Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun and one of the foremost students of Chogyam Trungpa, the renowned Tibetan meditation master. In this book, Pema teaches we always have a choice. We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us and make us increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. This book teaches us how to awaken our basic goodness and connect with others, to accept ourselves and others complete with faults and imperfections, and to stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is.