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41 " Nor is it automatic that once a person becomes acclaimed or powerful, the voice of the inner tyrant will be stilled. The work of individuation is internal. We all have to do it unless we prefer to remain very old children. Even when we do finally claim the authority formerly wielded by that inner custodian, we are not only freed but also bereft. We have lost the inner companion who for so many years also made us feel watched over and safe. "
― Gail Sheehy , Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life
42 " Would that there were an award for people who came to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough; and when you have enough, you have self-respect. "
43 " Ever since romanticism replaced the arranged marriage, the assumption has been that people marry for love. This is largely a myth. Any marriage can evolve into the mutual love of watching each other live. But first marriages are often a matter of conforming to the shoulds of the 20s. "
44 " Because the 40s, as writer Barbara Fried so succinctly captures them, are a time when it seems no matter what course one has pursued, “everything is turning gray, drying up or leaving home. "
45 " One of the terrifying aspects of the 20s is the inner conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable. It is largely a false fear. Change is quite possible, and some alteration of our original choices is probably inevitable. "
46 " Life after adolescence is not one long plateau. Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one’s own unnecessary vegetation. "