Never Quit on a Bad Day

It was Day 100 on the Te Araroa trail, the day I had a complete meltdown. 

That trail was my first long-distance thru-hike, 2,000 miles covering the entire length of New Zealand. 

To be fair, I’d had plenty of bad days up until that moment: mud that went on forever, icy squalls that seeped into my shivering bones, and nearly unbearable heat from an unrestrained sun beating down through a hole in the ozone layer. 

I’d crossed dangerous rivers and suffered oozing sores from biting sandflies, but I was still standing and moving forward. I was living up to my trail name “Blissful Hiker” and I was coming close to finishing this epic walk. 

The day I fell apart, I was tramping into the Two Thumb Track closing in on the trails’ highest pass with a view directed towards Mount Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain. 

What set me off is anyone’s guess, though it might have had something to do with the Kiwi couple I’d bunked with the night before. They were friendly and curious, but woke up in a sour mood, seemingly irritated that they were forced to share their space with foreigners. 

So I started my day feeling sad and despondent, especially when the man asked me just as I was departing, “How many more of you are coming?” as if we were invading hordes.

At that time, I was hiking with a young Czech man named Tomáš. He’d suggested we hike over the high pass today, a good long way with a very big climb. He’d slept in and would begin hiking later than me, but I needed the head start if I was going to make the pass. 

As I trudged through tussocky mounds of tall grass and ankle-rolling rocky trail, crossing a tumbling stream dozens of times, I scoured the hillside for the next orange-tipped pole marking the way. 

There’s not really a trail on much of the Te Araroa, rather a hiker looks for blazes which can be frustrating to locate. It’s hard work, but by now I was used to it. Still, my heart was weighted down by that unfriendly parting question and my pace got slower and slower. 

Perhaps I’d skipped breakfast trying to get going fast or was I just tired. Thinking I might wait for Tomáš to catch up, I sat down on the banks of that multi-crossing stream and started to cry. 

“I want to come home. I don’t want to be here anymore. This is too hard.”

We have a saying in the hiker world, “Never quit on a bad day.” It’s a reminder that it’s a good idea to hold off on making major decisions when things get tough and instead give yourself space to get some perspective. 

That’s because when things get tough – physically, mentally or even spiritually – our bodies try to protect us by getting us out of of there as fast as possible and back to a more comfortable place. But it’s at that exact moment when we need to resist and do the hard thing by acting in an opposite way to what we might  want. 

Resilience is all about perseverance and pushing through, having the strength to keep going in spite of how bad things feel. But there’s another side to that, a kind of letting go and trusting. Resilient people are not just full of grit and able to withstand bad days, they possess an optimism that makes them able to see the big picture, that we all have bad days sometimes and, maybe most importantly, that bad days are only temporary.

Crying into my video – which wasn’t being shared with anyone, at least not on that grassy mountainside – was my way to reassessing. I knew myself well enough to know that letting it all hang out would eventually get me to a better mental space, one with the energy to dust off my bottom and keep moving forward. 

“I want some beer.  I want some candy and beer.”

And it didn’t last long. My stated desire for junk food sounded so ridiculous coming out of my mouth, I simply had to laugh. Laughing at ourselves or our predicament can oftentimes be one of the best tools in our resilience toolbox.

Even the late Pope Francis delighted in laughter, especially at ourselves. He wrote, 

Irony is a medicine, not only to lift and brighten others, but also ourselves, because self-mockery is a powerful instrument in overcoming the temptation toward narcissism. Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves.

The narcissist asks “Why me?” while the resilient person asks, “What now?” 

Just as I finished my video and set down the phone, wiping away my tears and taking a swig of water, Tom arrived. He looked a bit beat up himself. 

I suddenly remembered that it was only yesterday that we walked many miles off-trail to a film location used in The Lord of the Rings, then crossed one of New Zealand’s massive braided rivers, the Rangitata. And as if that wasn’t enough, we forged up another river before climbing steeply up and down and up again to the hut where we met the Kiwis. Obviously we were tired, and I hadn’t given either of us enough credit for our exertions.

Tom never heard a word of what I’d said on my video. He didn’t even seem to notice I’d been crying when he suggested we skip climbing over the pass today and instead camp up ahead just a few more kilometers. 

Oh, Tom! Music to my ears!

Part of being a resilient person is knowing when to take a break and when to keep moving forward. Being persistent, tenacious and persevering are all well and good. Clearly the two of us were capable of pushing ourselves. But we were exhausted and for me, I didn’t have any energy left to brush off an unpleasant remark. All I could do in the moment was sit down and feel the feels, then reassess and make a promise not to quit – at least not right then. 

When everything goes sideways and you’re having a bad day, repeat the mantra to not quit today but instead give yourself the self-love, the break, the reset to get back on track. If the direction you’re headed is indeed one you need to quit, you’ll know it when you’ve given yourself some distance to look at the bigger picture and not get totally overwhelmed by your emotional state. 

Perhaps writer Annie Lamott sums it up best,

Everything will work again if you just unplug it for a few minutes. Even you.