Gratitude is the realization that we have everything we need, at least in this moment.

"Like so many of us, I spent a great deal of my life....cataloging all the ways I had been injured and abused...I analyzed and categorized the whos, whats and wheres of my misery.  I was a confirmed pessimist, always able to see the dark side of anything and everything.  My belief was that life was hard and disaster was looming around every corner...Despite life's difficulties, it was my responsibility to do all the good I could and become the best person I could be...I started to notice the dearth of positive emotions in my life...I knew precious little about joy, happiness, optimism, faith and trust....That's when I learned that you don't have to be saddled for life with mental attitudes you adopted in childhood.  All of us are free to change our minds, and as we change our minds, our experiences will also change."

We can't wait until everything is OK--with us or with the rest of the world--to feel thankful, or we will never experience joy at all.

She could write the scene three times over, from three points of view...none of these three was bad, nor were they particularly good.  She need not judge...She need only show seperate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show that they had equal value.  That was the only moral a story need have.

The smallest kind act is greater than the biggest good intention. 

Here's a practice for dealing with envy...each time you find yourself envious of someone...ask yourself, "What is there that I am noticing in the other person that I want to find in myself?"...If it's money, is it the freedom? The cance to play that money buys? A sense of security? Whatever it is--more play, a sense of security, free time--you can work on getting more of it in your life, no matter what the circumstances.

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.  The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid."

"We believe that communication becomes gendered whensex or gender begins to influence your choices of what you say or how you relate to others."

According to these researchers, when people cannot form adequate expectations and are unable to predict what will happen in situations, they experience uncertainty....One reaction to this discomfort is to communicate to gain information and reduce uncertainty.

What the sender intends to convey is important, but it is less important than what the receiver thinks is being conveyed, or how the receiver interprets the message.  You may clearly understand your intentions in what you say, but a listener takes your message in a different way than you originally intended...Taking a receiver orientation--stopping before you say something to think about how your message will be understood by the listener--can greatly enhance your skill as a communicator.