Plan B - Optimized Failure

I should have been doing my final preps this week, packing, and stressing over the last details of a well planned thru hike.  I've diverged from the plan in the fact I am off the plan, and will not be back on it for I think many years to come.  Somehow I planned myself out of going.

So goes another failure to launch in a long string of failures.  I've spent a lot of money, educated and prepared myself as best able.  Yet when the critical moments of execution come I have discovered the inherent flaws of my ambitions, making it pointless to continue at this time.  I so wish I could be like some people who ignore things like that and just blindly push on...

Appalachian Trials - A Review

(11/12/12) NOTE:  Please read the author comments and my response that follow this rant. 

Recently I finished reading a book written by a 2011 thru-hiker named Zach Davis, aka The Good Badger.  The full title of the book is Appalachian Trials: The Psychological and Emotional Guide to Successfully Thru-Hiking The Appalachian Trail.  What follows is my personal opinion of said work.