Around the Corner, A New Year

In just a few days there'll be one more year into the past. For better or worse whatever hasn't been done isn't and it is time to look ahead. This isn't some rosy post about resolutions. I have one goal for 2018. There are mileposts along the way but just one goal.

I haven't exactly kept it a secret that I've been at least thinking about a long hike over the last couple years. There's been experimental hikes, planning, and now training. Miles and miles of walking at a brisk pace while under thirty or more pounds of gear. 2018 contains quite the adventure; some would view it as a frivolous, selfish, grueling ordeal of privation. They're probably the same people that have worked the same underappreciated position at the same job for twenty years out of apathy and terror.

By the same token, the same "traditional career" jobs will be forever closed to someone like me. Ageist managers don't want someone who isn't young and impressionable. Managers who have attained their position by Peter Principle would be in fear for their jobs based on my life experiences alone. Add in a successful thru-hike, the perceived tenacity, and the rest would know it's just a matter of time before I shoulder past them up the ranks. Further, I would be miserable trading in the fresh air, trees, and mountains for a cubicle, substandard computer and petty coworkers. Physical labor jobs might be temporarily satisfying, but only for busywork. Abuse, anxiety, and depression have all taken their toll, any of those jobs would just be a disaster waiting to happen. If society had a use for people like me, I haven't found it yet.

But all that will be something to remember in a fistful of months. In a few days, it will be a new year and the opportunities have just to be revealed. I have projects on hold until after the trail unless I want to work on them from the wilderness. I think I'll be busy walking, eating, being tired, hangry, wet, cold, hot, astonished, awestruck, inspired, motivated and present.

A long hike is a valuable reboot. It becomes a chance to ground, have a simple goal with simple tools and get back to taking each day as it comes. To meet a challenge and surmount it with the resources you either had the foresight to bring or the fortitude to carry.