How you deal with success is the same as how you deal with non-success. You agitate. You flutter.

All of your lives, you are practicing for success.

Every time things did not go the way you wanted, you called that failure and were disappointed. You were practicing your reaction to success whether you knew it or not. You were moved by your disappointment. Perhaps you cried and retreated. Perhaps you jumped up and down. Perhaps you became stony and couldn't move. Perhaps you were floored.

How you have been handling disappointment is how you will handle success.

You have been letting what comes to you in life train you! You have been trying to boss life around, but it has been ordering you. You have been affected by it like a puppet on the string. Is that not so?

Something from the outside enters your arena, and you dance to its tune.

You want to be the orchestra leader, but when there is a shout, "Polka!", you play a polka. A shout, "Waltz!", and you play a waltz. A shout, "Jazz!", and you play jazz. Such excitement! A shout, "Failure!", and you deflate. A shout, "Success!", and you are elated. That is not being an orchestra leader. That is being a jukebox.

Elation is just the opposite pole to deflation or defeat.

I do not tell you to disallow the requests that life gives you, but I suggest that you be the neutral decider. Whatever life shouts at you, you don't have to jump to its tune.

I tell you, My children, that what you call success and what you call failure do not make your life. You make your life.

Life is many-colored.

The degree to which the colors affect you is your choice. You do not have to be randomly affected.

Lean to the idea that you are a quiet stream that runs through life. You are a tree in the forest. You are a sun that shines. You are a cool moon that reflects. You are an overallness of life.

A war can go on beside a stream, and the stream goes on as always. It continues to flow and does not speed up nor slow down.

It seems that My children have had the idea that it is good to speed up, that it is good to go past the speed limit, that you should be revved up when you're happy and revved up when you're down. You have had the idea that you are supposed to be a chameleon who changes color according to the colors around him.

But you are a Human being, and a stillness runs through you that you want to listen to and reveal and absorb and reflect. Be accountable to that stillness and not so much to what goes on around you.

Remember who you are in all circumstances. This does not mean to assume a pose. From knowingness, not from will, stay as you are. Let your awareness beam into something greater than the fragments and shards of uncertain activity around you.

When there is a knock at your door, you don't have to rush to open it. You can walk over to it. You can greet equitably what waits at your door. In any case, it is a mailman at your door. Whoever stands there has a message for you. It may be a message you favor. It may be a message you don't. Take each. No flurry is necessary. No storm of any kind.

Some news has come to your door. It is only news. It does not have to make you quiver and shake. You can be the same after the news as before the news. News is not earthshaking. News comes and goes, and you are forever a child of God.