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Visit BetterHelphelp.com slash new direction today to get 10% of your first month. Welcome to the Inspirational Living Podcast.

Today's reading was edited and adapted from

The Freedom of Life by Annie Payson Call, published in 1905.

It is not the circumstances of life that trouble or way upon us.

It is the way we take them.

If a person is playing a difficult game of chess, the more intricate the moves,

the more thoughtfully they look over their own and their opponent's pieces,

and the more fully they are aroused to make the right move

toward a checkmate. If, when the game became difficult, the players stopped to be depressed

and disheartened, their opponent would probably always checkmate them. However, in most cases, the more difficult the game, the more thoroughly

the players are aroused to do their best, and a difficult game is invariably a good one.

The winner and the loser both feel it to be so, even though the loser may regret their loss.

But you may say, a game of chess is a game only. Neither one's bread and butter nor one's

life depend upon winning or losing it. Well, yes, but if we need to be cool, quiet and decisive for a game, which is merely

an amusement, and if we play the game better for being cool, quiet and decisive, why is not a quiet

...