The Question Some questions don’t feel like questions at all.They feel like a pause in the trail. The kind where you stop mid-stride; not because you’re tired, but because the ground beneath you just changed. A co-worker asked me one […]
Personal Growth
Deep Questions Yesterday in my sixth-grade English class, we were talking about emotions. Not the tidy, laminated-chart versions that live on classroom walls and get trotted out during advisory periods; but the real ones. Anxiety. Fear. The feelings that arrive […]
Some stories don’t stay where you leave them. They don’t fade when the chapter ends or quiet down when the trail curves away from the past. They linger; like fog in a low valley, like footsteps you swear you hear […]
Several years ago, I wrote my eulogy. Not because I was morbid.Not because I was giving up.But because I wanted a compass. I wasn’t trying to predict how my life would turn out. I was trying to decide (before the […]
The Silver Screen Movies speak to me.They always have, and I suspect they always will. Stories find us when we stand at the edge of something costly. They slip past our defenses and give us language for courage before we […]
A Different Kind of New Year’s Resolution Every January, the trailheads fill up. Gym parking lots overflow. New shoes hit the pavement. Promises are made under fluorescent lights and hopeful headlines: This is the year. Lose weight.Get disciplined.Become better. But […]
Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t a finish line you cross; it’s a trail that never really ends.It winds, it doubles back, it disappears in fog, and just when you think you’ve reached the top, the clouds shift and you see another […]
The Weight of the Pack Every long hike begins the same way: with a pack heavy enough to question your judgment.We start with everything we might need. Extra socks, backup batteries, snacks for every craving. There’s comfort in carrying abundance, […]
The Gift and the Chain I’ve never liked receiving gifts. If the five love languages were laid out like a mountain range, receiving gifts would be the low valley in my landscape. Shadowed, uncomfortable, a place I tend to pass […]
The Weight of the Pack Every hiker learns the same lesson the hard way: what you carry matters. As a young Boy Scout, I often overpacked. Layers for every forecast, food for an army, and gear that promised security. As […]
Page 1 of 5
About Me
![](https://joshschlotterbeck.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/hi_res_logo_black.png")