THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu has always fascinated me.

He left behind the Tao Te Ching, a short collection of thoughts about the Way, and then, according to tradition, disappeared from public life.

I used to read his words over and over.

I did the same with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I read it repeatedly, believing that somehow, through enough reading, I would understand life, relationships, work, and people.

Yet I understood very little.

Perhaps, like many people, I enjoyed theorising about life more than actually living it.

Theory is comfortable. Living and making decisions are not.

Life brings pain, sorrow, difficult relationships, financial pressure, stress, disappointment, and decisions that must sometimes be made without complete information.

For years, I also heard people glorify the idea of going through life alone. Be independent. Need nobody. Become so empowered that you can stand entirely on your own. This is a grand image of life that I’ve come to realise doesn’t quite exist.

I increasingly doubt that this is the journey we are meant to take.

Independence has value. But independence and isolation are not the same thing.

At the other extreme, I have watched people become so exhausted by loneliness that they choose whoever happens to come along.

That is not necessarily wisdom either.

A partner should not be chosen simply because being alone has become uncomfortable.

I am not claiming to understand life.

But 35 years of living have taught me something that all those years of reading could not:

Life is meant to be lived.

We will make decisions without complete analysis.

We will misjudge people.

We will trust the wrong person.

We will sometimes walk away from the right person.

We will make career decisions that look foolish in hindsight.

We will experience pain, headaches, stress, sorrow, and consequences we never anticipated.

The objective cannot be to eliminate every mistake.

The objective is to learn.

Look objectively at what happened.

Accept your role in it.

Understand what you failed to see.

Change your behaviour.

Then improve a little tomorrow.

Perhaps that is what I misunderstood when I kept returning to Lao Tzu.

The journey of a thousand miles does not begin with understanding all thousand miles.

It begins with one step.

Then another.

Then the next unfolds in its own time.

You understand the road by walking it.

And as you walk, you may come to realise you were never truly alone—because God is always lifting us up. And may you never have to walk the journey by yourself physically.