Walk and talk (to myself)
It’s a rare day in New York City when the sun smiles unambiguously. I took a walk to the High Line, partly to enjoy the sun, but also partly for some alone time.
Recently, life has been so hectic. Between school, work, the job hunt, and everything else, I haven’t really had the ability to have a little quiet time. That’s why I’m doing my version of the “Walk and talk.” In the tech community, “walk and talk” is the new hip practice. Instead of booking a conference room for a meeting, people take walks in the park to discuss a new product idea, for example, or to go over new company strategy.
So I’m doing that. A walk, and talking(figuratively) to parts of myself I haven’t really spoken to in a while, to understand the most important product in my life — my own happiness.
Understanding myself has always been difficult. I would like to call myself an introspective person, but some of my choices perplex me. They strike me, either after the fact or even in the moment, as irrational, even out of character. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I can become that way.
Walk and talk as a way to understand yourself isn’t new. It’s a practice used in therapy, to utilize movement and nature to patients get unstuck with their issues.
It works. Walking just for the hell of it gives me freedom and control, without necessarily thinking about the purpose behind it. And I learn about myself while I was on this walk today.
For instance, I move too fast sometimes. While on the path next to the Hudson River, I found myself stuck behind a group of people and becoming annoyed with them for being too slow. But I wasn’t on a deadline. My schedule today was essentially free and I was in a rush to nowhere. I’m so used to acting in a flash, doing task after task, that it has become engrained in me to hurry. It’s weird. At home, I don’t mind lazing around. But there’s something about living in the city that makes you lonely at times. Being so technologically intertwined now only intensifies this. I get these bouts of anxiety where I need to be around people at all times, or be doing something — anything — to distract myself.
So my walk was to do the opposite — slow down. Slow myself down, take some time alone to reflect. Today’s weather offered the perfect chance. It’s just me and my music and nature (well, as much nature as you can get in the city). This is my version of the walk and talk. It’s active; it lets me take control of my own path, as it were. It helps me decompress. Moving physically makes me feel like I’m not just spinning my wheels, that I’m actually moving forward.
