When something good drifts into your immediate vicinity, your natural inclination is to reach out and grab it. But, good things aren't unlike Monarch butterflies in that if you reach out and grab them, you will almost certainly scare them away––or, worst yet, crush them.

Many of good things have been made bad at the hands of impatience and desperation. Instead, you must create the proper conditions for good opportunities to find you. You must show up, work hard and be generous.

Once you've created these conditions, you must then recognize that everything else is out of your control. If the Monarch chooses to land on your shoulder or some else's shoulder isn't really up to you. It's up to the wind and which direction it's choosing to move. It's more or less a matter of luck. Humans have been trying to control luck for centuries. It has left many broke, broken-hearted and dead. You can't control fate just like you can't lasso an F5 tornado.

This is perhaps the most difficult truth to accept: that we can show up, work hard, be generous and still not get what we want. However, relinquishing control allows you to remain still, calm, centered and content during the inevitable moments in life when you aren't getting exactly what you want.

And when it hurts––not getting what you want––try to remember that while you may want it, you don't need it.

You need so very little to be happy.