Several centuries ago, a Spanish author wrote the story of a man who, inspired by the noble tales of medieval knights, decides to become a knight himself. Riding upon a sorry nag, and accompanied by his scheming servant Sancho Panza, Don Quixote sets out to rescue maidens and slay dragons; but he only ends up "tilting at windmills." The end of Don Quixote is tragic; he is incarcerated by those he would save, and told that his reading has only made him mad.

Don Quixote saddens us because we know that the problems he wishes to correct simply don't exist. There are no maidens locked in castles or fire-breathing dragons. But the tragedy of Quixote lies deeper than this. For -- although there may be a shortage of imprisoned virgins or mythical monsters -- Quixote is just like many of us in thinking that our "real" problems will succumb to our selflessness and nobility of spirit. They won't, of course, because -- just like Quixote's giants that proved only to be windmills -- they don't really exist at all.

Some of us are more like Quixote's servant, Sancho Panza. Sancho Panza is something of a realist, and knows quite well that his master is deranged; but all of Quixote's talk about pots of gold has made him greedy, and so he follows the would-be knight just in case he's not as mad as he seems. Some of us -- like him -- prefer to follow our heroes; often we doubt their effectiveness, but we are sufficiently cowardly that we would rather let them solve our "problems" than try and do so ourselves.

Or perhaps we are like the villagers who finally imprison Quixote. We too have given up on any "solution"; in our despair, we remain unmoved either by the nobility of the knight or the machinations of his servant. At least Quixote and Sancho Panza are alive; we, the imprisoners, are dead.

The path that is outlined by Steps 10, 11 and 12 will require the high ideals of Don Quixote -- but not his desire to ride out and find adventure. The stuff of real life is found here and now, and requires, not the courage of the noble knight, but surrender, acceptance, watchfulness, prayer, meditation, and -- perhaps not too unlike Quixote -- service.