Every day I try harder than the day before. I genuinely wish this had been the case my entire life, but that is just not true. When I first began my college career, I felt adrift in a world that was rapidly maturing without me. I excelled in the classes I enjoyed, and coasted with minimal effort in those I found less appealing, assuming that I continued to go at all. My friends were contemplating the classes which would propel them into their careers, while I reflected upon the pervasive feeling of adolescence which others seemed to be shedding with ease. In all honesty, this was the worst part of my life. Saddled with so much potential, yet unable to grow enough to carry the burden, I felt smothered by an encroaching adulthood. So I quit.
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The situations in which I placed myself, sometimes recklessly, also helped to forge me into a stronger man. I found the courage to confront a bear that was following me in the dead of night, something of which I’m not entirely sure I would have been capable just a few months prior. On another night in Tennessee, not more than three weeks into my trek, completely soaked from a downpour earlier in the day, a blanket of thick fog descended upon me. I do not use these words lightly: what I experienced that night can only be described as mortal dread. I could not see my feet to find the trail, and if I stopped moving hypothermia would have rapidly set in. I stumbled my way over a bald mountain covering a distance in 4 hours which I would normally cross in less than thirty minutes. It was moments like these, coupling terror and exhilaration, in which I truly understood what it is to be alive. Through all of this, I was having more fun than any one man is entitled. That didn’t last, …show more content…
The multitude of hikers I experienced the first few days quickly gave way to isolation, as the vast majority who began at the same time, quickly fell to the wayside. Two months in, with four months to go, I had finally found the time for self-contemplation which I had so eagerly sought. These were the toughest months of my life. Every day I would wake up alone, I would travel alone, eat alone, and sleep alone, with only my thoughts to keep me company and the prospect of another thousand miles to go. I tried to quit. I called my mother from a phone booth in Maryland and through stifled sobs, I explained how difficult this had become and I was no longer having fun. She suggested I take a few days to come to terms with what this meant, and then act upon my decision. This was the transition from adolescence into maturity that I had desired, and yet I was contemplating giving up because it was becoming difficult. It was during this time that I came to understand that true achievement isn’t acquired without
The situations in which I placed myself, sometimes recklessly, also helped to forge me into a stronger man. I found the courage to confront a bear that was following me in the dead of night, something of which I’m not entirely sure I would have been capable just a few months prior. On another night in Tennessee, not more than three weeks into my trek, completely soaked from a downpour earlier in the day, a blanket of thick fog descended upon me. I do not use these words lightly: what I experienced that night can only be described as mortal dread. I could not see my feet to find the trail, and if I stopped moving hypothermia would have rapidly set in. I stumbled my way over a bald mountain covering a distance in 4 hours which I would normally cross in less than thirty minutes. It was moments like these, coupling terror and exhilaration, in which I truly understood what it is to be alive. Through all of this, I was having more fun than any one man is entitled. That didn’t last, …show more content…
The multitude of hikers I experienced the first few days quickly gave way to isolation, as the vast majority who began at the same time, quickly fell to the wayside. Two months in, with four months to go, I had finally found the time for self-contemplation which I had so eagerly sought. These were the toughest months of my life. Every day I would wake up alone, I would travel alone, eat alone, and sleep alone, with only my thoughts to keep me company and the prospect of another thousand miles to go. I tried to quit. I called my mother from a phone booth in Maryland and through stifled sobs, I explained how difficult this had become and I was no longer having fun. She suggested I take a few days to come to terms with what this meant, and then act upon my decision. This was the transition from adolescence into maturity that I had desired, and yet I was contemplating giving up because it was becoming difficult. It was during this time that I came to understand that true achievement isn’t acquired without