Last week I celebrated my 34th birthday and in the same week I completed the famous Yosemite Four Mile Trail. The hike was excruciating, both physically and mentally. But to my own surprise, it left me with an unexpected realization, something that came as a complete shock to me. Let me explain.
My Resistance to Hiking
To begin with, I am not a great fan of hiking. I never really understood the purpose behind it. To me, it always felt like a meaningless activity. It felt like a self-imposed challenge created and promoted by people who have accomplished everything in their lives and now want to create their own hurdles that they can “overcome” and prove a point to the world about how fit they are and gain social brownie points.
To add to this feeling, I am also not a great admirer of nature and its beauty. Trees, mountains, rivers, sunrises, sunsets, I feel like I have seen it all multiple times in my life now and cannot really appreciate the same “view” for more than 30 minutes at a stretch. It all feels the same and it quickly gets monotonous and boring in my mind.
So the whole idea of “great views at the top” never fascinated me. I mean, I could get the same views from an airplane window or even better views on Google Maps! I know all of this sounds too tasteless and insensitive, but that’s exactly how I think of hiking, unfiltered.
Despite having these thoughts, I have done at least a dozen of hikes so far and after every hike my belief of “hiking is pointless” was reinforced. The resistance in my mind grew stronger.
Being Consciously Open Minded
Last month, my wife and my friends decided to do the Yosemite Four Mile trail. While the plan was being made, I had made my position clear that I would not be joining them on the hike and would instead drive up to the Glacier Point and meet them directly at the top. My wife was super excited about the hike and all the while I was just ridiculing the whole idea of the doing that hike.
But then I gave it some thought and decided that I needed to be more open minded and give myself one more experience of hiking before deciding whether I really liked it or not. In my mind, I knew I was definitely not going to like it but still I decided to go for it.
I decided that I was going to be as open minded as possible about the whole experience and see if I could enjoy it. I decided to consciously stay mindful during the hike and try to appreciate the activity, nature’s beauty and the views without complaining or whining. I decided to take ownership of my decision to do the hike and face whatever the consequences might be without blaming my wife for forcing me to do it.
I have had past experiences where I did an activity on her insistence, against my wish, and ended up constantly complaining about it and blaming her for forcing me to it and eventually ruining the experience for both of us. This time I wanted to change that for sure. I was the one making this decision and so I was responsible for the outcome.
Day of the Hike
I’ll come straight to the point. The hike was extremely excruciating and physically painful. It took us 10+ hours to climb up and then descend. The total distance was 12+ miles (~20 km) and the elevation was 3000+ feet! I burnt 3300+ calories. I had seriously underestimated the hike, even though it was tagged as a “strenuous” hike.
While climbing up, half way through, I was seriously contemplating whether I should just drive down instead of walking down. But then I decided to agree to the group’s decision and walk down anyway.
While the rest of the group was way ahead of us, both while climbing up and descending, my wife stayed back with me because my pace was significantly slower. Her presence was reassuring and it was a wonderful feeling to have her stay back with me. To our surprise, we spotted a bear in the wild! A mamma bear with her two kids! I always wanted to spot a bear and we did!
By the time we were descending, it was well past mid day and I was totally exhausted. My legs had given up and my mind was constantly questioning my decision of choosing to do this hike. The pain in my knees and ankles was real and with every painful step I took, my mind got even more agitated. However, I had decided not to go on a complaining spree and ruin my wife’s experience and so I tried to keep myself grounded as much as I could.
Towards the tail end of the trip, I did express my agitation and my views to her about how I still could not find the meaning of doing this hike and I was now certain that hiking was definitely not for me. I told her that I would not be going on any new hikes in the future. She listened to my opinions calmly and accepted my viewpoint.
By the end of the hike, I was loathing myself for putting my body through this pointless pain. I was mentally frustrated but still managed to keep myself grounded.
Delayed Fulfillment Surprise
As I was nearing the completion of the hike, I had already decided to write down my thoughts in a blog post and express my full confirmed feelings of contempt for hiking. I had a full rant prepared in my mind that I wanted to write down as soon as I reached home.
But when I finally got home, I was too tired to write anything. I had some food and slept for 12 hours straight. The next day, I woke up feeling relaxed. While my body was still sore, something had changed in my mind.
There was this new feeling in my mind that I wasn’t expecting at all. It was a feeling of accomplishment. A sense of pride and achievement for having completed the challenging hike.
I probed this feeling further and I figured that it was not like I had suddenly discovered love for nature or I was totally mesmerized by the views from the top. All I had was a good, positive feeling about myself for having did it.
Now this feeling really confused me because just the previous night I was convinced that I hated hiking and that this was the last hike I would ever do. Yet while I slept, my mind seemed to have created a completely new feeling that I was not expecting.
At that point, I knew I was dealing with two contradictory thoughts in my mind. This was not an easy “I hate hiking” conclusion anymore.
Identity vs Experience
I started dissecting both the thoughts. The first thought was familiar. It felt natural. It was the thought that said hiking was not for me. This belief had become a part of my self identity. I saw myself as someone who simply did not enjoy hiking and was comfortable saying it out loud and admitting it, even when so many people around me seemed to just follow the “trend” of hiking just to look cool and be a part of the herd. I felt like I am being honest to myself about not finding meaning in hiking and that I had the courage to accept it unlike others who in my mind were just “faking” it.
And then there was this completely new second thought. More than a thought it was primarily a feeling of accomplishment. The hike was challenging and it was physically painful, but somehow the struggle itself had transformed into a feeling of pride and achievement.
I wanted to dig in this feeling further and so I decided to sit with both these thoughts and further delay the writing of this blog post until I figured out which way was I really inclined. I wanted to understand what exactly had changed.
Change of Mind
After reflecting on both thoughts, I think I have come to a conclusion.
The mistake that I had been making all these years was judging hiking entirely by how it felt in the moment, in the act of climbing a mountain for no reason. The act itself was painful and I had absolutely nothing to look forward to that would justify the pain.
The true realization came AFTER the act. Next day, the sense of achievement that I felt was real and I think that is where the meaning lies for me. The climbing was hard, the pain was real and the mental agitation was undeniable but I had never paid enough attention to how it felt afterward. Probably because this was the only hike I had done so far which was actually this challenging and could evoke this feeling of achievement.
In many ways, it feels similar to winning a sport I enjoy or solving a difficult problem at work or the post-workout high I experience after a good session at the gym.
I can sense that this feeling of satisfaction is overpowering my initial resistance. I can clearly see how my identity is now trying to defend itself and resisting me from having change of mind. But I am going to allow this new experience to reshape my identity and let go of some of my precious beliefs and make room for new ones. It’s time for a software update of my mind!
The Four Mile Trail has now created a benchmark in my mind. It showed me that I am capable of more than what I often give myself credit for. It showed me that new experiences are necessary for forming new beliefs and reshaping my identity.
I cannot believe I am saying this, but I am actually looking forward to doing another hike soon.
Ironically, while we were planning this hike, I jokingly told my friends that this hike better be a “life changing experience” or I would blame them for dragging me along. I was being completely sarcastic about the whole idea of a “life changing” hike. It indeed turned out to be a life changing experience!
