I finished this memoir by The Untethered Soul author earlier this week. While I lost interest during the latter business-focused part of the book, his overall idea (and repeated examples of how it worked) that the Universe conspired in his favor when he simply surrendered to what was happening—regardless of his personal preferences and thoughts—was really fascinating.

Here are some passages I noted about needing drastic situations to inspire us to change, which certainly has proven true in my life — and I think offers hope for our society and world for the future.

“Perhaps change only takes place when there is sufficient reason to overcome the inertia of everyday life. Challenging situations create the force needed to bring about change.”

“Life is going to put us through the changes we need to go through. The question is: Are we willing to use this force for our transformation? … even very intense situations don’t have to leave psychological scars, if we are willing to process our changes at a deeper level. My surrender experiment had already taught me to deeply honor the transformative power of life.”

“I was not in charge; life was in charge, and there was an underlying sense of enthusiasm and excitement about getting to see what was going to happen next.”

Michael A. Singer, The Surrender Experiment