Venting some frustration

imported
#1

Hey, everybody. I’ve got a problem that’s starting to irk the snot out of me, and I suspect some of you have faced the same thing. Here it is: as a new backpacker, I’m naturally excited and enthusiastic about what I’m doing. But when I’ve shared my plans for hiking/backpacking with friends and family, NOBODY has been positive or supportive. My mom has tried to emotionally blackmail me into not hiking by myself, and friends that we had over for dinner this past weekend looked horrified and said “why in the world would you want to do THAT?” Their comment seems to be the typical response that I get…grrrrr! I’ve been dutifully ignoring it all, but it’s getting under my skin. Any ideas on coping with negative non-outdoors people? I’d esp. like to have a snappy comeback.

Jonna

#2

“You hike your trail. I’ll hike mine.” ?
:mad

Harry Dolphin

#3

“Would you rather i stayed at home, lived off the state, got into drugs and married a 250 lb guy with tatoos called Knuckles”?

Ross - London,England

#4

Hike with a boyfriend. One who doesn’t look like a junkie. Mention that he has a concealed weapons permit.

steve hiker

#5

Why do you want to thru-hike?
Why do you like backpacking?
Why do you like hiking?

These questions always floor me. People can’t understand WHY we like this stuff because it’s all foreign to them. In their little minds, we are walking into the UNKNOWN, to a place where a maniac will kill us, a bear will eat us, a rattlesnake will bite us, and where we will no doubt die of starvation, dehydration, heat stroke, or frostbite.

It’s been my experience that non-trail people will never understand WHY we want to thru-hike. I think it’s because this idea is so far removed from EVERYTHING we are taught as we’re growing up: go to college, get a good job, get married, have kids, and then wait until you retire or die. You want to have fun? You can do that 2 weeks per year on your vacation. For god’s sake, don’t be irresponsible and take 6 months off work to hike. Are you crazy?

You’re stepping out, ignoring what society says you’re SUPPOSED to do, and that scares them. Seriously, they will NEVER understand us. All you can ask is that they recognize that this is something that is important to you and that you want their support. But, you have to do some work. You have to educate them about thru-hiking. Give them some information, and then they can form an educated opinion on whether or not you’re crazy.

I like hiking for the same reasons someone else likes golfing, or playing softball, or running, sewing, reading, skating, surfing, biking, WHATEVER. I like hiking because I enjoy it. It gives me satisfaction. It makes me happy. It’s fun. And I can’t explain it to them any better than they can explain to me why they like to sew or skate or golf.

I can’t fathom why anyone would like golfing.
So why would I expect them to understand why I like thru-hiking?

yogi

#6

I had a few friends and family members who were supportive of what I was doing, even though they did not understand why I was doing so. The people that did not understand, or asked me why I was doing it, or basically tried to flatline the idea for me (one of my parents told me it was a stupid idea), well I didn’t discuss it with them much. You need to have positive reinforcement when you begin this, so just cut out the negative reinforcement.

Once you are out, and begin to share your stories and pictures with these people, they will actually begin to understand the answers to their questions on their own.

bearbait

#7

I think, given time, many people begin to understand why someone wants to do a long hike. My mother never understood my AT hike until the drive down to Springer. We listened to Bill Irwin’s “Blind Courage” on the ride down and a lot of the things I could never get across to her were put into perspective by Bill’s incredible hike. Try giving your folks or friends a book to read. I think that can help; and this book seemed to help in my situation.

Good luck!

Cap’n

#8

I think that telling them to eat shite would do just fine.

tam

#9

Second that!

Dawgtrekker

#10

I’d try saying that ive changed my mind about thru hiking and i’ve decided to climb everest. Not many people die hiking everest. only a few dozen; maybe 6 or 7 a year. sure its a bit more dangerous than thru-hiking which i can’t remember having more than 1 fatality; but what the heck mom; I live for adventure!

Big Boy

#11

Jonna,
That does sound frustrating, and it’s probably the last thing you want to deal with along with the stress of planning a thru-hike-- that is what you’re doing, right…? Your post didn’t specifically state that you were planning a 2004 thru-hike, so I’m just assuming you are.

For me, planning a thru-hike has been a truly personal affair-- everything from trying to articulate my reasons to myself to the actual planning of dispensing with most of my life as I currently know it. It’s always on my mind, and I’m sure I’ve become a bit self-obsessed because of it. I feel extremely lucky in the fact that I have had nothing but support for my thru-hike from my friends and family.

Your mom is just expressing her fear of not having you in her life for half of a year, and is just using those mother tools most of us have experienced. No easy solution for that but to try to look past the stress she’s causing you and appreciate her motives. Understand that a thru-hike isn’t just a walk in the woods. Most people will have a hard time understanding why someone would want to do it and judge it as extreme.

Try to be patient when people ask you why you are doing this, and try to put yourself in their shoes-- if someone you cared about told you they were thinking of doing something you felt was extreme and that would remove them from your life for half a year your initial reaction may be knee-jerk and judgmentally inflected.

If you’re having a trouble, like me, articulating why you want spend 6 months walking 2,172.6 miles try this snappy come-back that I’ve been using. “It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do, so I’m just going to do it.” Most can understand pure desire and the resolve to follow it.

-bobaloo

Bobaloo

#12

Most people will never understand, they will work for others all their life and never have any money. Only true risk takers will succeed and climb to the top.

