Act as if the universe is a prodigious miracle created for your amusement and illumination. Assume that secret helpers are working behind the scenes to assist you in turning into the gorgeous masterpiece you were born to be. Join the conspiracy to shower all of creation with blessings.

We need radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks.

Don't save your enormous creativity for "something better." Give it to this.

Enjoy saying "no!" but don't make it the wellspring of your vitality. Be fueled by blood-red yeses.

The world is crazily in love with you, wildly and innocently in love. Even now, thousands of secret helpers are conspiring to turn you into the beautiful curiosity you were born to be.

The average American child sees 20,000 murders in TV before reaching age 18. This is considered normal. Every community has video rental stores filled with multimillion-dollar films that depict people doing terrible things to each other. If you read newspapers, you have every right to believe that Bad Nasty Things compose 90 percent of the human experience. But you will be hard-pressed to find more than a few novels, films, news stories, and TV shows that dare to depict life as a gift whose purpose is to enrich the human soul.

May you eat an unfamiliar dessert in a strange land at least once every three years.