Yet he had chosen to be there, testing his body and his spirit on a hot summer's morning.

He ascended the steepest dune again and again, on all fours.

There was nothing fluid about his motion. Every metre was won with a grimace and a stilted gait.

But it was about the most poetic thing I have ever seen.

I think about that young man quite a bit. I'm trying to model my life on him.

Rather than sitting at the bottom of the hill full of loathing, I want to grind my way to the summit and enjoy the view.

It's a work in progress and I have a long way to go.

But I think I'm making some ground.

One of the first steps for me was accepting that I choose the way I feel.

No one or no thing has the power to make me feel anything.

To say "you make me angry'' is a cop out.

You choose to be angry, as certainly as you choose what to put on your toast at breakfast.

I definitely have not reached some state of Zen being. Things upset me from time to time and I'm still affected by the actions of others.

But I'm a lot more impervious to negativity than I used to be.

I don't feel angry, hurt or aggrieved when people speak ill of me. What good would it do me?

And I certainly don't feel driven to "get even''. People who choose bitterness do a good enough job of ostracising themselves.

After all bitterness is toxic; you can't splash it around and not poison yourself.

I doubt they'll ever reach me on top of a sand dune anyway.