I wish I could say I am a hiker.
I am not fit enough, I tend to get tired very easily, and I don’t have much time to exercise. But I love hiking. I love it really badly.
I like getting ready for a hike, planning the itinerary, and packing the backpack with all the basic stuff I need. I love starting the hike in the chill of the early morning and feeling the sun getting warmer and warmer during the day.
I love reaching the goal for the day, taking out an old blanket, and getting ready for a nice, relaxing lunch. I love basking in the sun and then returning home when the sun goes down.
For me hiking is absolute peace of mind, it’s like meditation, it’s far more relaxing than yoga.
Since I love hiking so much, I had to read the book Wild by Cheryl Strayed. You probably already know about it, as it has been selected by Oprah as part of her Book Club and has even reached n. 1 in the New York Times Best Seller list. Moreover, last year the book was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, with both actresses receiving Academy Awards nominations.
Anyway, if you still haven’t heard about it, let me just tell you a few things about the book.
Wild is a memoir by Cheryl Strayed and tells the story of her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, a path that runs from the US – Mexico border up to the border to Canada, through California, Oregon, and Washington State. The path is 2,600 miles long and Cheryl hiked about 1,100 miles from the Mojave Desert to Washington State.
Before leaving for the trail, Cheryl had gone through some very harsh times. Devastated by the loss of her mother, Cheryl started using drugs, and then she and her husband divorced. Seeking a way out from her grief, she quite randomly decided to hike the PCT trail – with absolutely no hiking experience.
What can I say? I loved Wild.
I was kind of hesitant when I started it, because I had read quite a few reviews saying that the story was dark and depressing, and I didn’t need that. But I was hooked after the first ten pages. The story is not depressing at all, Cheryl goes through some really bad times, this can’t be denied, but the way she comes out of the bleakness of her life is utterly positive.
Her voice is sincere, funny at times, and completely honest. She does not hide the mistakes she had made while hiking and her absolute lack of experience and training. This makes her real and that’s why I loved her so much. Moreover, hiking teaches her some very important lessons, which can be useful almost in every path of life. Like learning a foreign language, for example! Let’s see what they are.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Simple as it may seem, this is one of the most precious tips ever. This is why I love hiking so much: you simply have to concentrate on what you are doing, one step after the other. Therefore, if you are learning a foreign language and are at the very beginning, do not make yourself anxious about the heaps of things you have to learn.
Just focus on what you are doing, concentrate, find your pace, and your knowledge of the language will grow, step after step, until you’ll look back and realize how far you have traveled.
Set small goals.
Cheryl divided her long trail into small stretches, identified by a place where she arranged to have a box sent with food, clean clothes, and other important stuff. At a certain stage in her book, she says that this helped her a lot because she focused on the next place to reach and not on the huge, overwhelming trail in front of her.
Do the same. Set small goals, give yourself time, don’t look at the big picture, but just concentrate on reaching your goal, be it learning some chunk of words, how to put a certain grammar rule into use, or being able to communicate in a certain situation. Goal after goal, you’ll walk a long way without realizing it.
Let go of something.
One of the most dramatic moments in the book is when Cheryl loses one of her boots. All of a sudden, she finds herself with no shoes but a half-destroyed pair of sandals and miles and miles ahead of her. In a rush of anger, she throws the other boot away and keeps on walking in her sandals, eventually tying them with some tape.
Follow her example. You really can’t understand a rule of grammar? Are there some words you can’t memorize? Does it seem that you’ll never be able to pronounce a word in the right way? Let go of it and keep going. Find a workaround. Cheryl cannot have her boots back but you can always go back to that word, grammar topic and pronunciation mistake and work on it at a later time.
Embrace your mistakes.
Cheryl started hiking the trail with no experience whatsoever. This caused her to do a lot of mistakes, like overpacking her backpack, which was aptly named Monster, or choosing the wrong pair of boots. However, she did not allow these mistakes to stop her from reaching her goal. She learned from them and somehow found a way to go on.
If you start learning a foreign language, you’ll surely end up making quite a few embarrassing mistakes, but don’t let them stop you or make you think you can’t make it. Keep going and language fluency will be just around the corner.
Enjoy the beauty of it all.
No matter how exhausted, hungry, or just plain desperate she was, Cheryl never forgot to enjoy the beauty of the scenery and felt blessed with the opportunity of seeing such beautiful places.
So, if you are learning a foreign language, don’t miss the pure beauty of the journey itself. The joy of discovering the meaning of an unknown word, the pride of being able to make yourself understood for the first time, the contentment at acquiring new tools, like words or grammar rules. It will make the journey a lot easier.
Lastly, let’s quote Cheryl: “So much of being able to hike the PCT depended upon mind control: the stout decision to move forward, regardless”.
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