Sometimes you can't help but eavesdrop.  Finding myself seated behind my husband on a flight to England to hike in Northumberland was one of those times.

The young man he was seated next to was a Kuwaiti  university student. He was saying that, "Nothing is hard if you do your studying." He said it twice. It turns out he was a chemical engineering graduate student, so he knew something about hard.

The next day, we went out to find the trails we were both going to walk. Mine, an easy one down to a priory I had heard about that morning, and my husband a hard fifteen mile walk up into the hills. As I started down the well marked path, I felt like I was in Robin Hood's forest. The sun was warm, the trees full of airy, newly born leaves, and the path covered in pine needles and well worn with centuries of foot traffic.

I arrived at the priory, saw the sights and headed back to the forest path . As I began to climb the hill I had so happily walked down, I started to feel less happy. Then, I started to feel annoyed, hot, and grumpy. I stopped. At that moment, I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to be finished. As I began to feel sorry for myself I recalled the young Kuwaiti student's  comment: “Nothing is hard if you do your studying.”

But, I had not done my studying, if by that is meant preparing for the walking I would be doing in England. I had barely gone out for flat, two-mile walks before starting the trip. So, what to do?

A blind mountain climber and author, Erik Weihenmayer, says that there are two kinds of people, campers and climbers. At that moment I knew I had a choice to make. I may not have done the proper physical training for this trip, but I knew for a fact I could decide not to let this feeling of frustration and self-pity win. I chose to climb, literally and figuratively. I let myself slow down and, as I did, I consciously looked around at the same beautiful forest I had so enjoyed just a few hours earlier. I also didn't let myself stop. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, like we do in life.

I find that lots of things feel either like my downhill glide, or my struggle to get to the top.  What I think matters most, is how we choose to feel in the hard moments. Everyone says this, of course, but that’s because it’s true. It’s also true that the climbs make you stronger, whereas the easy stuff, - - not so much. My preparation may not always be as good as the Kuwaiti student's study habits, but at least I am still climbing.

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