"Start Where You Are"

• Whether it is glorious or wretched, delightful or hateful, be patient. Patience means allowing things to unfold at their own speed rather than jumping in with your habitual response to either pain or pleasure.
• Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.
• If we really want to communicate, we have to give up knowing what to do. When we come in with our agendas, they only block us from seeing the person in front of us. It's best to drop the five-year plans and accept the awkward sinking feeling that we are entering a situation naked. We don't know what will happen next or what we'll do.

~Pema Chodron