No is a point at which discussions can begin.

It is easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.

I hope you choose to walk the walk, and dance the dance. “To chance the rapids and dance the tide”

I have tolerated negative people all my life, that is I have fought them. Now, I’ve finally learned to ignore them.

See you out there on the trail. :cheers

Maintain

#13

I think if you read alot of the journals, they tend to mention this issue somewhere, usually near the beginning in pre-hike portions.

My coworkers, with rare exception, cannot fathom why somebody would ever do such a thing as a thru-hike (read my last journal on my theory of Las Vegas and dehydration of the soul). My friends range from incredulous to jealous. My family is somewhat dubious, although my stepmother states my father probably secretly approves though he won’t admit it. In fact, now that I think about it, only two people (my friend Jamie and my research director here at school) have shown positive feedback.

Other said it similarly, but you have to live your own life, your own hike, etc. I sometimes remind myself, nolite te bastardes carbonandorum. Loosely transated, don’t let the b*stards get you down. :eek:

xtn

airferret

#14

I’m a female who hiked alone. It was a great experience. My family and friends all thought and still think I’m crazy. But as the time got closer to my departure date, the support got stronger, they knew I was serious and loved the stories I brought home. I did give my mom Women Thru-hiking the AT book and it helped ease her mind. To me the trail is safer then crossing a street in a busy city. So listen to your heart and hold your ground.

buttercup

#15

I’m a female who hiked alone. It was a great experience. My family and friends all thought and still think I’m crazy. But as the time got closer to my departure date, the support got stronger, they knew I was serious and loved the stories I brought home. I did give my mom Women Thru-hiking the AT book and it helped ease her mind. To me the trail is safer then crossing a street in a busy city. So listen to your heart and hold your ground.:girl

buttercup

#16

You get all the strange looks from friends and family. But in the end you do it for youself,not for them. My friends thought I was full of it before I left and didnt give a rats ass when I got back. Thats why I talk to you folks.Just go and then everyone will say “Damn,shes/hes really gone”

Virginian

#17

I think many people feel subtly threatened by the prospect of someone ELSE going off to do something big, different, and wonderful. It forces them to confront the fact that they too have alternatives to plodding along on the “normal” path. But while you’re out there having the adventure of a lifetime, they’ll be back home-- still plodding. And they probably don’t like that image of themselves. It doesn’t make them feel good inside. Sadly, rather than being inspired to expand their own horizons, they try to pull you back into line: “be mundane, routine, and ordinary like me”, is the message. “Don’t get out of line.”

I was often told, “I wish I had the time to do something like that.” This was water from the same well: this was someone comparing the significance of what they’re doing to the significance of what I was doing. And that makes them a bit uneasy, a bit defensive. So they implicitly suggest that what they’re doing is just so IMPORTANT that they can’t take the time to do something TRIVIAL like a thru-hike. They say that because they need some face-saving reason why they’re NOT pursuing a dream, but rather just bringing home a paycheck and renting the occasional video at Blockbuster. “My work is just too important” is a much more palatable explanation than “I’m too timid, too lethargic, too afraid to face the reaction to nonconformity. So I’ll meekly conform.”

My snappy defense of seeing the beauty of the world on foot: “It makes me come alive, it makes me so incredibly happy.” How can someone who really cares about your diss that?

Eric

#18

Many people in our culture are so sucked into the consumer mentality that they can’t see outside their narrow, little box and try to impose their views upon other people. Don’t let them!

I went to a small, private school to get a BA in religious studies…people thought I was crazy and that I should get a “real” degree but I have a job and enough money to live on.

I worked at kids wilderness camps for the summers when I was in school…people thought I was crazy, how would I ever make enough money to pay for school? I have no student loans and enough money for my AT hike and some left over for grad school.

I went to work in Korea, people thought I was crazy and that I should get an office job back in Canada because I would just get a nuclear weapon dropped on me by the North Koreans. I’m back in Canada now and I’m not glowing yet!

I’m hiking the AT in 2004 and the odds are that I will not die of hypothermia, get eaten by a bear, break an ankle and die a horrible, slow death in the wilderness or get murdered by some redneck psycho! These are all real concerns that my family has brought up. Laughable really.

I’ve learned to have a thick skin and not live my life subscribing to the ideals or pursuits of our materialistic culture. It’s just a choice, it’s actually brought me a lot of freedom.

I think some people find it hard to see someone who pursues their dreams and is truly alive when they’re sitting on the couch eating potato chips and watching re-runs of Friends and Seinfeld and they want to drag you down too. Don’t let them!

jackie b

#19

To quote Hoot from Black Hawk Down:

“When people back home ask me why I do it, ‘Are you some kinda war junkie Hoot?’, and you know what I tell’um? Not a damn thing. Cuz they just don’t understand. They don’t get that its all about the man next to ya…”

He goes on from there, but as has been previously stated, a lot of them won’t and don’tunderstand…and thats all I have to say about that.
benjamin

Benny the Bull

#20

Jackie B, writes:
"I think some people find it hard to see someone who pursues their dreams and is truly alive when they’re sitting on the couch eating potato chips and watching re-runs of Friends and Seinfeld and they want to drag you down too. Don’t let them! "

Right on! Hike and get a life.

Grant “Cuz”