I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots.

find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confidentand proud

It is more akin to the ancient tradition of pilgrimage-"a transformative journey to a sacred center" full of hardships, darkness, and peril.'

we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confidentand proud of.

there is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does-maybe more.

My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow.

I had started to understand that it is indeed possible to live a life other than one's own. Fearful

In the tradition of pilgrimage, those hardships are seen not as accidental but as integral to the journey itself. Treacherous terrain, bad weather, taking a fall, getting lost-challenges of that sort, largely beyond our control, can strip the ego of the illusion that it is in charge and make space for true self to emerge.