If for even a moment I would pull myself away from this mad search for everything that I don't have to take a look at everything that I do have, this mad search would instantly devolve into a calm peace. And if there’s one thing I don’t have that has driven this mad search, you can bet that this is probably it.

To be ignorant of the sacrifices of others that yielded the blessings I enjoy leaves me exchanging the reality of 'blessing' for the assumption of 'entitlement.' And once that happens, I will forfeit the reality of the former which will destroy the assumption of the latter. And in what terribly dark place will that now leave me?

Love is the only emotion strong enough to sweep us off our feet, but remain unmoved when we are knocked to our knees. And if I am willing to embrace the former but flee from the latter, I’ve confused love with infatuation.

Anything great will only be appreciated if I am given the opportunity to feel the absence of it, or experience the reversal of it. It is only then that I can even begin to understand its majesty and cherish it in the manner I should have all along.

In a very tragic kind of way, sometimes things have to be gone before I fully realize that they were ever there.

It wasn’t until I slowed the car and rolled down the windows that I realized I spend most of my days driving ‘through’ life without driving ‘in’ life. So, I’ve decided to walk because the pace is slower and the windows are always down.

As a child, I would sit at the top of the old towering pine and watch the world gloriously spread itself out at my feet. And it wasn’t until I climbed that tree many decades later that it dawned on me how much I have trampled that world under my feet. And so, maybe I need to do a lot more climbing and a lot less walking.

It is until I can no longer hold something in my hands that I often realize that I never really cherished it in my heart.

Life is not about looking for what I’ve never had. Rather, it’s about realizing that what I’ve lost is actually what I’m trying to find.