How To Go Hiking And Clear Your Mind
Congratulations! You’ve chosen to wander around on the side of a hill, because you recognize the health benefits of clearing your mind while exercising like a caveman. Now before you go escape the city, explore how to unwind on the trail!
Trailhead
First things first, put away your phone! Hiking is about unplugging from the rat-race. It’s not about constantly checking your phone to see if a tolerable one-bedroom condo has come on the market in your godforsaken price-range. Hiking is definitely not about that. So just clear your mind; prepare to take in the sweeping views; and avoid brooming through piles of unresolved anxieties. You’ll see, hiking is better than sex!
0.1 Mile
Tramping across uneven ground is simply intoxicating. There’s no other activity on earth where you have so much freedom away from all the comforts in life that you enjoy. Just drink it in. Feel the majestic magnitude of this marvelous planet. Makes you feel so small, doesn’t it? Like when your realtor tells you there’s already been a cash offer 10% above asking price. Just gorgeous.
0.2 Mile
You’ll probably notice that it’s freezing. And sweltering hot. You’re a little further ahead than you were a minute ago, and pretty far from an unknown place and time in the future. Do not be discouraged. Hiking can be difficult, but also boring. And windy. Rest assured, that rhythmic clicking sound is not a bomb, it’s your knee, which could blow at any second. The perfect distraction from thinking about condos.
0.5 Mile
Boy, it’s getting steeper now. But just as the Feds keep hiking up interest rates, you keep climbing; because you’re not a quitter, you’re a masochist.
0.7 Mile
DID YOU KNOW: Hiking is actually much like buying a condo; a slow, painful ascent towards something you want until ultimately you just want it over with. So stay positive. Let yourself be met by the sweet embrace of mother nature, and held hostage by the chokehold of father time. Take a moment to find your center, and the most immediate place to take a shit.
1 Mile
Stop and take another break. Bask in the profound beauty before you. Relish in getting away from it all. The shelter, the food, the safety. There’s virtually no better way to feel so liberated and homeless. Other than shopping for a condo in Los Angeles.
Still 1 Mile
Keep resting. Ask yourself: do you have the gumption to continue on pretending this is fun? If you find that your fun-to-struggle ratio is lower than your debt-to-income ratio, then you have mastered the economics of hiking. At this juncture it’s best to examine condos on your phone for 15 or 40 minutes, until you have no choice but to trudge on like the 12 disciples without faith or a savior.
1 Mile and 12 Paces
FUN FACT: Hiking is kind of like puking; it’s miserable, but afterwards you wonder how it could have been prevented.
Who Cares
While hiking is typically a steady waste of time, other times it’s wildly unpredictable. There’s no middle ground. So prepare for dramatic weather shifts more jolting than irregular HOA fees. Because when it rains it pours, and it teases out the native water moccasin from nesting. An extremely dangerous snake, yet not as savage as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Then come the flash floods. They can soothe your chafing crotch, or wipe out entire villages. You just never know.
Condo
Even though there’s no shortcut to buying a condo, sometimes there is one back to the car. Do not be ashamed if you’re so tired it feels like you’re hallucinating. Because you are. You consumed an indigenous peyote plant. Which causes you to float like a looming balloon payment. This is nature’s way of saying “Give up, you can’t afford a condo, you failure.” And these timeless words of nature will inspire you, to fire off a flare gun higher than your mescaline buzz and a 30-year fixed.
Car
Somehow you’re alive! That was so much fun. What a great way to unwind. You’ll want to do that again soon. But right now you gotta hike across town to that open house!
