PDA

View Full Version : Class of 2013 -- Opportunity Knocks



Datto
12-11-2012, 21:21
This is the 2nd installment for people who are lurkers and have it in their mind that they are going to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in 2013.

You are about to embark on some of the most opportunistic adventures of an entire lifetime. From someone who has “done it”, I can tall you it is fantastic. It is about adventure. About setting out to tackle a great challenge. It's about having more cattle than hat.

I can also tell you that older people, those who have lived under society’s confines, will tell you to take advantage of all the opportunities that exist for a soul to follow. Work it. Don’t wait.

It is not just about showing up on time to work or to family gatherings or to expected results or to societies expectations.

No, it is about living life fully.

About doing great things.

And that is the part that scares the heck out of people. It scares the living daylights out of people to do something out of the ordinary.

To do what is necessary to live a full life.

To take on great challenges face-first.

And succeed.

Opportunities exist every day of your life. Business opportunities, career opportunities, love opportunities, financial opportunities.

Much of the time, sorting all these out is more of the challenge than finding the opportunities. If you're here reading this I can tell you that you are already of a caliber of people who are MADE for taking on great things. You are the type of person this country needs.

Don’t you just want to live fully? I mean, you’ve got this one life – don’t you want to make the best of it? To not waste it sitting dead stopped on a highway during your commute to work everyday?

That – that is what I’ve heard so much from AT thru-hikers. No matter the challenge to get up the side of a “hill”, to live with the pain of bent knees, to go down the side of a cliff just to get water in the 100*F heat of Virginia – boy, you ask those thru-hikers how is this compared to life they’d left back in society. They’ll tell you it’s no comparison at all.

Life on the Trail beats everything.

Everything@!

It’s just the best existence possible. I don’t think I’ve every heard any thru-hiker who's successfully completed a thru-hike claim anything else. Life on the Trail is the best thing you can imagine.

Peace. Tranquility. Living fully.

Powerful.

That’s the word I use to describe the whole AT thru-hike experience.

Powerful.

Best of adventures to you all.


Datto

Karma13
12-12-2012, 05:58
Thanks for that, Datto. I'm adding that to my on-trail inspiration file.

SawnieRobertson
12-12-2012, 10:26
Datto, thanks.~~Kinnickinic

walknrow
12-13-2012, 01:10
Ditto, Datto!!

Hairbear
12-13-2012, 06:16
thanks ,im giving up a business to do my thing for a while,thoreaus words kept haunting me,i do not want to come to the point of near death only to realize that i have never really lived.

Double Wide
12-13-2012, 08:59
This was a wonderful thing to read with my my morning coffee.

Thanks

jimmyjam
12-13-2012, 09:14
Datto nice thoughts! It fits with one of my favorite quotes which is: “Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ... WOW! What a ride!”