Date: 2010-01-13
To: Walk and learn.
Miles today: 0.0

Do you know how far you can walk? Unless you have some experience with either long distance hiking, charity walk-a-thon's or often forget where you parked your car at the mall, how could you? Let¢s face it, nearly everyone is obsessed with not walking ¢ At times this makes absolutely no sense to me. Example ¢ Why do people try to park as close as they can to the front door of a health club? (Solve that mystery of the universe Stephen Hawking) Discovering how far you can walk is always one of the fun discoveries of the journey, especially when it¢s not along a highway with an empty gas container on your arm. But you¢ll discover far more than the distance if you do.My first job out of College took me to New York City ¢ a place where walking is common. For the first time in my life I actually walked holes into the soles of my penny loafers (Obviously when one puts holes in ones loafers the Loafee is the farthest thing from a Loafer despite wearing said loafers. Nor do they cost a penny but rather a pretty penny!) I walked everywhere using the technique of ¢follow the green lights,¢ so you constantly make progress. Walking had practical benefits since my first job as an Assistant Art Director paid a whopping $12,000 a year. Fortunately I got overtime which was a huge error on my employers part ¢my first year I grossed $36,000! This paid for extravagant luxuries like shoe repair and eating. Walking is one of the best aspects of New York City.When you start walking (on purpose that is) the very idea of using your feet to go way the heck over yonder is, well, ¢¦remarkable. All sorts of things happen that you aren¢t prepared for. The slowness of foot travel seems to reintroduce us to understanding patience. Our world has become frenetic to a level that Giga-bites whiz by our eyes and ears without our conscious Self able to grasp it. Our sub-conscious however doesn¢t miss a thing, the results are tight shoulders, short attention spans and road rage. Walking lets you know that indeed there is time, that indeed the world is still big and its Ok to not multitask every frickin¢ tick of the second hand. Years ago, my pet peeve was getting a coffee puddle on the saucer when ordering in a restaurant ¢ the mug has eliminated this greatest of travesties. Now my pet peeve is how people can¢t do ANYTHING without a cel-phone stuck to their head ¢ but I digress.Walking introduces us to purity. Its very action is single-minded. The farther we walk the deeper the impression burrows into us. Couple this with birdsong, mountain breezes of evergreen and a wilderness of awes and you¢ll wonder how walking fell out of favor. When you haven¢t walked to get where your going for a while you almost question if you¢re allowed to. In my part of the country, there¢s only a sidewalk on one side of the street and no sidewalk leading out of the neighborhood. Today when we see someone walking we think; Homeless. Poor. DWI Suspended License. Seldom do we think Courageous, Enlightened, Thru-hiker. One of the mental barriers I had to leap over was that it was fine to walk or try to walk a great distance. And then once I did start walking again, a simple curiosity existed within me about whether I could walk 20 miles. Once I experienced the pride in doing such a distance, a peak experience for sure, curiosity of a 25 and 30-mile day emerged. For me, the pride in doing them day after day is empowering. Where taking ones time with a casual saunter has its benefits, so does the accomplishment of bigger mileage days with our confidence ¢ Its unfortunate that so many turn these distances into unappealing displays of bragging than towards quiet personal pride. The day I did my first 30-miler (34.1 to be exact) I wasn¢t spent, downtrodden by days end. I was up, bubbly, master of my universe. From the time I did my first 20, then a 25 or 28 or 34, I provided myself with a confidence that just couldn¢t be bought. To acquire this sensation may be the best reason for doing a big day (other than bacon and burgers and fried chicken and cakes and pies and fruit from a town stop). To empower yourself is to stand a bit taller, to carry you chin raised and shoulders a tad more square ¢ It¢s an amazing place to be, an inner place to be for certain.So, back to the opening question ¢ How far can you walk? Do you want to know? Do you even care to know? To walk or not to walk or how to walk or where to walk are always fair questions to ask or not. Centuries ago it was known as ¢To be or not to be.¢ If only Hamlet could have been told to take a walk his life would have been less tortured. Today it¢s ¢Hike your own hike.¢ What will you discover this year about yourself? Why not take a walk and find out just how proud of yourself you can be?