Life Teaches Lesson Quotes

If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.

I wanted to teach myself some life lessons at the age of 60 and one of them was that you don’t give up.

Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.

All life lessons are not learned at college,' she thought. 'Life teaches them everywhere.

Life teaches us the right path is rarely the easy one.

It happens like this. "One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else--closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps this person carries within them an angel--one sent to you for some higher purpose; to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them--even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering--the reason for their presence will become clear in due time." Though here is a word of warning--you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn't to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled; the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more. ------------------------------------------------- It's so dark right now, I can't see any light around me. That's because the light is coming from you. You can't see it but everyone else can.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

Life is like a game of chess. To win you have to make a move. Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are acculated along the way. We become each and every piece within the game called life!

The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

We think sometimes we're only drawn to the good, but we're actually drawn to the authentic. We like people who are real more than those who hide their true selves under layers of artificial niceties

It's hard at times, but it makes a kid strong in ways that most people can't understand. Teaches them that even though people are left behind, new ones will inevitable take their place; that every place has something good - and bad - to offer. It makes a kid grow up fast.

Not everything is supposed to become something beautiful and long-lasting. Sometimes people come into your life to show you what is right and what is wrong, to show you who you can be, to teach you to love yourself, to make you feel better for a little while, or to just be someone to walk with at night and spill your life to. Not everyone is going to stay forever, and we still have to keep on going and thank them for what they’ve given us.

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding. If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Some parents let their young kids win at games, but mine never did. I don't think it was because they were particularly competitive, they just wanted to teach me a valuable lesson. Life is mostly just learning how to lose.

When those you love die, the best you can do is honor their spirit for as long as you live. You make a commitment that you're going to take whatever lesson that person or animal was trying to teach you, and you make it true in your own life... it's a positive way to keep their spirit alive in the world, by keeping it alive in yourself.

Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.

It is not until you change your identity to match your life blueprint that you will understand why everything in the past never worked.

Water is to India as blood is to the body, with the many rivers functioning as arteries – the Ganges being the aorta – and the monsoon timelessly arriving as a much-needed annual blood transfusion.

You can't cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is "If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim

The home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no worldly success can compensate for failure in the home.

Despite the business and auto-rickshaws and bantering Bengalis just beyond his brown front door, Sanjit cultivates a distinct learning environment and energy, one created and galvanized above the tile floors, within the thin walls, below the imperative ceiling fans, and embraced by books.

If age teaches you anything, then one of its lessons is certainly not to hurry if you're already late....

Your strength will be found when you stop struggling with yourself, instead of thinking everyone is a struggle worth overcoming. Every obstacle in life is a lesson that teaches us, not others.

[...]one should act as if the things he cherished the most were already lost or broken.

It is the same with people. Not every person you meet in life will become a close friend or lover. Some you will find hard to get along with or impossible to like. But these people, too, teach you the precious lesson of who you do like, so that you will appreciate those.

No one can hurt you without teaching a life's lesson. So accept it with love and kindness.

People who’ve never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don’t have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I’m not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your sub¬conscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even love.

Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you. Have you given much thought to our mortal condition? Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen. All mortals owe a debt to death. There's no one alive who can say if he will be tomorrow. Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery. No one can teach it, no one can grasp it. Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink! But don't forget Aphrodite--that's one sweet goddess. You can let the rest go. Am I making sense? I think so. How about a drink. Put on a garland. I'm sure the happy splash of wine will cure your mood. We're all mortal you know. Think mortal. Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life, it's just catastrophe.

I don't exist to teach her a lesson, and it irks me that she thinks labelling me is okay now. Like, by liking guys, I automatically take on that role in her life. That I'm suddenly a supporting character in her story rather than the hero of my own.

And when they start talking, and they always do, you find that each of them has a story they want to tell. Everyone, no matter how old or young, has some lesson they want to teach. And I sit there and listen and learn all about life from people who have no idea how to live it.

Walk neither faster nor slower than your own soul. Because it is your soul that will teach you the usefulness of each step you take.

