Illusion of control

Today was my last big bus day - from Burgos to Leon. As we all got off the bus, I noticed another pilgrim walking in the same direction as me. We chatted a bit and he told me that he took the bus because he got food poisoning and was too sick to walk. He said he plans to come back next year just to walk the stretch he missed.

As I’ve said before, we’re all on our own walk, and I know for many people walking the whole way is important to them. For me, it sparked similar questions of - How do we accept the things we can’t control? What counts as “enough”? How do we let the goals that we set for ourselves be motivating and inspire us to do hard things without allowing those goals to become rigid and unyielding?

In a lot of ways, I’m grateful that I decided to change course early in my Camino. It disabused me of the illusion of control before I got too attached to any certain outcome. Maybe if I’d walked as far as that man walked I’d have a harder time accepting an “incomplete” Camino.

I’m weary of traveling by bus and I’ve had my fill of fancy Cathedrals, but I remain grateful that I decided to do this my own way.Read more