LESSONS FROM THE TRAIL

A few years ago I hiked the West Coast Trail located on the Pacific coast of Vancouver Island and then wrote a book about the experience. Information about the book can be found on my website from the link on the right hand side of this page. The entire experience of training, preparing and hiking along with writing about it, produced some life lessons that have stayed with me and now I have decided to share some of them in this space from time to time.

"one step at a time"

Wow, nothing could be closer to the truth. Survival, in the most basic of senses, depended on adjusting our focus to the step we were currently taking. Mud, roots and ladders were the challenges that faced us and offered impediments to progress and the only way to exist was to look no further ahead than to the step we were currently taking. Awareness of what we were doing in that precise moment, rather than thinking about the future or worrying about the past, was the only way to survive. I think this is probably a real life example of what is meant by "living in the moment."