I usually spend my Saturday mornings with a community of recovering people, and yesterday was no exception. As always happens, I came away from our discussions with new insights and perspectives. I don’t know about you, but my ‘forgetter’ works much more effectively than my ‘rememberer,’ so I need regular doses of reality to keep me from floating away mentally, emotionally, and spiritually into La-la Land. Somebody yesterday mentioned ‘evil’ and it got me to thinking. I have a particular approach to the topic of evil that I’ve developed over many years and many experiences, and I thought that my readers might gain some fresh insights if I were to take this opportunity to explore it a little: What is ‘evil’ and why do we seem to be battling it so fiercely, particularly as we transition to full maturity?

Any student of moral philosophy worth her/his salt should be able to explain to you that there are two types of evil: physical evil and moral evil. Looking at physical evil first will help us to put moral evil into much better perspective. Although we use the same word (‘evil’) to refer to physical and moral failure, the two are only analogous. In fact, physical ‘evil’ is not evil at all: it is simply a set of natural phenomena that cause us humans pain and suffering. Things like natural disasters, disease, and even death itself are only considered really ‘evil’ when they affect human lives. What distinguishes Hurricane Katrina from a similar nameless storm in the mid-Pacific Ocean is only its effect on humanity. But, neither of them in themselves are really ‘evil.’ They’re both just storms.

What we call ‘physical evil’ is simply a characteristic of the natural universe. If we could possibly imagine the universe before the Big Bang, we’d have to conjure up an undifferentiated flyspeck of matter/energy/space/time/consciousness with absolutely no distinction between ‘this’ and ‘that’, ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘now’ and ‘then’. What creation, expressed in the Big Bang, set in motion was a process of separation and distinction based on limitations. Follow me now: ‘this’ is limited because it’s not ‘that’; ‘here’ is limited because it’s not ‘there’; ‘now’ is limited because it’s not ‘then’; and, ultimately, ‘I’ am limited because I am not ‘you’. In spiritual terms, creation happened when a Higher Power allowed the ‘not’ — the limitation and separation of one entity from another — to intrude into the undifferentiated fabric of all that is.

What we call ‘physical evil’ is simply our human experience of the limitations inherent in the fabric of the universe of creation. No limitations: no universe! Yet, as soon as limitations and boundaries are introduced, simultaneously the reality of destruction and loss appears. Yet, (as far as we are aware) only human consciousness experiences physical limitations and boundaries that way. Only humanity sees limitation and judges it to be disaster and tragedy. From a purely physical (creational) perspective, Katrina was a very, very good hurricane! It expressed the functioning of the laws of the natural world perfectly.

What we call ‘physical evil’ intrudes into our human existence in a particularly emphatic way at midlife. It’s in grappling with the whole spectrum of our own limitations that we come, at long last, to a deeper and much more realistic appraisal of who we are in the context of our world than we had ever had before during our adult lives. We become aware of what happens when our personal beliefs meet life’s limitations head-on. Midlife is our time to grapple spiritually with our human limitations, and to overcome them not by denying them, nor by trying to conquer them, but by coming to terms with them. In the same way that we could never appreciate a red rose by wishing it was any other color, we are given the opportunity to find our own personal destiny by discovering the beauty and magnificence that is revealed only in and through our limitations. We learn (though hard experience) to love who we are, rather than who we wish we were.

When we are able to remember that ‘physical evil’ is simply our experience of the very warp and woof of creation, we can learn that our difficulties are not tragedies or disasters at all; they are opportunities for transcendence. They are invitations to correct our course, to rise to each new challenge, and to go beyond, not our limitations, but our beliefs about our limitations. The challenges of midlife force us to confront and either overcome or succumb to the unreality of our belief system. That is what happened to me 24 years ago. I did not realize that of which I was capable until I was forced by necessity to let go of my own limited worldview and adapt to the one that brought me to my knees (literally and figuratively). It began (but has not yet completed) my transition to full maturity as a “spiritual being having a human experience.”*

What about moral evil, then? How does that relate to the limitations inherent in the universe? Moral evil is simply our recognition that we as human beings are ultimately free. If we are free, then we have real, fundamental choices. At any juncture, we can choose to accept and live within the limitations of the physical world, or not. If we choose the latter, we choose to live in an insane world where our beliefs bear no resemblance to facts. We can choose to ignore our commitments, to disvalue ourselves and others, to deny our spiritual (or physical, for that matter) nature. We can run from and avoid life’s lessons and refuse to grow. We can jam our distorted and dysfunctional worldview into others’ reality by demanding our own way, by perpetrating injustice, by causing sadness, suffering and even death in our world. Moral evil is nothing more or less than our exercising our choice to say ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’ to our world and to our God.

