"If you have vast wealth,
it will be useless in teaching your children.
If you have great power,
it will be of no avail in securing their happiness.
If you have succeeded admirably in life,
it will not help you keep your children safe.
Remember that you cannot teach
by preaching.
Try to live with peace, contentment,
love and compassion.
This will be your lecture.
This will be your lesson.
The happier I have allowed myself to be,
the happier my children have become.
The more I have become myself,
the more they have done the same.
This has occurred later in my life.
Don't wait."
In my life I have had to learn to be happy and seek joy. It has taken me more courage than I would have thought to do so through my marriage and family. A lot about my current situation has had much more to do with my circumstances than with my choices. I wish more people understood this. I want to teach my daughter to be realistic about both, so that she will learn to distinguish between times to accept her limitations, and times to challenge them. I find that often there are aspects of each in the unfolding of days. Discovering both can be a source of each, happiness--in embracing particular circumstances--and joy, in making distinctive choices.
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