I decided to walk
 |
Description
Book Introduction
Twenty-three, the age when you should become an adult.
A 6,400km journey of life for those who are anxious, shaken, and nervous.
To hear your story, to find my story, I decided to walk.
“Who am I?” “What kind of person do I want to be?” I had to graduate from college and start my adult life, but I didn’t know what to do or how to live.
So he decided to walk.
A trip where I started walking without any plan, carrying a recorder in my backpack, books by Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that said, "Walking to listen."
People of all ages, races, and occupations I met on the street taught me many aspects of life.
The countless emotions he had to experience while walking alone, such as fear, loneliness, hope, and dread, made him mature inside.
The process of realization while walking 6,400 km is captured in a simple yet moving writing style.
A 6,400km journey of life for those who are anxious, shaken, and nervous.
To hear your story, to find my story, I decided to walk.
“Who am I?” “What kind of person do I want to be?” I had to graduate from college and start my adult life, but I didn’t know what to do or how to live.
So he decided to walk.
A trip where I started walking without any plan, carrying a recorder in my backpack, books by Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that said, "Walking to listen."
People of all ages, races, and occupations I met on the street taught me many aspects of life.
The countless emotions he had to experience while walking alone, such as fear, loneliness, hope, and dread, made him mature inside.
The process of realization while walking 6,400 km is captured in a simple yet moving writing style.
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
index
prolog
1 Don't trust anyone
2 You'd better find out something else
3 I was in another world for a while
4 There will be a lot to learn
5 You will be doing this for a while
6 What are you really listening to?
7 Because life and death cannot be controlled at will
8 I can only take a lot
9 There will be a lot of sad things ahead.
10 I don't know where I'm going, but I won't stay here.
11 And that world is real
12 Wait for Judgment Day
13 Sleep well
14 There was no need to be afraid
15 You are reading a book with both feet
16 You'll want to quit everything and go home right now.
17 I will continue to increase and sustain it.
18 It comes from me and is made of me, but I feel like it is not me.
19 You will know when the time comes
20 Take a good look
21 The days before my eyes passed by in a flash
22 He is so happy because he is a rock
23 We've been waiting for you
24 What do you think a perfect life would be like?
25 I hope you find what you're looking for
26 Forget it
27 Your walk will continue
Acknowledgements
References
1 Don't trust anyone
2 You'd better find out something else
3 I was in another world for a while
4 There will be a lot to learn
5 You will be doing this for a while
6 What are you really listening to?
7 Because life and death cannot be controlled at will
8 I can only take a lot
9 There will be a lot of sad things ahead.
10 I don't know where I'm going, but I won't stay here.
11 And that world is real
12 Wait for Judgment Day
13 Sleep well
14 There was no need to be afraid
15 You are reading a book with both feet
16 You'll want to quit everything and go home right now.
17 I will continue to increase and sustain it.
18 It comes from me and is made of me, but I feel like it is not me.
19 You will know when the time comes
20 Take a good look
21 The days before my eyes passed by in a flash
22 He is so happy because he is a rock
23 We've been waiting for you
24 What do you think a perfect life would be like?
25 I hope you find what you're looking for
26 Forget it
27 Your walk will continue
Acknowledgements
References
Into the book
Still, solitude felt important.
I was scared, but that's why I chose solitude.
I didn't want to be afraid of the thing I would be stuck with for the rest of my life: myself.
Rather, I wanted to enjoy it, and to enjoy it, I had to learn it and know it well.
Solitude was the best thing for doing that work.
--- p.14
I wanted to know what it really meant to become an adult who would take care of someone for the rest of my life.
I wanted to meet that man.
What kind of person is he? What does he know? How did he finally become who he is, and where does he belong? At times, this exploration felt urgent.
I was twenty-three, soon to be thirty-three, soon to be forty-three, and I had no idea how to navigate the life that was already in motion.
There was no way back.
--- p.15
“It’s okay to get hurt,” Perkins told me later.
We were still in the car when I asked about the call with Mary.
