Finishing season
Over Memorial Day weekend, I completed my journey across Washington state using the continuous boot path established along the Pacific Crest Trail.
I first wanted to walk the 503 miles along Washington’s PCT in early 2020, before the pandemic shut the world down. I had already known that I loved hiking: I felt a certain ineffable peace whenever I loitered in the woods all day by myself, and had an idea that I’d really love long days with long miles with the long shadows of trees in a place I considered home.
Due to work, having to go to too many weddings, and money, I didn’t get to begin this journey until 2022. And when I did, I was limited by injury (pro tip: don’t blithely buy insoles without understanding what your feets’ needs are!). That year, I completed about 350 of the 533 miles that I needed to hike. (Since the border into Canada was still closed, I had to add another 30 miles to my journey to get back to the last accessible road).
I tried to complete the remainder last summer. But just as I thought I saw the finish line through one of the most remote and strenuous sections of the trail, smoke from forest fires in the North Cascades rolled into the Stehekin River Valley. I famously can not exercise when the AQI is above even the 20-30 range, so I got off trail in Stehekin, a small town accessible only by boat and foot. On the long ferry ride out, I was not only heartbroken by our burning planet and the start of fire season that always elicits an unhealthy dose of climate anxiety, but because I had all this pent up “finishing energy” (as I called it) that would just have to wait.
So this spring, I began obsessively checking the snow layer on my GPS-tracker week after week. By mid-May, things were looking promising: it looked like I could finish that remaining, errant 19-mile section north of Stehekin over Memorial Day Weekend. So, I went.
Over this year and 2023, I’ve been obsessed with finishing things. Last year, I completed a seven-year project: the story of why traders in Bangladesh were adulterating turmeric with lead, and what the country did to turn it all around. And just the other week I completed the personal project of finishing my walk along the Washington PCT.
It feels good to finish things, full stop. Our brain gets a little hit of dopamine every time something gets completed. It helps our reward pathways come full circle. It signifies the end of something. It opens up capacity and potential for something new. I love the satisfaction that comes with finishing a climbing route or problem, or the moment I get back to my car after a hike and I liberate my feet from my shoes and socks, or when I take a new finished knitted garment off the drying mats and deeply inhale the smell of wool.
The thing about finishing things, though, especially these projects (both personal and professional) that happen over the course of years, is that there’s often a certain pressure to just finish what you started. Sometimes that pressure comes from others. Other times, that need comes from yourself.
It’s important to note that we change as people during the course of these projects. And it takes a moment – or a few – to pause and really assess whether or not the thing we started is something we still want to finish.
At the beginning of 2023, I remember posing this question in one of my mastermind groups: should I try and finish my turmeric project after all this time? On one hand, it’s something I’ve spent an egregious amount of time researching and it felt judicious for me to finish it. Multiple funders, too, have committed over five figures into this story idea of mine. However, it’s a project that I started pre-pandemic. I recognized that the pandemic had changed my priorities in life and business. And going on a 8-day international reporting trip, I learned, isn’t exactly the most lucrative business decision.
I’m forever grateful to my peers and how they encouraged me to think about my needs. Was I still excited by the prospect of this type of work? Do I think the process of completing the project would be fun? Would I regret not bringing it across the finish line?
I’m a big believer in quitting. I’m a big believer in putting things down that no longer serve me. We can only know that these shifts are happening when we create the space to pay attention to our internal thoughts.
I don’t finish most books I start. Hell, sometimes I even rip out knitting projects that I’m initially excited by but end up not doing it for me part-way through. A decade ago, I quit my PhD program about 18 months in because I realized I didn’t want a career in academia anymore. I’ve left plenty of relationships — rather than feeling obliged to ‘see things through’ and succumbing to sunk-cost-fallacy, I realized that I’ve grown out of those partnerships – and that’s just life. I’ve fired clients or bowed out of contracts that no longer were a fit for me and my evolving business and needs as a writer.
It’s ok to leave things where they are. It’s ok to not see something to completion.
Don’t finish things just because.
Do it because you’ve checked in with yourself.
Do it because you genuinely want to.
Do it because you’re so deeply curious.
Do it because you love the process.
So great about the trail; congratulations. Valuable point about quitting when it doesn't serve. And, glad the process was still fun for the turmeric article, which highlights both a valuable human story and a scientific breaththrough.