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When We Love Someone Our Love Becomes Demonstrable Or Real Only Through Our Exertion - Through The Fact That For That Someone (or For Ourself) We Take An Extra Step Or Walk An Extra Mile. Love Is Not Effortless. To The Contrary, Love Is Effortful.

-M. Scott Peck

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When We Love Someone

M. Scott Peck

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When We Love Someone Our Love Becomes Demonstrable Or Real Only Through Our Exertion - Through The Fact That For That Someone (or For Ourself) We Take An Extra Step Or Walk An Extra Mile. Love Is Not Effortless. To The Contrary, Love Is Effortful.

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True Love Is Not A Feeling By Which We Are Overwhelmed. It Is A Committed, Thoughtful Decision.

From The Age Of Three On, As Far Back As I Remember, I Just Knew There Was A God Behind Everything.

The Great Awareness Comes Slowly, Piece By Piece. The Path Of Spiritual Growth Is A Path Of Lifelong Learning. The Experience Of Spiritual Power Is Basically A Joyful One.

When Any Institution Becomes Large And Compartmentalized, With Departments And Subdepartments, Then The Conscience Of The Institution Will Often Become So Fragmented And Diluted As To Be Virtually Nonexistent, And The Organization Becomes Inherently Evil.

What People Get Admired And Appreciated For In Community Are Their Soft Skills: Their Sense Of Humor And Timing, Their Ability To Listen, Their Courage And Honesty, Their Capacity For Empathy.

The Time And The Quality Of The Time That Their Parents Devote To Them Indicate To Children The Degree To Which They Are Valued By Their Parents. . . . When Children Know That They Are Valued, When They Truly Feel Valued In The Deepest Parts Of Themselves, Then They Feel Valuable. This Knowledge Is Worth More Than Any Gold.

The Act Of Loving Is An Act Of Self-evolution Even When The Purpose Of The Act Is Someone Else's Growth.

The Path Of Spiritual Growth Is A Path Of Lifelong Learning.

Love Is The Will To Extend One's Self For The Purpose Of Nurturing One's Own Or Another's Spiritual Growth... Love Is As Love Does. Love Is An Act Of Will -- Namely, Both An Intention And An Action. Will Also Implies Choice. We Do Not Have To Love. We Choose To Love.

Commitment Is Inherent In Any Genuinely Loving Relationship.

Delaying Gratification Is A Process Of Scheduling The Pain And Pleasure Of Life In Such A Way As To Enhance The Pleasure By Meeting And Experiencing The Pain First And Getting It Over With. It Is The Only Decent Way To Live.

Procrastination

Share Our Similarities, Celebrate Our Differences.

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Children Will, In My Dream, Be Taught That Laziness And Narcissism Are At The Very Root Of Human Evil, And Why This Is So. . . . They Will Come To Know That The Natural Tendency Of The Individual In A Group Is To Forfeit His Or Her Ethical Judgment To The Leader, And That This Tendency Should Be Resisted. And They Will Finally See It As Each Individual's Responsibility To Continually Examine Himself Or Herself For Laziness And Narcissism And Then To Purify Themselves Accordingly.

Ultimately Love Is Everything.

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Problems Are The Cutting Edge That Distinguishes Between Success And Failure. Problems ... Create Our Courage And Wisdom.

Doubt Is Often The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Discipline Is The Basic Set Of Tools We Require To Solve Life’s Problems. Without Discipline We Can Solve Nothing. With Only Some Discipline We Can Solve Only Some Problems. With Total Discipline We Can Solve All Problems.

Falling In Love Is Not An Act Of Will. It Is Not A Conscious Choice. No Matter How Open To Or Eager For It We May Be, The Experience May Still Elude Us. Contrarily, The Experience May Capture Us At Times When We Are Definitely Not Seeking It, When It Is Inconvenient And Undesirable.

