Breathe in. It’s the middle of the week and here you are trying to finish all the necessary things needed before the deadline. Breathe out. There you are again stuck on things you can’t fast forward to – traffic, people you don’t want to hang around with, and all those negative feelings long-suppressed within you. And while these are things you want to do away with life, the grip tightens making it more than impossible to regularize the normal cadence of life. Then you repeat these processes over and over again until they choke you. Would you like to continue?
While preparing for our Mt. Baloy-daku climb last May to June, I decided to walk my way home to exercise and prepare my legs for the multi-day hike that we are going to take. Instead of joining the bandwagon of the complaining commuters who suffer hours upon going home, I opted to walk my way around. It actually started as a comparative experiment between commuting and hiking.
Due to the construction of the underpass in Mambaling, the thirty-minute travel time before has become two or more hours. Imagine how many chapters of a dream I accomplish inside the jeepney. HAHA. On the other hand, walking home only took an hour and fifteen minutes! Though it was quite taxing, it became a great venue to sweat out and view the city from a different perspective.
Walking home gave me more time to observe the daily dwelling of every individual in the city – the vendors on the streets, drivers racing their way through the traffic lights, and beggars surviving on the mercy of each passerby. After every week, I change my routes so as to lengthen the distance and add more ascents (yes, I’m talking about using the skywalks) and this too gave me a bountiful of things to reflect upon. Regardless of the heat and dusty environment, walking pave to be a resounding outlet after a day’s work. My regular playlist became my constant companion that drives me to keep going and even until now I find it difficult to delete it.
For most, what I did was pointless, but for me, it became more than just a preparation for a climb. This time, it’s easier to understand how a simple stroll can change the stream of negative thoughts by just looking at how other people try to survive their battles every day. It gave a reassuring pat that life is indeed a series of ups and downs and that all these daunting tasks, deadlines, and heartaches we feel are but temporary in this moving world.
To keep moving forward, we have to be in constant motion; would you rather get stuck in the traffic of negativities or would you opt for a reroute? Your choice and see you on the streets.
*** Last night, as I was scrolling my list of saved videos from Tedx, I chanced upon this awesome sharing of Daniele Quercia about the Happy Maps. Google has been long-providing us with the fastest routes in going to our preferred destination, but what if taking a five-minute reroute would actually make you feel better and more energized; would you rather wander?
Dakilanglaagan 