The power to bring me out of solitude - or to push me back into it - had never belonged to another person. It was mine and only mine.

If you're religious, it gives you a perspective.

Anyone who comes into your life, under any circumstances, has something to teach you.

Here is the crux of the matter, the distilled essence, the only thing you need to remember: When considering whether to say yes or no, you must choose the response that feels like freedom. Period.

When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance - if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises - then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.

Instead of fretting about getting everything done, why not simply accept that being alive means having things to do? Then drop into full engagement with whatever you're doing, and let the worry go.

Your relationship is not supposed to be perfect all the time, your business is not supposed to do well all the time, your soufflés are not supposed to raise perfectly all the time. Everything is designed to go wrong so that you can gain the skills of rediscovering your tracks, even in difficult or frightening circumstances. Especially in difficult and frightening circumstances.