Life and Practicalities

Life and Practicalities — What a 10 Kilometer Hike Can Teach Us About Life

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Darbella and I often head off for a hike. We manage a hike pretty much every day.

This, in addi­tion to stick­ing to an exer­cise plan fea­tur­ing yoga, helps to keep us going on our adventures.

Hik­ing in Sámara isn’t too bad, as it’s a beach town, and is there­fore flat. Hot temps, but flat. Oth­er places, like Lis­bon, con­sist of hills, typ­i­cal­ly in what­ev­er direc­tion we’re walking.

We’re present­ly in Mar­rakesh. Here things are flat, but pot-holed and rife with motor­cy­cles, peo­ple push­ing carts, cars, etc.

Dar­bel­la and I have been hik­ing / back­pack­ing / walk­ing / trav­el­ling togeth­er since 1984, which is a lot of years. We’ve learned a thing or two about walking.

Being me, I got to think­ing, a lot of what we know about hik­ing is help­ful for liv­ing the Zen life in general.

So here, in no par­tic­u­lar order, are some ideas that apply to both!

Don’t Cheap Out

We both have great boots, col­lapsi­ble walk­ing sticks, good packs of dif­fer­ent sizes, and we’re end­less­ly upgrading. 

We cer­tain­ly don’t go run­ning off after fads, or buy the most expen­sive stuff. We do ask for rec­om­men­da­tions, and read reviews.

We’ve learned that it’s false econ­o­my to buy cheap stuff, and even dumb­er to put off the essentials.

Life costs.

I had 2 or 3 clients dur­ing my 32 year career as a ther­a­pist that want­ed to be ther­a­pists, and who also thought earn­ing a Mas­ters degree was too cost­ly, would take too long, etc. 

They wanted me to persuade “someone” to just give them the degree just because they wanted one.

On the oth­er hand, a good friend decid­ed she wants to be a den­tist. She had to do some High School, then a BA, then a Mas­ters. She com­plet­ed her DDS degree after she turned 50! 

That’s invest­ing in the good stuff.

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Plan, but don’t go nuts

Dar­bel­la is an invet­er­ate map read­er. I like them too, and know that I depend a bit on Dar’s nature to know where we are and where we are heading. 

On the oth­er hand, the sec­ond time we were in the Boston area, I nav­i­gat­ed from the oth­er side of Fen­way Park to Faneuil Hall on memory.

We tend to have the basics cov­ered, and then we head off, trust­ing our guts, and wing­ing it. 

Which does­n’t mean it always goes smooth­ly. We’ve cer­tain­ly got­ten our­selves twist­ed around in the great out­doors, where mile­stones are hid­den by trees. And now that we’ve “grad­u­at­ed” to Google Maps, head­ing 180 degrees in the wrong direc­tion hap­pens regularly.

For­tu­nate­ly, between us, one or the oth­er of us catched the mis-direc­tion, and back on track we go.

Life requires direc­tion, with­out being anal about it.

Some folk sim­ply talk a good show, and have tons of plans and dia­grams to show what they are going to accom­plish one day. And all that hap­pens is that the plans get more and more refined — and noth­ing mate­ri­al­izes in the real world..

Oth­ers go off half cocked, chas­ing the lat­est buzz, craze, or lust object. No thought, no point, oth­er than, “Well, it’s got to be bet­ter than here!”

Plan­ning and “good boots” go hand in hand. You then can take a step and eval­u­ate.
But it’s all about mov­ing from map, to plan, to action.
Thought­ful action!

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Pick, then commit

The only hike Dar and I have been on that we did­n’t com­plete was up Gros Morne Moun­tain in Newfoundland. 

We’d screwed up a day hike the day before (we actu­al­ly trust­ed a New­found­land Map and then saw the small type, “Not to scale.”) 

I was tired, and Dar was feel­ing peck­ish. We gave up, in 90 degree heat, about 3/4 of the way up. The worst moment? We were tak­ing a rest on the way down, and a fit, blond woman with full back­pack comes storm­ing up the trail. 

She short­ed at me as she want by! Snort­ed. But I don’t dwell on such things. (That hike was 25 years ago or so… 😉 )

Oth­er than that one time, when we pick a hike, we also fin­ish the hike. Even if we (like today) are drag­ging our aging bod­ies over cobblestones.