Falling In Love

I Gave Examples From My Clinical Practice Of How Love Was Not Wholly A Thought Or Feeling. I Told Of How That Very Evening There Would Be Some Man Sitting At A Bar In The Local Village, Crying Into His Beer And Sputtering To The Bartender How Much He Loved His Wife And Children While At The Same Time He Was Wasting His Family's Money And Depriving Them Of His Attention. We Recounted How This Man Was Thinking Love And Feeling Love--were They Not Real Tears In His Eyes?--but He Was Not In Truth Behaving With Love.

Let Me Simply State That It Is Wrong To Regard Any Other Human Being, A Priori, As An Object, Or An 'it.' This Is So Because Each And Every Human Being - You, Every Friend, Every Stranger, Every Foreigner - Is Precious.

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In And Through Community Lies The Salvation Of The World.

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Nirvana Or Lasting Enlightenment Or True Spiritual Growth Can Be Achieved Only Through Persistent Exercise Of Real Love.

The Life Of Wisdom Must Be A Life Of Contemplation Combined With Action.

Examination Of The World Without Is Never As Personally Painful As Examination Of The World Within.

The More Effort We Make To Appreciate And Perceive Reality, The Larger And More Accurate Our Maps Will Be. But Many Do Not Want To Make This Effort.

All My Life I Used To Wonder What I Would Become When I Grew Up. Then, About Seven Years Ago, I Realized That I Was Never Going To Grow Up--that Growing Is An Ever Ongoing Process.

Real Love Is A Permanently Self-enlarging Experience.

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What Does A Life Of Total Dedication To Truth Mean? It Means, First Of All, A Life Of Continuous And Never-ending Stringent Self-examination. We Know The World Only Through Our Relationship To It. Therefore, To Know The World, We Must Not Only Examine It But We Must Simultaneously Examine The Examiner.

It Is Not Easy For Us To Change. But It Is Possible And It Is Our Glory As Human Beings

Although The Act Of Nurturing Another's Spiritual Growth Has The Effect Of Nurturing One's Own, A Major Characteristic Of Genuine Love Is That The Distinction Between Oneself And The Other Is Always Maintained And Preserved.

Everything That Happens In Life Is There To Aid Our Spiritual Growth.

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Although I Was Raised In A Profoundly Secular Home, I Had A Belief, An Awareness Of God, From As Far Back As I Can Remember.

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Not Only Do Self-love And Love Of Others Go Hand In Hand But Ultimately They Are Indistinguishable.

An Essential Part Of True Listening Is The Discipline Of Bracketing, The Temporary Giving Up Or Setting Aside Of One's Own Prejudices, Frames Of Reference And Desires So As To Experience As Far As Possible The Speaker's World From The Inside, Step In Inside His Or Her Shoes.

Abandon The Urge To Simplify Everything, To Look For Formulas And Easy Answers, And To Begin To Think Multidimensionally, To Glory In The Mystery And Paradoxes Of Life, Not To Be Dismayed By The Multitude Of Causes And Consequences That Are Inherent In Each Experience -- To Appreciate The Fact That Life Is Complex.

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Love Is The Free Exercise Of Choice. Two People Love Each Other Only When They Are Quite Capable Of Living Without Each Other But Choose To Live With Each Other.

The Best Decision-makers Are Those Who Are Willing To Suffer The Most Over Their Decisions But Still Retain Their Ability To Be Decisive.

Life Is A Series Of Problems. Do We Want To Moan About Them Or Solve Them?

Listening Well Is An Exercise Of Attention And By Necessity Hard Work. It Is Because They Do Not Realize This Or Because They Are Not Willing To Do The Work That Most People Do Not Listen Well.

The Only Real Security In Life Lies In Relishing Life's Insecurity.

As I Grow Through Love, So Grows My Joy, Ever More Present, Ever More Constant.

Good Discipline Requires Time. When We Have No Time To Give Our Children, Or No Time That We Are Willing To Give, We Don't Even Observe Them Closely Enough To Become Aware Of When Their Need For Our Disciplinary Assistance Is Expressed Subtley.

