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MDSection12
12-10-2012, 13:07
So I'm not looking for any answers, I know I have to come to those on my own, but I just wanted to hear some thoughts from 2013ers on how they approach the guilt of tackling what many would consider a 'selfish' goal like the AT. Now I know many of you are probably in situations that allow you to undertake something like this without any guilt, like a single, newly graduated college student... But I am not. I don't have kids, or any serious obligations at home, but I am recently married and am pretty involved with my family since I live in my hometown... I have the support of my wife, and I'm sure my family would support me as well... But it still feels a bit guilty to me. I'm not completely decided on going, but the window of opportunity is going to open and close very quickly so I'm wrestling with this stuff in a short period of time. I think I will be able to go logistically... But I don't know if I will be able to convince myself that I'm not just being selfish.

So for those of you leaving behind supportive families how do you reconcile the guilt associated with taking on what is at the end of the day a self-centered goal?

atmilkman
12-10-2012, 14:08
Just invite them all to come along and join you.

Karma13
12-10-2012, 14:26
So for those of you leaving behind supportive families how do you reconcile the guilt associated with taking on what is at the end of the day a self-centered goal?

Sounds like the snag in the thinking, perhaps, is the perception that the hike is a "self-centered goal."

It's not, really -- at least, not the way I see it. If two people are newlyweds and one goes to medical school, is going to medical school a self-centered goal? If a newlywed starts going to yoga three nights a week, is that a self-centered goal?

I don't believe so. Not really. You were two people before you got married. Anything that makes a better, stronger person will benefit the marriage (presuming the focus is always on staying oriented toward the spouse, like magnetic north).

If it were me, I'd think about the ways that the hike will benefit your marriage.

(Plus, it's not really a 6-month party. It's damn hard work, every single day. It's really like you're getting a job transfer to living homeless in the dirt for 6 months.)

FarmerChef
12-10-2012, 14:45
Admittedly, I'm not a thru hiker so I can't comment as one but I, like you, have always had the dream of hiking the AT. I'm a father of 4 and happily married to my very supportive and wonderful wife of 13 years. When I started to get the bug really bad, I talked it over with her, beginning with the offer to have her come with me. One thing led to another and now, she, I and 3 of our 4 kids have done almost half the trail over 2 months of hiking over the past 2 years. The key is that we were both very committed to one another and talked it through and found a solution that worked for all of us. Now, whenever I talk about wanting to hike the trail all in one go after we complete it in sections her response was, "Not without me your not!" Music to my ears :D

I agree with Karma13 that this is not a selfish goal, at least not in the sense that this will only benefit you. I've heard it said around here that the hike won't necessarily make you a better you but will reveal more about yourself that you might not have known or realized before. This offers a growing, learning experience that can benefit both of you, especially if you have your wife's support throughout the hike and you help her be a part of it in whatever way seems best to her. As long as you share the experience with your family as you go along, there may very well be opportunities to strengthen your relationship in the process.

bardo
12-10-2012, 14:46
It is a selfish goal I think. But you have to reconsider your view of selfishness. It's not always a bad thing. It's all relative. Not supporting your journey can also be selfish too.

Slo-go'en
12-10-2012, 14:48
Big mistake getting married. Your life is no longer your own :) Since I never got married, I can't help you with the guilt issue. But if your going to do it, do it now as it will only get more difficult to go the later you wait. Once a child arrives, your stuck for about the next 18 to 25 years.

As karam13 says, doing a thru is hard work which many don't realise at first. When you come right down to it, it's probably the reason so many quit. You have to get up every morning and do your miles. It can start to feel like a job. Slacking off means running out of food in the short term or running out of time and/or money in the long term.

max patch
12-10-2012, 14:59
Of course its selfish. So what? You don't have kids and your wife is cool with it. Have a great vacation.

Feral Bill
12-10-2012, 15:09
You may want to keep in touch with your wife from the trail, and meet her periodically as circumstances allow. If it's not working out, you can always go home.

Malto
12-10-2012, 15:17
Selfish maybe. But I guess I never really thought of it that way. Maybe that means I'm really selfish.

Just because you are married doesn't mean you give up on your dreams. There are your dream, her dream and your combined dreams. Sounds like she is cool with it so deal with it now. If you don't you will have countless hours with little to think about then issues like this.

coach lou
12-10-2012, 15:26
I have an outline for a plan to thru from when I was a scout in 1971. I still have it. I was a section hiker then. Then came the military, then came family, now there is a new step family. I still have that outline. I haven't been able to do it yet. I can't see me doing it too soon...................just DO it!

