“Everyone has a supremely low moment somewhere along the AT, usually when the urge to quit the trail becomes almost overpowering. The irony of my moment was that I wanted to get back on the trail and didn’t know how. I hadn’t lost just Katz, my boon companion, but my whole sense of connectedness to the trail. I had lost my momentum, my feeling of purpose. In the most literal way I needed to find my feet again.”

It’s a great metaphor for regaining your purpose. 

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson has a way of maintaining three difficult things at once: (1) getting to the heart of a hiker, (2) the history of the Appalachian Trail, and (3) doing it with laugh-out-loud humor. His writing is affable and encouraging. It’s also a beautiful, surprisingly complex story.

This podcast focuses on self-exploration and personal identity -- to help you construct who you are, and how you want to feel, think, believe, and behave for yourself. Check out our gratitude challenge for the month of November at bigselfschool.com/gratitude.