“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
That well-known proverb is attributed to Lao Tzu.
With 2025 behind us, I’ve been noodling over the only goal I set last year. To walk at least 1,000 miles.
I ended up at 1,026, and it’s much more modest than it sounds. It’s just under 4 miles a day on the days I actually walked.
For years I’ve walked regularly — loops near my home, routes around hotels while traveling, hiking trails when time and weather allowed. But this year was different.
For the first time, I set a specific goal and tracked it to the hundredth of a mile. I asked Oakli, my spreadsheet genius of a child, to create something that logged dates, miles, averages, yearly pace, and location.
Each day had a line. Each mile mattered. Progress was visible.
Accountability built in.
On paper, it looked impressive.
In practice, on the days I actually walked, it came out to just under four miles. Hardly a superhuman feat. Many of you probably power walk that before brunch.
Still, as I look at my final stats, I’m realizing something unexpected. The numbers interest me far less than the people attached to them.
After all, what good does it do to walk 1,000 miles if all you’re doing is walking past people?
Some of the most meaningful moments of my year didn’t happen at the end of a route, but in the pauses along the way.
There were people I met while traveling — near hotels in unfamiliar cities — some who ended up receiving Kindness Cards and, more importantly, conversation.
Those walks rarely stayed on schedule. Stories slowed them down. Names replaced numbers. The spreadsheet never captured that.
I met Gary in Salt Lake City. We talked on the sidewalk and he spoke of his exhaustion from living on the streets — not just physical fatigue, but the weariness that comes from being judged by people who pass by without seeing you. That loop stays vivid in my memory, not because of its distance, but because it forces me to confront how often I move too quickly through other people’s lives.
I met a hitchhiking nomad named Bonnie (pictured) in Virginia. Our conversation changed and challenged me. A chat on the sidewalk led to a ride to a community in North Carolina where she knew she’d find support. She spoke with quiet clarity about what it means to truly set aside the world to follow Jesus—not symbolically, but practically. Her words stayed with me long after the walk ended, and I realized that growth doesn’t always come from effort or endurance. Sometimes it comes from listening.
I often crossed paths with Sharon and Pat, a wonderful couple who probably walked closer to 5,000 miles. We stopped many times to chat about family, faith, and current events. They surely don’t know this, but there were cold, hot, or hazy days when I walked because I’d already seen them out and about. Their excellent examples inspired me, and not just how often or how far they walked.
Yet none of that appears in the data.
As I scroll through that spreadsheet today, what makes me smile is not the total at the bottom. It’s that so many of those loops have faces attached to them. Conversations. Lessons. Moments of shared humanity.
And if I’m being honest, I also feel a quiet ache for the people I didn’t stop for — the ones whose names I never learned, whose stories I didn’t hear, whose lives I hurried past in the name of miles, schedules, or simple distraction. That realization leaves me with a resolve, not a regret: to slow down more often, to notice sooner, and to do better.
Now as I’m setting my goals for the year ahead, I find myself asking a different kind of question. Will my next goal be miles-based—or smiles-based?
I’m still going to walk. Still going to track it, because there’s value in showing up consistently. But I’m making one simple change: I’m leaving the headphones at home more often. No podcasts to finish, no audiobooks to race through. Just the sound of footsteps and the possibility of conversation.
And I’m building in margins — extra time before flights, longer routes with benches, deliberate detours past the places where people gather. The spreadsheet can wait. The stories can’t.
Because if Lao Tzu were still with us (he’d only be 2,596 years old), perhaps he’d add an addendum. “A journey of a thousand miles doesn’t begin with a single step at all—it begins with the first face you’re willing to see.”
And that may be the most important lesson my miles taught me in 2025.
Here’s to 2026. If you see me on the roads, trails, or a treadmill, please say “hello!”
Maybe you’ll be in next year’s wrap-up.