Life requires mind­ful dedication

A cou­ple of gen­er­a­tions are con­vinced that life and goals “should be” easy – that stuff is served up on plat­ters – that they don’t even have to leave home until every­thing is perfect. 

Some of my clients used to say, “But what if I pick wrong?”

It took me decades to get to what I real­ly want­ed to do, despite a diver­sion or two down a scary or dumb road. Been there, done that. I learned that, most­ly, we can cor­rect our course along the way, but we have to be on a course to cor­rect it.

Life needs peo­ple will­ing to live their voca­tion, despite the cost in time, effort, ded­i­ca­tion.
There will be times when the going is almost impos­si­ble, and giv­ing up seems the best option.
And yes, some­times giv­ing up makes sense.
But in gen­er­al, the rule ought to be, “Give up when anoth­er step is impos­si­ble,” not when you get irri­tat­ed that actu­al effort is involved.

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Watch Where you Put Your Feet

In my younger days, a com­bi­na­tion of karate and back­pack­ing led to my sprain­ing both of my ankles a few times (sep­a­rate­ly, of course.) 

My ankles are quite weak, or more descrip­tive­ly, the lig­a­ments are stretched. I can turn my ankle on a peb­ble. And hik­ing boots can only do so much. The col­lapsi­ble walk­ing stick I now use has saved my bacon dozens of times since I bought it.

What this means is that, if I want to fin­ish a hike, I have to be con­stant­ly alert to where I place my feet.

Life requires pay­ing attention

There are pit­falls, snakes in the grass, and obsta­cles every­where. Real­ly, no one has you in mind, but you.

Well, Clifton does, but he wants mon­ey. (Inside joke. Dar and I were leav­ing the Straw Mar­ket in Mon­tego Bay, Jamaica, look­ing for a bank. Clifton offered to take us to a bank. All the way along, it was, “Watch out for that crack, mon! Care­ful, mon, the road is uneven. Move yer hips, mon…”)

Most­ly, there is no Clifton, and most­ly, the rocks and ruts on the path are pret­ty obvi­ous. If we’re “head in the clouds,” we miss the cow poop at our feet.
It’s not some­one else’s job to pay atten­tion for you.

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Look Around

On the oth­er hand, Mar­rakesh is love­ly, there are squir­rels and birds and bugs, and inter­est­ing, unusu­al stuff all around. The view on today’s walk was love­ly, and star­ing only at the ground means you miss the good stuff.

Life is a one shot deal

Take the time to see what’s hap­pen­ing. Go adven­tur­ing, take the trip, change dance part­ners, look around, sniff the air. Being so focused on your feet means you miss the dra­ma, the big pic­ture, the stuff that life is made of.

Stop. Stand still. Shut up. Stop prat­tling on like you know some­thing, and just see what’s right there. Soak it in. Immerse your­self in the beau­ty and dra­ma of the only life you’ll ever have. Embrace it all, and move with delib­er­a­tion.
It’s so Zen to be present and sim­ply notice.

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Count the Consequences

Every hike has it’s toll. We crashed when we got back home, and my hips hurt. Tomor­row, there will be more aches and pains.

Part of it is get­ting old­er, but I remem­ber our very first back­pack trip. 

Dar screwed up a toe, and we also walked 25 km under heavy packs. 

Day 2, we crawled out from our tent, only to con­front two growl­ing migraines. 

We spent the day whin­ing, and Dar immersed her­self in the frigid waters of Geor­gian Bay — the water was too cold for me, so I sat on a rock and watched.

Life is the one thing you can’t get out of alive

This game has only one out­come – death. Not anoth­er run at it, not thrones or vir­gins. Dead. So, now are you moti­vat­ed to make yours count?

And here’s anoth­er flash - it could all end right now. This, “I’ve got all the time in the world” non­sense is what keeps you from liv­ing your dream. If you think you’ll get to it in a year or so, get over yourself.

It’s not mor­bid to live your life with a bit of anx­ious excite­ment, it’s real­i­ty. The walk is right in front of you, you’re bring­ing all you have along, and now is all you have avail­able to you.
The con­se­quence of life is death, yes, but between now and then is a road sur­round­ed by adven­ture and richness.

Pick up your hiking stick, and walk.

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