When I was 15 years old, I got sent to a wilderness therapy program somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains for eight weeks.
There were eight other boys in the group and two rotating staff members. Every day we hiked close to ten miles, stopping at a new primitive campsite each night to rest, then do it all again.
It rained most of the time we were out there.
Not a drizzle either. Torrential downpours most afternoons into the evenings. Our gear stayed soggy. Sleeping bags damp. Clothes heavy and cold. Boots that never really dried.
Suffering at its finest.
And on top of that, none of us were there by choice. Some of the boys were even court ordered.
Misery has a strange way of bonding people. Over those weeks we talked about the things that got us there. The mistakes we’d made. The problems waiting for us back home. The lives we hadn’t quite figured out yet.
Then came the solo.
Each of us would spend a week alone in the woods. We were spread out somewhere within about a mile of each other, at least that’s what I assumed. Close enough that someone could reach us if something went wrong. Far enough that we couldn’t see or hear another soul.
When it was my turn, the staff member walked me to the spot, handed me a big bag of dehydrated beans and rice, said good luck, and without another word disappeared into the woods.
Just like that.
Then the fear set in.
I remember thinking I wasn’t even sure I had ever spent a full hour alone in my life. And now I had a week.
As the sun went down that first night, the woods started playing tricks on me. Shadows moved through the trees. Every snapping branch sounded like a predator. My thoughts started turning really dark.
Sleep that first night was rough.
But the next morning something shifted.
The woods felt different in the daylight. I started noticing small things around me. The slow movement of insects along a log. The rhythm of the wind that blew leaves to the forest floor. The way the woods wake up one sound at a time.
And I started noticing things within myself too.
Thoughts I normally would’ve ignored suddenly had space to breathe.
By day three my self perception had changed. I didn’t feel like some troubled kid dropped into the woods anymore. I felt like a part of the place. Just another creature existing in the same system.
By the end of the week it was almost bittersweet when the staff member walked back into my camp.
On one hand, I was grateful to see another human being. I had spent part of the week walking back and forth across the same log singing the same Sublime song over and over just to entertain myself.
But another part of me felt sad.
Because I had realized something.
It takes a lot of energy to interact with society.
Whether that’s eight boys in the woods or a city full of people.
Society was loud even back then, long before Facebook and the endless noise we live with today.
There’s always someone telling you what to think. What to chase. What to care about.
Solitude clears the fog.
When you’re alone long enough, the borrowed thoughts fall away and the real ones start to surface.
This all goes to say that if you’ve never spent time alone in the woods, I highly recommend it.
And if that’s not possible, start smaller.
Wake up in the morning and sit with your own thoughts before opening that glowing portal that floods your mind with everyone else’s.
It’s easy to adopt the thoughts of others.
It’s harder, and far more important, to remember your own.
FIELD
If you’re heading out on a camping trip, always pack one completely dry sleep layer in a waterproof bag.
Not an extra shirt. A dedicated full set.
Rain, sweat, river crossings, and damp ground will soak everything eventually. Once your clothes are wet and the temperature drops, your body burns enormous energy trying to stay warm.
Change into the dry set only when you crawl into your sleeping bag. Never hike in it. Never cook in it. Guard it like gold.
Even if every piece of gear you own is damp, that one dry layer can turn a miserable day around.
MINDSET
Most self limiting beliefs aren’t about what you can’t do.
They’re about what you haven’t attempted yet.
Instead of trying to overhaul your life, apply the 10 Percent Rule this week.
Pick one area where you’ve quietly been telling yourself:
“I’m not ready for that.”
Now increase your effort, exposure, or ambition by just 10 percent.
Examples:
Run 10 percent further than normal.
Speak up once more in a meeting.
Reach out to someone you normally wouldn’t.
Spend 10 percent more time working on the project you’ve been avoiding.
Ten percent feels small enough that your mind doesn’t panic.
But it’s large enough to prove something important.
Most ceilings in life are imaginary until you lean on them.
Do this once this week. Then repeat it next week.
I want to be left alone. I want to sit in the grass. I want to ride my horse. I want to lay a woman naked in the grass on the mountainside. I want to think. I want to pray. I want to sleep. I want to look at the stars. I want what I want. I want to get and prepare my own food, with my own hands, and live that way. I want to roll my own. I want to smoke some deer meat and pack it in my saddlebag, and go away over the bluff. I want to read books. I want to write books. I'll write books in the woods. Thoreau was right; Jesus was right. It's all wrong and I denounce it and it can all go to hell. I don't believe in this society; but I believe in man, like Mann. So roll your own bones, I say.
Jack Kerouac
Are the beliefs you carry your own, or just the loudest voices you’ve absorbed?
