Soon after I met Socrates, I walked into the station one night and found him pumping gas, He nodded to me, tossed me a squeegee, and pointed to the windshield. But I was more interested in asking questions than in washing windows. He had said something to me the previous night about how I had a lot of knowledge but little wisdom. Still put off by his comment, flipping the squeegee in the air and catching it again, I asked, "So what's the difference between knowledge and wisdom?"

He paused, then spoke slowly, as if talking to someone for whom English was a second language. "You know how to clear a windshield."

"So?" I said, again tossing the squeegee.

"Wisdom is doing it."

Fundamentally, no matter who we are or what we look like, no matter where we live or what our life circumstances, we always have the power of one choice; We can expand, or we can contract. We can expand and radiate posivie energy, or we can contract and collapse on ourselves - whether we call that contraction fear, sorrow, or anger.