Abundance Short Quotes

I don't think God gives a shit if we have a dog or if a woman wears shorts. I think He gives a shit whether you're a good person.

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.

Let's put it this way- if The Fault in Our Stars was a person I would marry them. Will Grayson, WIll Grayson would be my maid/man of honor. Alaska and Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines and Let it Snow would be my best friends. In short- you can't go wrong with John Green. Ever.

Atoms, in short, are very abundant. They are also fantastically durable. Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-- up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-- probably once belonged to Shakespeare.

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

On Generosity On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around we are going to run short of money of love of grades of publications of sex of beer of members of years of life we should seize the day seize our goods seize our neighbours goods because there is not enough to go around and in the midst of our perceived deficit you come you come giving bread in the wilderness you come giving children at the 11th hour you come giving homes to exiles you come giving futures to the shut down you come giving easter joy to the dead you come – fleshed in Jesus. and we watch while the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised the poor dance and sing we watch and we take food we did not grow and life we did not invent and future that is gift and gift and gift and families and neighbours who sustain us when we did not deserve it. It dawns on us – late rather than soon- that you “give food in due season you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity override our presumed deficits quiet our anxieties of lack transform our perceptual field to see the abundance………mercy upon mercy blessing upon blessing. Sink your generosity deep into our lives that your muchness may expose our false lack that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give so that the world may be made Easter new, without greedy lack, but only wonder, without coercive need but only love, without destructive greed but only praise without aggression and invasiveness…. all things Easter new….. all around us, toward us and by us all things Easter new. Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.

The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.

Live a life abundant in love and rich in spirit, these are the seeds of a fulfilling existence. Be the safe harbor you seek in the world. Follow your dreams, not your fear. Go into the New Year with an open mind and hopeful heart. Don't let the chains of unforgiveness weigh you down. Life is too short to live in a prison of past hurts. The futures is yours for the taking and creating. Life is bittersweet, when we can let darkness and light co-exist as illumination, we can live in true happiness. When we live life at its best, it is a symphony of feelings, of high and low notes, of tragedy and comedy, love and loss, magic and the sublime. It can be quite a spectacular journey when we fully embrace and accept it.

Part of the reason people could eat so well was that many foods that we now think of as delicacies were plenteous then. Lobsters bred in such abundance around Britain's coastline that they were fed to prisoners and orphans or ground up for fertilizer.

Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat". Look into their eyes, and tell them "I know there is an abundance of plant based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you". Look into their eyes and tell them "I know I don't NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway" Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry you lived a short enslaved, abused and tortured life, but I don't care because I am selfish" Look into their eyes and tell them " I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn't matter as much" Go ahead, take a look into their eyes and tell them that!

Thanksgiving is not only being aware of the abundance of good in the world but embracing it.

I now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid and thrilling prose—Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey and Tim Flannery are three that jump out from a single station of the alphabet (and that’s not even to mention the late but godlike Richard Feynman)—but, sadly, none of them wrote any textbook I ever used.

What an abundant harvest has been collected in autumn! The earth has now fulfilled its design for this year, and is going to repose for a short time. Thus nature is continually employed during the greatest part of the year: even in her rest she is active: and in silence prepares a new creation.

Egoism... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste.

I don’t think God gives a shit if we have a dog or if a woman wears shorts. I think He gives a shit about whether you’re a good person.

No it’s not. I don’t think God gives a shit if we have a dog or if a woman wears shorts. I think He gives a shit about whether you’re a good person.

Wisdom is really the key to wealth. With great wisdom, comes great wealth and success. Rather than pursuing wealth, pursue wisdom. The aggressive pursuit of wealth can lead to disappointment. Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, and being able to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. Wisdom is basically the practical application of knowledge. Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs. Become completely focused on one subject and study the subject for a long period of time. Don't skip around from one subject to the next. The problem is generally not money. Jesus taught that the problem was attachment to possessions and dependence on money rather than dependence on God. Those who love people, acquire wealth so they can give generously. After all, money feeds, shelters, and clothes people. They key is to work extremely hard for a short period of time (1-5 years), create abundant wealth, and then make money work hard for you through wise investments that yield a passive income for life. Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand. Failure is success if we learn from it. Continuing failure eventually leads to success. Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly. Whenever you pursue a goal, it should be with complete focus. This means no interruptions. Only when one loves his career and is skilled at it can he truly succeed. Never rush into an investment without prior research and deliberation. With preferred shares, investors are guaranteed a dividend forever, while common stocks have variable dividends. Some regions with very low or no income taxes include the following: Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Delaware, South Dakota, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Panama, San Marino, Seychelles, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Curaçao, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Monaco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bermuda, Kuwait, Oman, Andorra, Cayman Islands, Belize, Vanuatu, and Campione d'Italia. There is only one God who is infinite and supreme above all things. Do not replace that infinite one with finite idols. As frustrated as you may feel due to your life circumstances, do not vent it by cursing God or unnecessarily uttering his name. Greed leads to poverty. Greed inclines people to act impulsively in hopes of gaining more. The benefit of giving to the poor is so great that a beggar is actually doing the giver a favor by allowing the person to give. The more I give away, the more that comes back. Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.