Self Examination Is The Key To Insight, Which Is The Key To Wisdom

Courage Is Not The Absence Of Fear; It Is The Making Of Action In Spite Of Fear.

The Truth Is That Our Finest Moments Are Most Likely To Occur When We Are Feeling Deeply Uncomfortable, Unhappy, Or Unfulfilled. For It Is Only In Such Moments, Propelled By Our Discomfort, That We Are Likely To Step Out Of Our Ruts And Start Searching For Different Ways Or Truer Answers.

But I Already Saw No Great Difference Between The Psyche And Spirituality. To Amass Knowledge Without Becoming Wise Is Not My Idea Of Progress In Therapy.

If We Deny Our Anger, Our Pain, Our Ambition, Or Our Goodness, We Will Suffer.

Listen To Your Child Enough And You Will Come To Realize That He Or She Is Quite An Extraordinary Individual. And The More Extraordinary You Realize Your Child To Be The More You Will Be Willing To Listen. And The More You Will Learn.

Life Is Difficult. This Is A Great Truth, One Of The Greatest Truths. It Is A Great Truth Because Once We Truly See This Truth, We Transcend It. Once We Truly Know That Life Is Difficult-once We Truly Understand And Accept It-then Life Is No Longer Difficult. Because Once It Is Accepted, The Fact That Life Is Difficult No Longer Matters.

There Is No Act Of Love That Is Not An Act Of Work Or Courage. No Exceptions.

Since [narcissists] Deep Down, Feel Themselves To Be Faultless, It Is Inevitable That When They Are In Conflict With The World They Will Invariably Perceive The Conflict As The World's Fault. Since They Must Deny Their Own Badness, They Must Perceive Others As Bad. They Project Their Own Evil Onto The World. They Never Think Of Themselves As Evil, On The Other Hand, They Consequently See Much Evil In Others.

While I Generally Find That Great Myths Are Great Precisely Because They Represent And Embody Great Universal Truths, The Myth Of Romantic Love Is A Dreadful Lie. Perhaps It Is A Necessary Lie In That It Ensures The Survival Of The Falling-in-love Experience That Traps Us Into Marriage. But As A Psychiatrist I Weep In My Heart Almost Daily For The Ghastly Confusion And Suffering That This Myth Fosters. Millions Of People Waste Vast Amounts Of Energy Desperately And Futilely Attempting To Make The Reality Of Their Lives Conform To The Unreality Of The Myth.

Evil People Hate The Light Because It Reveals Themselves To Themselves. ... They Will Destroy The Light, The Goodness, The Love In Order To Avoid The Pain Of Self-awareness. ... [e]vil Is Laziness Carried To Its Ultimate, Extraordinary Extreme.

Love Always Requires Courage And Involves Risk.

We Cannot Even Let The Other Person Into Our Hearts Or Minds Unless We Empty Ourselves. We Can Truly Listen To Him Or Truly Hear Her Only Out Of Emptiness.

A Discussion Becomes Destructive When It Begins To Generate More Heat Than Light.

A Life Of Total Dedication To The Truth Also Means A Life Of Willingness To Be Personally Challenged.

I Have Said I Have Met Satan, And This Is True. But It Is Not Tangible. It No More Has Horns, Hooves And A Forked Tail Than God Has A Long White Beard. Even The Name, Satan, Is Just A Name We Have Given To Something Basically Nameless.

How Strange That We Should Ordinarily Feel Compelled To Hide Our Wounds When We Are All Wounded.

Often The Most Loving Thing We Can Do When A Friend Is In Pain Is To Share The Pain-to Be There Even When We Have Nothing To Offer Except Our Presence And Even When Being There Is Painful To Ourselves.

