Dawna Markova

The moments you are given are your true wealth. You don't need power, influence, or fame. The sunlight brings the power; the wind carries the influence. And as for fame, well, when you allow yourself to notice all those hands that have made your growth possible, you will also recognize what you have made possible for countless others _ and how famous you already are. In this very moment, one of those others may be telling a story about how you helped them grow forward.

Once you begin to acknowledge random acts of kindness - both the ones you have received and the ones you have given - you can no longer believe that what you do does not matter.

I don__ think anyone __inds_ joy. Rather, we cultivate it by searching for the preciousness of small things, the ordinary miracles, that strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open to what is difficult

My journal has become a paper mirror, a topographic map to my mind. It is where I go to sort out confusion and decipher the invisible.

I will not die an unlived life.I will not live in fearof falling or catching fire.I choose to inhabit my days,to allow my living to open me,to make me less afraid,more accessible;to loosen my heartuntil it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.I choose to risk my significance,to live so that which came to me as seedgoes to the next as blossom,and that which came to me as blossom,goes on as fruit.

You survived as a child because others helped to maintain your life. It continues to be true today, even when you think you are abandoned, rejected, neglected, and unloved: the tomatoes you eat sustain you, the crossing guard stops the traffic so you can get to the other side of the street, the dinner offered to you on clean white plates nourishes you, the paper on which these words are printed informs you. Noticed or ignored, this web of others protects and holds you and makes it possible for you to make a difference: to take what came to you as seed and pass it on as blossom, and what came as blossom and ripen it to fruit.