If anything or anyone distresses you, think how you'll feel a week - a month - a year later. If you can imagine yourself being happy and peaceful then, why waste all that time? Be happy and peaceful now.

Happiness is like a plant: It must be watered daily with giving thoughts and actions.

To be happy, you must live in, but not for, the present moment.

It's not insincere to say you're happy if your determined to make it true and live in that consciousness.

The two-fold goal of all human striving is the avoidance of pain, and the fulfillment of happiness.

Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory.

But surrender also means your back's to the wall and saying, "Okay, I give up." But rather it's a joyful self-offering. When you come to the point of realizing that "I never get it right. I always make a mess of things; I can't do anything right. Let him do it." And then you ask his power to do it through you and you find suddenly that it works that way.