walk fast. walk slow

walk fast.

reach the destination.

walk slow.

notice the details.

take the high road to admire the beauty from afar.

stay low to admire the beauty up close.

yesterday i went for a walk around one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.

a walk that i’ve become very familiar with over the years.

i’ve probably walked this path twenty or thirty times. i thought to myself.

never has it been so beautiful.

you see, when you gather a group of friends and suggest going for a “hike”, that’s usually what you do.

hike.

put on the boots.

get out of the city.

walk around, soak in the nature.

it’s one of my favourite ways to spend a day.

sun. rain. snow.

doesn’t matter.

hike.

a hike implies a mission. a destination. a goal.

pump the legs. one step at a time. get to the end.

there’s a certain beauty in that physical pursuit.

a certain flow that you don’t experience often when stuck in your day-to-day operations.

being out there, in nature, fighting to get to where you want to go.

it’s tough.

it’s rewarding.

it’s exciting.

walking through trees, dipping toes in the lake, looking in awe at incredible landscapes.

all the while thinking…

i need to keep moving.

i need to get to where i want to go.

sure, goals are important.

without a destination and a route, you will get lost.

you’ll be left wondering aimlessly, struggling to bring order to the chaos that is your life.

sometimes, that loss of control will have negative repercussions.

but a lot of the time, that route will confine you.

trap you.

cage you.

setting a destination and a route will strip you of the opportunity to get lost.

sometimes, the only way to bring order to the chaos, is by embracing it.

yesterday, there was no agenda.

there was no goal.

we didn’t even plan to go for a walk there.

it just happened.

we didn’t look at the map with the different routes.

we didn’t pick a specific path to go down.

we just began to wonder.

following whatever caught our eye.

a small stream. a family of deer. a particular gravestone.

details that we otherwise wouldn’t have noticed, had we been racing for the finish.

we hardly ventured further than a kilometer from the carpark, yet in those two hours, i got to know the park better than i ever had before.

never had i noticed the perfect circle of trees, hidden just off the main path.

or the small waterfall that trickled it’s way into the lake with more intricate beauty than the “main waterfall” in the park.

i never noticed how fucking beautiful this place really is.

it’s one thing to admire beauty from afar.

to see landscapes and big trees, all while running through the land, focusing on the destination.

it’s a completely different thing to see all this beauty up close.

spending five, ten, fifteen minutes standing in one spot, just watching.

sitting on the trees that make the perfect benches.

listening to the gentle splashing of water that trickles through the fish-scale coloured rocks.

you get a different appreciation for this world when you’re up close.

when you take your time, forget about the destination and focus on where you are now.

i want you to enjoy the view from afar.

enjoy the hike.

enjoy the pursuit of your goals.

but don’t forget to zoom back in every once and a while, and embrace what’s right in front of you.

this letter was an emotional one for me to write.

it wasn’t necessarily about hiking.

i urge you to go for a walk this weekend.

and soak in whatever you can.

all the best,

louis