13/06/2026
Looking back at our posts, people really do have a negativity bias! 😂 Over 330 THOUSAND people viewed what was probably the most negative post we’ve ever made shortly after reaching the Mexican border! The reactions were incredibly mixed! Some people felt we should stay in our lane and remain positive. Others felt that the transparency was a breath of fresh air. Some commented, “I knew you were “real” people!”
It left us with a question: is it best to frame everything in the most positive light we can find, knowing there’s enough negativity out there already, or speak candidly about the raw experiences we’re going through, acknowledging that no one lives a purely positive life?
There are two paths in front of us. One prioritizes the fact that we become like the things we give our attention to. Suggesting, good news and positivity might ought to come before everything else. The other path suggests that such a goal would be disingenuous without fully exploring the struggle between the smiles. If there appears to be no struggle, why is training a healthier perspective even necessary?
We want to have the most positive impact we can on people. After all, people have had the greatest impact on us! But does that mean only showcasing the good? We not so sure. In fact, we’re not sure we would have been so positively impacted by so many amazing strangers, if we were only looking through wide, tired, or closed eyes. 👁️
Wide eyes can lead us to cognitive dissonance, being misled, abused, taken advantage of, and as a result, closed off to the best human experiences out there. Tired eyes can’t look so persistently for the good, and closed eyes aren’t open to anything.
Toward the end of the last segment, our eyes were very tired and perhaps occasionally closed. Most of us will find ourselves behind this lens at some time in life, but many of us get stuck seeing from that vantage point. We can’t simply flash the positive at you, as if enough of it will prevent you from coming face to face with certain realities yourself (both inner and outer). We want to show you that no matter how deep the tunnel you find yourself in is, there is a light waiting for you at the end of it.
We really needed this time away from the road. More desperately than ever. For our selves, our relationship, our minds, and hearts. But we are pleased to say: with a lot of intentional work, we are nearing the end of the tunnel. And it has taken real work!
On the road, you face the world. It’s best and it’s worst. Most of what it throws at you is a result of its reciprocal nature. Even when you haven’t dealt any harm, if someone imagines you have, they will inadvertently reciprocate that negativity. But regardless of what’s thrown, you are the only one in control of the way you receive it.
Catching and pitching skills develop alongside exercise, and in our case, we weren’t exercising properly. We were tired, so we neglected to meditate and take the necessary time to ourselves. California became a race to the end of the segment to seek respite, when we should have been working inward as much as outward.
This is for a variety of reasons. I won’t bring up all the negative stuff here that happened, but it’s worth emphasizing that the people didn’t change so much. We changed. We experienced as much kindness, warmth, and love as ever!
Unfortunately, the political landscape that met us on the shoulder, the endless opinions social media put in front of us, and the constant process of feeling out the sensitivities of everyone we got to know, began to bury us without taking the time to dissolve the stories slowly spun by our own minds.
But this is the common sense advice that the walk is predicated on: you don’t have to bring that s**t with you! We simply weren’t exercising the cognitive switch that is “letting go” as well as we could have. It’s become abundantly clear with all the time we have recently spent meditating, reflecting, and reading transformative literature in pursuit of that goal.
I still feel like a far cry from what I was when we first started the walk. I previously refused to put a camera on anything we did (the first 6 month segment, no less), knowing what it does to our experience of the present. I’m not sure I can ever reach that state of awareness I once experienced without fully abandoning so many of the attachments I’ve formed. But I don’t know that the point of life is to completely forsake attachment to achieve enlightenment; if you desire anything so much, you’re attached to that too.
But wow, we have covered some serious psychological ground since leaving the border! I’m happy that we captured some of the lows that we did, so that we can come to you with the lessons learned, having chartered a course to light at the end of yet another tunnel we have traversed.
We’re here for you guys. We’re not just here when it’s easy, or for the easy-goin’ go-getters. We want to reach you who feel stuck. You who are struggling. You who fear there’s no hope. Hope for a better life, mind, or humanity. There is always hope, but hope is found within. Like you, we lose some, we gain some. But if we really want to flourish, we have to learn acceptance for the way things are, while doing our best with what’s within our control, as hard as it might be.
Walking America was never meant to be easy; it was a construction of the most difficult obstacles to show that no matter what you’re going through there’s a better way to look at it, lessons to be learned, and new smiles and friends down the road… if you’re willing to look for them. 👁️
Our walk and its necessary downtime is funded by donations to walkingamericacouple on Venmo, PayPal, and Cashapp. 😊
