Shownotes
Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 103 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.
Life is Like Hiking
Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 103 of our Trek. Yesterday we used the simile of how life is like a river. As rivers start with a single drop of water and eventually help to fill the oceans so our lives go through similar cycles. I hope that it was a helpful comparison that allowed you to gain wisdom. Today we are exploring the 10 lessons of How Life is Like Hiking Through the World.
In celebration of our 100th day of our Wisdom-Trek, please check out Wisdom-Trek.com, and sign up for our drawing for a free Wisdom-Trek t-shirt that will take place on October 5th.
We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. I am continuing to work on finishing the woodwork in our dining room and made additional progress this morning. It certainly will look nice once it is finished, but I probably will not reach my goal of completing the room before we leave for Charlotte on Sunday. If not, I will continue when we come back to The Big House at the end of this month.
As we start out on our Trek, let us think about some of the small blessings that we experience when hiking and allow them to remind us to be thankful for the small blessings that we experience each day on our trek of life. As we hike through the woods today, visualize and enjoy feeling the soft earth on the path, the crackling of dry twigs under your feet, having your mind blown by the perfect sunset, and feeling the humbling exhaustion of a day’s hike as you finally approach a long-awaited viewpoint.
Hiking on a trail is a powerful, active force that teaches important life lessons. The trails, like life, have an undeniable ability to drive home simple but often overlooked truths as you trek into wild forests, persevere through mountains and rocky coastal paths, and venture out of your comfort zone.
Here are 10 truths I have come across for how life is like hiking through the world.
1. Slowing Down Is Important
As you travel through life, you need to experience what it means to follow a path for the love of the journey and not in a mad rush to get to the end, or you will miss out on life’s simple pleasures. Hiking teaches you to slow down, observe the world around you and to listen to your body. When your feet can no longer trudge the path ahead, you learn the power of slowing down and gain a new appreciation by realizing that not every path will take you where you intended.
2. Perseverance Pays
Life is like a long hiking trail in various ways. Far too often, we give up on our hopes and dreams, overcome by dejection or disappointment. On the trail, you learn that as long as you put one foot in front of the other, you’re getting somewhere. “Keep moving forward” is a simple lesson, and when it’s applied to other aspects of life, it can produce major results. That crazy dream of yours that no one else believes in can come true if you just persevere and keep walking toward it.
3. Nature Is Powerful and Teaches You Humility
If you’re suffering from an inflated ego or far too much vanity in your life, take a long hike. God’s creation is a raw force, unfettered and unforgiving, that can take your breath away with the magnificence of a landscape or bring you to your knees with the ruthlessness of a freak storm. In the mountains, where the weather changes without warning and the vistas of river valleys get more rewarding the higher you get, a hike is a thorough lesson in humility and respect for those things that our outside of your control.
4. Solitude Can Be Inspiring
On the trail and in the midst of nature, you get a chance to filter through all the noise of people, social media updates, and smartphone notifications. You are able to just be yourself in your simplest form. You’re no longer the sum of a bunch of expectations. Instead, you’re free to choose your path and follow it. A hike gives you the rare opportunity to clear your head of all the clutter. It gives you a blank slate for your creativity to doodle genius ideas on. A lot of hikers say trekking feels therapeutic, leaving you inspired and replenished with the energies to cope with life’s challenges.
5. You’ll Cross That Bridge When You Come To It
You go through life spending so much time worrying about the known and the unknown, letting your enthusiasm and passions fade away. You focus on things you have zero control over, and sometimes this frantic life-planning stops you from taking the next step in the direction of your dreams. On a forest trail, it’s not uncommon to come across a river you didn’t know about, a rickety wooden bridge or a line of stones across a gushing stream you didn’t expect. You wade through it, or you nimbly cross over to the other side because going back to where you started is not an option. It never is, even in life. If you begin each day with this attitude, you’ll never stop yourself from taking risks by worrying about the consequences.
6. To Truly Appreciate Life, You Must Pay Attention
The true satisfaction of a beautiful hike lies in the journey itself. It’s in the burnt oranges of fire lilies along the trail, the white foam that hugs the sand on the side of a river, the birdsong that’s way sweeter than the voices in your head, and the colorful leaves of a crisp fall morning. You will miss these precious details if you aren’t paying attention. Hiking teaches you to look at the world and life itself with the curious and observant eyes of a child so you don’t miss the little joys.
7. Home Is a Feeling, Not a Place
Hikers are most at home on the trail and in the tranquil refuge of the woods, moving toward the next viewpoint, river crossing, or glen. The feeling of home comes from the ability to be yourself: focused, attentive, content and completely alive in the moment. This kind of contentment is what defines home and is not necessarily available to everyone who is stagnant.
8. Unexpected Turns Can Lead To Life-Changing Moments
You’re hiking along the marked trail, and you see a narrow path shooting off to the side. It’s the less trodden path that stirs up your curiosity, and before you know it, you’ve ventured onto it. These unexpected detours can bring some of the most wonderful blessings into our lives. The point is you’re more likely to experience life-changing moments and epiphanies if you’re open to taking risks and venturing off the beaten path, which is something you do naturally as a hiker.
9. The Power of Kindness and Gratitude
Even the most experienced and prepared hikers can get lost or caught up in a sudden shower. They discover the true meaning of gratitude when they encounter the warm kindness of a total stranger. From a hand drawn map or a warm meal to a roof over their head for the night, there’s no scarcity of kindness in the world. Kindness and gratitude go hand in hand, and appreciating their value makes life’s journey more beautiful.
10. In The End, It’s Always Worth It
You’ll never get to see the awe-inspiring view from the top if you don’t walk the many difficult miles to get there. This includes taking the wrong turn, running out of water, sleeping under the stars, or pushing past your fear of heights. We are the sum of our life choices, dreams, aspirations, mistakes, and the risks we take to get where we want to be. We might not always make the best decisions, and things won’t always go as we plan. But in the end, it’s all worth it. If it doesn’t feel like that, it probably isn’t the end.
Let us give thanks to God for his wonders that we experience each day as is written in Psalm 40:5, “O Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.”
These 10 Life Lessons from Hiking give us some points to reflect on today. Join us tomorrow for another Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy. Tomorrow we will learn why life is like a good cup of coffee.
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