a quotation

"We live in a world where we are made to believe that we are what we do.  We are important if we do something important; we are intelligent if we do something intelligent; we are valuable if we do something valuable....But when we live as if we are what we do, we have sold our soul to the world.  We have allowed the world to determine who we are.  We have, in fact, become lonely people, always anxiously looking around and wondering what other people think about us, always needing people to consider us nice, intelligent, and worthwhile..."
-- Henri Nouwen.