Life Lessons Learned Backpacking: Book Excerpt Lesson 2

19 February 2009

I have been writing a short book about life lessons I’ve learned from backpacking.  I have also given slideshow presentations on my lessons to middle school students.  I thought I would take excerpts from my “book” (I use that term very loosely) and post them here since, this is a blog about the outdoors.  So with out further ado here is the excerpt from…

 

Chapter 2, Lesson 2

I only vaguely remember telling people that I wanted to hike the AT, just over 2,100 miles.  I do remember hearing that I was crazy.  The same phenomena happened when I started talking about the PCT.  Granted this time I had a little more credibility but still, people thought I was crazy. 

 

The funny part about it is that I never found a rational argument for me being crazy.  I looked.  I thought, maybe these people are right.  Let me take a step back for a minute and analyze the situation.  Am I crazy?  Now at this point I realize you are probably saying yes, “this chick is crazy, look at her, she is talking to herself.”  But don’t hold that against me.  It’s my way of working things out in my head.  Just keep on reading and see how this one turns out.   

 

As it turns out, I wasn’t crazy or at least I didn’t think I was crazy.  Why was hiking 2,100 miles and then turning around the next year and hiking 2,600 miles so crazy?  Seriously, is living in a tarptent for 12 out of 18 months really so off the wall?  It’s much safer and more prudent then it was walking to my car late at night in Philadelphia.  It’s much safer and healthier then driving down I-15 in Southern California.  But people didn’t believe that those were valid arguments to prove that I wasn’t crazy. 

 

From this entire experience I learned another important lesson.  “It’s ok if other people don’t understand your dream; it is, after all, yours.”

 

So yeah, lesson two is pretty simple as well.  Tell yourself that it’s ok if other people don’t get your dream.  Prepare yourself; someone won’t “get it.”  It doesn’t matter how simple your brilliant dream is.  Your dream could be something that happens every day for other people.  No matter how sane your dream is, someone still won’t get it.  That’s ok, don’t worry about it. 

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Life Lessons Learned Backpacking: Book Excerpt, Chapter 1

12 February 2009

I have been writing a short book about life lessons I’ve learned from backpacking.  I have also given slideshow presentations on my lessons to middle school students.  I thought I would take excerpts from my “book” (I use that term very loosely) and post them here since, this is a blog about the outdoors.  So with out further ado here is the excerpt from…

 

Chapter 1, Lesson 1

Throughout life, I’ve always had this secret fear of letting people down.  Sometimes that’s not a bad thing.  It makes me accountable to those people.  Sometimes it’s a really bad thing and I put my dreams and goals on hold to make sure that I don’t let someone else down. 

 

I had one of those “a-ha moments”.  An epiphany if you will.  I realized that I had to set some goals, dream some dreams.  They needed to be realistic but grandiose at the same time.  It can be a difficult line to walk but I needed to be toeing the line. 

 

The goal had to be lofty, worthwhile, something that I really felt passionate about doing.  My goal was hiking.  I wanted to be out there having an experience and by the time I finished the AT (and my now ex-boyfriend had finished breaking my heart), I knew my goal was to hike the PCT from Mexico to Canada.  Now, walking even a few hundred miles is a pretty large undertaking but hiking a few thousand.  That’s a pretty massive task.  However, it was reasonable; I mean other people had done it so why not me?  

 

So here is lesson number one:  “Don’t be afraid to dream big.”  In fact, you have my blessing, permission and my plea.  DREAM BIG!  Do it, give it a try.  See how it feels.  Do you feel empowered?  Do you feel relieved to have finally allowed yourself the opportunity to let your mind wander?  Go on, let your mind wander.  Let it unlock your secret desires, goals and dreams.  It can be a moment of clarity for some.  For others, allowing their mind to dream big is a moment of catharsis.  Whatever it ends up being for you, you must do it.  How else are you going to know what “the thing you want most” is? 

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