...we're told by TV and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change--and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. they become messes and tend to remain messes.

Great upheavals produce shock waves that widen cracks in political, economic, and security orders. Sometimes the old orders break. Yet it can be in the power of leaders and peoples to shape the directions of change.

We all think we’re going to be great and we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren’t met. But sometimes our expectations sell us short. Sometimes the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected. You got to wonder why we cling to our expectations, because the expected is just what keeps us steady. Standing. Still. The expected's just the beginning, the unexpected is what changes our lives.

Like the Negro League players, I traveled through the segregated south as a young man. Because I was black, I was denied service at many restaurants and could only drink from water fountains marked 'Colored.' When I went to the movies, I would have to sit in the Colored balcony.

There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.

Don't be concerned that things appear to be falling apart: this has to happen in order for something new and wonderful to emerge.