My words are beautiful, and you are beautiful. Beauty is surrounding you. Even in bleakness, there is beauty. Look for it. Even in the most awful situations, there is something of beauty. It could be the sound of a nurse's voice. It could be the glass of water on a table. It could be the sun streaming in the window. It could be a cloud outside the window. It could be a nurse's shoes squeaking on the linoleum. It could be the spattering of rain. It could be you.

When you feel bleak, you are focusing on yourself. All of life is not about you, beloveds, and you fall back into that slant on life or never get up from it, a slant on life that doesn't really serve even you. You like your eggs this way, your toast like that, and your orange juice in a special glass. You like one thing this way and another thing another way and back and forth with attention on what pleases you or displeases you. Hmm, you may focus more on what displeases you than what pleases you.

Other people annoy you when they seem to think that everything is about them. Meanwhile, you may be thinking that everything is about you or your convenience or your preference or your mood of the day.

I could tell you to stop putting your preferences first until I'm blue in the face, and you don't know how to stop doing it, or you stop for a while and then slip back into it.

So here's how to do it:

Have a bigger picture in mind. Step out of the little circle you have encased life in. There is more to consider than what appeals to you or doesn't appeal to you. There are other fish to fry, beloveds. Draw a bigger circle around yourself that includes others as much as it includes you. What about everybody else? You may be absolutely right in preferring something as you do, and yet there is a bigger picture in which what you favor is simply not the priority. What you favor is simply not so important as you have thought. Enjoy that which you do not enjoy! Enjoy that someone served you toast too dark or too light.

And when it comes to more public matters, such as a website, a bus ride, a traffic sign, there are reasons why something is done as it is done, and you might as well consider them. If you thought beyond yourself, you might look from a greater vantage than your own, and you will see a wider window to look out from, and maybe you won't be complaining so much. That would be a change, wouldn't it?

Whereas you might be the first to choose a big beautiful window to look out of, yet, when it comes to your viewpoint, you may well have a tendency to see from a little slot, a little slice of life that doesn't go beyond your nose.

It has been said: What if you walked in someone else's shoes, how might you appraise matters then?

This is about compassion. This is about understanding. And this is about something more than these. It is about your growing up.

Self-centeredness is immaturity. It is not a crime. It is immaturity. Don't be a two-year old in an adult body. You wouldn't, would you? And yet some are. All of My children are kids inside. There is good to this as well, and yet there is also good in looking at a bigger picture. Will you? Will you look to see further? Will you look to see beyond yourself?