At Last - It All

• Walking Holidays in Scotland After the Camino Routes Scotland is the best in the world.

I was thinking of this as the result of a conversation last week when someone asked me “well what do I do in that situation?”

They were wanting a once off answer for one situation that could be used in every situation forever. I thought to myself there are very few forever solutions to life. There are a few forever rules I like, the main one being sticking to my own rules of life. Really just be who I am and not try to fake being something different, that always seems to being me trouble in the long run if I break it - and I do like to be a trouble free zone.

I think it is just human nature, I do believe humans are lazy. That in itself is not a bad trait. If we were not lazy no one would have started using the wheel or learned how to harness electricity, invented a computer, designed a car - I think these are the result of laziness.

Perhaps a lot of human progress is born from this, something that we are told is bad…

Would I prefer to walk down to the stream and wash my clothes? Or it is better that I can use a washing machine?

However, like many people I have to watch this innate trait inside me. Often I would rather everything just came to me, but I have learned in my life that some of the things I work for are really good for me.

Walking the Camino is one of those things for me. It was not easy to walk 780km, twice, (it was harder the second time for various reasons), but by walking day after day something changed in the way I viewed myself. My appreciation of my own abilities grew.

I don’t think I really believed that walking every day for a month across the north of Spain would really happen, until I did it. Doing things that cause me to think better of myself help me at that time and for the rest of my life.

You are flexible - this was told to me by my other half, (before she really knew me!), it is one of the great things I like about you. I had never considered this about myself, and I must admit if someone had asked me if I thought I was flexible the answer would have been no, a resounding no.

That however takes me back to my rules of life, there are just somethings that re not worth doing no matter how much someone pays me, that was a hard one to learn. I would often rather earn a little less money and be happy.

I like the idea of being myself as much as possible in all situations, if I can do this I don’t have to learn rules of how to react or behave in any particular situation. I am lazy, I don’t want to carry around too much in my head - it is easier for me to just be myself as much as possible.

The Camino Frances helped push me down that road a little further.

This is the longest YouTube video that I have ever watched, and it is well worth it. It runs for nearly 80 minutes, so if you are going to watch it put some time aside.

I used to say to Anna “You listen to much to what I say and don’t see how I act.” It was one of my defensive positions in arguments. While watching this he says “Ignore everything they say and pay attention to everything they do” - my point - though I have toned down my want to be controversial in speech, it was never really there in my actions.

A few other quotes from this video “Brickwalls” - they are there to see how much you want some thing. I think this applies to walking the Camino. Walking for 30 days carrying your gear is not easy, each day is - but added together it starts to get harder on the body.

“Show gratitude” - I love this one. I cried in Santiago for various reasons, getting there was the end of something. I discovered a trick that I can play on myself a few years ago. If I am down and moaning about life I can start to think about how good my life really is - it works, try it. I had a lot of pain for the last 2 weeks on the Camino Frances, I had a hernia problem, people asked me how I was and my standard reply “Pain reminds me I am alive.” So true when death is only a breath away.

Anyway enough of me - try and find sometime to watch this all the way, it is worth it.

I was just thinking the other day “how did I get here?” Not in the way of - does the world exist, but how did I end up doing the job I do now.

Five or six years ago I had plans to be a teacher, I was at university studying English and Philosophy. I had left my job and went to Uni as a mature student - my 30’s when I started, not when I finished. (Getting older is still a tough one for me)

I had worked in accountancy for many years, my dad is an accountant that is how I explain it to myself and others. While at uni I was convinced by Dara, one of my flat mates, to go and walk this crazy walk across Northern Spain. I had never heard of the Camino de Santiago, long story short - I did it during my first summer as a student.

Then I headed back to uni for another year. I still thought my future was teaching. The next summer I ended up walking the Camino again, and then went to university in Vienna - I consider myself very lucky to have had that opportunity - Wien is a beautiful city.

While there I had to have an operation on two hernias that had been discovered on the Camino - take my word for it they were sore and I was still determined and crazy to finish. I though the op would be a two minute job, no - I was five days in the hospital. Not being able to do much while recovering I decided one morning that I should know how to build a website. So I did - this one.

Well what else would I want to write about, I loved the Camino. From there I built more websites, at first mostly other walking routes, and then some more and more…

I now work in internet marketing because I seemed to be good at promoting the sites I built, and strangely enough the two best parts of my job are writing and training other people to do some of what I do - teaching at last…

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