Well prepared thru hiker ready to quit!

[Greenlight]

Nah, what I was doing was offering encouragement. There is a big difference, in my mind. What has happened, societally, is that we've made our kids a lot less resilient than they used to be through simple peer interaction and alone time in which we developed thick skins, bonded, learned to negotiate, and kept in shape (even if it was through moderately dangerous activities and fist fights). The whole middle part of "the story" is missing for a lot of kids now. What happened in "the beginning" that didn't translate to "the middle" here for this potential hiker? There wasn't an instant trophy. You have to get to "the end" or at least to some point well toward it, to get any sort of recognition or even self-satisfaction. That point is different for everyone, but I doubt there is much satisfaction at 40 or even 100 miles into a 2200 mile trail.

So I was offering encouragement. Being "in your head" means rumination, which is dwelling on debilitating negative emotions and messages. I view what I said as a helpful goad, not some sort of participation medal.

I teach resilience, and it scares the crap out of me how so many of the kids coming into the military are thin skinned and expecting breaks. I look at it like in a video game, where they can look up cheat codes and gain invincibility. There are no cheat codes on a long trail, or any other hard but potentially satisfying life experiences. You gain invincibility by falling down and getting up, getting wet and dealing with it, getting cold and managing it, getting lonely and slogging through it until friends happen. You get to the vista by climbing the rocks to the top. That's all I want for this kid.

Are we that far gone as a society that we think we need to mollycoddle some youngster (I'm presuming it's a youngster) and convince them they need to walk...