To complete the Yoda hack...."Do or not Do, to yourself only must you justify."Originally Posted by JC13
Just what are those responsibilities? Can they be met while you're hiking? Quitting a job, giving up five or six months of income typically carries risks and consequences, unless you're well-off financially or retired. Got a family? Kids? Others that need your support? Paying for a house, car, or health insurance? That can make it tough. Most AT thru hikers are either young, pre-career, or retired. Most are fresh out high school, college, or military service. Thru-hikers in mid-life or mid-career are relatively rare.
A handful are just sort of... trail bums. They lead a relatively marginal existence, catch odd jobs where they can, and live to hike.
I was mid-career, no kids, no debts, recently divorced. The choice was easy. Sticking with that choice was harder.
One of my biggest hurdles will be clearing it through work. Since I likely won't have 6 months of vacation time, I will have to get special approval from the State. Unfortunately, there isn't much room for negotiation at this level. Even if I am able to get approval for the time, I will have to prepay all of my insurance premiums and who know what else. Six months off work won't be cheap either but, I'm sure it will be worth it.
Worst case scenario, I am faced with walking away from a good job with benefits and a solid retirement...just to go on a walk while I am reasonable young. While there are days when this option sounds okay...I hope I can work something out...because I'm probably going to do it anyway...lol.
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2017 will be my 3rd attempt at a thru after failing the last two times. Having tried and failed feels ok. At least its better than sitting in my lazy boy recliner wondering what it would have been like.
Simple is good.
Also, I'm not justifying quitting a job or responsibilities to take a half year off to thru hike the AT. Just saying if you don't try, it will nag you for a long, long time.
Simple is good.
It's totally unjustifiable. Stay home.
I agree with Deadeye. I honestly started dreaming about thru hiking when I was 20 years old. I thru hiked in 2013 when I was 56 years old and had retired from teaching and coaching! I waited 36 years.I had four kids and my youngest was a freshmen in college and a son was a senior. I actually got an incentive to retire that year. I think if you have to quit your good job and give up your good pension you may live to regret it.
Justification to Thru Hike...
Maybe there should be an app for that.
The 20 answers inside a standard Magic 8 Ball are:
It is certain
It is decidedly so
Without a doubt
Yes, definitely
You may rely on it
As I see it, yes
Most likely
Outlook good
Yes
Signs point to yes
Reply hazy try again
Ask again later
Better not tell you now
Cannot predict now
Concentrate and ask again
Don't count on it
My reply is no
My sources say no
Outlook not so good
Very doubtful
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball
lo. the all knowing AT magical crystal ball.
Talk to those who have done it.
Haven't found anyone that regretted it, me included.
That should be justification enough.
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GAME '16 4/18/16-8/12/16
Trailjournal: http://www.trailjournals.com/jjdontplay
Blog (Post Trail Gear Reviews): https://keeppushingon.wordpress.com/
Lions don't worry about sheep because they usually don't live in the same location.
The justification for doing it is 1) you want to, and 2) you have no guarantees in life so why not.
I'd get clear whether it is you alone who is desiring justification based on your own beliefs and doubts OR is someone else demanding you to justify your decision based on their doubts or beliefs of what doing a thru-hike means. YOU define what your thru-hike will mean.
This is the more important, know the WHYS you are considering thru hiking. KNOW WHY you've decided to thru-hike and know, with clarity, the WHY you decided not to thru-hike. Make those WHYS so powerful, so positive, so clear, so huge, so grounded in your being. The deeper and purer your whys, the greater your ability to conquer and the easier it is to know your justifications. The whys will help you during your hike and the justifications will be empowering you rather than be a hurdle.
