Simple Truths

So love the elders. Honor them. Go to them with a pure heart, unblinded by notions of false reverence or obligation and unaffected by self-serving feelings of pity. Listen to them. Observe them like a far-off country that you will someday visit, and learn the lessons that they have to teach.

If you can honor and respect them, and allow them to share the fruits of their experience, however simple those fruits might be, you will gain a gift you can get nowhere else.

You will gain the knowledge of your past and the wisdom to understand your future.

Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu spoke about when he said, “A frog in a well cannot be talked to about the sea.”

How you respond to tragedy and suffering is one true measure of your strength. You need to see those moments as moments of growth. You need to look upon them as gifts to help you reclaim what is important in your life.

True strength is not about force, but about conviction. It lives at the center of belief where fear and uncertainty cannot gain a foothold. Its opposite is not cowardice and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity, and lack of sound intention.

True strength does not require an adversary and does not see itself as noble or heroic. It simply does what it must without praise or need of recognition.

Most people fear being alone because they understand only loneliness. Their understanding begins at the self, and they are comfortable only as long as they are at the center of their understanding.

If it is the thrill of pursuit you seek, recognize it. Embrace it and value it for the joy it gives you. But do not confuse the pursuit with the object being pursued.

Nothing should be worth more to you than its value in helping you live your life.

If your money speaks of sharing, you will find yourself among people who want their money to speak the language of sharing, and your world will be filled with possibility.

This is a third guideline: Money tends to move away from those who try to hoard it, and toward those who share it.

If you are a hoarder, you live with a locked vault in your heart. Nothing can get in; nothing can get out. If you are a sharer, you bring out the sharer in others. Then money moves freely.

The first is this: It is as important to know how to be poor as it is to know how to be rich.

Financial well-being is nothing more than a balancing act on the back of circumstance. You can be thrown off at any time.

If you know how to be poor with dignity and grace, nothing short of massive financial disaster can disturb your peace of mind.