What about moral evil in our world? What about the “inhumanity of man against man”? We human beings must confront the limitations of our universe on a daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute basis. We are never free from our responsibility to live life on life’s terms. A very real, although unfortunate, aspect of those terms is the fact that some of those limitations come at the hands of other humans. Yet, from our perspective, there is no more ‘blame’ to be placed on another human than there is on the limitations in the physical universe. Responsibility for moral evil (refusal to grow and mature) falls on the heads of the perpetrators. It falls on our own heads when we find ourselves as the perpetrators, and we need to go through the process of apology. Yet, our responsibility as the receivers of injustice is simply to grow beyond it. We are never ‘victims’ of injustice, any more than we are ‘victims’ of a hurricane or earthquake.

“Father,” Jesus prayed from his crucifixion, “forgive them. They know not what they do.” Our job as students of life’s lessons rests in asking, “What is my lesson in this?” and responding appropriately to our nature as spiritual beings. It is not to blame, punish, or exact retribution. Even those, like Viktor Frankl, who endured the Nazi death camps, had the choice to allow the holocaust to destroy their essential humanity or to rise to an incredible level of spiritual maturity. We’ll never know the heights and depths of spiritual experience that literally millions of people encountered during that war.

Was Nazi inhumanity therefore a good thing, because it deepened our spiritual awareness as individuals and as a human family? Of course not. War is always moral evil on stark and pointed display. Yet every time one woman or man confronts moral evil and accepts that experience as an opportunity to rise above it, s/he takes that opportunity to transform it into a moment of spiritual growth for our entire human family — and sadly, we have yet so far to grow.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because we’re human and we live in a universe defined by its limitations. Without confronting the limitations imposed on us by the universe at large, we would never learn to cope with our own human limitations. We would never discover how powerfully we are led and guided by a Power Greater than ourselves. We would be incapable of ever fulfilling our destiny either as individuals or as a human species. Am I happy that my own limitations brought me down and laid me low 24 years ago today? Happy? No. Grateful? Yes. I had the opportunity to see where my dysfunctional beliefs were threatening me, and I had the opportunity to change my mind and, by the grace of God, I took the chance, rose to the occasion, and did what I had to do. Like the poet, Robert Frost, exclaimed,

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

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Must couples in trouble necessarily fail? No, not necessarily: no healthy couple is doomed to failure. In fact, the only ‘doomed’ relationships are those where one or both partners are unapologetically physically or emotionally abusive . Without a doubt, the only realistic option for someone who finds her- or himself in a fundamentally abusive or exploitative relationship is to exit immediately. Apart from that, I believe that many (if not all) relationships “on the rocks” could be healed under the right circumstances. From my perspective, the fact that this healing so often fails to take place could be an indication that one or both of the partners have stopped listening. Additionally, ceasing to listen indicates a spiritual problem. Let me explain.

It would seem that the  person who hears another’s voice, but is no longer committed to listening to what the other has to say has given up on her or his partner, as well as their relationship together. If you look more closely, however, it soon becomes clear that the person has actually given up on him- or herself. Empathetic listening and appreciative inquiry represent a three-fold choice: 1) to accept the other, 2) to trust the other, and 3) to engage with the other. Closing off the lines of communication also represents a choice: to cease accepting, trusting and engaging with one’s partner. Before I relate this to fundamental spiritual principles, let’s look briefly at each choice.