All things which greatly hurt me greatly teach me

Giving advice to a child is like flinging sand at an obsidian wall. Nothing sticks. The brutal truth is that we each suffer our own lessons—they can’t be danced round. They can’t be slipped past. You cannot gift a child with your scars—they arrive like webs, constricting, suffocating, and that child will struggle and strain until they break. No matter how noble your intent, the only scars that teach them anything are the ones they earn themselves.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again. It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement from oneself and one's history.

Roses and thorns are parts of the same plant. Somehow though, some people are concerned mainly about the roses. The rose is not on the plant for more than a week, but the thorns are there forever. Roses are teaching that the beauty of life will bloom, once you have taught yourself the lessons given by living with the thorns.

The years teach us much, which the days never knew.

We proceeded to make way across the mighty Hooghly River, a monstrous offshoot of the Ganges, where we contemplated for a moment, our thoughts seemingly caught in the roaring southward current; there we gazed, toward where the city transitions into mangrove jungle, and somewhere a bit further to the southwest where all the rivers split infinitely like capillaries, where those famous Bengal tigers trod among the sunderbans. Peering in that direction, Bajju gripped the vertical bars just above the horizontal pedestrian railing, breathing slowly and silently, knees locked, still, despite being on arguably the busiest and loudest bridge in the world.

Life will throw a lot at you, so you can count on learning something new every day. I have learned to open my heart and let life teach me whatever it has to offer. Every day is a gift wrapped in the lessons of tomorrow.

For Every Child We Teach To Cherish Learning, A Universe Is Born.

And I realized that some things just don't work that way. Life isn't a fairy tail. And the person you fall in love with doesn't always love you back. But that's ok, because at the very least it makes you stronger. And brings you to a place where you can fall in love with yourself. And that to me is more important than finding someone that only makes you complete when they are around, It's really about Finding the person that will teach you ALL the lessons you need to know ...so that you feel complete all by yourself. 

The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen.

I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is THIS moment!" Most of us can't go back and make restitution. We can't do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize. Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

The whole point of life is to learn love. Life is the school, love is the lesson and we are all here to teach each other.

School prepares people for the alienating institutionalization of life, by teaching the necessity of being taught. Once this lesson is learned, people loose their incentive to develop independently; they no longer find it attractive to relate to each other, and the surprises that life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition are closed.

You'll reach a comfort zone in your life and start to wonder how you got there, how did you miss the sign posts that directed your real inner truth? Don't feel so guilty, you know when your meant to know and I guess that's the thing they don't teach you; when growing up, pain is inevitable but staying the same is a choice. Don't question why your feeling ready for something new, question why you stayed the same for so long.

It Hurts...It Kills...It Teaches... It Thrills...“IT” Is LIFE...!

The stories teach them valuable life lessons. That good things happen to bad people. That it’s possible to make a bad situation even worse if you don’t think it through. That parents are clueless except when they’re not. That it’s good to try new things even when a new thing is kind of disgusting, because new experiences make you a well-rounded person. That art can be transcendent. That lust is all-powerful, that drugs are fun, and that not everyone who does them is a loser. That losing people is part of life. That where comedy goes, tragedy isn’t far behind. That everyone has issues with their bodies, but some take it too far, almost to death. That fear can be exhilarating. That boys are assholes. That it’s important to look forward and never look back…

When we meet and fall into the gravitational pull of a narcissist, we are entering a significant life lesson that involves learning how to create boundaries, self-respect, and resilience. Through trial and error (and a lot of pain), our connection with narcissists teaches us the necessary lessons we need to become mature empaths.

When what you value and dream about doesn’t match the life you are living, you have pain.

Be certain only in uncertainty. It’s ok not to know. In fact it’s better than ok, it’s the truth. If someone claims certainty about something but has no evidence, run.

Children pay little attention to their parents' teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully

I teach the world how to treat me by the way I treat myself, and the way I present myself.

you are worthy and lovable, just as you are, on your own.

Be around people that make you want to be a better person, who make you feel good, make you laugh, and remind you what's important in life.

...boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life--...the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. 'You are finite,' time tells you in a voice of boredom, 'and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile.' As music to your ears, this, of course, may not count; yet the sense of futility, of limited significance even of your best, most ardent actions is better than the illusion of their consequence and the attendant self-satisfaction.

