In the end, Sayuri and the Chairman find a relationship, and this fulfills Sayuri's long-held dream.  However, I wonder what would have happened if she would have been more open to other possibilities in life.  I felt some pity for Nobu because Sayuri was repulsed by his physical characteristics even though he was kind to her.  But even though Sayuri did not accept this opportunity, she was quite open to other paths in her life, so one thing I took away from the novel is to be open to possibilities.

A major theme in Memoirs of a Geisha always reminds me of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, specifically Habit #1, Be Proactive.  Essentially, this habit reminds us that no matter what happens to us, we always have the power of choose our response.  Many things in life will be unavoidable; some may argue that we all have an ultimate destiny that we are powerless to avoid.  However, as human beings, the ultimate power we always have is the power to choose a response to any given stimulus.  Sayuri's poignant and sometimes humorous voice draws us into the Cinderalla-like story of choices and destiny that Golden weaves, and while we're enthralled with our heroine, we learn some history too.  How a male author was able to create such a lovely, epic, heartwarming novel about a Japanese woman's true soul is beyond me, but he did it.