Weep for joy. There is nothing better to weep for. Let joy purge you.

Sometimes My children collect hurts and keep a record of them. There is no accounting for hurts, and you don’t want to record them. Beloveds, you have pounced on hurts the way a kitten pounces on a toy. You must think that hurt belongs to you, that you have not only a right to it but no end of it. Must you take offense?

It is not that you have to develop a thick skin. Just don’t be so thin-skinned. Don’t be so sensitive. Every act or omission in the universe is not directed to you.

Whatever the neglect or mistreatment you may have had as a child, it is no excuse now for taking offense. There is no excuse for taking offense. Don’t take anything more personally than you do a hail storm.

It is ego that takes personally. It is ego that looks for aggrandizement and stamps his foot when it is not forthcoming.

When you are embarrassed and feel red-faced, know that that is ego, and not you at all.

You are too magnificent a creature to waste your time on oversights. It is all right if you are overlooked. Take the energy and time you spend on feeling affronted and do something nice for yourself.

You do not need the accolades of the world. You have somehow thought you had to have them. Perhaps you feel that the persons on each side of you are chosen, and you are not. Then choose yourself.

The ego inveigles you into needing positive attention and eschewing embarrassment. In either case, it tells you that you are the center of the world, and the world should only laud you, only notice that which you are proud of and ignore the rest. When you do not need the world to notice you, when you do not require the notice and applause of the world, you will have more notice and applause.

You don’t need neediness.

Welcome the good that comes, and never mind the rest.

Certainly do not make a big thing of someone else’s omission of you. Does your ego really need to be stroked so much? Must you slap the hand and heart of one who ignored you? Must you punish them with the harshness of your thoughts? Must you demand that you be preferred?

You cannot successfully demand anything from anyone. Even if you succeed, it is unsuccessful because you demanded it. You cannot demand that you be chosen above all. Let not demands be your agenda. Demands are your ego.

Let go of your demand that others bow down before you. When they seem to bow down, they may be bending down to pick something up off the floor or to change a tire anyway.

Beloveds, you do not need tokens of love, and you need not be diminished when they are not forthcoming.

Raise your sights. Look higher. There is nothing else for you to do. Do not let the personal get in your way of the Divine. Where is your attention? Take it off the small things. Take it off the gnats, and put it on the butterflies. Put your attention on the unseen angels and off your ego-needs.

When God has gifted the world with you, when God has bestowed riches upon riches upon you, how can the notice the world takes of you or does not take of you be so important?

Do not test your friends. Accept them instead.

Be one who gives graciousness rather than demanding it.