Motivation

[Deleted member 397]

I'm curious to hear from others who have done the camino as to what their initial motivation was and whether it changed during/after completing it. I don't recall seeing many posts on this topic-although some have mentioned it in passing- I thought it would be interesting to hear what others have to offer on this subject.
My own motivation was curiousity and a sense of challenging myself as to whether I could complete the physical distance and whether I would cope mentally. There was also a feeling that this would be an experience quite unlike anything I had done before.
During the camino from Seville sometimes each day was a trial and I wondered whether I would make the distance. But the end of each day was always greeted by a great sense of achievement (and a cold beer).
Reaching Santiago was surpringly emotional-I will always remember looking up at the cathedral for the first time.
I can't wait to walk next year-maybe from paris of le puy. The following year will be from granada with the danish fellow I met this year on the via de la plata. Interestingly his motivation, when he walked the french way in the previous years, was to get closer to his teenage sons-which he assured me he did.
But what is my motivation? Frankly, I'm not sure but I just have this overwhelming urge to walk all the different routes. Perhaps a small part is the companionship encountered-although there were very few other pilgrims on the VDLP. I can't think of a comparable activity in this day and age of mass tourism. Even the non religious-such as I -have a sense of occasion and history in following the countless pilgrims over the centuries who have made their way to santiago
I'd be curious to read other comments

 

[Lesliegilmour]

hi peter,

I am afraid my motivation the first time was not of a "higher lever," - I was a student and my flat mate kept on going on about this bloody walk across the north of spain that he had already walked a couple of time - once he walked from amsterdam to santiago. He got me to look at it and oh noooo I thought, walking with ruck sack every day, sleeping in hostels every night with loads of other pilgrims, not for me was my first reaction.

Not having much money and faced with the choice of what I do for the summer I thought I would give it a go, with one major caveat in place. If I did not like it I would leave and go somewhere else. But hey the dam walk changed my life - that I certainly did not expect, and I have walked again since, and now I feel like a tourist information office for the Camino here in Dublin, which I love.

This perhaps for me is one of the reason that I don't care how people start on the road - just that they get on the road, the outcomes in life, I understand, are not down to me.

But now back to cold rainy dublin, and get the rest of my christmas shopping done. Have a good one.

 

[Deleted member 397]

Leslie
I'm glad someone has posted a response to my topic (by the way it's Kevin not Peter).I thought a lot more would reveal why they travelled the camino-it seems a fairly basic question-why are you doing this?
I recommend the via de la plata for your next camino-longer, more isolated and less crowded. Like you I have tried to promote the camino but without much luck-I guess you have to have a certain frame of mind to want to do it. I still think that the motivation changes over the journey and that once home it has certainly made me restless and eager to go back
Thanks again for your input
Kevin

 

[lynnejohn]

Well, initially it was such an "out there" kind of adventure that it appealed to me (us) immediately. So that was the first response. I wanted to jump out of my comfortable, North American life and challenge my mind, spirit and body to something that I had never before experienced. And.... wahoooo!!!!! It was so much more than I could ever have imagined.... and so the rest is left to subsequent posts. But that is what the initial impetus was for our first Camino. A huge unknown, a monumental challenge, love and friendships for a lifetime, an intriguing spiritual adventure! And it lived up to that, and much, much, more....

lynne

 

[Eleonor]

I'm glad someone has posted a response to my topic (by the way it's Kevin not Peter).I thought a lot more would reveal why they travelled the camino-it seems a fairly basic question-why are you doing this?

I remember discussing this with fellow pilgrims. We very much agreed upon the fact that to a lot of people this is such a personal question that the chance that you get a straight answer right away is very small. By the time we reached Santiago I figured it out for some fellow pilgrims, but I never got a abc explanation from anyone. Sometimes the motivation is quite complex, so it's not always that easy to reveal it.

 

[marktqm]

Here I am back home, 6 months after I reached Santiago, still at a loss why I walked 800km of the camino at all. Do I really want to know the reason? Not really, but I have given thought to it many times and there is no definitive answer. What I know for certain is I want to do it again. Maybe I'll figure it out when I'm back there again. What a fantastic excuse!

Mark Mulingbayan