MDSection12
12-10-2012, 16:21
I have an outline for a plan to thru from when I was a scout in 1971. I still have it. I was a section hiker then. Then came the military, then came family, now there is a new step family. I still have that outline. I haven't been able to do it yet. I can't see me doing it too soon...................just DO it!

This is what is pushing me. Now may not be the perfect time, but if I expect the perfect time to come along then I don't see it happening in this decade, or at all for that matter.

Mei*Mei*
12-10-2012, 17:19
Know that a truly selfish person would never feel guilt, and that sometimes you have to weigh your guilt with the possibility of your regret. Life opens up windows, moments in time in which we choose who we are, and what we want out of our experience in life. I am a 2013 thru hiker struggling with the same kind of worries right now, but I know its now or never for me. Everything lined up, and my responsibility's are relatively small for the first time in my life. I'm putting faith in my family and friends to help me, as I would them. So, write a pro/con list and let yourself be able to be happy with whatever you decide.

daddytwosticks
12-10-2012, 17:20
I'm just a section hiker and suffer from guilt every time I set foot on the AT and am away from family. This, despite the fact my wife encourages me. I chalk it up to spending 9 years in a Catholic grammar school full of crazy nuns. A shrink would have a field day with me after that experience! :)

chief
12-10-2012, 18:21
"A husband's guilt is a debt which can NEVER be fully repaid" - I read that somewhere and it certainly fits with my experience. Lose the guilt or forget the hike!

Dogwood
12-10-2012, 18:37
Change the way things are negatively defined to a more postive empowering definition. You''ll overcome a lot of limited thinking garbage that way. You'll also see opportunites where you thought none previously existed. Make an honest assessment, did you really come to this conclusion, that thru-hiking is a self centered endeavour, AAALLL ON YOUR OWN? Probaly not!

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

mgspea00
12-10-2012, 19:23
So I'm not looking for any answers, I know I have to come to those on my own, but I just wanted to hear some thoughts from 2013ers on how they approach the guilt of tackling what many would consider a 'selfish' goal like the AT. Now I know many of you are probably in situations that allow you to undertake something like this without any guilt, like a single, newly graduated college student... But I am not. I don't have kids, or any serious obligations at home, but I am recently married and am pretty involved with my family since I live in my hometown... I have the support of my wife, and I'm sure my family would support me as well... But it still feels a bit guilty to me. I'm not completely decided on going, but the window of opportunity is going to open and close very quickly so I'm wrestling with this stuff in a short period of time. I think I will be able to go logistically... But I don't know if I will be able to convince myself that I'm not just being selfish.

So for those of you leaving behind supportive families how do you reconcile the guilt associated with taking on what is at the end of the day a self-centered goal?

Leaving my wife, son (11), daughter (21), retiring from a secure job after 28 years. Instead of sitting around feeling guilty, I'm making sure finances are in order, repairs around the house are complete so they don't have to worry about it, and keeping them involved in the hike in some way.

kayak karl
12-10-2012, 19:38
(Plus, it's not really a 6-month party. It's damn hard work, every single day. It's really like you're getting a job transfer to living homeless in the dirt for 6 months.)
Please LOL it's a vacation!!! if telling people its work, an education(like med school :)), a spiritual journey to ease the guilt, then go ahead, but it's a vacation.

Lone Wolf
12-10-2012, 19:39
Please LOL it's a vacation!!! if telling people its work, an education(like med school :)), a spiritual journey to ease the guilt, then go ahead, but it's a vacation.

totally agree. it is what it is. a pleasure trip

bamboo bob
12-10-2012, 20:11
Pleasure trip for sure. Hard going sometimes but really a blast overall. My first trip my wife and I retired and sold our home and got all set to go. But then she got very sick. We scrambled about for housing and then we agreed that I ought to get my self to Springer when the time came. She stayed home and tended to her treatment. She still says it was easier for her without me hanging around. That was twelve years ago. Since then I've added another 10,000 miles and she still is supportive of my trips. She's also come along on a number of the shorter trails and out hikes me the same as she always has. She thinks a month is as long as she wants to be away from home. She would prefer playing with grand babies. They're fine too but as you might know I'm addicted to long distance hiking. So if you think I was and am selfish talk to my wife. or talk to yours. (She's a great cook too) :)

1 catfish
12-10-2012, 20:47
Weather or not its a selfish act is irrelevant. You will either handle it or not. If you do go and you feel guilty about it that will ruin your trip and it will eat at you till you quit. Everyone has hurdles to overcome before they go and this is one of yours.

