[pct-l] Personal stories about life before the PCT

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

Ha ha you sound like me (I'm Piper).

Not 6 figures, though, but I was working at a good dot-com company.  
It wasn't a good fit. I thought maybe I didn't like my career. I gave  
notice 6 weeks before I set off. I really didn't think it through or  
anything. I thought I needed to try a new career path so I was taking  
a career class based on a book titled Callings: Finding and Following  
an Authentic Life. One day in the class I realized I had 2 years  
worth of money in the bank. I could go hike the PCT right now if I  
wanted to. I gave notice the next Monday and the trail 6 weeks later.

Good luck. Doing the hike is a good idea but be open to the  
possibility it won't actually help you figure out where to go next.  
It makes a big difference, though, because after you get to Canada  
you have something nobody can take away.

Hiking the trail showed me there is a hole in the fence and I can  
crawl through it any time. Trading the only thing on earth you truly  
own (your time) for lots of money is not always a fair trade. There  
is more to life than money.

By the way, I'm doing the same career now that I was doing before,  
but I'm at a university now and the atmosphere is different. The pay  
is less but the trade-off is worth it.

Diane

On May 9, 2013, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> From: "Nicole E. Phillips" <nephils at gmail.com>
> Subject: [pct-l] Personal stories about life before the PCT
>
> stuck in a numbing
> career within a corporation whose values (I'm learning more  
> everyday) are
> not in line with my own. I have dreamed about a thru hike for several
> years, but recently I feel that certain events have led me to  
> officially
> decide to leave my career and go for a walk.