We Become Through What We Endure

Transformation doesn’t happen at the finish line—it happens in the struggle.

The Art of Becoming is about turning obstacles into opportunities. Drawing from philosophy, resilience, and real-life experiences, I share lessons on navigating adversity, cultivating wisdom, and living with purpose. Because in the end, life isn’t about avoiding hardship—it’s about becoming someone who thrives in it.

We won’t always have the answers, but we can search for them together.

Today, we learn why a pilgrimage is one of life’s oldest—and best—teachers.

I hope you’ll join me.

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In five minutes or less:

Every journey leaves a mark. Not just on the world, but on you.

I walked across Spain to challenge myself, to suffer a little, and to share something sacred with the people I love. What I got in return was far more than sore feet. I found the kind of growth that only comes through struggle, and the kind of people who will change you forever.

We often think goals are about changing the outside—losing weight, paying off debt, starting a business, walking 500 miles through Spain. And when we meet those goals, we are changed.

But what matters most isn’t what happens when we cross the finish line. It’s who we are when we face pain, doubt, and failure. It’s who we are when we see beauty in the small and quiet moments. When everyone else sees the ordinary stone church, we see a chapel a thousand years old. One that celebrated weddings, births, and deaths. And, yes, who we are when we get the win.

Let’s get to it.

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One of my many Caminos.

I spent three weeks walking across Spain with my daughters, my niece, and two friends from Germany. We were on the Camino de Santiago, aiming to arrive in Santiago de Compostela on my youngest daughter’s 30th birthday.

That might have been my initial purpose. But when I finally walked into Santiago—surrounded by nine friends and family—I realized the goal had changed. I had carried something heavier across Spain: a new sense of me.

This is my first week back home since walking the Camino de Santiago. I’m tired. Energized. Broken, and yet whole. I want to sleep, but can’t. Something inside of me wants to come out, but I don’t have the words or understanding to allow it. Not now, at least.

I’ve been trying to convey the enormity of the pilgrimage—the privilege and blessing of meeting the hundreds of pilgrims committed to the same journey. I find I cannot. How do I explain the dichotomy of feelings: I’m sad it’s over, but grateful I’m not walking tomorrow. I feel accomplished, but I know I should have done more. How do you explain missing your wife and your new Camino family?

I’m often asked if I’ve seen the movie The Way. I haven’t. Nor do I want to. “Do you walk it for religious reasons?” I’m Catholic, but no, I don’t walk the Camino to find God or for any other spiritual reason. If I can’t find God walking with my wife, running into the ocean, or sitting alone with my dog in a park at night, I won’t see the Almighty as I place a rock on Cruz de Ferro or sit in a cathedral that’s hundreds of years old.

If God, the Universe, Allah, Buddha—or whatever you want to call Him, Her, or They, or whatever name is in fashion at the moment—isn’t with you on the way to work, in the line at Trader Joe’s, working out in the gym, or when you’re sitting on your couch, you won’t find Them on the Camino either. But you might be fooled into thinking you did.

But I understand the need to look for something more than yourself. Sometimes, it’s easier to accept that another place or person has the answers to all your problems. Especially when you undertake a journey that stretches you physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Sometimes, we need to suffer without the comfort of our bed.

So I tell whoever is curious that I walk the Camino de Santiago to suffer, to feel pain, and to walk in fraternity with the millions of people who genuinely suffer—who live with cancer, hunger, heartache, depression, poverty; whose child died of cystic fibrosis, was killed in war; whose spouse left them for another, or for thousands of reasons that go beyond my petty pain. I try to suffer because I have been blessed—or cursed—not to have suffered.

I remember running up O Cebreiro—eight steep kilometers into the clouds. When I finished, I walked into a chapel that was more than 1,100 years old. The candles flickered. The hard wooden kneelers dug into my knees as I prayed.

I thought of my wife. Of those who couldn’t walk. Of those who truly suffer.

I ran for a little girl with a brain tumor who died 31 years ago. I prayed. I hoped to hear something. But I didn’t.

Funny thing, I even ran for my sister-in-law, hoping she and my wife would join me next year.

I ran for those who could not.

And yes, I also ran for myself. Because at 59, I did something no one else could.

I walk (or run) the Camino to suffer—to do something hard and challenge my body. That’s what I tell myself every time.

But the real reason is something different and unexpected. It’s the reason I come back year after year. And truthfully, it is the reason I keep going. It allows me to see a glint of heaven.

When I’m asked on the Camino why I’m walking, my answer is always the same: I’m walking to meet you.

I walked to meet a husband and wife from Idaho, who shared their love for their son. Or the ethics professor from Canada, thinking about becoming a priest. And the five young Spanish men who left home for the first time, believing the Camino was just one big party—and I guess it was for them.

I met the lawyer from Colorado, cussing at the rain while putting plastic bags around his feet.

I humbled-bragged to the grandmother from Paris that I was on my fifth Camino. She sweetly told me in broken English that she was on her eighth Camino. And she was 78. She’s why I walk the Camino.

I met a widow who lost her husband two years ago, and the mother whose daughter died from cancer.

I smiled when a sweet lady from Memphis told me she was walking the Camino because her husband could not.

I even walked to meet the journalist who attacked the Camino like she had to win it.

This year, I walked the Camino to be with my daughters and my niece. To witness their strength and resilience shine with every mile. To see that they were stronger and better than most men. I could not be more proud.

So now I’m home, having achieved something less than one percent of one percent of the world has done. While that’s something, the world still hasn’t changed. And I’m still me.

My friends are still the same. There is still war in Gaza and Ukraine. The United States is divided. The President rambles on. And for some unknown reason, my wife still loves me, not because I did this, but because I am me.

Nothing has changed, and yet everything has. I have changed.

That’s the point of goals: not to change the world, but to be changed. To rediscover who we are and realize we are better than we thought. To grow beyond what we believed was possible.

Most people will never walk the Camino de Santiago, but at least once in their lives, they should commit to a personal pilgrimage that demands suffering, reflection, and resilience. Something that forces them to look inward, to dig deep, and prove they have the will and character to endure.

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Thanks for reading. As every pilgrim says to every pilgrim: Buen Camino.

Love to you and yours,
Michael