[pct-l] PCT-L - Most Common Causes of Thru-Dropout

[Thelma Fredricksen]

If this was on Facebook, I would have clicked "like".

Thelma-ma

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Nathan Miller <erccmacfitheal at yahoo.com>wrote:

> > As for the whole mental thing, I think it would help everyone if they
> stopped thinking of quitting a thru-hike as a failure. The trail is still
> there. You can always pick up where you left off, start over and give it
> another try, choose to section hike instead or whatever suits you. The
> all-or-nothing attitude of thru-hiking causes a lot more emotional pain to
> people than almost anything else about the experience in my opinion.
>
> I think that says something interesting about human psychology.
>  Specifically, we tend to cause a lot of collateral damage when we become
> over-focused on something.  We only have so many resources, be they money,
> time, energy, attention.  The more we spend on one thing--hiking, Olympic
> training, career--the less we have to spend on other things--family,
> friends, etc.  When we pour it all into one thing and that one thing doesn't
> develop as hoped, not only does it have an emotional/psychological impact,
> we suddenly remember all the other things we ignored along the way and the
> loss of THOSE things just make things worse.
>
> -Nate the Trail Zombie
> Newberg, OR
>
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