It was my last interview in Selma.
“There is no hate in that wound.
It's okay to be hurt, and it's okay to express your hurt.
Because expressing the wound is part of healing.
The pain we experience, whether physical or emotional, is real.
You have to acknowledge that it exists before you can say anything to the pain.
This way, you can better understand what's going on inside.
--- p.214
For a moment he looked different.
He was a grieving father who lost his child and lived alone with a cat in his son's place.
That fact didn't justify his delusions, violence, or racism, but it did shed a brief light on the suffering that was the cause of it all.
(…) When I think of all the people I have met on the road, all the people I have not met, all the people who have been and all the people who will be, we all live with pain in one way or another.
That pain may be the pain of becoming human, or perhaps it may be the pain of love.
Living as a human is often a situation where you can't do this or that.
The more you love, the more you get hurt.
I thought of everyone who had told me about their heartbreak.
What a strong connection I felt when they opened their hearts.
--- p.278
When I was living in New Orleans, I was a surrogate grandson to a really fun old couple with some friends, and the grandfather, who was in his 70s at the time, said this to me:
'Hey, can I tell you a story?' So I said, 'What is it?'
My grandfather said, 'No matter where you are or what you do, if it's not fun, just get out.
I said, 'Damn it, I'm just going to come out.'
Even then, I was amazed and said, 'Wow!'
It really felt like someone hit me in the back of the head.
The point was that wherever you are, if you feel miserable, there's no need to sit around.
You can just leave.
I never thought about it like that before.
--- p.309
The joy of crossing the street on foot, stopping at a gas station, drinking coffee, and eating a honey bun.
In an instant, coffee and honey buns became monumentally important.
I drank my coffee and ate my honey buns with an almost reverent attitude.
Then suddenly I became curious.
If such trivial things can become so meaningful at the end of a long walking journey, how much more meaningful will they be in the final moments of life? How sweet, strange, and sad will it be to eat a honey bun on our last day? Then, what meaning will these not-so-trivial things hold?
I was scared, but that's why I chose solitude.
I didn't want to be afraid of the thing I would be stuck with for the rest of my life: myself.
Rather, I wanted to enjoy it, and to enjoy it, I had to learn it and know it well.
Solitude was the best thing for doing that work.
--- p.14
I wanted to know what it really meant to become an adult who would take care of someone for the rest of my life.
I wanted to meet that man.
What kind of person is he? What does he know? How did he finally become who he is, and where does he belong? At times, this exploration felt urgent.
I was twenty-three, soon to be thirty-three, soon to be forty-three, and I had no idea how to navigate the life that was already in motion.
There was no way back.
--- p.15
“It’s okay to get hurt,” Perkins told me later.
We were still in the car when I asked about the call with Mary.
It was my last interview in Selma.
“There is no hate in that wound.
It's okay to be hurt, and it's okay to express your hurt.
Because expressing the wound is part of healing.
The pain we experience, whether physical or emotional, is real.
You have to acknowledge that it exists before you can say anything to the pain.
This way, you can better understand what's going on inside.
--- p.214
For a moment he looked different.
He was a grieving father who lost his child and lived alone with a cat in his son's place.
That fact didn't justify his delusions, violence, or racism, but it did shed a brief light on the suffering that was the cause of it all.
(…) When I think of all the people I have met on the road, all the people I have not met, all the people who have been and all the people who will be, we all live with pain in one way or another.
That pain may be the pain of becoming human, or perhaps it may be the pain of love.
Living as a human is often a situation where you can't do this or that.
The more you love, the more you get hurt.
I thought of everyone who had told me about their heartbreak.
What a strong connection I felt when they opened their hearts.
--- p.278
When I was living in New Orleans, I was a surrogate grandson to a really fun old couple with some friends, and the grandfather, who was in his 70s at the time, said this to me:
'Hey, can I tell you a story?' So I said, 'What is it?'
My grandfather said, 'No matter where you are or what you do, if it's not fun, just get out.
I said, 'Damn it, I'm just going to come out.'