Discipline, It Has Been Suggested, Is The Means Of Human Spiritual Evolution. What Provides The Motive, The Energy For Discipline? This Force I Believe To Be Love. I Define Love Thus: The Will To Extend One's Self For The Purpose Of Nurturing One's Own Or Another's Spiritual Growth.

Do What You Feel Called To Do, But Also Be Prepared To Accept That You Don't Necessarily Know What You're Going To Learn. Be Willing To Be Surprised By Forces Beyond Your Control, And Realize That A Major Learning On The Journey Is The Art Of Surrender.

Whenever We Think Of Ourselves As Doing Something For Someone Else, We Are In Some Way Denying Our Own Responsibility. Whatever We Do Is Done Because We Choose To Do It, And We Make That Choice Because It Is The One That Satisfies Us The Most.

Integrity Is Never Painless.

Community [is] A Group Of Individuals Who Have Learned How To Communicate Honestly With Each Other, Whose Relationships Go Deeper Than Their Masks Of Composure, And Who Have Developed Some Significant Commitment To "rejoice Together, Mourn Together," And To "delight In Each Other, Make Others' Conditions Our Own.

Genuine Love Is Volitional Rather Than Emotional. The Person Who Truely Loves Does So Because Of A Decision To Love. This Person Has Made A Commitment To Be Loving Whether Or Not The Loving Feeling Is Present. ...conversely, It Is Not Only Possible But Necessary For A Loving Person To Avoid Acting On Feelings Of Love.

The Whole Course Of Human History May Depend On A Change Of Heart In One Solitary And Even Humble Individual - For It Is In The Solitary Mind And Soul Of The Individual That The Battle Between Good And Evil Is Waged And Ultimately Won Or Lost.

When I Am With A Group Of Human Beings Committed To Hanging In There Through Both The Agony And The Joy Of Community, I Have A Dim Sense That I Am Participating In A Phenomenon For Which There Is Only One Word...."glory."

I Make No Distinction Between The Mind And The Spirit, And Therefore No Distinction Between The Process Of Achieving Spiritual Growth And Achieving Mental Growth. They Are One And The Same.

The Path To Holiness Lies Through Questioning Everything.

Teach Us To Number Our Days Aright.

Since True Listening Involves A Setting Aside Of The Self, It Also Temporarily Involves A Total Acceptance Of The Others. Sensing This Acceptance, The Speaker Will Feel Less And Less Vulnerable, And More And More Inclined To Open Up The Inner Recesses Of His Or Her Mind To The Listener. As This Happens, Speaker And Listener Begin To Appreciate Each Other More And More, And The Dance Of Love Is Begun Again.

Listening To Others

Since The Primary Motive Of The Evil Is Disguise, One Of The Places Evil People Are Most Likely To Be Found Is Within The Church. What Better Way To Conceal One's Evil From Oneself As Well As From Others Than To Be A Deacon Or Some Other Highly Visible Form Of Christian Within Our Culture

Consciousness Is The Foundation Of All Thinking; And Thinking Is The Foundation Of All Consciousness.

Going Into The Unknown Is Invariably Frightening, But We Learn What Is Significantly New Only Through Adventures.

The Feeling Of Being Valuable Is A Cornerstone Of Self-discipline Because When You Consider Yourself Valuable You Will Take Care Of Yourself- Including Things Like Using Your Time Well. In This Way, Self-discipline Is Self-caring.

God Creates Each Soul Differently, So That When All The Mud Is Finally Cleared Away, His Light Will Shine Through It In A Beautiful, Colorful, Totally New Pattern.

I've Had All Kinds Of Experiences With God In Terms Of Revelation Through A Still, Small Voice Or Dreams Or Coincidences.

Jesus Was Lonely And Sorrowful And Scared-an Unbelievably Real Person.

Community Is And Must Be Inclusive. The Great Enemy Of Community Is Exclusivity. Groups That Exclude Others Because They Are Poor Or Doubters Or Divorced Or Sinners Or Of Some Different Race Or Nationality Are Not Communities; They Are Cliques--actually Defensive Bastions Against Community.