Of course, I couldn’t explain this vector calculus concept and so, slightly embarrassed in front of Rahul and the other Bengali students, I told Sanjit just that; he had cornered me, and honesty emerged as my only option. Simultaneous to my humiliating disclosure of the truth, Sanjit gradually inched toward where I was sitting. After hearing my reply, he slowly returned to his teacher stool and whiteboard, his back turned away from the class, the suspense building and his words impending, before turning around and breaking into speech, “Don’t trust your interior monologue. If you are asked something and you know it, then express or demonstrate it. Don’t just nod or say yes because then you are lying to yourself. Any ass can say yes, but not all asses can express it.” I modified my first impression: Sanjit was full of explicit aphorisms. Humbled, those words encouragingly rang between my ears for quite some time.

Some strive to make themselves great. Others help others see and find their own greatness. It's the latter who really enrich the world we live in

See the flower, how generously it distributes perfume and honey. When it's work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all it's qualities.

I'll never forget that, because you were right. And I know you weren't trying to teach me a lesson, but you did. Not everything is going to go my way and not everyone gets a happily ever after. Life is real and sometimes it’s ugly and you just have to learn how to cope. I’m going to accept it with a dose of your indifference, and move on.

Our great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of book-learning–the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children in our elementary schools are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable intricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations; while in our public schools the same unfortunate results are produced by the weary monotony of Latin and Greek grammar. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children–to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts. The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten almost all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.

After Bajju delivered a few beaming salutations, we walked northward up the makeshift, winding path through protruding brush, not much but a few stones placed here and there for balance and leverage upon ascending or descending. Having advanced about hundred steps from the street below, a sharp left leads to Bajju’s property, which begins with his family’s miniature garden – at the time any signs of fertility were mangled by dried roots which flailed like wheat straw, but within the day Bajju’s children vehemently delivered blows with miniature hoes in preparation for transforming such a plot into a no-longer-neglected vegetable garden. A few steps through the produce, or preferably circumventing all of it by taking a few extra steps around the perimeter, leads to the sky-blue painted home. Twisting left, hundreds of miles of rolling hills and the occasional home peeps out, bound below by demarcated farming steppes. If you’re lucky on a clear day and twist to the right, the monstrous, perpetually snow-capped Chaukhamba mountain monopolizes the distance just fifteen miles toward the direction of Tibet in the north.

Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless?

Dad kept telling me that he loved me, that he never would have let me drown, but you can’t cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim.

I should rip your eyes out,” Newt said, spraying Thomas with spit. “Teach you a lesson in stupidity. Why’d you come over here? You expected a bloody hug? Huh? A nice sit-down to talk about the good times in the Glade?

If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don’t change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart — reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life.

The main reason I became a teacher is that I like being the first one to introduce kids to words and music and people and numbers and concepts and idea that they have never heard about or thought about before. I like being the first one to tell them about Long John Silver and negative numbers and Beethoven and alliteration and "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and similes and right angles and Ebenezer Scrooge. . . Just think about what you know today. You read. You write. You work with numbers. You solve problems. We take all these things for granted. But of course you haven't always read. You haven't always known how to write. You weren't born knowing how to subtract 199 from 600. Someone showed you. There was a moment when you moved from not knowing to knowing, from not understanding to understanding. That's why I became a teacher.

There is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some people will test you, some will use you, some will bring out the best in you, but everyone will teach you something about yourself. Both positive and negative relationships teach you valuable lessons. This is an incredible step toward expanding your consciousness. The road to self-discovery requires help from others. As humans we are always seeking feedback and approval from others. That is how we learn and become better as individuals. No relationship is a waste of time. The wrong ones teach you the lessons that prepare you for the right ones. Appreciate everyone that enters your life because they are contributing to your growth and happiness.

It took me a long time to realize that not everything in life is meant to be a beautiful story. Not every per-son we feel something deep and moving with is meant to make a home within us, is meant to be a forever. Sometimes, people come into our lives to teach us how to love; and sometimes, people come into our lives to teach us how not to love. How not to settle, how not to shrink ourselves ever again. Yes, sometimes people leave—but that’s okay, because their lessons always stay, and that is what matters. That is what remains.

You have all the answers within you. To stop seeking for answers outside of you is the start of being found. You are the answer. You are your guru. There are no questions to be answered. More importantly, there are no questions that need to be asked.