Even then, I was amazed and said, 'Wow!'
It really felt like someone hit me in the back of the head.
The point was that wherever you are, if you feel miserable, there's no need to sit around.
You can just leave.
I never thought about it like that before.
--- p.309
The joy of crossing the street on foot, stopping at a gas station, drinking coffee, and eating a honey bun.
In an instant, coffee and honey buns became monumentally important.
I drank my coffee and ate my honey buns with an almost reverent attitude.
Then suddenly I became curious.
If such trivial things can become so meaningful at the end of a long walking journey, how much more meaningful will they be in the final moments of life? How sweet, strange, and sad will it be to eat a honey bun on our last day? Then, what meaning will these not-so-trivial things hold?
--- p.495~496
Publisher's Review
Twenty-three, the age when you should become an adult
He didn't know anything, so he just decided to walk.
He was about to graduate from college and was now ready to begin his adult life.
But a corner of my heart was still unfulfilled, and I didn't know what to do or how to live.
It seemed like he didn't even know who he was.
I wanted to know what it meant to be an adult who takes responsibility for myself in life, and I felt an urgent need to explore who I was and where I belonged.
He was twenty-three, soon to be thirty-three, soon to be forty-three, and yet he had no idea how to navigate his life, which was already in motion.
And there was no way back.
There was no information, no experience, no guide to help me navigate life.
Moreover, it was difficult to get a perfect answer from anyone around me.
So he decided to walk.
6400km, I decided to just walk from the right end of the American continent to the left end.
It was a reckless and dangerous challenge, but it seemed like there would be an answer at the end of the journey.
I put a sign on my backpack that said, "Walking to Listen," and prepared a question.
'If you could go back to being twenty-three, what would you say to yourself?'
Almost every day while walking, I met strangers.
At every crossroads along the way, he told his story as if he had been waiting for it.
He also gave me his room, even though I didn't know his identity, and treated me to a warm dinner and showed me kindness.
Sometimes I'm honest about my prejudices, not knowing how to react.
Just talking and listening to each other was a comfort to us and we became friends.
On the road, wonderful encounters and stories were repeated every day.
He listened to find answers to prejudice and understanding, fear and empathy, fundamental questions that all humans must face.
And finally, I realized that the answer might be 'listening to the story' itself.
I felt them as I walked 6,400 kilometers, their bewildering complexity, their beauty, their uniqueness, something no one could imitate, something I had never seen before and will never see again.
I felt their longing, their triumph, their ruin.
I saw all kinds of ways they chose to remain by themselves.
And thankfully, I encountered the kindness they showed and the stories of their lives they told without any reward.
They valued me and blessed me even when I didn't feel like I was.
He believed in me much more than I believed in myself.
They told me that I was enough, that there was nothing I needed to be like.
I lay on the forest floor and listened to Whitman's farewell words.
“I found that just being with the people I love was enough.
“In the evening, after work, it is enough to just hang out with the people left behind, to be surrounded by beautiful, curious, and smiling bodies.”_pp.497~498
A 6400km walking trip started without any plan,
The world we knew has disappeared, and we are introduced to a strange but beautiful world.
Everyone he met on the road was a guide who taught him how to live.
The harsh winters of the Appalachian Mountains, the scorching summers of the Mojave Desert, the daily changes of wind, rain, and sunlight—all of nature itself became a map of life.
As I walked alone, all kinds of emotions ran wild like beasts: fear, loneliness, hope, and dread.
But the more he wavered and worried, the more his inner self became solid.
Every day he walked, fell asleep, and walked again, but as he walked forward, the world he had known disappeared and an unfamiliar but beautiful world approached him.
His walking journey was both a physical challenge and a spiritual growth, filled with a surge of emotion and a sense of peace of mind.
Now that he has completed his journey, he is a much better person than before, with insight into the world around him and his own inner self.
After completing his journey, everything became a map in his mind: the life he should live, the goals he wanted to achieve, and the path he should take.
