If from this Life on Earth you had one adventure to choose as your all-time favorite, you might find yourself attached to a slew of moments. You might not have the heart to give away even one of the now precious moments that wove themselves into your Life.

Which person could you give away? Truly, it would be too difficult. You have many moments and many people in this Life you may have called miserable more than once, yet you see now that they mean more to you now than you had let on to yourself.

Which face could you give up? Which voice? Whose eyes? Which hands? Which breath?

You may have well made a fuss during these moments you now see in a different light. It’s hard to understand now that you had carried ill-will. Of course, your ego was uptight. How could one or another person have stoked so much animosity in you? How could you have wasted even five minutes in resentment and indignation?

You would cast out your ego now. At this moment, you have cast it out. Tomorrow you might find another occasion for upset here and there. Perhaps you will think better of it sooner this time. There is no way you would really toss out one soul so ruthlessly.

You have had an amazing cast of characters in your Life. They all played their parts spectacularly. No one could have played their parts better.

From your past, schoolteachers now long gone thirty years, let’s say, which one would you not run up to now in Joy? Any one of your elementary school teachers you would not? If the teacher still lives on Earth, he or she may no longer have any recollection of you, yet you remember all your teachers from long ago. Unbeknownst to you, each teacher had stolen your heart. Had you only known sooner, you may well wish that you had said a fond goodbye. Their role in your Life may have been a minor role, yet now their participation in your Life means more to you. Please do not think you are just being sentimental.

What you realize now, whether others’ places in your Life were minor or not, pleasant or not, no matter what they represented to you or not, each teacher played his or her part in your Life. Whatever the parts were, whatever their significance or insignificance may have been, they played their part to the hilt. They were characters and personalities in your Life. They played their parts for you in good stead. You may be sorry now for the part you played.

Even Cinderella’s wicked stepmother, as wicked as she was, was instrumental. If there had not been the wicked stepmother and wicked stepsisters, would Cinderella’s foot have fit the glass slipper so perfectly?

Somehow the people in your past, even those you begrudged, were nevertheless part of your engagement in Life. This was the story you wrote then. You would rewrite the story now.

I applaud Cinderella that she rose above her past. She didn’t let her wicked stepmother hold her back.

In a fairy tale, the good thing is that there are roles. The people who play the roles enact them.

Some of the characters in your Life may not have been virtuous. They may well have been seriously misguided. They may have been hazardous.

Now that they are no longer on stage, they dropped their ridicule of you, and now you drop your attachment to the roles as you saw them then.

They were like no other, those who played their roles in your Life. One way or another, they entered your Life. Whether they played a horrendous part in your Life or a sweet one, they played their roles.

Now you would play your own part differently, and together your lives would have made up a different story.