Jake accompanied us as well, having arrived in Akhia shortly before the excavation team departed. I did not tell him our destination until we were safely away from civilization, and found my caution abundantly justified: he whooped and danced about so much, he fell off his camel and broke his left arm.

To this end it furnishes them an abundance of Catholic priests to teach them to be docile and obedient, and to be diligent in acquiring ignorance about things here below, and knowledge about the kingdom of heaven,

Shortly before the monsoon, the heat becomes very intense. It is said that the more intense it becomes the more abundantly it will draw down the rains, so one wants it to be as hot as can be. And by that time one has accepted it -- not got used to but accepted; and moreover, too worn-out to fight against it, one submits to it and endures.

The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.

We will call Chase, Jeans Are Too Tight, and Fulton shall be Short One Chewing Tobacco," Hassan whispered to Colin. "Je m'appelle Pierre," Colin blurted out after the boys had introduced themselves. "Quand je vais dans le metro, je fais aussi de la musique de prouts.

Respecting the dignity of a spectacular food means enjoying it at its best. Europeans celebrate the short season of abundant asparagus as a form of holiday. In the Netherlands the first cutting coincides with Father's Day, on which restaurants may feature all-asparagus menus and hand out neckties decorated with asparagus spears.

Perhaps the deepest indication of our slavery is the monetization of time. It is a phenomenon with roots deeper than our money system, for it depends on the prior quantification of time. An animal or a child has “all the time in the world.” The same was apparently true for Stone Age peoples, who usually had very loose concepts of time and rarely were in a hurry. Primitive languages often lacked tenses, and sometimes lacked even words for “yesterday” or “tomorrow.” The comparative nonchalance primitive people had toward time is still apparent today in rural, more traditional parts of the world. Life moves faster in the big city, where we are always in a hurry because time is scarce. But in the past, we experienced time as abundant. The more monetized society is, the more anxious and hurried its citizens. In parts of the world that are still somewhat outside the money economy, where subsistence farming still exists and where neighbors help each other, the pace of life is slower, less hurried. In rural Mexico, everything is done mañana. A Ladakhi peasant woman interviewed in Helena Norberg-Hodge’s film Ancient Futures sums it all up in describing her city-dwelling sister: “She has a rice cooker, a car, a telephone—all kinds of time-saving devices. Yet when I visit her, she is always so busy we barely have time to talk.” For the animal, child, or hunter-gatherer, time is essentially infinite. Today its monetization has subjected it, like the rest, to scarcity. Time is life. When we experience time as scarce, we experience life as short and poor. If you were born before adult schedules invaded childhood and children were rushed around from activity to activity, then perhaps you still remember the subjective eternity of childhood, the afternoons that stretched on forever, the timeless freedom of life before the tyranny of calendar and clocks. “Clocks,” writes John Zerzan, “make time scarce and life short.” Once quantified, time too could be bought and sold, and the scarcity of all money-linked commodities afflicted time as well. “Time is money,” the saying goes, an identity confirmed by the metaphor “I can’t afford the time.” If the material world

The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. Cultivate that desire by reading what you want, not what you’re “supposed to.

The abundance of solutions to the aspects of existence is equalled only by their futility.

I don't think God gives a shit if we have a dog or if a woman wears shorts. I think He gives a shit. whether you're a good person.

I now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid and thrilling prose—Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey, and Tim Flannery

Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat." Look into their eyes, and tell them "I know there is an abundance of plant based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you." Look into their eyes and tell them "I know I don't NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway." Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry you lived a short enslaved, abused and tortured life, but I don't care because I am selfish." Look into their eyes and tell them "I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn't matter as much." Go ahead, take a look into their eyes and tell them that!

You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.  You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals.

We live in a culture of reductionism. Or better, we are living in the aftermath of a culture of reductionism, and I believe we have reduced the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to systematic theologies that insist on ideological conformity, even when such conformity flattens the diversity of the Scriptural witness. We have reduced our conception of gospel to four simple steps that short-circuit biblical narratives and notions of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven in favor of a simplified means of entrance to heaven. Our preaching is often wed to our materialistic, consumerist cultural assumptions, and sermons are subsequently reduced to delivering messages that reinforce the worst of what American culture produces: self-centered end users who believe that God is a resource that helps an individual secure what amounts to an anemic and culturally bound understanding of the 'abundant life.

