There is you, and there is everybody else. And then there is your child.

The child is not just another of everybody else. The child is you.

Yet not you; someone other than you.

The child is both — for the child is born of the Essence that transcends you and other.

We are children of the Infinite Light.

You need to take ownership of those things important in life — the charity you give, the kind deeds you do, the Torah you learn and teach. You can't just say, "This is G‑d's business, He has to take care of it." It has to hurt when it doesn't work out; you have to dance with joy when it does.

That is why G‑d created the "I" — so that we would do these things as owners, not as hired hands.

To achieve wonders takes a fearless heart and a humble mind.

True, courage and humility are two opposite directions for the soul to travel at once. But they take place in two distinct chambers: The mind awakens to its nothingness and the heart G‑d gave you is bared in all its brazen power.

The sages said about arrogance, "Damned is the one who has it, and damned is the one who does not."

Arrogance makes a mortal being into an idol. But without it, how can we change the world?

Do good with all your ego. Say, "I need to make this happen." Say, "I have to see this done."

Not only is this "I" permissible, it is crucial to getting things done.

So what is forbidden? To believe the "I" belongs to you.

The ego is not to be destroyed. It, too, is a creation of G‑d - and all that He made, He made for His glory.

Only this: that the ego must know that it is a creation, and that all He made, He made for His glory.

Today you did some wonderful things. It's okay to tell yourself that. There's a time to feel some satisfaction with what you have accomplished today.

As long as you're never satisfied with tomorrow.

Ultimately, your soul finds there is something even more momentous than herself. There is her purpose.

To accomplish, to heal, to make better — these, she discovers, take precedent over her very being.

And in that moment of discovery she graduates from being G‑d's little child to become absorbed within the body of the King.