I Have Learned Nothing In Twenty Years That Would Suggest That Evil People Can Be Rapidly Influenced By Any Means Other Than Raw Power. They Do Not Respond, At Least In The Short Run, To Either Gentle Kindness Or Any Form Of Spiritual Persuasion With Which I Am Familiar.

If Your Goal Is To Avoid Pain And Escape Suffering, I Would Not Advise You To Seek Higher Levels Of Consciousness Or Spiritual Evolution.

The Overall Purpose Of Human Communication Is - Or Should Be - Reconciliation. It Should Ultimately Serve To Lower Or Remove The Walls Of Misunderstanding Which Unduly Separate Us Human Beings, One From Another.

With Total Discipline We Can Solve All Problems.

Genuine Love Is Volitional Rather Than Emotional.

I Define Love Thus: The Will To Extend One's Self For The Purpose Of Nurturing One's Own Or Another's Spiritual Growth.

Some Catholics Have A Concept I Very Much Admire: The Sacrament Of The Present Moment. It Suggests That Every Moment Of Our Lives Is Sacred, And That We Should Make Of Each Moment A Sacrament. Were We To Do This We Would Think Of The Entire World As Diffused With Holiness. Wherever We Might Be Would Be A Holy Place For Us, And We Would See The Holy, Even Sainthood, In Everyone We Encounter.

Spiritually Evolved People, By Virtue Of Their Discipline, Mastery And Love, Are People Of Extraordinary Competence, And In Their Competence They Are Called On To Serve The World, And In Their Love They Answer The Call.

When We Cling, Often Forever, To Our Old Patterns Of Thinking And Behaving, We Fall To Negotiate Any Crisis, To Truly Grow Up, And To Experience The Joyful Sense Of Rebirth That Accompanies The Successful Transition Into Greater Maturity.

We Are Most Often In The Dark When We Are The Most Certain, And The Most Enlightened When We Are The Most Confused.

Mental Health Is An Ongoing Process Of Dedication To Reality At All Costs

God Wants Us To Become Himself Or Herself Or Itself. We Are Growing Toward Godhood. God Is The Goal Of Evolution.

We Must Be Willing To Fail And To Appreciate The Truth That Often "life Is Not A Problem To Be Solved, But A Mystery To Be Lived.

If We Seek To Be Loved - If We Expect To Be Loved - This Cannot Be Accomplished; We Will Be Dependent And Grasping Not Genuinely Loving.

In Thinking About Miracles, I Believe That Our Frame Of Reference Has Been Too Dramatic. We Have Been Looking For The Burning Bush, The Parting Of The Sea, The Bellowing Voice From Heaven. Instead We Should Be Looking At The Ordinary Day-to-day Events In Our Lives For Evidence Of The Miraculous, Maintaining At The Same Time A Scientific Orientation.

Discipline Is Wisdom And Vice Versa.

Genuine Love Not Only Respects The Individuality Of The Other But Actually Cultivates It, Even At The Risk Of Separation Or Loss. The Ultimate Goal Of Life Remains The Spiritual Growth Of The Individual, The Solitary Journey To Peaks That Can Be Climbed Only Alone.

America's Greatest Sin Is The Refusal To Delay Gratification.

The Key To Community Is The Acceptance, In Fact The Celebration Of Our Individual And Cultural Differences. It Is Also The Key To World Peace

Most Do Not Fully See This Truth That Life Is Difficult. Instead They Moan More Or Less Incessantly, Noisily Or Subtly, About The Enormity Of Their Problems, Their Burdens, And Their Difficulties As If Life Were Generally Easy, As If Life Should Be Easy. They Voice Their Belief, Noisily Or Subtly, That Their Difficulties Represent A Unique Kind Of Affliction That Should Not Be And That Has Somehow Been Especially Visited Upon Them, Or Else Upon Their Families, Their Tribe, Their Class, Their Nation, Their Race Or Even Their Species, And Not Upon Others.

