Woman on an 8,000-mile trek for 'happiness' reaches Phoenix

What matters most in life? That’s the question Paula Francis seeks to answer as she treks 8,000 miles across the country.

You can’t miss Francis walking along the road, sporting a neon orange vest with the phrase “Serious About Happiness” stretched across the back and wearing equally neon worn-down running shoes. Sunday, she'll reach her 4,000-mile halfway point in Phoenix.

The plan for the Happiness Walk was for Francis to walk across the U.S. in a loop asking each person she meets what happiness means to them. She began in Montreal, Quebec, wound her way down the east coast and crossed the United States toward the west coast. After hitting her halfway point in Phoenix, she'll walk up the west coast through Washington and then back east to her home in Vermont.

“I haven’t heard a single person say yet, ‘We have too much happiness in this world and everything is just right,’” she said.

Measuring happiness

The term Gross National Happiness was coined in 1972 by the king of Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayas. When he was asked about the gross domestic product of his country, he responded that they measure success and progress by the people’s happiness. That country continues to measure GNH to this day, using happiness percentages to measure outcome.

Francis heard about GNH from a friend who had traveled to Bhutan, and she learned more when she visited the country herself. She returned home and started the nonprofit organization Gross National Happiness USA.

“We educated ourselves and started educating the rest of the country on this different, optimistic approach for creating success and well-being, which is making happiness our bottom line,” she said.

She said shifting focus onto things that truly matter and measuring those, as opposed to things like wealth or financial standing, allows people to engross themselves in what is most important. The challenge, she said, is that the source of happiness differs from person to person.

In 2012, Francis began to walk.

“My friend and I started a much smaller walk - seven weeks - walking from Vermont to Washington D.C.," she said. "We started asking people that question, 'What matters most in life?'"

Francis pulled out a recorder, explaining that she has interviewed each person she talked to about their source of happiness. The organization transcribes the interviews and send them to specialists at the University of Vermont to have the answers analyzed.

The idea wasn’t just to collect information, however, but to also get people to consider the question.

“The conversations themselves are incredible. Some people told me they haven’t even stopped to think about the idea,” she said. “To me, it’s one of the most important questions we could ever reflect on.”

Years of walking

After her first walk, Francis “caught the bug,” and just wanted to keep walking. But she had obligations - a job, a husband and three daughters. She walked more and more every year as her kids grew up. In 2014, she quit her job and began her 8,000 mile excursion around the U.S.

Currently, Francis walks 20 miles a day on average, and sometimes as many as 34. She’s worn through nine pairs of shoes and doesn’t wear headphones so she can appreciate the environment around her. Her walk is funded primarily through donations.

“There’s not always a town at the end of those 20 miles …. I do carry camping gear, but I haven’t used it yet,” Francis said.

Francis has stayed in a variety of places, from abandoned fire stations to the homes of those inspired by her message.

That was how she stumbled upon Brianna James, a Phoenix resident who met Francis in Payson when James and her daughter went on a trip.

James saw Francis looking for water and sparked up conversation. She asked Francis where they were staying in Phoenix and Francis said they didn’t know yet.

“I said randomly, ‘You can stay at my place!’” James said.  “I mean, I don’t do that. I have a daughter. Like what kind of example did I just set?”

Driving back from Payson, James and her daughter spotted Francis walking along the side of the road. That was when the reality of what Francis was doing set in.

“Seeing the positivity, because I don’t do that, and just hearing her stories makes me think maybe I can look at things in a different way,” James said.

Francis stayed with James while in Phoenix and James planned to be walking with Francis while she hits her 4,000 mile mark.

Francis said the  outpouring of generosity she’s encountered in her walk was what surprised her the most.

“I knew the world was a lot more friendly than what we tend to see,” she said.

'Grueling at times'

The journey, while ultimately rewarding, hasn’t been easy.

“Certainly it’s grueling at times,” Francis said. “Walking 30 miles in the 105 degree weather, there are some aspects that are hard, and you see some tough things on the road sometimes.”

Initially the struggles were physical. Then it became more of a mental exercise.

She’s had to push through phases of her travels when she doesn’t see civilization for the entire day. She said she’s walked right past a dead body, finding out about it later on the news. She’s also been away from her family for long stretches of time, only seeing her husband and daughters for brief moments. She spends around eight months walking and the other four months reconnecting with her family.

“Life happens. Crappy stuff happens,” she said. “It’s how you engage with people and it’s how you deal with those situations.”

The journey has had a significant impact on Francis' family, especially on her 23-year-old daughter Julia.

“My mom has always been a caretaker and a nurturer … she’s always been focused on the well-being of everyone else,” Julia said.  “For the first time in her life, I think she’s pursuing something purely for her own happiness."

Julia said it was hard at first to not have her mom nearby. But the quest has changed her life, too, she said.

“It’s made me think about what is going to be fulfilling for myself,” she said.

Francis said it’s been hard for her family to grasp why she’s doing what she’s doing, and she can’t fully explain it herself.

“When you find your calling, you just have to answer it,” she said. “It’s a shame when your calling comes around and you don’t hear it. I tried to pay attention.”