• 1st July 2018. 6:45am.

  • Federation Square, Melbourne.

I am both surprised and grateful to see that a handful of friends came to the city for a send-off. It’s dark and we make efforts to recognise each other’s silhouettes in the blackness, eventually realising that it’s too early and cold for anyone besides us to be in the square on such a crisp Sunday morning.

Good wishes are wrapped in small talk, and I show off my backpack with unearned pride. We say our goodbyes and I take my first step. The pace of the first few kilometres is uncomfortable, I rush along as if I am being chased or am following someone walking at a much faster pace. Gradually, I settle into a pleasing, steady rhythm.

The winter sunrise illuminates the day, and the idiocy of the adventure rears its ugly head. I wrestle with an inner dialogue: “tell me again, how walking to Sydney is going to help me uncover answers about work and workplace design?” I complement myself on asking such an excellent question, one that I suddenly could not think of a suitable answer. The pace becomes uncomfortably fast again.

Determined not to waste the next two months of leave from work (it turns out that when thinking about work, one cannot work), I encourage thoughts of purpose, Sisyphus, and the future of work. If your mind has ever gone blank after you have been asked to tell a joke and the awkward silence prompts you to tell the lamest joke that pops into your head, you’ll know what happened to me next. I couldn’t think, and when I did, my thoughts made me wonder how on Earth I had ever made it to adulthood.

My expectations that the trip be worth the time and effort I was investing cast a cloud on the early days of the pilgrimage. Ironically, it began to be worth it when I stopped trying so hard and relaxed.

I’d barely reached the outskirts of Melbourne when I got asked for the first time “why” and “which charity”, followed by the less frequent, but more worrying caution “be careful, there are idiots out there.” I had every reason to believe these warnings, they came from people who seemed to have led lives far from cosy desks. If they were worried about idiots, I should be too.

I had not prepared myself for idiots.