Life's Little Tests

I have found that life frequently sends little buggers our way just when we're ready to let go of an old pattern, once and for all, and move into brand new terrain.

I used to look at these tests--be they in the form of people who bug us, patterns that reappear or situations that bring out our worst--as big, fat nuisances.

I'm finally at a point in my life where, in spite of myself, I'm learning to be grateful for experiences like these for the gifts they bring. The greatest of all these gifts is the opportunity to recognize that we are always responding to the challenges before us in new ways, whether we realize it or not.

Change doesn't happen in leaps and bounds, but rather second by second. In each second, we are different than the person we were the second before. Nature teaches us that we are constantly undergoing thousands of little deaths, and with each death, something within us is born anew.