Haji Ali spoke. ‘If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways. The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die. Doctor Greg, you must take time to share three cups of tea. We may be uneducated but we are not stupid. We have lived and survived here for a long time.’ That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life. We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly…Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.

Nature teaches us lessons that no book can teach. It teaches us that there is always inequality in life. Just look at the animals around you: Some are bigger than others, some are stronger than others, some live longer than others, some dominate others, and some survive at the expense of others. Life is simply unfair.

You never hear of a sportsman losing his sense of smell in a tragic accident and for good reason; in order for the universe to teach excruciating lessons that are unable to apply in later life, the sportsman must lose his legs, the philosopher his mind, the painter his eyes, the musician his ears, the chef his tongue.

I think that most people go to bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow the books sit there, almost magically willing people to pick them up. The right person for the right book. Its as though they know whose life they need to be a part of, how they can make a difference, how they can teach a lesson, put a smile on a face at just the right time.

One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else--closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps this person carries within them an angel--one sent to you for some higher purpose; to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them--even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering--the reason for their presence will become clear in due time. Though here is a word of warning--you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn't to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled; the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.

Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.

They don’t object to their children’s displays of anger, sadness, or fear. Nor do they ignore them. Instead, they accept negative emotions as a fact of life and they use emotional moments as opportunities for teaching their kids important life lessons and building closer relationships with them.

At some point, one asks, "Toward what end is my life lived?" A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves.

The beauty of death is that it is a constant reminder of the limited time we spend here in this unique life on Earth. It is the ongoing wakeup call that reminds us to be joyous, to laugh, to love, to be compassionate and grateful, and most of all – to forgive.

It is not our memories but the person we have become because of those past experiences that we should treasure. This is the lesson these keepsakes teach us when we sort them. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.

Sometimes in life our master will teach us and then test us like this. He will send the same painful circumstances to us over and over again until we no longer want what isn’t good for us; until he is sure that we have learned what we need to know so that he can move us on to new kinds of lessons and experience.

Everyone's looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that's something people find all too hard to accept. Don't confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself. The Tradition is linked to our encounter with the forces of life and not with the people who bring this about. But we are weak: we ask the Mother to send us guides, and all she sends are signs to the road we need to follow. Pity those who seek for shepherds, instead of longing for freedom! An encounter with superior energy is open to anyone but remains far from those who shift responsibility onto others. Our time on earth is sacred and we should celebrate every moment.

I think one of the sweetest lessons taught by the Prophet, and yet one of the saddest, occurred close to the time of his death. He was required to leave his plan and vision of the Rocky Mountains and give himself up to face a court of supposed justice. These are his words: 'I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men' (D&C 135:4). That statement of the Prophet teaches us obedience to law and the importance of having a clear conscience toward God and toward our fellowmen. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught these principles--by example. There was to be one great final lesson before his mortal life ended. He was incarcerated in Carthage Jail with his brother Hyrum, with John Taylor, and with Willard Richards. The angry mob stormed the jail; they came up the stairway, blasphemous in their cursing, heavily armed, and began to fire at will. Hyrum was hit and died. John Taylor took several balls of fire within his bosom. The Prophet Joseph, with his pistol in hand, was attempting to defend his life and that of his brethren, and yet he could tell from the pounding on the door that this mob would storm that door and would kill John Taylor and Willard Richards in an attempt to kill him. And so his last great act here upon the earth was to leave the door and lead Willard Richards to safety, throw the gun on the floor, and go to the window, that they might see him, that the attention of this ruthless mob might be focused upon him rather than the others. Joseph Smith gave his life. Willard Richards was spared, and John Taylor recovered from his wounds. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (John 15:13). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught us love--by example.

Every creature was designed to serve a purpose. Learn from animals for they are there to teach you the way of life. There is a wealth of knowledge that is openly accessible in nature. Our ancestors knew this and embraced the natural cures found in the bosoms of the earth. Their classroom was nature. They studied the lessons to be learned from animals. Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.

The New testament commanded to love each other, pray for each other, encourage each other, admonish each other, greet each other, serve each other, teach each other, accept each other, honor each other, bear each other's burdens, forgive each other, submit to each other, be devoted each other, and many other mutual tasks. This is biblical membership!

