“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."--Leo Tolstoy

I was neurotic for years. I was anxious and depressed and selfish. Everyone kept telling me to change. I resented them and I agreed with them, and I wanted to change, but simply couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day someone said to me, "Don't change. I love you just as you are." Those words were music to my ears: "Don't Change, Don't change. Don't change... I love you as you are." I relaxed. I came alive. And suddenly I changed!

"Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life." Brian Andreas

In Place of a Curse

by John Ciardi

At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected,
I shall forgive last the delicately wounded
who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else,
never got up again, neither to fight back,
not to finger their jaws in painful admiration.

They who are wholly broken, and they in whom
mercy is understanding, I shall embrace at once
and lead to pillows in heaven. But they who are
the meek by trade, baiting the best of their betters
with extortions of a mock-helplessness

I shall take last to love, and never wholly.
Let them all into heaven – I abolish Hell -
but let it be read over them as they enter:
“Beware the calculations of the meek, who gambled
nothing, gave nothing, and could never receive enough.”

But since everything and anything are always possible, the miraculous is always nearby and wonders shall never, ever cease. -- Robert Fulghum (from Maybe (Maybe Not).