Quotes from Mira Kirshenbaum

Perfectionism is a time waster - 20 percent of the effort you put into any project accomplishes 80 percent of the outcome - so this is a time to ask yourself when good enough is enough and then stop.

Love is richest, most genuine, and most long lasting when you focus on being yourself and doing everything you can to make it possible for the other person to be him- or herself.

The secret of confidence is focusing on what you can control, not on what you can't.

Your emotional energy only cares about how successful you are at being yourself.

Doubt lurks in the bushes, waiting for you to come back from your honeymoon.

The snap judgments we make about people are remarkably valid.

What do you need to give me what I need?"... You're negotiating with your teenager not because you're a wimp, or because you're afraid of her, or because you don't care. No, you're negotiating with your teenager because imposing rules makes bad relationships worse, while negotiating solutions makes good relationships better.

there's an epidemic of ambivalence about many things these days.

classroom. Instead of saying you're born, you live, you die, Hinduism says you're born, you learn, and you're reborn—this is the idea of samsara. Everything you do, think, and feel creates

is bound by pratityasamutpada, the twelve-membered chain of causality. And the first link in this chain is ignorance. Ignorance starts the chain that binds the soul to the cycle of rebirth and suffering. Only when ignorance is overcome (through learning what the events in our lives have to teach us!) can we liberate ourselves from starting the cycle yet one more time and so finally achieve nirvana.

You know how it is. Some people really seem to want to get close so they can get close. Some people want to get close so they can complain about their lives to you. Some people want to get close so they can have sex. And some people seem to want to get close just so they can hurt you.

Broken trust can heal more quickly than most of us have thought, too. And it's worth it, because whoever coined the expression The broken places are stronger where they heal is absolutely right when it comes to trust.

Fun is the glue of love.

When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one's own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists.

Everything happens for a Reason.

If only you look, you'll find that right in that hole is something you've desperately needed to complete your journey successfully. And you wouldn't have found it if you hadn't fallen in that hole.

Think about your story in a new way,' the wise person says. 'You've been thinking of it as a loss. Now think of it as a liberation. What happened to you--it actually freed you up. And it didn't just free you up any old way. It freed you from some dead weight of the past so you could find a new home that would bring life to some part of you, maybe the best part of you.

If not, you'll just keep falling into holes until you can grasp the gift cosmos keeps on trying to give you.

The bad event gave you the strength you needed in your foundation to make possible the next wonderful thing in your life.

People often chase the danger they're least afraid of to distract them from the part of life that scares them most.

He may bring home the bacon, but he won't be bringing home your bacon.

tradition is the guru, the person who turns darkness (gu) into light (ru). The guru, in other words, is a teacher.

An interviewer once asked me if I could sum up everything I know about psychology in ten words or less. I said, "Hell, I can do it in two words: People cope.

Real love is about falling in like.