimage is an opportunity to think about all the aspects of your life. In the first kilometres, it is possible to solve eventual problems with all your walk partners. But these problems are visible and present day by day and immediately appear. They are only the top of the iceberg of life.

But like the Titanic’s Iceberg, the big problems that cause damage and take us to die are in the depths of our internal thoughts, feelings and dreams.

Besides the weight to carry things in life, it is crucial to think about what needs live and die around our lives.

During the pilgrimage, I had the “plot twist” of my life. I had time to think about my relationships, my job and the phases of my career. I thought about what I want in my future, who I want to be by my side and what I want to do in the next years and for the rest of my days. Consequently, I had to kill the things that do not make sense anymore, things that do not make my heart knock speed and things that no longer give me a hard-on.

I decided to get away from friends (even long-time friendship) who do not have the same values that I believe in a moment like this claim (solidarity, compassion, empathy and love for neighbour, particularly for the poor.)

I had time to acknowledge that my job already gave me all the money, opportunity, and experience it could provide me. I was not happy to do that work, and thinking about doing the same job for more ten years scared me. It was time to think about the death of my current job.

So, I decided to reassess the direction of my career and kill my last position (even for a moment) and try something new. Like write this text.

Finally, this pandemic brought other perspectives to face death and how it is vital to celebrate each moment with the people we love. Hug someone now, say that you love now, maybe we do not have a tomorrow opportunity.

Program a pilgrimage with someone that you love yet this year. We need to learn and understand death to live in the fullness, be happy with our choices and enjoying each moment. Life is a breath!