[The Daily Stoic; Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman; New York: Penguin, 2016]

When I need to pray the most is when I’m least likely to do so. Life’s cares and woes knock me down because I refuse to rely on my soul’s source of strength. Eventually, I’ll return to prayer, but not before I try to carry on without it. It makes no sense and it does me no good.

It takes courage to walk the path of prayer, perhaps or precisely because I am fundamentally changed in ways that move me away from the person I was toward the person I am becoming. That kind transformation, living that kind of miracle, isn’t for the faint of heart.

[Sharon Salzberg is an author and teacher, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.]