In the final analysis, life is an adventure of ups and downs for everyone. It’s a competition with fate in which fate always wins. And the insight that develops from this partnership colors perception and creates our world.

It’s a process of education, a compulsory education, in which experience is the greatest teacher. And sooner or later, you begin to learn.

You learn that since you are what you repeatedly do, you become what you pursue. And that your living is based more on how you choose to look at life than on how life really is.

For perception is reality. You see what you feel, and you feel what you think you are...

deep down inside.

Eventually, you learn that there is a fine line between keeping your chin up and sticking your neck out, and that happiness is not an end in itself, but a byproduct of principles and values. 

And you learn that unhappiness is often the result

of the incorrect assumption that the rest of the world is happy.

Sooner or later, you learn that happiness or unhappiness is ultimately just a matter of choice; a choice you make every day.

Problems and situations and challenges tend to color life, but through your choices, you decide what the colors will be.

It’s a paint by number set in which you get to choose the colors. Every day, you choose the colors.

You can wrestle with fate or go with the flow. Either choice has a natural consequence.

But undoubtedly, as you reach the point in life where you begin to examine the path you’ve traveled, true wisdom will reveal that although you didn’t get everything you wanted, you probably got what you needed.

And since you got what you needed, invariably, you’ll discover it was just what you wanted all along.