Take a Hike

Is something upsetting you? Take a hike.

At least that's what my parents taught me as a kid, and no, they didn't mean it in a sarcastic, “stop bothering me, get lost,” kind of way. They meant it in more of a “go take a deep breath” kind of way. Are you feeling bored? Then go spend a few hours building a fort out of sticks. Are you feeling anxious? Start your morning with a walk down to the pond. Are you feeling angry? Go run off some steam and play a game of soccer with the kids next door.

Growing up, my parents’ philosophy for dealing with hardship a lot of times was to shake it off. Anytime either of them had a particularly difficult week, their solution was a weekend escape to the wilderness. I can't count how many times my family and I have gone camping. We have spent nights sleeping in a tent in places all across the country like the Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Yellowstone, and Acadia (Joshua Tree is particularly beautiful; if you ever get a chance to go, you have to visit).

At the time, I assumed that traveling, camping, and hiking were just things my parents did for fun, and to an extent, it is. But at some point, I realized that the great outdoors meant a lot more to them than they let on. 

To my mom, looking out over grasslands and fields reminds her of the time she spent with all her family on the farm when she was younger. It reminds her of the days she would spend with her brothers that she won’t get back. To my dad, the hiking and climbing remind him of the trips that he and his friends went on to the mountains when he had just graduated college. To my parents, their time outside allowed them to connect to the life they have lived up to this point, and in time, I realized the same was true for me.

One of the best memories I have with my parents is when we spent a night laying outside of a cabin in Wyoming looking up at the night sky. We were so far away from any city lights that we could see every star in the sky. I was only 10, but even I knew how lucky I was to see something so beautiful. Earlier in the day, my parents had taken me to a gift shop, and we got a glow-in-the-dark bandana with all the constellations mapped out on it. We spent a few hours finding each constellation and guessing as to what different planets would feel like to live on. I remember being optimistic that we would be living on the moon by the time I was an adult, but seeing as I am 21 years old now and I haven’t noticed any condos up there, I’m starting to understand I may have been a little naive.

In high school, I went on a week-long road trip to Maine with all of my friends. We camped out at different campgrounds on the way. We spent every night together, heating up hotdogs around a camp fire, listening to music, and watching sunsets in between the dark silhouettes of tree branches. Every morning, we got to be nomads, brushing our teeth next to a few oak trees while staring at a few bugs on a quest for our leftover food from the night before, only to then head out on some exploration of the nearby mountains or forest. We would run into locals asking us where we were from and be so excited to see the surprise on their faces to say that we live hundreds of miles away.

When things get hard, I lean on those memories. When I miss my friends, or my family, or my friends who have become my family, I think about the memories I have with them, and it will always remind me of how much love I have around me.

I think there's something about seeing how big the world is that makes you realize how small you are. And that's okay because it's not just you who's small; it’s everything else that’s small, too. It didn’t matter that my grandmother died a few days before my road trip, and it didn’t matter that once my parents and I got home, we didn’t know if we would be able to pay our bills, because we were there in the moment together experiencing something so much bigger than ourselves.

When you can spend time outside, whether it be camping, going on a morning run, or looking at a tree in your backyard that was there before you were born, you are able to connect to something that is so much bigger than yourself. You can stand on the same dirt that your grandparents walked on, you can sit under the same tree that your kids will sit under someday, you can breathe the same air that everyone you have ever known is breathing too. When you are a part of something as big as that, it seems almost silly to stress about a failed exam or a bad day of work.

So next time that everything gets a little too much, listen to my advice.

Take a hike.