The foremost challenge for leaders today, we suggest, is to maintain the clarity to stand confidently in the abundant universe of possibility, no matter how fierce the competition, no matter how stark the necessity to go for the short-term goal, no matter how fearful people are, and no matter how urgently the wolf may appear to howl at the door. It is to have the courage and persistence to distinguish the downward spiral from the radiant realm of possibility in the face of any challenge.

Lobsters bred in such abundance around Britain’s coastline that they were fed to prisoners and orphans or ground up for fertilizer; servants sought written agreements from their employers that they would not be served lobster more than twice a week.

What is the path to wholeness? We will see this path more clearly if we recognize that greed’s ugly stepsister is ungratefulness. Greed always wants more. When we are greedy, we are never satisfied. Whatever we receive from others, we conclude we deserve. And in whatever quantity it may come, it is never enough. Lack of gratitude is a manifestation of an abundance of greed. From the vantage point of the taker, it is his or her justification for always demanding. He is endlessly disappointed in others. No one ever comes through for him. No one ever keeps his promises. Everyone always falls short of his expectations. There is no need for thanks, except thanks for nothing. No truth, no matter how profound, will find its way into a heart that is absent of gratitude.

I now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid and thrilling prose—Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey and Tim Flannery are three that jump out from a single station of the alphabet (and that’s not even to mention the late but godlike Richard Feynman)—but,

Then followed an incredible tactical blunder. With the British expeditionary force helplessly retreating toward the sea, but far behind in the race and about to be cut off by Guderian’s massed tanks, the Führer halted Guderian on the River Aa, nine miles from Dunkirk, and forbade the tank divisions to advance for three days! To this day nobody has factually ascertained why he did this. Theories are almost as abundant as military historians, but they add little to the facts. During these three days the British rescued their armies from the Dunkirk beaches. That is the long and short of the “miracle of Dunkirk.

From the ecological point of view an outbreak can be defined as an explosive increase in the abundance of a particular species that occurs over a relatively short period of time.” Then, in the same bland tone, he noted: “From this perspective, the most serious outbreak on the planet earth is that of the species Homo sapiens.

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.3

Another New Year's dawned, new opportunities and difficulties are sneaking around you. To take hold of good and let go bad, face the new challenges and open the new chances to anew your life again. Everyday train your brain to solve all difficulties and transform them into opportunities, get rich mentally, physically and financially. Love your family, friends, colleagues and all folks surrounded by you. Take care of your health, children, wealth and travel new exotic places, people and enjoy good food. Life is very short, fully enjoy it. Embrace new ideas, knowledge and every opportunity. And always surround yourself with good people and avoid toxic and negative people to secure your peace of mind and dignity. I wholeheartedly and boldly set my plan as is the best year of my life for financial freedom, good health, richness, love, care and abundance. I do solemnly yearn for the folks around the world a thoroughly Peaceful, Happy and Beautiful New Year free from hunger, poverty, disease, inequality, war and conflict.

Any form of giving with no strings attached puts us directly in the flow of abundance, which must come full circle. Likewise, being of service is a priceless gift—a specific form of energy—which, when extended to others unconditionally, places us directly into the flow of the abundance. In short, we cannot serve selflessly without also being served.

Abundance also has little to do with ease of detection. Aluminum is the fourth most common element on Earth, accounting for nearly a tenth of everything that’s underneath your feet, but its existence wasn’t even suspected until it was discovered in the nineteenth century by Humphry Davy, and for a long time after that it was treated as rare and precious.

if animals can get more than they actually require to subsist, they take it, don’t they? If there’s been a battle or a plague, the hyenas and vultures take advantage of the abundance to overeat. Isn’t it the same with us? Forests died in great quantities some millions of years ago. Man has unearthed their corpses, finds he can use them and is giving himself the luxury of a real good guzzle while the carrion lasts. When the supplies are exhausted, he’ll go back to short rations, as the hyenas do in the intervals between wars and epidemics.’ Illidge spoke with gusto. Talking about human beings as though they were indistinguishable from maggots filled him with a peculiar satisfaction. ‘A coal field’s discovered; oil’s struck. Towns spring up, railways are built, ships come and go. To a long-lived observer on the moon, the swarming and crawling must look like the pullulation of ants and flies round a dead dog. Chilean nitre, Mexican oil, Tunisian phosphates—at every discovery another scurrying of insects. One can imagine the comments of the lunar astronomers. “These creatures have a remarkable and perhaps unique tropism towards fossilized carrion.”’ ‘Like

She saw it, and an extraordinary change came over her. She seemed scarcely to move, and yet all at once, her whole person was focused on Myers. No white showed around her eyes; they were black and fathomless, shining in the firelight. She was still short and heavy, but with only the slightest change of posture, depth of bosom and width of hip were emphasized, suddenly curved in a promise of lewd abundance. Myers swallowed, audibly.