Quitting responsibilities is NOT, DEFINITELY NOT, a requirement for doing a thru-hike. If that is what you believe you are mistaken. Don't do a thru-hike with the thought you are quitting or avoiding commitments or responsibilities. Don't organize a thru-hike to run away from commitment or responsibility for you will surely eventually realize that completing a thru-hike entails a huge amount of commitment and personal responsibility that everyone does not rise to the occasion of. Mind you this type of personal responsibility may be viewed differently then off trail or not understood by those who have never experienced a thru-hike based on empowering oneself and others but it is NO LESS VALID for it certainly involves stepping up to fulfill commitments and personal responsibility in some of the most fundamental ways that are often assumed for granted.
This is one of the most beautiful aspects of doing a thru-hike - the vast opportunity for experiencing exponential personal development, empowerment, and practicing critical thinking skills. A thru-hike is about greater self awareness, commitment and responsibility...NOT LESS. Don't let it be less. A thru-hike DOE NOT have to be defined by you as imposing yourself! Thru-hiking DOES NOT HAVE TO BE defined or experienced as a self absorbed selfish vacation experience where one is goofing off, satisfying exuberant misguided youthful wild oats, or an attempt to be something your not. Traveling and thru-hiking is about exploring you and the world with a more profound perspective. Thru-hiking can be approached in an attitude and willingness to contribute to bettering the welfare of others such as an evangelist does which simply can mean - a messenger of good tidings - minus the religious connotations. A thru-hike can be approached as a learning experience that will help you socially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically...and career wise. Thru-hiking can be deemed one of the best and cheapest self improvement seminars, obstacle courses, inspirational and entrepreneurial events, and gym memberships imaginable. Thru hiking can be a sobering experience that leads one onto a new pattern of single minded thinking rather than being wishy washy, double minded, or constantly being a doubting Thomas. Thru-hiking can be about investing in a better you, a more joyous, wiser, loving, generous, hopeful, positive, optimistic, and insightful you and a better world. Thru hiking is about following through!
The thru hiking experience can help you get clear about career paths and lifestyle choices. Decisions that can be parlayed into more rewarding career choices based on what you feel compassionate and inspired about pursuing rather than following a boring rote as determined by others career path that could result in you becoming a talented leader in your choice of career and lifestyle. A six month thru-hike can be a reboot resulting in a clarity and sobriety from the entrapments of civilization and other cultural noise that results in you knowing what you want to personally stand for and how to let go of that which you come to realize is not taking you in the most empowering direction. Think. Don't let anyone tell you a thru hike can't be parlayed into a resume building integrated stepping stone to a better more qualified more rewarding career life. When you define your thru-hike as a character building success oriented goal driven critical social skills building achievement attaining event where you repeatedly had to expand your awarenesses on a daily basis, stick to schedules, push past untold challenges, and repeatedly demonstrate cooperative effective team unity and equally the ability to be a a quick self starter that has enabled you to see clearly what you have to offer and the direction you want to go potential employees will listen! If they don't find one that values what you have to offer!
Don't sell yourself short. Don't sell the thru hiking experience short of what it can be. You define it. Thru-hiking can be the opportunistic vehicle of a lifetime that opens you up to a new exciting you or stokes that which is already in you waiting to to be unleashed with the help of a Greater Power, GOD, Nature, The Great OM, Universe, or whatever.
Once you plan for and define your thru-hike(your goal) in these terms and organize it as such the personal justifications should be what stokes you to go after it rather than be something that you see as a hurdle. A thru-hike should be something designed that you seek to run to, to embrace, to better yourself, and better the world not something that you do to run away from commitment, responsibility, and that which in your heart and soul you know you should be doing instead.
When you're in the right place doing the right thing in the right season that the Universe called in you to do in that season no matter how hard, how challenging, or how gut wrenching it may seem, you'll know it.
Even if you are married?
Apart from everything else-- meaning the really important justifications which the OP needs to wrestle with -- I would remind him that a whole lot of folks discover they neither have the physical ability (injuries or resilience), emotional mindset, or desire to complete a thru hike AFTER they are out on the Trail.
I would recommend that he screw all family vacations next year and hike a few weeks at 12 -15 miles a day, and ponder how he can justify 6 months of that, together with all the other changes he will foist upon his family.
