Adventure #10 -- Hiking is fine, but walking in the woods is better

So, my latest adventure occurred on Saturday. I went hiking in the Laurel Snow State Natural Area with a group of friends. I think a natural area is a park without a welcome center, but I'm not really sure, because I pretty much just made that up.

Anyway, if you know me, you know that I frequently describe myself as an "indoor-kid". This is not really that accurate. I love being outside, if by outside you mean "sitting on my screened-in porch whilst sipping a cocktail". That said, I really do not like hiking. Yeah, yeah, fall back in horror, clutching your tie-dye, ya hippie. Hiking, to me, involves rapidly walking through the woods, up and down a bunch of hills that all look the same, until finally reaching some destination. Wow, what fun.

Screw that.

I am a much bigger fan of walking in the woods. Walking in the woods involves meandering and taking time to actually look at all that nature. I don't understand how people can walk briskly, not trip over rocks/roots, and still manage to enjoy looking around them all at the same time. Maybe I'm clumsier and slower than the average person (likely), but I am not going out into the woods so that I can look at my feet the whole time. I am going so that I can look at how pretty it is outside. If that makes me too "slow" ... well... this is why I don't go hiking, because I'm always slow.

I grew up around streams that looked just like this.
I love them and they make me happy.

Next order of business: I will never again be tricked into hiking to a waterfall. People are obsessed with waterfalls. That's good for them, but I would just as soon hike next to a river or stream. Here's the sordid truth about waterfalls, people: It turns out that waterfalls occur when water actually falls off of something far up in the air down to something below.

This is it. Laurel Falls. It was actually awesome to haul my nearly-dead ass
up that damned mountain and turn a final corner and see this.

The more impressive the waterfall, the greater the change in elevation. You know what that means? If someone wants you to go on a hike to a waterfall, it pretty much means you're going to be climbing a freaking mountain or descending into a valley, after which you will be forced to climb back up the mountain to get back to your car.

I made it! Adventure Jacket™ helped!

THAT SAID. If you like hiking up mountains to get to waterfalls, or if you like walking in the woods slowly next to a gorgeous stream, Laurel Snow has it all. It is ridiculously beautiful, and there is not a time of year I can think of that would be bad to visit. I would really love to go back with some like-minded walkers who want to have a fancy picnic next to the stream rather than hauling ass up that mountain. That would be lovely.

Adventure #9 -- The Four Agreements

So, a few years ago I went through a self-help book phase. Nothing has really stuck with me, particularly, except one of the four agreements in The Four Agreements. This book is a little bit in the woo-woo mystical healing powers of crystals genre, but it makes really good points, one of which I need to remind myself of periodically:

Agreement #2: Don't Take Anything Personally.

I don't know about you, but I really struggle with this. I'm a fairly type-A, highly achieving, gold-star seeking person. Those gold stars are important, y'all, and if someone gives me negative feedback or seems like they are in a bad mood, I immediately jump on the unhealthy rumination train. "Did I do something wrong? Do they not like me? If they don't like me, is it because they are a jerk? Or is it because they think I'm stupid/lazy/incompetent?" You know how it goes, maybe.

"Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world."

"When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. You also try hard to be right by giving them your own opinions. In the same way, whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say, what you do, and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made-- and these opinions have nothing to do with me."

How much easier would my life be if I took fewer things personally. It is really never about me.