I am longer living my life according to another's opinion. If you hurt me expect to be forgiven and forgotten, if you show me apart of your ego; I'll feed it soul as I walk away, if you show me what I'm lacking, I'll teach you how to fix it within yourself. I live my life to the drum of my own melody and some won't agree with it, but im not living to make the critics happy.

If you want to help someone move on, you don’t label people as good, bad, worst or best. This categorizes people, rather than experiences with that person. People are not all evil or all good. You don’t teach compassion by categorizing people. Empathy and honest open communication are the only way to live your life. If you’re blaming someone then you haven’t let go of your pain long enough to really try on theirs. However, if you must believe that the only type of person that brings you difficult lessons or experiences in life are those that are bad or worse, then take the time to read the bible a little closer. Christ, put a few people in their place, in order to make point.

Letting go of people doesn’t mean you never loved them. Sometimes, it is the greatest act of love because it teaches them to be accountable for how they treat people who care. Maybe, not now, but years from now, they will look back and realize that kindness is more than yelling casual suggestions to a person that is drowning in their sea of apathy.

Most people go in bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow, the books sit there, almost magically willing people to pick them up. The right person for the right book. It's as though they already know whose life they need to be a part of, how they can make a difference, how they can teach a lesson, put a smile on a face at just the right time...

Third-level, life-long relationships are generally few because “their existence implies that those involved have reached a stage simultaneously in which the teaching-learning balance is actually perfect.” That doesn’t mean, however, that we necessarily recognize our third-level assignments; in fact, generally we don’t. We may even feel hostility toward these particular people. Someone with whom we have a lifetime’s worth of lessons to learn is someone whose presence in our lives forces us to grow. Sometimes it represents someone with whom we participate lovingly all our lives, and sometimes it represents someone who we experience as a thorn in our side for years, or even forever. Just because someone has a lot to teach us, doesn’t mean we like them. People who have the most to teach us are often the ones who reflect back to us the limits to our own capacity to love, those who consciously or unconsciously challenge our fearful positions. They show us our walls. Our walls are our wounds—the places where we feel we can’t love any more, can’t connect any more deeply, can’t forgive past a certain point. We are in each other’s lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.

For men, the softer emotions are always intertwined with power and pride. That was why Karna waited for me to plead with him though he could have stopped my suffering with a single world. That was why he turned on me when I refused to ask for his pity. That was why he incited Dussasan to an action that was against the code of honor by which he lived his life. He knew he would regret it—in his fierce smile there had already been a glint of pain. But was a woman's heart any purer, in the end? That was the final truth I learned. All this time I'd thought myself better than my father, better than all those men who inflicted harm on a thousand innocents in order to punish the one man who had wronged them. I'd thought myself above the cravings that drove him. But I, too, was tainted with them, vengeance encoded into my blood. When the moment came I couldn't resist it, no more than a dog can resist chewing a bone that, splintering, makes his mouth bleed. Already I was storing these lessons inside me. I would use them over the long years of exile to gain what I wanted, no matter what its price. But Krishna, the slippery one, the one who had offered me a different solace, Krishna with his disappointed eyes—what was the lesson he'd tried to teach?

This was the lesson we kept learning over and over and over, the lesson our mother was best capable of teaching us. Love—whatever else it might or might not be—was fleeting. Love stormed into your life and occupied it, it took over every corner of your soul, made itself comfortable, made itself wanted, then treasured, then necessary, love did all of this and then it did next the only thing it had left to do, it retreated, it vanished, it left no trace of itself. Love was horrifying.

Thanks for the apology, Caden, really. Anyway, isn’t it pretty normal for a straight girl to fall for a gay guy? All the sitcoms treat it like a rite of passage, something that all girls must go through. You’re pretty and kind and way too good to be true. At least I’ve ticked that box now.” “I …” I don’t exist to teach her a lesson, and it irks me that she thinks labeling me is okay now. Like, by liking guys, I automatically take on that role in her life. That I’m suddenly a supporting character in her story rather than the hero of my own.