Now he realizes that life is so fast-paced that it's easy to miss the miracles inherent in it.
So, we try to slow down more and more so that we can fully enjoy the special things that are in our lives at every moment.
And I will continue to walk and listen and live.
He didn't know anything, so he just decided to walk.
He was about to graduate from college and was now ready to begin his adult life.
But a corner of my heart was still unfulfilled, and I didn't know what to do or how to live.
It seemed like he didn't even know who he was.
I wanted to know what it meant to be an adult who takes responsibility for myself in life, and I felt an urgent need to explore who I was and where I belonged.
He was twenty-three, soon to be thirty-three, soon to be forty-three, and yet he had no idea how to navigate his life, which was already in motion.
And there was no way back.
There was no information, no experience, no guide to help me navigate life.
Moreover, it was difficult to get a perfect answer from anyone around me.
So he decided to walk.
6400km, I decided to just walk from the right end of the American continent to the left end.
It was a reckless and dangerous challenge, but it seemed like there would be an answer at the end of the journey.
I put a sign on my backpack that said, "Walking to Listen," and prepared a question.
'If you could go back to being twenty-three, what would you say to yourself?'
Almost every day while walking, I met strangers.
At every crossroads along the way, he told his story as if he had been waiting for it.
He also gave me his room, even though I didn't know his identity, and treated me to a warm dinner and showed me kindness.
Sometimes I'm honest about my prejudices, not knowing how to react.
Just talking and listening to each other was a comfort to us and we became friends.
On the road, wonderful encounters and stories were repeated every day.
He listened to find answers to prejudice and understanding, fear and empathy, fundamental questions that all humans must face.
And finally, I realized that the answer might be 'listening to the story' itself.
I felt them as I walked 6,400 kilometers, their bewildering complexity, their beauty, their uniqueness, something no one could imitate, something I had never seen before and will never see again.
I felt their longing, their triumph, their ruin.
I saw all kinds of ways they chose to remain by themselves.
And thankfully, I encountered the kindness they showed and the stories of their lives they told without any reward.
They valued me and blessed me even when I didn't feel like I was.
He believed in me much more than I believed in myself.
They told me that I was enough, that there was nothing I needed to be like.
I lay on the forest floor and listened to Whitman's farewell words.
“I found that just being with the people I love was enough.
“In the evening, after work, it is enough to just hang out with the people left behind, to be surrounded by beautiful, curious, and smiling bodies.”_pp.497~498
A 6400km walking trip started without any plan,
The world we knew has disappeared, and we are introduced to a strange but beautiful world.
Everyone he met on the road was a guide who taught him how to live.
The harsh winters of the Appalachian Mountains, the scorching summers of the Mojave Desert, the daily changes of wind, rain, and sunlight—all of nature itself became a map of life.
As I walked alone, all kinds of emotions ran wild like beasts: fear, loneliness, hope, and dread.
But the more he wavered and worried, the more his inner self became solid.
Every day he walked, fell asleep, and walked again, but as he walked forward, the world he had known disappeared and an unfamiliar but beautiful world approached him.
His walking journey was both a physical challenge and a spiritual growth, filled with a surge of emotion and a sense of peace of mind.
Now that he has completed his journey, he is a much better person than before, with insight into the world around him and his own inner self.
After completing his journey, everything became a map in his mind: the life he should live, the goals he wanted to achieve, and the path he should take.
Now he realizes that life is so fast-paced that it's easy to miss the miracles inherent in it.
So, we try to slow down more and more so that we can fully enjoy the special things that are in our lives at every moment.
And I will continue to walk and listen and live.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of publication: August 15, 2019
- Page count, weight, size: 512 pages | 604g | 150*210*22mm
- ISBN13: 9788934996118
- ISBN10: 8934996110
You may also like
카테고리
korean
korean
![ELLE 엘르 스페셜 에디션 A형 : 12월 [2025]](http://librairie.coreenne.fr/cdn/shop/files/b8e27a3de6c9538896439686c6b0e8fb.jpg?v=1766436872&width=3840)
