I want to have a big life.

I pack my schedule with work and fun and hobbies and side quests to the point that I genuinely don’t remember the last time I got a full 8 hours of sleep.

And (for now) I like it that way!!! In my head, I’m doing it ALL. And that was always the goal.

But I think I’ve gotten so used to always having somewhere to be or something to do that sometimes I find myself rushing through one thing because I’m already thinking about the next.

A few weeks ago, I took my first ever laptop free PTO to do something extremely inefficient:

Walk 260km from Portugal to Spain.

I met my family in Porto to set off on a 2-week trip walking the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage made up of different routes in Europe that all lead to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Yeah, we were about to walk about 161 miles because:

And at first, I was REALLY impatient 👇

As you can imagine, walking is a wildly inefficient way to get from Portugal to Spain.

I was telling an Uber driver about it and he was like, “It would be a lot faster if you biked.”

Like ok damn 😭

Look, I’m a New Yorker now!

I’m already a fast walker, and at first I was only focused on getting through that day’s 15 miles and getting to the next destination because then we could be DONE for the day!!

And who doesn’t love a feeling of achievement?!

But then my sister asked me:

“Are you gonna look around a little more?”

While walking alone, I literally asked myself, “How fast do I think I could do this? If I were to just really lock in on this walk, could I get it done in half the time?”

Now that I’ve reflected a bit on the trip, it’s like…why am I even trying to do this faster?

The whole point…is the walk.

I would be fast-forwarding walking by the Portuguese coast and in pretty forests and through random cool villages just to…be back at my tiny desk in my bedroom faster?

Sure, some parts of this were unpleasant:

Pretty tiring.

But when people ask me about the trip, I tell them it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever done and that I’d go back and do another route.

100% would do again and would recommend to anyone!!!

It’s so beautiful to actually be outside and in nature (I got a really sexy sock tan).

It’s nice having one priority for the whole day and it’s just to walk.

It’s cool navigating new places, meeting new people every single day, and ending up somewhere different every single night.

Uncomfortable at times, but very worth it.

What even is a comfort zone?!

We're constantly trying to make work and life faster, easier, automated, optimized. Calling myself out here.

But some experiences are super valuable specifically because of everything that happens along the way.

The Camino wouldn’t be the Camino without both the lists of unpleasant and awesome things above.

The experience is all the stuff in the middle: the random conversations, the places you didn’t plan on stopping, meeting new people, the inside jokes, and all the other little things that only happen because you spent two weeks walking somewhere you technically could’ve gotten to in a few hours.

This very email was born out of the 260km I walked, not me simply getting to the endpoint and taking my obligatory pic at the Cathedral.

The Mortel fam waited 13 years to do this trip. And then I got there and immediately started wondering how quickly I could finish it.

Insane behavior!!!!

Maybe you’re not planning to take the longest hot girl walk of your life across Portugal and Spain. But there’s probably something in your life you spent a long time wanting that you're now rushing through because you're already thinking about whatever comes next.

Look around a little more, boys and girls!!

Some of my fav pics and videos from the trip if you want to check them out :)

I tried the whole cold plunge, sauna, incense, breath work thing for the first time at Othership last week.

As much as I hate to say it, it was the most relaxed I’ve been all 2026 and I think I got the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years?

I lasted 2 seconds during the guided breath work before thinking about the 30,000 other things I have to do, so clearly sitting still and focusing on one thing is something I need to practice.

Usually my red light therapy comes from the club, but maybe they’re onto something!!!

polyester: a word the kids are using when something feels fake, overly curated, inauthentic or engineered to look cool instead of actually being cool.

Personally haven’t heard this one all that much, but interesting to see it making it’s way into some people’s vocab. Here’s an explainer Casey Lewis did about it!