cliffordbarnabus
12-10-2012, 23:41
physical proximinity is overrated. if love is indeed as powerful (assuming it even exists) as people comfort themselves to believe, surely it can transcend...and might even be strengthened by... "x" miles of separation.

incidentally, it can be argued that nothing is selfless...

lkn4air
12-11-2012, 00:35
I have just started to tell everyone in my life that I am hking the trail in 2013. I was really a bit nervous about telling some of them. I had a little of that guilt feeling but made the decision I had to do it now. I have some medical reasons that make it important to do it now and my friends and family have been nothing but supportive and are excited for me to do it. They do think it is a bit crazy!!! You have to make the decesion for yourself but its not like your going to the moon, people take jobs that take them away from their families for much longer periods of time.


HYOH

Dogwood
12-11-2012, 02:33
Not saying they are wrong believing what they believe, but ohh, how I would soo enjoy being there when the folks who said hiking is a vacation a pleasure start complaining, become depressed, grouchy, negative, are mentally and physically spent, drenched from four days of heavy non-stop rain, have to put their toasty toes in cold frozen shoes in the morning to hike, wandering around lost and disoriented, limping with aches and pains, applying their creams and pain relieving lotions, popping Vit I, etc etc etc so I can remind them of their words.

Lone Wolf
12-11-2012, 05:43
Not saying they are wrong believing what they believe, but ohh, how I would soo enjoy being there when the folks who said hiking is a vacation a pleasure start complaining, become depressed, grouchy, negative, are mentally and physically spent, drenched from four days of heavy non-stop rain, have to put their toasty toes in cold frozen shoes in the morning to hike, wandering around lost and disoriented, limping with aches and pains, applying their creams and pain relieving lotions, popping Vit I, etc etc etc so I can remind them of their words.
it's still just a vacation. i've done 5 thru-hikes and never walked 4 days in heavy non-stop rain. only a fool does that. i'm smart enuf to stay holed up.

Don H
12-11-2012, 09:01
Lots of people quit because of a spouse or boy/girl friend pressured them to.

Nuwanda
12-11-2012, 13:46
I'm struggling with this as well. I decided to Nobo in 2013, and once I began sharing this information I received a lot of positive support from the people around me EXCEPT my parents. They see this as another crazy adventure I've schemed up for myself and wonder why in the hell I can't just have a good job and settle down in one spot. My current job has lots of benefits, namely a great health care package. They think I'm a fool for walking away from that, so I'm back on the fence because of my guilt.

max patch
12-11-2012, 14:09
Not saying they are wrong believing what they believe, but ohh, how I would soo enjoy being there when the folks who said hiking is a vacation a pleasure start complaining, become depressed, grouchy, negative, are mentally and physically spent, drenched from four days of heavy non-stop rain, have to put their toasty toes in cold frozen shoes in the morning to hike, wandering around lost and disoriented, limping with aches and pains, applying their creams and pain relieving lotions, popping Vit I, etc etc etc so I can remind them of their words.

Its a vacation. No more, no less.

If hiking did to me what it apparently does to you I'd find another way to spend my leisure time.

atmilkman
12-11-2012, 14:10
Weather or not its a selfish act is irrelevant. You will either handle it or not. If you do go and you feel guilty about it that will ruin your trip and it will eat at you till you quit. Everyone has hurdles to overcome before they go and this is one of yours.
You are wise beyond your year.

Karma13
12-11-2012, 14:18
Its a vacation. No more, no less.

For some it's a vacation. For some it's a pilgrimage. It's different for everybody, I imagine. For me personally, it's enormously more than a simple vacation.

BrianLe
12-11-2012, 14:44
Guilt sort of builds into it the idea that you should be doing something else, that the lack of you being there will degrade the life experience of one or more others in some significant way.
Will it? It will change it; whether or not it cleanly degrades it is something else entirely.

I think my wife gets a lot out of having extended periods of having the house --- and her life --- entirely to herself, then we really enjoy reuniting afterwards.

I guess the other aspect of guilt might be if it's (objectively) important that you be doing specific things that you can't do on trail --- making/saving money, specific at-home chores, being there for one or more important family events, etc.

For me, at least, it's helpful to follow through a vague feeling of guilt to map it onto the specific "bad things" (if any really) that are implied by the feeling. Then address (really think through) those specific things. Hopefully the result is an ability to hike guilt-free, or to realize that the issues behind the guilt are such that the trip should be deferred.