Value all relationships for the lessons they teach. Make sure you learn the lessons well. If not you will repeat those mistakes over and over. Focus on the kind of relationship you do want! Surround yourself with people who manifest those characteristics. Avoid and eliminate negativity at all cost. Become a producer of that which is positive. Look for the good in every situation and praise it. talk about it & be about it. Be about only good things.Create and manifest around you joy and peace and happiness. Let the presence of God be your model. Gods' kingdom consists of 3 things, righteousness, peace and joy in Gods words. When you become a positive producer, you will begin to attract what you produced ---- positives!

Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment? We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.” Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it? Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves! Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go! Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it. I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.

[Adapted and condensed Valedictorian speech:] I'm going to ask that you seriously consider modeling your life, not in the manner of the Dalai Lama or Jesus - though I'm sure they're helpful - but something a bit more hands-on, Carassius auratus auratus, commonly known as the domestic goldfish. People make fun of the goldfish. People don't think twice about swallowing it. Jonas Ornata III, Princeton class of '42, appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for swallowing the greatest number of goldfish in a fifteen-minute interval, a cruel total of thirty-nine. In his defense, though, I don't think Jonas understood the glory of the goldfish, that they have magnificent lessons to teach us. If you live like a goldfish, you can survive the harshest, most thwarting of circumstances. You can live through hardships that make your cohorts - the guppy, the neon tetra - go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. There was an infamous incident described in a journal published by the Goldfish Society of America - a sadistic five-year-old girl threw hers to the carpet, stepped on it, not once but twice - luckily she'd done it on a shag carpet and thus her heel didn't quite come down fully on the fish. After thirty harrowing seconds she tossed it back into its tank. It went on to live another forty-seven years. They can live in ice-covered ponds in the dead of winter. Bowls that haven't seen soap in a year. And they don't die from neglect, not immediately. They hold on for three, sometimes four months if they're abandoned. If you live like a goldfish, you adapt, not across hundreds of thousands of years like most species, having to go through the red tape of natural selection, but within mere months, weeks even. You give them a little tank? They give you a little body. Big tank? Big body. Indoor. Outdoor. Fish tanks, bowls. Cloudy water, clear water. Social or alone. The most incredible thing about goldfish, however, is their memory. Everyone pities them for only remembering their last three seconds, but in fact, to be so forcibly tied to the present - it's a gift. They are free. No moping over missteps, slip-ups, faux pas or disturbing childhoods. No inner demons. Their closets are light filled and skeleton free. And what could be more exhilarating than seeing the world for the very first time, in all of its beauty, almost thirty thousand times a day? How glorious to know that your Golden Age wasn't forty years ago when you still had all you hair, but only three seconds ago, and thus, very possibly it's still going on, this very moment." I counted three Mississippis in my head, though I might have rushed it, being nervous. "And this moment, too." Another three seconds. "And this moment, too." Another. "And this moment, too.

Sometimes, we expect life to work a certain way and when it doesn’t we blame others or see it as a sign, rather than face the pain of the choices we should or shouldn’t have made. Real healing won’t begin until we stop saying, “God prevented this or that.” Often in our attempt to protect ourselves from pain, we leave things to fate and don’t take chances. Or, we don’t work hard enough to keep the blessings we are given. Maybe, we didn't recognize a blessing, until it was too late. Often, it is the lies we tell ourselves that keeps us stuck in a delusion of not being responsible for our lives. We leave it all up to God. The truth is we are not leaves blowing toward our destiny without any control. To believe this is to take away our freedom of choice and that of others. The final stage of grief is acceptance. This can’t be reached through always believing God willed the outcomes in our lives, despite our inaction or actions. To think so is to take the easy escape from our accountability. Sometimes, God has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, we just screwed up and guarded our heart from accepting it, by putting our outcome on God as the reason it turned out the way it did. Faith is a beautiful thing, but without work we can give into a mysticism of destiny that really doesn't teach us lessons or consequences for our actions. Life then becomes a distorted delusion of no accountability with God always to blame for battles we walked away from, won or loss.

History is, above all else, the creation and recording of that heritage; progress is its increasing abundance, preservation, transmission, and use. To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man’s follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing. The historian will not mourn because he can see no meaning in human existence except that which man puts into it; let it be our pride that we ourselves may put meaning into our lives, and sometimes a significance that transcends death. If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.

