There Is Overwhelming Evidence That The Higher

It Is Easy Enough To Say, Be True To Your Values. But What If Your Values Are Irrational? Or What If The Virtues You Have Committed Yourself To Are So Much Against Human Nature That They Cannot Be Practiced Consistently? Be Careful Of What You Accept As Your Code Of Morality. Think Carefully About Whether Its Tenets Serve Your Life And Well Being. Exercise Critical Judgment. Realize How Much Is At Stake-your Life, Your Happiness, Your Self-esteem.

It Is Generally Recognized That Creativity Requires Leisure, An Absence Of Rush, Time For The Mind And Imagination To Float And Wander And Roam, Time For The Individual To Descend Into The Depths Of His Or Her Psyche, To Be Available To Barely Audible Signals Rustling For Attention. Long Periods Of Time May Pass In Which Nothing Seems To Be Happening. But We Know That Kind Of Space Must Be Created If The Mind Is To Leap Out Of Its Accustomed Ruts, To Part From The Mechanical, The Known, The Familiar, The Standard, And Generate A Leap Into The New.

The More You Surrender To The Fear Of Someone's Disapproval, The More You Lose Face In Your Own Eyes, And The More Desperate You Become For Someone's Approval. Within You Is A Void That Should Have Been Filled By Self-esteem. When You Attempt To Fill It With The Approval Of Others Instead, The Void Grows Deeper And The Hunger For Acceptance And Approval Grows Stronger. The Only Solution Is To Summon The Courage To Honor Your Own Judgment, Frightening Though That May Be In The Beginning.

Persons Of High Self-esteem Are Not Driven To Make Themselves Superior To Others; They Do Not Seek To Prove Their Value By Measuring Themselves Against A Comparative Standard. Their Joy Is Being Who They Are, Not In Being Better Than Someone Else.

For Children Mastery Entails Struggle. This Means They Must Be Permitted To Struggle. If Parents Inappropriately Step In To "help"-out Of Impatience Or Solicitude-they Sabotage Important Learning. Among Other Things, The Child Is Unlikely To Discover The Advantages Of Perseverance And Self-discipline.