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21 " when someone doesn't feel valued or heard, their desire to participate in a job or relationship disappears. "
― Ben Crawford , 2,000 Miles Together: The Story of the Largest Family to Hike the Appalachian Trail
22 " To succeed on the trail, we would have to apply the same principle. In order to have any chance at succeeding, we would have to find a way to tune out the voices from outsiders and focus on what we thought was best for our family. "
23 " Eventually, we learned that the relationships we’d thought were compulsory were actually optional; that demanding submission was just another form of violence and control, and that we had the power to choose who was in our lives. Slowly, we gained the courage to walk away from many of the relationships that didn’t validate our voices, our feelings, or our humanity. "
24 " In the course of a lifetime, a series of uncomfortable adventures that shape your character and give you stories to look back and laugh about isn’t a disaster. A disaster is a series of unmemorable weeks, months, or years that leave you unchanged. "
25 " The question we asked as we approached the hike was the same question we used when considering the marathon. How can we live the type of story we want to read? It’s led us to experience a lot of fun things together—and a lot of hard things together—and to keep pursuing experiences that will help us learn and grow. We’ve been called crazy, we’ve been called brave, but I think we’ve just constantly improved at knowing what question to ask. "
26 " Pain is often feared; but we learned it was more the isolation around the pain that we feared. When shared, the pain felt almost funny. "
27 " In the course of a lifetime a series of uncomfortable adventures that shape your character and give you stories to look back and laugh about isn't a disaster. A disaster is a series of unmemorable weeks, months, or years that leave you unchanged. "