Walk a mile in my own shoes and stop worrying about everyone else’s.

My husband and I loaded up the pups and drove from Washington state to New York state this month. After six days of rest stop laps tethered to one hundred fifty pounds of canine muscle, I was anxious to lace up my sneakers and go for a long walk alone.

On the first day, it was windy, cold and rainy, weirdly comforting weather for this PNW woman. I was in my element, and completely alone, which is how I like it. I am very self-conscious about walking. After my first back surgery, walking was painful and awkward, so I turned to cycling for exercise, which sustained me through three decades and two more surgeries. About three years ago, the universe reminded me, in the form of a bike accident complete with broken arm, that going around a problem is not fixing the problem. (Yes. I blame the universe. It was an absurd accident. It could only have been the universe.) I couldn’t cycle or row. I don’t like swimming.  I was forced to embrace walking. (Embrace? Battle into submission? Whatever.) All those years on a bike and at the computer did not make the situation better. To give you a visual, imagine the cave-man evolution bumper sticker. My gait was basically third from the left. It’s taken me three years to get where I am. So that first day was great. I walked a loop around the base. Alone.

Then the damn sun came out. Though still cold and windy, I found myself walking in a parade of people. My daily bliss was invaded by the dreaded evil twins—comparison and judgment.

Two guys came toward me who seemed to be walking slower than I. I was pretty pleased with myself. To be fair, they were in long pants and boots and carried full packs. So, clearly, I needed to pick up my pace. Out of nowhere, this woman runs right past me, on a hill. I couldn’t even hear her breathing. I slowed, trying to determine if she was as old as I, not something easily done looking at the back of a jacket billowing in a wind of her own creation. The worst was the guy who lapped me. On a two-mile route! In a weighted vest! Surely, he was blessed with superhero-level DNA.

With every comparison, my pace slowed until my hyper-critical fitness watch sounded the alarm and asked me if I was still working out. Rude. But fair. I’d allowed all those thoughts, about how hard everyone else was working and how naturally gifted they were and how easy it was for them to infect this precious time. I wanted to be where they were, strong and fast. All my pride in the hard work I’d done seemed to wither.

Instead of celebrating where I am now, the milestones on my journey became a series of arguments in my defense. When another walker passed me, I railed (in my head) she doesn’t have to walk in my shoes. But of course, I don’t have to walk in hers either. Heck, I don’t even know where her shoes have been. In that moment, I felt like I wasn’t even walking in my own shoes.

I saw complete strangers in one moment in time. Not only was I making judgements about them and their journey, but I was comparing myself without honoring my own journey.

The truth is I know nothing.

Well, almost nothing. I do know this.

We do not know where someone is in their journey.

I don’t know how long the woman, who left me in the dust, had been running. Maybe she’s preparing for her tenth marathon. Maybe she woke up this morning and thought I think I’ll become a runner. Likewise, she couldn’t know it has taken three long years for me to reach this distance.

The person passing me by may have been working years to get where they are. They may just be starting out with years of work ahead of them. They may have been much farther in the past and have had to start over after a major setback.  

The journey is hard enough without adding a value-laden comparison of where I am compared to you. One’s journey is personal and individual. Where I am when you pass me or I pass you is insignificant. What matters is that we show up for our respective journeys and do the hard work regardless of where we are in that journey.

We do not know what weight someone is carrying.

I don’t know what was in the soldier’s ruck sack. It looked heavy. I don’t know how much his boots weighed. I could see he was carrying much more than I, as I was carrying nothing. Most of the time, we cannot see another person’s load. They cannot see ours.

Each person carries some combination of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental weight throughout their journey. Responsibilities, dreams, grief, hope, fear, joy, pride, ambition, illness. The list is endless. These weigh us down, making the journey slower and more arduous.  

We are not all in the same position to carry these weights equally. Something that stops me in my tracks might be light as a feather for you. You might be carrying all of your weight alone, while I can share the load with someone else.

