"What is my job on the planet?" is one question we might do well to ask ourselves over and over again. Otherwise, we may wind up doing somebody else's job and not even know it. And what's more, that somebody else might be a figment of our own imagination, and maybe a prisoner of it as well.

It is a form of violence, to not see a being for who he or she really is. You think, "Oh, that's my son." But the lens, "my son," completely obliterates the multi- dimensions of that being. Maybe you only see your disappointments in that child, or you aspirations for that child, but that's not the child.

In any given moment we are either practicing mindfulness, or defacto, we are practicing mindlessness.

If we are honest with ourselves, most of us will have to admit that we live out our lives in an ocean of fear.

Dying without actually fully living, without waking up to our lives while we have the chance, is an ongoing and significant risk.

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.

Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.