We Cannot Solve Life's Problems Except By Solving Them.

We Cannot Solve A Problem By Saying, "it's Not My Problem." We Cannot Solve A Problem By Hoping That Someone Else Will Solve It For Us. I Can Solve A Problem Only When I Say, "this Is My Problem And It's Up To Me To Solve It."

As Benjamin Franklin Said, 'those Things That Hurt, Instruct.' It Is For This Reason That Wise People Learn Not To Dread But Actually To Welcome Problems And Actually To Welcome The Pain Of Problems.

Our View Of Reality Is Like A Map With Which To Negotiate The Terrain Of Life. If The Map Is True And Accurate, We Will Generally Know How To Get There. If The Map Is False And Inaccurate, We Generally Will Be Lost.

When We Love Something It Is Of Value To Us, And When Something Is Of Value To Us We Spend Time With It, Time Enjoying It And Time Taking Care Of It.

Community Is Another Such Phenomenon. Like Electricity, It Is Profoundly Lawful. Yet There Remains Something About It That Is Inherently Mysterious, Miraculous, Unfathomable. Thus There Is No Adequate One-sentence Definition Of Genuine Community. Community Is Something More Than The Sum Of Its Parts, Its Individual Members. What Is This "something More?" Even To Begin To Answer That, We Enter A Realm That Is Not So Much Abstract As Almost Mystical. It Is A Realm Where Words Are Never Fully Suitable And Language Itself Falls Short.

Life Is Complex. Each One Of Us Must Make His Own Path Through Life. There Are No Self-help Manuals, No Formulas, No Easy Answers. The Right Road For One Is The Wrong Road For Another...the Journey Of Life Is Not Paved In Blacktop; It Is Not Brightly Lit, And It Has No Road Signs. It Is A Rocky Path Through The Wilderness.

Whenever We Seek To Avoid The Responsibility For Our Own Behavior, We Do So By Attempting To Give That Responsibility To Some Other Individual Or Organization Or Entity. But This Means We Then Give Away Our Power To That Entity.

One Extends One's Limits Only By Exceeding Them.

You Cannot Truly Listen To Anyone And Do Anything Else At The Same Time.

There Is No Worse Bitterness Than To Reach The End Of Your Life And Realized You Have Not Lived.

The Denial Of Suffering Is, In Fact A Better Definition Of Illness Than Its Acceptance.

Problems Call Forth Our Courage And Our Wisdom; Indeed, They Create Our Courage And Wisdom.

Road Less Traveled

By Far The Most Important Form Of Attention We Can Give Our Loved Ones Is Listening... True Listening Is Love In Action.

I Have A Very Full And Busy Life And Occasionally I Am Asked, Scotty, How Can You Do All That You Do? The Most Telling Reply I Can Give Is: Because I Spend At Least Two Hours A Day Doing Nothing.

The Giving Up Of Personality Traits, Well-established Patterns Of Behavior, Ideologies, And Even Whole Life Styles...these Are Major Forms Of Giving Up That Are Required If One Is To Travel Very Far On The Journey Of Life.

It Is Only Because Of Problems That We Grow Mentally And Spiritually.

An Unconscious, Gentle Process Whereby People Who Want To Be Loving Attempt To Be So By Telling Little White Lies, By Withholding Some Of The Truth About Themselves And Their Feelings In Order To Avoid Conflict. Pseudocommunity Is Conflict-avoiding; True Community Is Conflict-resolving.

Emotional Sickness Is Avoiding Reality At Any Cost. Emotional Health Is Facing Reality At Any Cost.

Love Is Too Large, Too Deep Ever To Be Truly Understood Or Measured Or Limited Within The Framework Of Words.

Sickness Begets Chaos, Which, Through Hard Work And A Touch Of Grace, Leads To Growth And Resurrection.

