Walking alongside my life

Several times a day, I go for a walk — not because I have somewhere to go, but for the simple pleasure of walking itself. And yet, even in something so simple, the mind finds a way to interfere. Deciding whether to turn left or right becomes a small project: I calculate distances, weigh options, imagine outcomes. Turn left, and I face a busy street that leads toward home. Turn right, and I pass through a park I love, but the way back will be longer.

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This afternoon, I decided to leave the decision to my body. My mind would not interfere. And when a turn presented itself, I simply followed the slightest inclination — almost before it had formed into a thought. I no longer directed the walk; I accompanied it. I was both the one who walked and the one who watched the walking. It felt unexpectedly liberating.

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And something else happened. Without the noise of planning and steering, I began to notice more. A man on a bench, his hands resting open on his knees as if he had just let something go. Two women laughing at something one of them had said — the kind of laughter that comes from a long-shared history. Above them, the sky was a deep, almost implausible blue. And on my face, a breeze still carried a trace of winter. Walking alongside my life, I realised, is not the same as stepping away from it. If anything, it brought me closer — to the street, to the strangers on it, to the particular beauty of that afternoon. I was not less present, but more.

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This makes me wonder whether such a flow is possible in other parts of my life.

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When I write, I often begin with a quiet intention, but very quickly I start to steer. I correct a sentence before it has fully emerged, adjust the tone, anticipate the reader, shape the ending before I have truly arrived there. What would happen if I let the words come first, and only then, gently, accompanied them into form?

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Or when someone close to me — Felipe or a friend — speaks about a decision they are about to make. I notice how quickly I move toward advice, toward what I believe would be the better path. It comes from care, no doubt. But what if I could listen without stepping in? What if I trusted that their life, like my walk, already has a direction that doesn't need my interference?

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I see the same tendency in smaller things. Planning the day too tightly. Measuring whether I have done enough. As if life were something to be managed rather than lived.

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Perhaps there is another way — to sense the movement that is already there and align myself with it. It is, I think, a question of trust, learning that things turn out well even when I hold the reins a little less tightly.