Trekking condenses life into fast, brutal lessons. You start out feeling invincible, moving with purpose. Then the altitude steals your breath, the cold seeps into your bones, and suddenly, every step feels like an argument with gravity. You rethink everything—your decisions, your gear, your life choices.
For a long time, I thought suffering was proof of effort. If my legs weren’t shaking, if I wasn’t staggering into camp half-broken, had I even trekked? I wore exhaustion like a badge of honor, convinced that the harder it was, the more it meant.
That was nonsense.
The best trekkers don’t romanticize pain. They don’t grind themselves down just to prove they can take it. They adjust, conserve energy, and move with intention. They don’t treat struggle like a sport.
The same applies off the trail. Growth doesn’t require self-inflicted misery. Working hard doesn’t mean being miserable. Trekking taught me that you can push limits without making suffering a personality trait. You can chase the difficult without carrying it like a burden.
I still seek the steep climbs, the unrelenting paths. But I don’t measure a trek by how much it wrecks me—I measure it by what I see, what I learn, and how I come out on the other side.
“Strength isn’t in how much you suffer—
it’s in how well you move through the hard things
without letting them define you.”
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