Falling In Love Is Not An Extension Of One's Limits Or Boundaries; It Is A Partial And Temporary Collapse Of Them.

We Know A Great Deal More About The Causes Of Physical Disease Than We Do About The Causes Of Physical Health.

There Is No Virtue Inherent In Un-constructive Suffering.

I Am Dubious As To How Far We Can Move Toward Global Community-which Is The Only Way To Achieve International Peace-until We Learn The Basic Principles Of Community In Our Own Individual Lives And Personal Spheres Of Influence.

When We Avoid The Legitimate Suffering That Results From Dealing With Problems, We Also Avoid The Growth That Problems Demand From Us.

Human Beings Are Poor Examiners, Subject To Superstition, Bias, Prejudice, And A Profound Tendency To See What They Want To See Rather Than What Is Really There.

It Is Our Task-our Essential, Central, Crucial Task-to Transform Ourselves From Mere Social Creatures Into Community Creatures.

Servant-leadership Is More Than A Concept, It Is A Fact. Any Great Leader, By Which I Also Mean An Ethical Leader Of Any Group, Will See Herself Or Himself As A Servant Of That Group And Will Act Accordingly.

It Is In The Whole Process Of Meeting And Solving Problems That Life Has Meaning. Problems Are The Cutting Edge That Distinguishes Between Success And Failure. Problems Call Forth Our Courage And Our Wisdom; Indeed, They Create Our Courage And Our Wisdom. It Is Only Because Of Problems That We Grow Mentally And Spiritually. It Is Through The Pain Of Confronting And Resolving Problems That We Learn.

The Feeling Of Being Valuable - 'i Am A Valuable Person'- Is Essential To Mental Health And Is A Cornerstone Of Self-discipline.

We Skim Over The Surface Thoughtlessly. But We Must Acknowledge That Thinking Well Is A Time-consuming Process. We Can't Expect Instant Results. We Have To Slow Down A Bit, And Take The Time To Contemplate, Meditate, And Even Pray. It Is The Only Route To A More Meaningful And Efficient Existence.

When We Teach Ourselves And Our Children Discipline, We Are Teaching Them And Ourselves How To Suffer And Also How To Grow.

Problems Do Not Go Away. They Must Be Worked Through Or Else They Remain, Forever A Barrier To The Growth And Development Of The Spirit.

I Can Remember Years Ago Sitting On My Bed And Suddenly Thinking, "i Am God."

When We Love Someone Our Love Becomes Demonstrable Or Real Only Through Our Exertion - Through The Fact That For That Someone (or For Ourself) We Take An Extra Step Or Walk An Extra Mile. Love Is Not Effortless. To The Contrary, Love Is Effortful.

If We Know Exactly Where We're Going, Exactly How To Get There, And Exactly What We'll See Along The Way, We Won't Learn Anything.

I Guess If You Want To Know One Single Thing I'm About, It's That I'm Against Easy Answers.

When You Consider Yourself Valuable You Will Take Care Of Yourself In All Ways That Are Necessary.

The Difficulty We Have In Accepting Responsibility For Our Behavior Lies In The Desire To Avoid The Pain Of The Consequences Of That Behavior.

The Major Threats To Our Survival No Longer Stem From Nature Without But From Our Own Human Nature Within. It Is Our Carelessness, Our Hostilities, Our Selfishness And Pride And Willful Ignorance That Endanger The World.

There Can Be No Vulnerability Without Risk; There Can Be No Community Without Vulnerability; There Can Be No Peace, And Ultimately No Life, Without Community.

To Heal Your Body, You Must First Heal Your Spirit.

The Quickest Way To Change Your Attitude Toward Pain Is To Accept The Fact That Everything That Happens To Us Has Been Designed For Our Spiritual Growth.

All Human Interactions Are Opportunities Either To Learn Or To Teach.

We Cannot Be A Source For Strength Unless We Nurture Our Own Strength.

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