We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone-but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

True hope responds to the real world, to real life; it is an active effort.

Focus on the solution, not the problem

True hope dwells on the possible, even when life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity we can overcome.

You must take chances. If you do nothing, you reduce the possibilities you have for greater joy.

Our lives improve only when we take chances.

At 10 minutes to seven on a dark, cool evening in Mexico City in 1968, John Stephen Akwari of Tanzania painfully hobbled into the Olympic Stadium-the last man to finish the marathon. The winner had already been crowned, and the victory ceremony was long finished. So the stadium was almost empty and Akwari - alone, his leg bloody and bandaged - struggled to circle the track to the finish line. When asked why he had continued the grueling struggle, the young man from Tanzania answered softly: My country did not send me 9,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 9,000 miles to finish the race.