The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.

Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible-controlling that which we cannot-and instead, focus on what is possible-which usually means taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible.

I never know what the next lesson is going to be, because we're not supposed to know -- we're supposed to trust ourselves to discover it.

Perspective will come in retrospect.

Today, I will focus on what's right about me. I will give myself some of the caring I've extended to the world.

The more we learn to love and respect ourselves, the more we will become attracted to people who will love and respect us and who we can safely love and respect.

We don't want to give the controls to someone else; we want those reins ourselves. We want to get our way. And we get upset when things don't work out. . . . When we try to control someone else or events beyond the scope of our power, we lose. When we learn to discern the difference between what we can change and what we can't, we usually have an easier time expressing our power in our lives. Because we're not wasting all our energy using our power to change things we can't, we have a lot of energy left over to live our lives.