Do I need to love hiking to be a socially accepted good person?

Or an ongoing internal struggle on my relationship with nature

I’m not really an outdoorsy person.

I’m fit. I workout — I go to spin class two to three times a week and kill it at HIIT classes. But studio classes and something like running outside or hiking in the mountains are not created equal. One of these makes you a more wholesome person.

Is it just me? I feel like society really positions being outdoorsy as “good”. Ergo, not enjoying hiking and not having an affinity for the outdoors is superficial and “bad”.

There are people who love the outdoors. No, they need it. Go long enough without being nature, they feel restless and frustrated.

I’m not one of these people.

Having grown up in big metropolitan cities, Central Park is nature enough for me.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy being in nature or that I hate hiking. I’ve done my fair share of strenuous and amazing hikes — Table Mountain and Lion’s Head in Cape Town, muddy waterfall hikes in Kauai — and I had a good time. I enjoyed myself.

Still, hiking never used to be on my list of activities while traveling. But with more and more friends who are into this, I started saying yes to them and often find myself enjoying it.

It should be one of the top attractions in the area though.

Because hiking just for the sake of hiking? I simply don’t feel the rush of joy that others do when being in nature. I don’t find the journey that interesting if it’s just in an endless bunch of very basic or sometimes ugly and dry trees.

I like a good view as much as the next person, but that’s exactly what a hike should have — a nice reward to make my efforts worth it.

Is this sounding a bit high maintenance and superficial already?

Am I a terrible human because I prefer the comforts of the modern world and am not inherently motivated by nature for nature’s sake?

I mean, there is nature like Iceland and Hawaii. Then there is nature like random hill in middle of Germany.

These two are not created equal.

I will ethusiastically work for the former but could happily skip the latter.

Does this make me less wholesome and good than someone who wants to be in nature all the time?

Then so be it.

I’m done being conflicted about hiking.