Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. - Cheryl Strayed

A terrible thing happened to you, but you mustn't let it define your life.

When I believed that all the things I’d been before had prepared me for this journey. But nothing had or could. Each day on the trail was the only possible preparation for the one that followed. And sometimes even the day before didn’t prepare me for what would happen next.

The thing about hiking the Pacific Coast Trial, the thing that was so profound to me that summer — and yet also, like many things, so very simple — was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do. How there was no escape or denial. (69)