Don't overlook the significance of your smallest opportunities for civilized behavior throughout each day. The future has no bigger moments than we experience right now. The world changes for the better with every act of kindness, and for the worse with every act of cruelty. The future is nothing grander than the very next moment, and it arrives solely from the present.

This is the first step toward understanding the process of real, lasting change: simply knowing with certainty that you can do whatever you need to do. This understanding has a dual edge: On the one hand it increases your confidence and dignity. On the other hand, it places full responsibility on you if you fail to make the change you set out to make. But this is a good thing, not a guilt trip.

We're all stumbling towards the light with varying degrees of grace at any given moment.

Do you want a world with . . . more joy and happiness? Then find your own joy and happiness and contribute to the joy and happiness of others.

Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile. Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace...and care properly for this planet we all share.

In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars and famine, kindness may be too easily dismissed as a 'soft' issue, or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas - kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile.

Life, like any other exciting story, is bound to have painful and scary parts, boring and depressing parts, but it's a brilliant story, and it's up to us how it will turn out in the end.