Nean
12-11-2012, 15:19
Life is a vacation, then you die. The trail is more physical and mental than many will ever experience from their jobs. But then the rewards are often greater. If you measure your life buy making money and when your not- thats a vacation, so be it. Backpacking long distance takes money, but money doesnt buy the commitment it takes. Unless you have your head right, stay at the casa.

bamboo bob
12-11-2012, 15:21
Its a vacation. No more, no less.

If hiking did to me what it apparently does to you I'd find another way to spend my leisure time. Ditto to that. Certainly those of us who keep going back feel it's a fun time. I understand that those who got knocked off for one reason or another might not agree. But I do think it's a vacation. A cheap one at that. You can remind me as much as you want. It is not paradise every minute but certainly most of the time it is just that.

Nean
12-11-2012, 15:44
If people who play sports didn't get paid that would also be a vacation. The Olympics are a bunch of spoiled brats on vacation, thats why theyre called Games. It is also hard to find one who says the experience wasnt a blast. People can look at it or phrase it any way they want. Depending on many factors the experince is unique to the individual, but some will assume what it was like for them is what it is for everyone.

imscotty
12-11-2012, 16:13
Testing the waters of my Thru-hike aspirations, I sent the link of this thread to my wife. She does not share my interest in this sort of activity. This is what she had to say...

"Yes, I could relate to the posts. My reply is to make sure you make it up to
those whose lives may be negatively affected. And inviting them along is def not the answer. You need to understand what their goals or ambitions are and help them achieve it"

Sounds like a thru-hike may be possible in my future after the kids are grown. Also sounds like I'm going to pay for it :)

coach lou
12-11-2012, 16:41
Quote from the former Mrs. Coach Lou........."Louis, I'm NOT your Wilderness woman"

MDSection12
12-11-2012, 17:19
Well circumstances unrelated to my guilt seem to be pushing my thru attempt to 2015... :mad:

bardo
12-11-2012, 17:21
Guilt sort of builds into it the idea that you should be doing something else, that the lack of you being there will degrade the life experience of one or more others in some significant way.
Will it? It will change it; whether or not it cleanly degrades it is something else entirely.





That is an interesting perspective. Native Americans seen long journeys in the wild as a need, a rite of passage and essential.

Hiking is living. Or the contrast it provides is living. Mindlessly chugging through 21st century boredom between trips to disneyland in the hopes you have a few years of decent health after retirement until you croak is the vacation. The vacation from living, growing, learning and thinking.

coach lou
12-11-2012, 17:34
Well circumstances unrelated to my guilt seem to be pushing my thru attempt to 2015... :mad:

You can still enjoy big sections.:) Guilt Free

HermesUL
12-12-2012, 12:16
At some level, at some point in your life, you need to do something that is entirely about you. Sure, its important to spend much of your life thinking about other people and spending time focused on family, but if you never spend any time at all focusing on yourself then what is the point of living?

I've made it clear to the people in my life that backpacking long distances is a fundamental part of who I am. It's part of who I'll always be, even when I'm no longer able to go on big trips. Maybe that's a character flaw, but so be it. I know for sure its not going to change no matter what anyone says. Don't squander something so important to you on the grounds of selfishness.

And, of course, if it doesn't end up working out, then go home!

"Atlas"
12-14-2012, 09:54
I like the conversation of GUILT. It is an interesting idea. I started my hike last year while separated from my wife, but I did leave my kids. They are all late teens and are encouraging. I felt guilt. Guilt that I wasnt going to be around for my kids during this chaotic time in everyones life. I needed to clear my head and hiking several hundred miles will give a man time to clear his head. I came home from the Trail early due to a car wreck involving my girls. Talk about GUILT. But I also came back a better man for having attempted the Thru-Hike. I am heading back out this Spring, from where I left to finish the Hike. Will I feel GUILT? Probably, I will be leaving behind my responsibilities to my children. But by me taking away there safety net for a few months, I am allowing them to fall and to pick themselves up, to work together and overcome their own challenges.

Drybones
12-14-2012, 10:16
It's not possible to truely appreciate something unless you've been without it, be it food, shelter, family, friends, shower, or even good health. When you're carrying you house, bed, kitchen on your back you learn to appreciate what you have back home much more, including the wife.

HikerMom58
12-14-2012, 10:26
Great post Drybones ... I've found this to be true for myself as well. :)

I can understand the feelings the OP is trying to share. This speaks to the character of a person- to care how your decisions & even your dreams impact other meaningful people in your life.