The choice to accept another human being is foundational. True acceptance represents a fundamental option to see in the other person another self, with exactly the same sorts of strengths and weaknesses that we ourselves possess. This choice to acknowledge the other person as another self  has two destructive opposites. The first perversion of acceptance we call ‘exploitation‘. Philosopher Martin Buber contrasts these approaches with the terms I-Thou (for true acceptance of the other), and I-It (for exploitation). To see your partner merely in terms of his or her usefulness (like a tool or a piece of furniture) or her or his capacity to satisfy you represents a fundamental denial of humanity on your part. The second perversion of the choice to accept your partner shows itself as conditional acceptance. In brief, “I’ll accept you if you do such-and-such or so-and-so.” Conditional acceptance of another puts you in the position of being their judge, jury and executioner. In fact, it represents nothing less than your attempt to usurp the position in your partner’s life properly held by God alone.

Next, let’s look at the choice not to trust your partner. Why don’t you trust her or him? Because you’ve been hurt before? The refusal to trust your partner goes way beyond self-preservation. Once again, it is passing a judgment of condemnation on another person — another self — who exhibits the same sorts of faults and failings that you yourself exhibit. In fact, if the truth were known, the faults and failings that you find most easy to condemn and most difficult to forgive in others are the very ones that you exhibit most strongly yourself. In fact, the two keys that are absolutely essential to unlocking both acceptance and trust are these: first, to acknowledge an identical humanity in both yourself and the other, and, second, to commit yourself to the path of unconditional forgiveness. Who cannot look at the plight of even the most desperate of people around us and not be able truthfully to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I?” The greatest message of Christianity — and also, I’m afraid,  its most forgotten and neglected — is simply this: unconditional, unlimited forgiveness. If you cannot forgive unconditionally, you cannot trust for very long.

The final choice is the choice to engage with your partner. If you refuse to engage with her or him, you thereby give credence to the (Jungian) ego’s false belief that you are vulnerable and need protection. It’s the same force that drives people’s frantic searching for that illusive (and illusory) ‘security’ that they believe will fix everything and protect them from danger. Once again, it would be foolish to put ourselves in harm’s way by engaging with an abusive partner. We owe it to ourselves and to them to take the necessary precautions so as not to allow ourselves to become victims of deliberate abuse. However, if you imagine that refusing to engage with your well-intentioned partner will grant you some sort of immunity from harm and from hurt, you are mistaken. Do you believe that spiritually you are invulnerable and that nothing outside of yourself — not even death — can destroy the essence of you? “Greater love has no one,” we have heard, “than to lay down his life for another.” Oddly, dieing for someone can actually be a whole lot easier than living for them.

Finally, what does the choice not to listen say about that person’s spiritual condition? The testimony it gives is nothing short of damning. Personally, I would liken it to what Christians refer to as the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ or the ‘unforgivable sin.’ Here’s what I mean. Whenever I write, I use the terms ‘acceptance,’  ‘trust’ and ‘engagement’ as  synonyms for what are called the ‘theological virtues’, namely: faith, hope , and love. The ‘sin’ against faith is the decision not to accept the will of God exactly as we encounter it in our world. The ‘sin’ against hope is the choice not to trust that our only Source of genuine security is divine providence. The ‘sin’ against love is the refusal to become meaningfully engaged with those we were sent to serve: our fellow creatures who, along with us, share the “image and likeness of God.” If the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ is a refusal to believe that the love of God is powerful enough to forgive us (and so we refuse to ask for forgiveness, and therefore refuse to accept it), then turning a deaf ear to someone we once claimed to love is a ‘sin against love’, for, as we know, the opposite of love is not hate, but deliberate indifference.

What can you do if you find yourself failing to listen? Remember the futility of protecting yourself. What can you protect yourself from? Even more importantly, what are you protecting yourself for? After all, your mission here in this world is not to try (futilely) to keep yourself safe. It’s to share with your fellows (and especially those in relationship with you) the same kind of acceptance, trust, and engagement that your God has shown to you. God hears his people’s cry . . . can you do any less?

