Expectations are usually predicated on the idea that the everyday things that happen to ordinary people shouldn't happen to you. People hold the idea of being ordinary in absolute contempt, so when they face an illness, poverty, or any kind of catastrophe, they say, "I can't believe this happened to me." And who did you think it was going to happen to - the woman across the street? It makes them think, "I must be on the wrong path." But what if something you thought was bad was the best thing that ever happened to you? What if that was part of your path?

Our lives change externally as we change internally.

Choice is your greatest power. It is an even greater power than love, because you must first choose to be a loving person.

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.

It is a rare person who can pierce the veil between ordinarly life, consumed with matters of physical survival, and pursuit of the empowered path of purpose and meaning unless he or she is motivated by a crisis. Most often we require the failure of some system of power that we rely on before we take action.

If you don't appreciate what you have in life right now, whatever it is, you will never realize your purpose. Without appreciation, you will never become strong enough to respect yourself.

Becoming internally empowered shifts a person's center of gravity from external to internal- a mark of spiritual passage.