A walk with nothing to show for it

In 2013, I wrote about improving everything. My shoes, my breakfast, my business card. Even the way I smiled at people was there as something that could give me a small edge.

I had found an idea I loved, and apparently my face was coming with me.

The idea was marginal gains: lots of small improvements adding up to something much larger. I still see the possibility in it. A small change can make an awkward thing easier. There is pleasure in noticing a detail that everyone else has walked past, including me.

But I keep returning to the word everything.

Imagine going for a walk. There is a shorter route, a faster pace, a way to fit in an errand. There might be something useful to listen to. By the time the walk has been properly considered, it can be carrying quite a lot. Fresh air, learning, exercise, a parcel delivered. An excellent return on an hour.

What if the best part happens when none of that is happening?

A conversation that takes longer than it should. A wall with a small tree growing out of it. Taking the wrong turning and finding somewhere you would not have thought to go. Nothing particularly impressive to enter in the record of the day.

I can make a case for all of those things. Connection matters. Curiosity matters. Rest might make tomorrow's work better. It would not be difficult to give the wandering a respectable job.

That is the bit I am less sure about. Does a lovely hour need to make a contribution to the hours that follow it?

I don't want to become suspicious of every attempt to improve something. A badly designed process can make ordinary life miserable. Finding a simpler way through it can be an act of care. Nor is wandering freely through an afternoon a choice everyone has. Time, money and other people's needs are real, not a failure of imagination.

There are things I want to do well. There are things I want to help change. The person who wrote that old piece was not wrong to care, or to enjoy looking for possibilities.

I just wonder whether I gave improvement too much territory.

In 2022, I wrote about finding the loose brick rather than forcing the one that would not move. It was a gentler way of thinking about change. Yet even ease can become another technique for getting somewhere. A quieter voice can still be hurrying you along.

Perhaps some things could be allowed to happen without proving they are taking me anywhere.

Not every conversation needs to lead to an introduction. Not every interest needs to become a project. A walk can end at the same front door with no new idea, no useful errand and no better version of me arriving home.

There might simply have been a walk.

I would like to leave some room for that.