(This is a part of the series of responses to the Honey Copy course, How to write articles that will make your readers fall in love with you. If you’re interested in reading my previous entries or future ones, you can do so on Medium.)

The most generic hobby of all time, so they say, is hiking.

You have the hiking bros who gear up with all sorts of (is it unnecessary?) equipment — you got the hiking sticks, the Camelbacks, and the aviators — and when questioned, will tell you it’s their favorite hobby when that may or may not actually be true.

Yet I’d argue that while it’s the safest and least offensive hobby in the bunch — you’re active but not too active, you spend your time responsibly, you’re “one with nature” — it tells us the most about life.

I view life as one long hike that never ends.

We’re presented with a mountain range full of varying peaks and difficulties.

The paths split, intertwine, meet up together again, then break apart. Your ability to jump from one path to another constantly exists.

If there isn’t a path that doesn’t take you where you want to go, you forge it yourself.

Sometimes we get lost.

Sometimes we have to take a detour to get to the mountain we want.

Sometimes we choose a climb that feels too steep and we’re praying that we don’t fall, our arms shaking as we cling to the jagged edges.

Sometimes we simply stumble on a rock and instantly recover, and sometimes we fall right into a cactus (anyone who lives in the desert regions will understand the pain).

Sometimes we make it up the peak and witness a view that leaves us speechless and forever changes our perspective.

At the end of the day, we get to choose our own path.

The valleys, the plagues, and the steep climbs all combine to make up the essence of the journey.

There’s life — the rabbit that scurries in front of you, the bird that swoops down from above and calls out to its kindred.

There’s death — the tree that split in two after a violent storm, the grass that’s burnt to a crisp from the unrelenting summer sun.

But each day is anew. Each path teaches you a valuable lesson. Each peak leads to a newly gained perspective of the world around you.

As we hike through the mountain range, we use our failures and successes to move us onto the next path. We carry the lessons with us and collect a wealth of experience along the way.

And after we successfully climb the peak we’ve set our eyes on, we soak up the view, take a deep breath, rest for a moment, then move on to the next one.

So, isn’t hiking just like life?