And what about you who find yourself ‘learning to love one another’ and your words keep falling on deaf ears? You, too, have the opportunity to pass on the love of God. Your acceptance of the other can be renewed continually. Your trust of the other need never fail or fade. You may stand ever at the ready to engage. However, engagement (love) requires reciprocity. God does not condemn, so how could you? God does not constrain, either (because love can never be forced), but rather waits for all eternity for the other to emerge from his or her isolation and re-engage. You can have the willingness to re-engage, whether or not the other ever seeks it. You may never re-engage as you once did: time and the world goes on while the other chooses to isolate, stagnate, or (what’s worse) repeat the same self-defeating choices and behaviors with other partners. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to accept and trust and engage with people at every stage and every condition of your life: people who, like you, have chosen to listen not only with their ears, but with their hearts.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

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Love is a drug

In 1980, singer Grace Jones recorded the hit song, Love Is a Drug. That reference to love as a narcotic can be remarkably accurate, particularly at midlife. I see huge differences in the forces that drive people to ‘hook up’ during adolescence and young adulthood as compared with what happens at midlife. Obviously, youth is made for experimentation, getting involved in new situations, or trying on a variety of relationships to see which ones might be a good ‘fit’ for creating a family of one’s own. By midlife, all this should have become ‘old hat.’  All, that is, but the desire for companionship, and the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of conquest.  There’s enough of the narcotic in relationship-hunting at both stages of life, but at midlife, there’s a lot less of the ‘family-building’ motive going on. For most people, by midlife, that’s a “been there; done that” experience.

Certainly, illicit relationships (going out on your partner) can happen at any time of life.  When they do, I believe that they’re always narcotic relationships. I mean that seeking or permitting a new relationship while you’re already committed to another partner always represents your attempt to medicate something going on inside you that you don’t want to deal with. For someone who’s already in a relationship to allow her- or himself to get involved with someone else, means that you’re letting yourself get ‘hooked’ on love as a drug so you won’t have to feel (or deal with) what’s going on inside and around you. Narcotics always offer the promise of pain relief. But at what ultimate cost? Nobody who’s ‘hooked’ really looks at the facts (they’ve become too numb) and recognizes that, when the drug wears off, the pain will still be there waiting for you. Even worse, when the drug wears off, you’ll have the additional pain of having to deal with the guilt and shame you’ll eventually have to face for having compromised your values. Oh . . . and I almost forgot: narcotics wind up being very, very, expensive.

I have been in a committed relationship now for over fourteen years (it took me a long time to find someone worth committing to). Like all relationships, we’ve had our ups and downs, our laughing and crying, and our shouting matches. As someone who used to have chronic relationship issues, I find myself often amazed that, although I find other people attractive, and thoughts of what ‘hooking up’ would be like sometimes show up, they’re no more attractive to me than a huge serving of [fill in your favorite grossly fattening desert here]. In both cases, I can genuinely say, “Yum!” without actually wanting to indulge. That’s what people do when they’re committed to living life on life’s terms, rather than looking for the next ‘narcotic’ escape.

Virtual Addiction

“But,” you say, “all I ever do is flirt. I’d never actually do anything about it.” I have to tell you: that doesn’t matter. You don’t actually have to consummate a narcotic relationship to have it give you the escapist ‘high’ you’re looking for. If you’re at all wise, you know that going out on your partner can be very dangerous. A messy divorce or breakup with everybody knowing all about your private business can really mess up a good fantasy.  No matter how you look at it, ‘hooking up’ is really risky business. How can you get the thrill of the hunt and the ecstasy of conquest while minimizing the risk? Behold the internet! It’s private: just the two of you can know. There’s no possibility of being observed by a casual onlooker. There’s no risk of disease. Nobody (so you lead yourself to believe) will be the wiser, and nobody will get hurt. You imagine that you can medicate your problems away through this other person (or people) and thus you can have the best of all worlds.

We call this delusional thinking ‘virtual addiction.’ By ‘hooking up’ over the internet, you get your narcotic at a fraction of the price. If this describes you, you’re missing the hidden costs. While you’re busy numbing your pain (and getting high) with your virtual relationship(s), the pain that’s coming from your primary relationship is growing . . . but you’re unaware of it. In a word, a healthy, fulfilling relationship doesn’t need a narcotic to mask what’s really going on. As you experience the midlife transition, it’s normal for you to experience huge changes in yourself: how you look at your life, how you look at all your relationships, how you look at your career, how you look at your future. All these things shift — often dramatically — during the midlife transition. Regardless of the changes that are going on around you (in your spouse, your family, your job, etc.), the biggest changes are happening in you.

