Walk Your Own Path

Chapter 1

Life has a habit of settling into familiar rhythms.

The alarm sounds.

The kettle boils.

The shopping gets done.

Days gradually become weeks, and before long, years have slipped by.

Nothing is necessarily wrong.

But every now and then, a gentle, nagging whisper emerges from somewhere deep inside. One that refuses to go away.

For me, it was simple.

Walk the Camino.

I couldn't explain it.

It wasn't a lifelong dream, although I'd wanted to go for many years. I wasn't ticking something off a bucket list, or trying to prove anything to anyone. I simply felt drawn to go.

The reactions fascinated me.

Others wanted to come with me.

They were kind offers, but they missed the point.

The Camino wasn't their journey.

It was mine.

That made me realise something.

We spend much of our lives watching other people's adventures. We celebrate their achievements, admire their courage and sometimes even wish we'd done the same.

But there comes a point when we have to stop living through other people's stories and begin writing our own.

Your path doesn't have to look like mine.

It doesn't have to be a Camino.

It might be learning to paint.

Starting a business.

Moving house.

Leaving a career.

Starting a new one.

Returning to education.

Planting a garden.

Writing a book.

Simply giving yourself permission to do something you've wanted to do for years.

For me, the hardest part wasn't the walking.

It was pressing the button that said Book Flight.

Because in that moment, the idea stopped being something I'd think about one day.

It became something I was actually going to do.

Until then, the Camino had existed safely in my head. I could talk about it, imagine it and tell myself I'd do it one day.

Pressing that button changed things.

There was now a date. A flight. A beginning.

And that's what I'd been waiting for. Not permission from anyone else, or someone to come with me, but the moment when I finally chose something for myself.

We probably all have our own version of that Book Flight button.

Something we've talked about doing, thought about doing, or promised ourselves we'll do 'one day'.

It doesn't need to involve a plane ticket or a 280-kilometre walk. It might be something so small that nobody else would understand why it matters.

But perhaps that's the point.

It doesn't have to matter to anyone else.

It only has to matter to you.