Every year, there are more than 700,000 lives lost to suicide around the world.
Max, known online as ‘One Step Max’, has taken it upon himself to walk 700,000 kilometres to represent each life lost.
Each day is an adventure for Max, and he says he never knows quite where his journey will take him.
“When I first started this journey, the first rule I made was to make no plans,” he says.
“That way, I can never be disappointed because I never know what’s going to turn up.
“So, if I need to spend time with somebody, I’ve got time up my sleeve.”
Max’s quest began in October 2025, and he says his own experience with constant nightmares and other life difficulties for 25 years of his life was the driving force behind his decision.
“I learned how to stop them, and once I learned how, it was my turn to stand up and go help others that are finding themselves having difficulty,” he says.
“My intention is 700,000 kilometres, [which is] 18 times around the Earth on the equator, and it’s one for each of the lives lost to suicide worldwide.”
The suicide awareness advocate has walked almost 155,000 kilometres so far and is now on his fourth lap of the earth.
Max has a growing following online, and for each new member that he gains, he issues a challenge.
“Each week, you donate one kilometre,” he says.
“You wake up in the morning, you go to the bathroom, and the kitchen, check the mail, walk to the shops. You walk a kilometre without even trying.
“All I ask is, you walk that one kilometre with the intention of helping somebody. So, if we all walk with that intention, then nobody goes without help.”
Max tags every post online with the same byline, reminding those around him to be kind to themselves, take the time to listen and to smile every day.
These, he says, are things that he has learnt on his own journey.
“One of my favourite words in the world is ignorance, and that’s purely because it’s a lack of knowledge,” he says.
“Once you gain the knowledge, then you’re no longer ignorant, and if you’ve been gifted the experience, then you’ve got wisdom. Wisdom money cannot buy.
“One of the biggest battles that we fight in this life is in our own minds, and we generally tend to be more crucial or critical of ourselves than we are of other people. We let other people get away with all sorts of rubbish in our lives, but we’ll punish ourselves.
“Other people to that to us. I think we should always be kind to ourselves first and then if somebody is unkind to us, it says more about them than it does about us.”
The 56-year-old recently stopped by in Temora and says it was the Junee Liquorice Factory that drew him to our town, although he’s already being embraced by the community and says he is thankful to meet the local community.
Along the way, Max says he meets some truly incredible and inspirational individuals and says they are part of what keeps him going each day.
“Talking to them means a hell of a lot to me,” he says.
I mean, people come out of the woodwork and they’re willing to speak and then when people speak and they feel heard, then we no longer have that load that we carry, and we get that out of ourselves and then we feel that little bit lighter.
“If we walk together, we all make the world a nicer place.”
Hope, he says, is something that comes after worth, and worth comes after being heard.
“Once we are heard, then we feel worthy, and once we feel worthy, then there’s hope and when there’s hope, there’s a future,” he says.
“When I’m out on the road, stop and have a yarn.”
Elizabeth Kovacs
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