I have learned to pay attention to dreams, not least because of my training as a clinical psychologist. Dreams shed light on the dim places where reason itself has yet to voyage.
If you haven’t done anything wrong, do not apologize.
It is easy for optimism to be undermined and demolished, however, if it is naive, and for cynicism to arise in its place. But the act of peering into the darkness as deeply as possible reveals a light that appears unquenchable, and that is a profound surprise, as well as a great relief.
It’s a good idea to tell the person you are confronting exactly what you would like them to do instead of what they have done or currently are doing. You might think, “if they loved me, they would know what to do.” That’s the voice of resentment. Assume ignorance before malevolence.
To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open.
And maybe when you are going for a walk and your head is spinning a cat will show up and if you pay attention to it then you will get a reminder for just fifteen seconds that the wonder of Being might make up for the ineradicable suffering that accompanies it. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
Perhaps it’s not reasonable to ask God to break the rules of physics every time we fall by the wayside or make a serious error. Perhaps, in such times, you can’t put the cart before the horse and simply wish for your problem to be solved in some magical manner. Perhaps you could ask, instead, what you might have to do right now to increase your resolve, buttress your character, and find the strength to go on. Perhaps you could instead ask to see the truth.
Meaning is the Way, the path of life more abundant, the place you live when you are guided by Love and speaking Truth and when nothing you want or could possibly want takes any precedence over precisely that.
Perhaps that is true prayer: the question, “What have I done wrong, and what can I do now to set things at least a little bit more right?
If the world you are seeing is not the world you want, therefore, it’s time to examine your values. It’s time to rid yourself of your current presuppositions. It’s time to let go.
It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world – a handyman’s dream, if ever there was one – is to fix yourself. Anything else is presumptuous.
You can neither remember nor forget what you do not understand.
The universe is composed of ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ – at least from the metaphorical perspective. Oddly enough, however, it is to this ‘metaphorical’ universe that our nervous systems appears to have adapted.
Almost all of the positive emotion that you will experience in your life will not be from attaining things but from seeing that things are working as you proceed towards a goal you value.
Even God couldn’t make a garden without a snake in it.
Not let people push you around because you’ll get pushed right into a corner and you’ll end up as a slave and because there’s tyranny, slavery, or negotiation.
Dress like the person you want to be.
Do not cast pearls before swine. If people are not listening to you, stop talking to them.
What is the moral of the story? Make yourself colorful, stand out, and the lions will take you down. And the lions are always there.
You should be careful, therefore, to live your life fully, and marriage and children and grandchildren, and all the trouble and heartbreak that accompanies all of that, is much of what life has to offer. Miss it at your great peril.