All those things that narcotic relationships may be telling you may be correct. Maybe your spouse no longer loves you. Maybe you made a mistake in your choice relationship. Maybe your future will be entirely different from the one you had imaged for yourself. Any or all of these things may be true. It doesn’t matter! Getting yourself involved in a narcotic relationship (physically or virtually) isn’t going to solve anything. You can look at whatever seriously good feelings you may be generating for yourself from stepping out on your relationship as just a down payment on the pain that you’re storing up for yourself. While you’re off chasing feeling good, the problems you’re escaping are busy festering and getting worse. Sooner or later, your house of cards is going to come crashing down and, strangely enough, you already know that’s true. Guilty people subconsciously want to get caught.

Midlife Mastery

If you’re involved in a narcotic relationship, what do you need to do to get ‘clean and sober’? First and foremost: tell yourself the truth. Perhaps the biggest betrayal that you’re experiencing here is your betrayal of yourself. Put aside for a time your fears of not getting your relationship ‘fix.’ Recognize that your perspective has become warped. Get a confidant in whom you can have total trust (for example, hire a therapist). Start talking out loud about what’s going on with you. You’ll be amazed how ridiculous your addictive thoughts sound when you’re speaking them aloud to someone else. Explore with your confidant all those things about your life that you’re trying to avoid dealing with. Be courageous now (in facing your fears), or go down to flaming defeat later (when your relationships blow up in your face). The choice is yours.

I’ve often said that midlife presents each of us with the opportunity to come to terms physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually with the person who we really are. It’s perhaps the greatest challenge to our courage and integrity that we’ll ever face. There are so many and varied ways that we humans can avoid having to deal with these issues; but the only way to resolve them is head-on. Every minute that you continue to use things like narcotic relationships to maintain your avoidance, you also continue to accrue emotional and spiritual interest in terms of the suffering you’re going to have to face eventually. As they tell us in the ad: “Eventually . . . . why not now?”

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

If you're one of those no-nonsense people who's hard-working and minding your own business, doing everything you're supposed to be doing right now, chances are you're laying the foundation for a doozie. When you wake up one day with your career in a shambles, your family shattered and your health a wreck, at least you'll be able to say, "I worked for it, I owe it to myself, and nobody is going to deprive me of it."

Remember how, in Dickens' Christmas Carol, Jacob Marley showed old Scrooge the links in the chain that he carried that so weighed him down? He told his old business partner how he had forged each link by his own hand, one at a time. And you? What kind of a chain are you forging. On one of the sites where I publish my articles, a critic complained that my thoughts were meaningless double-talk and unrelated to real-world issues like getting yourself hired. I have to admit that he's right: it is meaningless double-talk until you come face to face with your own personal, individual crisis; then you find yourself at a loss as where you are, how you got there, and how in God's name you'll ever get out.

Do I sound a bit irritated? I am. I was just talking with a fellow on a major business network who told me, "The kind of information you're offering is the kind of important information that people need the most. Unfortunately, they're just not interested in it." He's right. People want down-to-earth, meat-and-potatoes, take-it-to-the-bank sorts of information. They want to know 'how to': how to prep for the job interview, how to get their spouses to do what they want them to do, how to do more of what they want to do in less time with fewer bad side effects. Yup! We got a pill for that!

God forbid that we should ask whether that job's right for you. How many years are you going to burn up doing something you hate that leads you nowhere? And, while you're at it, that family that 'you've gotta support' with that soul-killing job cops an attitude a mile wide because you've basically abandoned them, becoming emotionally unavailable. Of course, they're the bad guys in all this because, after all, they're not even grateful to you for breaking your back in a job you hate just 'for them'? And speaking of that back of yours, how well are you handling the extra weight?

Think about it: who's responsible for the mess you're in right now? (Don't tell me it's not a mess . . . I know better!) Maybe you should sit right down and write out a list of all the people who have treated you unfairly and who got you (and keep you) in your current state. Don't forget the government and those criminals on Wall Street. Once you've completed your list (how long is it?), you might want to go back and dream up some fitting punishments for each one of them. What would you like to do to them? When you're all done, here's what I suggest: that you tear up your list and get rid of it. It's crap. There's only one name that should be on that list and that's your own. You're not a victim, you never were, and all the drama in the world that you could create around the people you blame for your own decisions isn't going to deflect that responsibility one bit from where it belongs: on you.

