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A while back, I gave my heart and soul and sinew to a small business that crashed and burned... I thought I would never recover, but a friend sent me this piece from Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, "Whoever does not, sometimes or other, give his full consent, his full and joyous consent to the dreadfulness of life, can never take possession of the unutterable abundance and power of our existence; can only walk on its edge, and one day, when the judgment is given, will have been neither alive or dead." It was these words that started my transformation. Roosevelt and Rilke's words are healing though our hardest trials!

I love how Rick Warren in "The Purpose Driven Life" explained humility. He said, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but, thinking of yourself less." This clarifies humility for me. When we focus on something bigger than ourselves and work toward that purpose, our self-esteem grows (through experience and hard work we gain competence) and true humility grows at the same time as we understand that we are not the center of the universe.

Coddiwompling reminds me of the etymology of the word, sauntering -- purposeful and reverent travel on foot through nature to the "Holy Land" -- within ourselves.