Why Your ‘Stupid Little Walk’ Might Be the Most Revolutionary Act of All

From a recent hike through endless fields of off-the-hook wildflowers.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

~Lao Tzu

You know what? Your stupid little walk (ala erin nolen—this still makes me laugh), the few moments you stop to smell the flowers, how you slowly sip your morning coffee…is everything. Regulating your nervous system helps regulate everyone around you, which helps regulate everyone around them, and so on and so on.

Imagine where we’d be if we were a nation, a world, brimming with fully-actualized adults who acted from a place of knowing and emotional regulation rather than from reactionary coping mechanisms born of trauma (both big and little ‘t’ trauma). Assuming the miserable toddler-tyrants running this country represent the embodiment of our collective unconscious*, we’ve strayed so far from what nurtures us, from how we are built to live¹, from understanding and honoring our innate connection to ourselves, each other, and the other-than-human world, that we’ve become a nation on the brink of fascism, with all its attendant horrors. (*This idea came to me at the beginning of Trump’s first term when I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, startled awake from a nightmare, and proclaimed to my then-partner, Trump is the embodiment of the collective unconscious. And, the nightmare continues.)

For most of my adult life, I’ve been choosing to live in a way that centers on smelling the flowers on the regular. (As a child, it was a given.) This provides me a level of calm groundedness that, while common among people in my communities, seems less pervasive in our larger society. During a phone call with a loved one just this morning, I could feel the amped up nervous system—the live wire—on the other end of the line. To preserve my own peace, I simply witnessed and breathed through it, trying to keep the energy at bay. I felt some relief when the call ended.

As I read, write, and converse with this community, I’m reminded how unique my lifestyle is and how privileged I am for this to be the case. My life choices are clearly afforded by privilege—not of the trust fund variety, but certainly of The American Dream genre (which I’ve since dubbed The American Ream (perhaps more on this in a later post)). I grew up in a risk-forward family that encouraged education; we lived in a safe town with great schools, outdoor activities, friends, life opportunities; I had the personal wherewithal to take advantage of it all. Still, for reasons that are not entirely effable, I have made life choices that were less enabled by this kind of privilege than driven by a very deep knowingness that I didn’t want the obvious end result of what was on offer in front of me—at all. I didn’t want to walk the yellow-brick road that led directly from the Ivy League institution I attended to the venerated halls of Wall Street or to any other fancy place of power. I couldn’t do any of the normal things—I didn’t want to wear a suit and certainly panty hose (yes, remember those?) were a hard no. Even the idea of being confined in a hermetically-sealed office building—no matter how thrilling the purpose—set off alarm bells in my nervous system. A rigid schedule freaked me out. For whatever reason, I was always deeply feral. I was motivated by new frontiers. Curious about the natural world. Wanted to know everything. The out-of-doors was my home.

And, guess what? This is not unusual. Just look to children. Kids are innately curious. They are instinctively drawn to their natural surrounding (i.e., displaying biophilia—a concept proposed by the late, (great) Edward O. Wilson (a Harvard University biologist) to describe our innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes). Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas (2016), suggests that “according to Paul Harris, a Harvard child psychologist and author, research shows that a child asks about 40,000 questions between the ages of two and five,” and this quest for understanding can—and often does—diminish as the child grows older. This is a result of normal neural pruning—or trimming away of excess synapses—a process that begins around age five as children construct mental models to explain the world around them, thereby rendering some neural connections superfluous. It is also very much—and tragically—related to our current system of education that “does not encourage, teach, or in some cases even tolerate questioning” but rather teaches to the test.² In this process, our fascination with bugs and dirt can also wane.

So, while my innate curiosity and predilection for the more-than-human world is not unusual, what is unusual is that I listened to those impulses and I honored them. Rather than focus my skills, degrees, aptitude, access—my privilege—on making it in our capitalist society, I figured out how to leverage my gifts to follow the things—the people, places, opportunities—that set my heart on fire. In a world that expects you to chase money, this has set me apart from the vast majority of my Ivy League peers. (A few college friends and I joked years ago joked that we were bringing down the average among our high-earning peers.) And, while shedding these expectations and their spoils has not always been easy, I wouldn’t trade my path for anything.

When I starting writing through this lens here on Substack, I experienced a few moments of self-doubt, or better yet, self-consciousness. I saw how some of what I was writing may describe a lifestyle that is unattainable for some, confronting for others. For still others, it was aspirational, exciting even. I attribute much of this discomfort to just how deep—and unconscious—the talons of capitalism, patriarchy, materialism run, and how trapped many of us feel in a system that doesn’t serve us. While I still occasionally wonder about this dynamic, I’ve decidedly come down on the side of sharing the wonders of traveling a wild and untamed path. By choosing less, I’ve chosen more. And, you can too.

As for that stupid little walk? As

erin nolen

suggests, it may be the most revolutionary act of all. Each and every step, action, decision you make in service of your soul—no matter how small—matters. Each time you go for a walk, stop to smell the flowers, slowly sip your morning coffee, you prioritize your health and wellbeing³ and you down-regulate your nervous system and those of the people around you. In my experience, each small step strengthens your muscles, building the courage, determination, and self-confidence required to live life on your own terms. And, one day, you just might find that stupid little walk formed the foundation from which you are now embarking on the global walk-about of your dreams.

With that, I’m off to the hills for a hike.

xo Wendy

1. For more on this see my piece: How to Be Well in a Time of Evolutionary Mismatch.

2. Berger, Warren. Why Do Kids Ask So Many Questions—and Why Do They Stop?

3. Science backs all of this up. Yup, research shows movement improves mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing and extends lifespan; inhaling the scent of flowers reduces stress, fights inflammation and depression, and induces sleep; and drinking coffee reduces risk of heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and certain cancers. (The coffee one is a relief!)