I adore this line from Maria Popova from her book Figuring:

There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

She also wrote in a recent blog post:

In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again. The richest relationships are lifeboats, but they are also submarines that descend to the darkest and most disquieting places, to the unfathomed trenches of the soul where our deepest shames and foibles and vulnerabilities live, where we are less than we would like to be. Forgiveness is the alchemy by which the shame transforms into the honor and privilege of being invited into another’s darkness and having them witness your own with the undimmed light of love, of sympathy, of nonjudgmental understanding. Forgiveness is the engine of buoyancy that keeps the submarine rising again and again toward the light, so that it may become a lifeboat once more.

I will add:

There are many ways of having intimacy with life.

One of the greatest ways of digging in is to have forgiveness for our own “foibles and vulnerabilities” as Popova mentions. The ability to say to yourself, BE NICE. It is HARD to be a person.