Travel to the Other Side of the World? Learning to Stay and Walk Close to Home Is the Greater Challenge

We have always referred to walking as a way to find new paths, different forms of expression, to search for ourselves, to escape, to discover, to push beyond our limits, because it is precisely this continuous journey toward unknown places and destinations that excites us and makes our eyes shine, that allows us to challenge our limits and step out of our comfort zone.

Perhaps, however, we have never stopped long enough to think about what it means, instead, to know how to stay, to continuously cross the same landscapes, the same roads, trying to get the best out of them, to see their positive sides every day; to resist instead of running away, to return again to the starting point instead of starting over somewhere else, to go around in circles trying to probe every "corner" of the small world available to us, not to give up, despite the apparent boredom that presents itself before us.

To move, yes, but rediscovering along the way the same old friends, knowing how to appreciate all their qualities, setting out each time with the same travel companion, despite different approaches to the journey, adapting to what is already there instead of adding something new. A useful exercise to consolidate and strengthen one's own points of view, rather than tending to develop new ones.

As the ancients taught, "virtue lies in the middle," and, even if it may seem less suited to our times and our traveler's mood, knowing how to stay, to walk nearby and tread one's own steps can be just as important and constructive as always trying to push beyond one's own boundaries.

Someone once said that life is a fine balance between holding on and letting go, and often, during our journeys, we focus mainly on the latter: we need to transform something, to find new motivation, to abandon old habits, to run fast; but sometimes, this attitude itself becomes a habit, a conditioning that prevents us from making the leap we so desire.

For some, going away and walking far, many kilometers from home, becomes easier than maintaining a short step, close to home, in close contact with what one cannot tolerate. And so the comfort zone becomes the entire world, new, intact, while the obstacle to overcome is exactly the opposite, the neighborhood and the town with its familiar streets and always the same people.

A somewhat different perspective, one that does not usually belong to the common wayfarer, but that can make us reflect on how important it is to know how to remain deeply in tune with what we feel in order to regulate the pace of our journey and ensure that it truly finds the right path at every moment for us, which is often not what we want, but what we need in order to grow and evolve.

To walk, but instead of doing so toward the new, remaining in contemplation of the known, staying to savor to the fullest the scents and flavors of one's own lands, to give shape and solidity to one's fixed points, to tend to details, to rediscover lost or abandoned places, to look at what appears to us as obvious, unbearable or strange through a magnifying glass and discover its goodness, its beauty, its truth.