Seeking Jordan will be available in hardcover March 15, 2016. You can pre-order it now from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

The Lessons

There is nothing done to us. There is nothing taken, nothing broken, nothing stained. What happens, no matter how sad or painful, is just the color, the motif of this moment in life. The moment has its purpose, what long ago we agreed to, what we needed to fully use our days.

There is nothing done to us that wasn’t necessary for the lesson we came to learn. The life we had planned or wanted is no more than a source of necessary disappointment. The love we expected, looked for, becomes no more than a turn down some empty road, weeds and branches choking the way.

In the darkness, the place where we never thought we’d arrive comes like a sudden warning, like a dog barking in a lonely farmyard. The place feels wrong, as if we were the victim of something. But despite its strangeness, it was our own plan. It is what we needed to know, to feel, to embrace.

Matthew McKay
by Matthew McKay

Matthew McKay is a clinical psychologist and a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. In 1979, he cofounded Haight Ashbury Psychological Services in San Francisco and served as its clinical director for twenty-five years. Currently he serves as the director of the Berkeley Cognitive Behavior Therapy Clinic. He has explored spiritual and afterlife issues in two previous books: Why? and Your Life on Purpose. He is also the author of professional and self-help psychology books, including Thoughts & Feelings, Messages, Mind and Emotions, Self-Esteem, Prisoners of Belief, and many others.

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