That will ill yield a far better answer than any of us can come up with, I think.
You have to let go of everything temporarily to do it. That's part of the allure. If you're lucky - aka in the right statistic percentile - justification will manifest while you're on the trail and you may go on to complete it.
"Though I have lost the intimacy with the seasons since my hike, I retain the sense of perfect order, of graceful succession and surrender, and of the bold brilliance of fall leaves as they yield to death." - David Brill
I've been lurking here for a long time but this topic was the first one to lure me into registering and posting. I've wrestled with this question a lot as I prepare for my 2017 NOBO thru.
I'm a little atypical for a thru-hiker, I’m in my late 30s which brings different concerns and challenges compared to those on either end of the age/career spectrum. On the plus side, I can afford to be unemployed for an extended period, don't have any family obligations, and am in physical condition to complete the trek (I hope). Who knows whether I'll have all those things going for me in the future? On the other hand, I'll be walking away from a great job, I live alone and have to figure out what to do with my house (do I sell the house and store my stuff? rent it?, find someone to watch/maintain it? etc...), and am recovering from an injury that’s taken me away from distance running for almost 6 months (will I be fully healed by Spring?).
As I’ve tried to justify the idea of a thru-hike it's been no-contest, a thru-hike would single handedly be the dumbest, most irresponsible thing I've ever done. That said, in my entire adult life I haven't been half as excited about anything as I am the prospect of a thru-hike, I'm ready for some life changes regardless of whether or not I take the plunge, and I think I can do it without "the end of the world". Greenlight's comment kind of sums up the argument I've made to myself:
For me, there's no way to justify a thru-hike using purely logical arguments, I'll risk giving up a lot of what I've worked hard for over the years (whether or not a thru-hike will have a major negative impact is debatable but I have to consider the possibility). What I've started to realize is that so many of those old clichés really do have meaning: you only live once, you can't take it with you, you only regret the things you don't do, take your pick, they're all beginning to seem increasingly prescient. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I feel the need to justify the hike then I’m probably not ready to make the commitment.
Fortunately, I’m losing the urge to justify.
Don't just stand there, brother, drink the Kool-Aid; it's cherry!
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I totally agree with Engine. I have also dreamed of one day hiking the AT but realistically i could not because of my job which i had every intentions on hopefully retiring from one day. i am happy to say that at 50 yrs young i am now retired as of last week and will finally pursue my life long dream. My point is, while you don't have to justify what you are passionate about, there is still a level of prioritizing. But if you have the the luxury and the support to quit your job and follow your dream, then by all means go for it. Happy trails
MarkD,
Go on a section hike. Can be a few days or a few weeks, whatever time you can work out. Make the decision from the trail, not from your living room. Stand on a mountaintop or sleep under the stars or navigate through a rock jungle - and then decide if you want to do this.
Oh, and by the way,
For the past few years, I have been focused on retiring early and attempting a thru hike "some day". Work has been a bit slow this year, so I was able to take 18 days to hike the Ouachita Trail in May, and 38 on the Colorado Trail from August 25th to October 1. I can say I'm hooked. I am planning a thru starting in April 2017, either on the AT or PCT.
I'm delaying early retirement for a slightly later retirement. In my line of work, there is a chance for debilitating injury almost every day, so hiking now while I'm healthy rather than waiting for a retirement that may not come just makes sense to me. I'm lucky that I have a supportive wife, a career that does not penalize if I drop out for months, and no children.
I would agree with those who say to get out and hike. I would suggest a week at least. It's possible that you might not enjoy long distance hiking, and weekend trips are for you. There is nothing wrong with that, but better to find out before you quit a job. Also, having supportive family is important. If your spouse isn't on board, you will have a hard time. Life goes on at home, and you don't need to hear about how everything is falling apart when you call home.
If you have a support from home, and can handle the financial hit, do it. No better time than now!
-Journeyman
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