"In this culture we display a compulsive avoidance of difficult matters and an obsession with distraction. Because we cannot acknowledge our grief, we're forced to stay on the surface of life. Poet Kahil Gibran said, 'The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.' We experience little genuine joy because we avoid the depths. . . .
We praise success and despise failure. We value strength and devalue weakness. But then every time we encounter defeat, inadequacy, or loss, we're at war with ourselves, and that's a bitter fight. . . .
Think about how much energy we expend trying to deny and avoid those parts of ourselves. What if all that energy were available to us again? We would laugh more. We'd know more joy. Life is asking us to meet it on its terms, not ours. We try to control every minute detail, but life is too rambunctious, too wild. We simply can't avoid losses, wounds, and failures that come into our lives. What we can do is bring compassion to what arrives at our door and meet it with kindness and affection."