A nap is not to be confused with sleeping. We sleep to recharge our bodies. We nap to care for our souls. When we nap, we are resting our eyes while our imaginations soar. Getting ready for the next round. Sorting, sifting, separating the profound from the profane, the possible from the improbable. Rehearsing our acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, our surprise on receiving the MacArthur genius award. This requires a prone position. If we're lucky, we might drift off, but we won't drift far. Just far enough to ransom our creativity from chaos.

I approach my work with a passionate intensity, acting as if its success depends entirely on me. "But once I've done my best, I try to let go as much as possible and have no expectations about how my work will be received by the world."

I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I'd known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd be born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.

All of us know about learning life's lessons through pain, struggle, and loss. But few of us realize that it is often the gentlest lessons that teach us most. Serendipity can instruct us as much as sorrow.

The revelation that we have everything we need in life to make us happy but simply lack the conscious awareness to appreciate it can be as refreshing as lemonade on a hot afternoon. Or it can be as startling as cold water being thrown in our face. How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we’re really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance?

Ironically, gratitude's most powerful mysteries are often revealed when we are struggling in the midst of personal turmoil.