Maybe we could compare the weight of our journeys if we all carried a rucksack labeled with its load. But mostly, our rucksacks are invisible to everyone else. We certainly may judge others, even ourselves, as lazy, slow, or weak when, in reality, we show great strength, determination, and perseverance by simply putting that rucksack on every day and taking up our journey.

We do not know what is pushing someone forward or what is holding them back.

Midway through the week, I reversed my route. My initial route started on a steep hill which led into a mile stretch with a headwind. I’m not sure how, but I was still in a headwind going in the opposite direction. Fortunately, I made up some time speeding down the hill.

We all have headwinds slowing our progress and tailwinds pushing us forward on our journeys. The sum of these is not equal, though. Each of us has a different level of skill, motivation, and energy to face our headwinds.  We benefit differently from our tailwinds. A requirement that you meet some physical standard or pass a test might be a motivating challenge for you but a paralyzing obstacle for me. Relationships, work, finances, and opportunities may provide support for one person on their journey. For another, these might be tailwinds that hold them back, even stop their progress.

Just because someone appears to be passing you by does not mean that they have no headwinds or they are being pushed along by some powerful tailwind. We have no idea how much energy and effort someone is putting into overcoming their headwinds. Just because the journey looks easy from the outside, does not mean it is so.

We do not know the direction someone is going.

One day, I decided to switch it up and increase the distance. I took a different loop and walked part of it twice, once in each direction. Understandably, I was slower on the second pass which was uphill.  As I came upon a house, a man came out with his dog and got in step with me. He and the dog quickly passed me by. I wanted so badly to zoom by him, but I was at the end of the route and flagging.

He was heading out. I was going home. Even when we seem to be moving in the same direction, we don’t know if someone is moving toward something or away from something. Are they giving all they have just to make it to the end of their journey? Are they effortlessly racing toward a goal? Are they courageously trying to outrun their fears?

Seeing someone at one moment in time, it’s impossible to know what direction they are going. You can’t know if their effort is about moving toward something they want or need or moving away from something they dread or have outgrown. In any case, the course of their journey is theirs to plot.

We do not know how far someone has come or how far they have yet to go.

After the man (potentially a superhero in disguise or a Delta Forces soldier) lapped me, I prayed I would not suffer the humiliation a third time. My goal was two miles that day and I had maybe a quarter mile to go. Maybe he ran four miles that day. Maybe he ran twenty. Maybe all he could run, though with little apparent effort, was four miles but he was working his way up to twenty. Who knows?

He knows.

My goal is four miles. I am more than half-way there. I wish I could run with such grace and physicality and for as far as I imagine that man could run. But I am a lot older and missing a bunch of discs. Goals on one’s journey are personal. Whether or not those goals are the right difficulty or focus is determined by person setting them. Being lapped does not mean I set my goal to low. Being lapped does not negate how far I’ve come or imply how far I have yet to go. And, for that matter, I cannot tell anything about his goal or how far he has come or how far he has yet to go by watching him lap me.

We can only walk in our own shoes.

Fortunately, these epiphanies hit me on the second day. I realized that I needed to stop trying to walk in everyone else’s shoes and put mine back on. The things we know nothing about in other people are the very things we should know best about ourselves.

Where am I in my journey? 

What weight am I carrying?

What is pushing me forward or holding me back?

What direction am I headed?

How far have I come?

How much farther do I have to go?

All the judgments and comparisons only impede my journey. They signal a need to look inward and consider what they say about my wants, needs, fears and hopes. I can cheer someone on their journey, even support them, if asked. But in the end, each of our journeys is uniquely our own. We must set our own course, carry our own weights, face our headwinds, be grateful for our tailwinds, and assess our goals and progress. And if we must judge our journey, do it appreciating how far we’ve come, honoring what we have learned, and giving ourselves grace for the things we’ve had to let go of along the way.

Copyright Catherine Matthews 2026