What is love? Is it a lightning bolt that instantaneously unites two souls in utter infatuation and admiration through the meeting of a simple innocent stare? Or is it a lustful seed that is sown in a dark dingy bar one sweaty summer's night only to be nurtured with romantic rendezvous as it matures into a beautiful flower? Is it a river springing forth, creating lifelong bonds through experiences, heartaches, and missed opportunities? Or is it a thunderstorm that slowly rolls in, climaxing with an awesome display of unbridled passion, only to succumb to its inevitable fade into the distance? I define love as education.... It teaches us to learn from our opportunities, and made the stupidest of decisions for the rightest of reasons. It gives us a hint of what "it" should be and feel like, but then encourages us to think outside the box and develop our own understanding of what "it" could be. Those that choose to embrace and learn from love's educational peaks and valleys are the ones that will eventually find true love, that one in a million. Those that don't are destined to be consumed with the inevitable ring around the rosy of fake I love you's and failed relationships. I have been lucky enough to have some of the most amazing teachers throughout my romantic evolution and it is to them that I dedicate this book. The lessons in life, passion and love they taught me have helped shape who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. To the love that stains my heart, but defines my soul....I thank you.....

Fire, fire! The branches crackle and the night wind of late autumn blows the flame of the bonfire back and forth. The compound is dark; I am alone at the bonfire, and I can bring it still some more carpenters' shavings. The compound here is a privileged one, so privileged that it is almost as if I were out in freedom -- this is an island of paradise; this is the Marfino "sharashka" -- a scientific institute staffed with prisoners -- in its most privileged period. No one is overseeing me, calling me to a cell, chasing me away from the bonfire, and even then it is chilly in the penetrating wind. But she -- who has already been standing in the wind for hours, her arms straight down, her head drooping, weeping, then growing numb and still. And then again she begs piteously "Citizen Chief! Please forgive me! I won't do it again." The wind carries her moan to me, just as if she were moaning next to my ear. The citizen chief at the gatehouse fires up his stove and does not answer. This was the gatehouse of the camp next door to us, from which workers came into our compound to lay water pipes and to repair the old ramshackle seminary building. Across from me, beyond the artfully intertwined, many-stranded barbed-wire barricade and two steps away from the gatehouse, beneath a bright lantern, stood the punished girl, head hanging, the wind tugging at her grey work skirt, her feet growing numb from the cold, a thin scarf over her head. It had been warm during the day, when they had been digging a ditch on our territory. And another girl, slipping down into a ravine, had crawled her way to the Vladykino Highway and escaped. The guard had bungled. And Moscow city buses ran right along the highway. When they caught on, it was too late to catch her. They raised the alarm. A mean, dark major arrived and shouted that if they failed to catch the girl, the entire camp would be deprived of visits and parcels for whole month, because of her escape. And the women brigadiers went into a rage, and they were all shouting, one of them in particular, who kept viciously rolling her eyes: "Oh, I hope they catch her, the bitch! I hope they take scissors and -- clip, clip, clip -- take off all her hair in front of the line-up!" But the girl who was now standing outside the gatehouse in the cold had sighed and said instead: "At least she can have a good time out in freedom for all of us!" The jailer had overheard what she said, and now she was being punished; everyone else had been taken off to the camp, but she had been set outside there to stand "at attention" in front of the gatehouse. This had been at 6 PM, and it was now 11 PM. She tried to shift from one foot to another, but the guard stuck out his head and shouted: "Stand at attention, whore, or else it will be worse for you!" And now she was not moving, only weeping: "Forgive me, Citizen Chief! Let me into the camp, I won't do it any more!" But even in the camp no one was about to say to her: "All right, idiot! Come on it!" The reason they were keeping her out there so long was that the next day was Sunday, and she would not be needed for work. Such a straw-blond, naive, uneducated slip of a girl! She had been imprisoned for some spool of thread. What a dangerous thought you expressed there, little sister! They want to teach you a lesson for the rest of your life! Fire, fire! We fought the war -- and we looked into the bonfires to see what kind of victory it would be. The wind wafted a glowing husk from the bonfire. To that flame and to you, girl, I promise: the whole wide world will read about you.