Me

steps I have taken to arrive at the place of happiness and completeness where I now find myself. I’ll talk about many personal matters that I have never discussed publicly before, but it isn’t my intention to share every little thing, either. I believe that we’re all entitled to a certain degree of privacy; there are certain things I keep to myself because they are mine alone and I want them to stay that way. What I would like to do is explore the different paths and experiences that have led me to be the person I am today.
    I know what it feels like to be loved and I know what it feels like to love someone—totally and absolutely, with intensity and without any prejudgments. I also know what it is like to be judged for what I am and for what I am not. If I hadn’t gone through all of this, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to arrive at the moment when I finally understood that my chosen path was the right one, since it has made me into the person I am today. And it doesn’t matter how I look at it; that person I am today, that person I have created with so much effort and dedication, is, second to my children, my most precious work. I am certain that there are many more steps left for me to take, many more things to experience, and therefore many chapters left to write. But right now I just want to open my heart to you and share my story and this moment of my life with the world.
    During this time I have learned that it is useless to label things as either good or bad. The key is to see everything as a lesson. Good and bad alike are both part of a whole, and we have to embrace that whole to reach the complete existence we long for. We advance on certain paths where opportunities come our way, and every step not only gets us closer to where we want to go but also has a reason for being. Life gives us experiences, and every decision we make determines where we will be later.
    From the day we are born until the day we die, we progress on a path of learning, in which every decision we make or fail to make becomes a part of our personal growth. There is this karmic realm where you have to pass through the challenges that life gives you to liberate yourself from that which weighs you down, preventing you from reaching divinity. We all progress down a spiritual path that offers us opportunities to learn—and even tragedy has its meaning. When you’re a student, you have to study the lesson until you know it by heart, and if you don’t know it, you don’t graduate. In the same way, life presents us with experience after experience, and with every deed, decision, and selection we are determining where we will end up. And just like in school, whoever pays the closest attention will most quickly move ahead.
    Someone once asked me if I thought my accomplishments were always in my destiny. The answer was yes, and no. Granted, I do believe that a lot of what has happened to me has helped shape my destiny, but there is no doubt that I have come to where I am, and accomplished what I have, because I worked hard to get it. If anything is true in this world it is that destiny is something you have to help. If I had not done my own part, I would have never come to where I am now. At no point did I sit down and wait for destiny to show up on my doorstep. I went out and looked for it and knocked on its door instead. I think that the people who sit around and wait for their destiny to land in their laps will probably get old waiting.
    I have worked intensely to arrive at this point, which is why I know it has not been a coincidence or a simple act of randomness. It is true that I have had a lot of luck—or a lot of what we call luck. But the truth is that everyone creates his own luck and his own destiny. When life presents you with a river, you cannot rely on luck to supply a boat; you have to dive into the water and swim. Stroke after stroke, you have to reach the other side. You have to create the course of your own destiny and not let chance determine your direction. I fully believe that luck comes to those who have worked hard to find it.
    Life is a journey and every step we take moves us in some direction. When we are ready and willing, we learn, we advance, and we grow. But it’s very easy—and very common—to not take that first step and to stay exactly where we are, because after all, that which is familiar is usually the most comfortable. I think that for a great part of my life I was so comfortable I did not