Shared this before but here goes. Life lesson included.

I am reminded of the time I took my son (he was 10 at the time) hiking in the hills (small mountain used for skiing) around where we live. We reached the peak later than we expected and the sun was starting to set, we needed to get to more stable terrain by the time it got dark so we tried to take a shortcut through a steep tree lined area near a small stream. I knew if we followed the stream we would find our way down eventually. The terrain was steep, wet, and difficult. My son fell down multiple times. He cut up both his knees and wrists falling on a rocky area at one point. The terrain was difficult, I could only help him physically to a certain point while maintaining my footing. We were not in mortal danger but could have gotten badly hurt if we weren't careful. At one point, seemingly going in circles in a steep area where we had to hold onto tree branches to keep from slipping and tumbling into trees below, my son stopped and started crying. He was spent, mentally and physically, he wanted to give up. I couldn't do this for him, we needed to make it down this difficult passage. So I told him we have three options: 1)We can quit and stay here for the night in the cold with no food, little water left, get bitten endlessly by bugs and be miserable until sunrise, 2)we can yell, scream, cry, try to call for help and hope someone will come to save us, 3) we can push forward and find a path home. He agreed to push forward and we did. A few minutes after overcoming the most difficult section we had faced, through the trees, not far away, I saw what looked like a grassy area. We struggled our way through the trees towards it. We had found our way to the last downhill slope of one of the ski runs and just like that I knew exactly where we were, with just enough light to get to the bottom and find our way back to the car as night set in. reply