How times have changed…

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, he donated a statue of himself to the hotel pictured above. At the time, he says, the hotel management told him that he could “come at any time” – that he would always have a room there.

But some years later, after his term of office, when he sought to take up the hotel on its promise, he was told he’d have to pay for a room because “the hotel was almost full.”

So, he brought a sleeping bag and lay down under his statue to have this photo taken.

“Do not rely on your position or the amount of money you have, or your power, or your intelligence,” he says, “that will not last. Nothing lasts forever. People come and go. Everyone’s interests change overnight. They may embrace you today and betray you tomorrow and even trample on you. The challenge, then, is to learn to choose our connections well, disconnecting from the toxic and opportunistic ones and taking the time to place, in our circles of trust, those who love us for who we are, and not for what they can take from us out of interest or reject out of disinterest.”