If nothing changes, man, nothing changes! If you've let yourself get caught in a forest of problems and you never make the effort to climb a tree to see where you are, is it any wonder you find yourself going around in circles? You're stuck in a game of your own invention! You don't need more schemes and tactics to get you more of what you already have. What you need are new strategies that can provide you not only with a way out, but with a plan. Build your crisis brick by brick and decision by decision for as long as you want. But when you're finally sick and tired of being sick and tired, come talk to me.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC

Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

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Over the course of a number of years, I’ve slowly shed the layers of inherited beliefs, opinions, assumptions and expectations that carried me through childhood, adolescence and adulthood and took me into the midlife transition and beyond. Each layer was as much a part of me as a layer of skin. Some layers sloughed off, others peeled off, still others had to be scrubbed and abraded off. Growth most often feels like peeling an onion; with the caveat that the onion is you. Every time you take a layer off, after the initial sting, you feel renewed and rejuvenated, as though you’ve left some unnecessary baggage behind and you step forward just a little more lightly, with a little more freedom in your step. At some point in this process, you experience the conviction that you’re finally at least 51% authentically you: you’re at the watershed point.

So, there you are, like the proverbial bear, on ‘the other side of the mountain’ to see what you can see. And what you see is that there’s indeed a whole other side of the mountain. With your elevated sense of integrity and freedom, you also connect with a sense of responsibility the likes of which you’d never known (or maybe even imagined). You stand exposed, mid-transition, mid-process, with the realization that there are no more excuses; that your Higher Power has given you all the tools you need; and that now it’s up to you. Who? You? Yes: you!

They say that ‘ignorance is bliss’, and sometimes I’m tempted to say that about the years before I went through the midlife transition. Back then, I could pretend that I didn’t see what I saw, know what I knew, feel what I felt. And, I could blame it all on other people: my parents, my upbringing, my culture, my boss, my loved ones . . . anybody . . . everybody. I didn’t have to feel like ‘the buck stops here’ and, for all that happens in my life and for all the ways I respond to what happens in my life I am responsible. But, like knowing the answer to a riddle or the punchline to a joke, you can never again honestly pretend you never knew it. At least after the midlife transition, you can’t ‘experience it again for the first time’, in spite of what the advertisement suggests. Once you’ve seen ‘the other side of the mountain’, you can never go home again.

I’ve been having a tough time emotionally over the last few weeks. This living in your integrity and being responsible for the quality of your life can be a real drag at times. Sometimes, I almost wish that I didn’t know all that I know. Knowing the truth too often really does spoil the fantasy. I’d like to say that I’ve outgrown the fantasy and want to live 100% of the time in the real world; but, if I said that, I’d be lying. There’s a sort of perverse comfort in knowing that I can always escape or put the blame for what’s happening in my life or how I feel onto someone else. I understand intellectually that making mistakes is the only way I progress and grow. Yet, having to take ownership of each time I screw up gets old really quickly. I know intellectually that pain is just the universe trying to get my attention, but doesn’t it seem like it would be nice once in a while to pretend you weren’t listening? Ogden Nash once wrote, “When you see a panther crouch, Prepare to say ‘Ouch!’” Sometimes, when your mature eyes are wide open, you notice that there seems to be a panther crouching behind every bush.

I suppose that the ‘bottom line’ for this little meditation is this: doing good isn’t always feeling good. What’s on the other side of the mountain? You don’t need me to tell you that: you already know. Life is on the other side of the mountain: your life. It’s not a dress rehearsal, it’s not a fantasy. It’s as real as can be. And, although nothing can give you so much or take you so far as real life, at the same time, nothing hurts quite so much as a giant dose of un-sugar-coated reality, garnished with the knowledge that you always have the choice to say ‘no’, and you’ll have to live with that choice, too. So, take my advice: stiff upper lip, bite the bullet, take your medicine, embrace reality (even with all its occasionally nastiness), and move forward with the knowledge that you were mature enough to live life on life’s terms, unflinchingly and unapologetically — with the peace of mind that only comes from knowing that you’ve done whatever you’ve needed to follow the destiny you’ve been given, and, in the end, you’ve nothing really to apologize for. At least, that’s our goal for today.

H. Les Brown, MA, FCC

Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown

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