The other sources, even when they mention Hel, rarely describe it. But when they do, it's cast in neutral or even positive terms. For example, the mention that the land of the dead is "green and beautiful" in Ibn Fadlan's account is mirrored in a passage from Saxo (The medieval Danish historian, as you likely recall). In Saxo's telling of the story of Hadding, the hero travels to the "Underworld" and finds a "fair land where green herbs grow when it is winter on earth." His companion even beheads a rooster just outside of that land and flings its carcass over the wall, at which point the bird cries out and comes back to life - a feat which is highly reminiscent of another detail from Ibn Fadlan, namely the beheading of a rooster and a hen whose bodies are then tossed into the dead man's boat shortly before it's set aflame. In both cases, the emphasis is on abundant life in the world of the dead, even when death and absence prevail on earth.

Chen shared a story with me about his in-laws. It was shortly after the 2008 financial crisis. Chen had no reason to expect his in-laws were worried. They were in their eighties and they were financially secure. The crash had not hurt their lifestyle. But they watched the response to the crisis from governments around the world, and they remembered what they had seen before. He asked them why they were worried. Their answer stayed with him: “First currency wars, then trade wars, then real wars.

The economic logic of gathering so many animals together to feed them cheap corn in CAFOs is hard to argue with; it has made meat, which used to be a special occasion in most American homes, so cheap and abundant that many of us now eat it three times a day. Not so compelling is the biological logic behind this cheap meat. Already in their short history CAFOs have produced more than their share of environmental and health problems: polluted water and air, toxic wastes, novel and deadly pathogens.

There are some quotes from a story in the Los Angeles Times called “Fear of Fusion: What if It Works?” Leading environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin: “It’s the worst thing that could happen to our planet.”13 Paul Ehrlich: Developing fusion for human beings would be “like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.”14 Amory Lovins was already on record as saying, “Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”15

Now when the soul by its efforts to abandon outward objects and gather itself inwards, is brought into the influence of the central tendency, without any other exertion, it falls gradually by the weight of Divine Love into its proper centre; and the more passive and tranquil it remains, and the freer from self-motion and self-exertion, the more rapidly it advances, because the energy of the central attractive virtue is unobstructed and has full liberty for action. All our care and attention should, therefore, be to acquire inward recollection: nor let us be discouraged by the pains and difficulties we encounter in this exercise, which will soon be recompensed on the part of our God by such abundant supplies of grace as will render the exercise perfectly easy, provided we be faithful in meekly withdrawing our hearts from outward distractions and occupations, and returning to our centre with affections full of tenderness and serenity. When at any time the passions are turbulent, a gentle retreat inwards into a Present God easily deadens and pacifies them; and any other way of contending with them rather irritates than appeases them.

Apart from murder and rape, the most horrendous crimes punished by civilized authority stem back to the 'unpardonable sin'of kingship: disobedience to the sovereign. Murderous coercion was the royal formula for establishing authority, securing obedience, and collecting booty, tribute, and taxes. At bottom, every royal reign was a reign of terror. With the extension of kingship, this underlying terror formed an integral part of the new technology and the new economy of abundance. In short, the hidden face of that beautiful dream was a nightmare, which civilization has so far not been able to throw off.

Do not fail to abundantly caress him and speak kindly words, and never under any circumstances, no matter what the provocation, allow yourself to scold or strike him, as this is entirely at variance with our system, and is sure to result in the defeat of our plans. Should he jump upon you with his dirty feet, or tear your clothes with his sharp teeth, do not get angry and cuff him, but gently yet firmly place him upon the ground or unclasp his jaws from your garments, consoling yourself with the thought that in a short time you will have him so well in hand that he will know better than to commit these faults.

Because the other way wasn’t working. The waking up just to get the day over with until it was time for bed. The grinding it out was a disgrace, an affront to the honor and long shot of being alive at all. The ghost-walking, the short-tempered distraction, the hurried fog. (All of this I’m just assuming, because I have no idea how I come across, my consciousness is that underground, like a toad in winter.) The leaving the world a worse place just by being in it. The blindness to the destruction in my wake. The Mr. Magoo. If I’m forced to be honest, here’s an account of how I left the world last week: worse, worse, better, worse, same, worse, same. Not an inventory to make one swell with pride. I don’t necessarily need to make the world a better place, mind you. Today, I will live by the Hippocratic oath: first do no harm. How hard can it be? Dropping off Timby, having my poetry lesson (my favorite part of life!), taking a yoga class, eating lunch with Sydney Madsen, whom I can’t stand but at least I can check her off the list (more on that later), picking up Timby, and giving back to Joe, the underwriter of all this mad abundance. You’re trying to figure out, why the agita surrounding one normal day of white-people problems? Because there’s me and there’s the beast in me.

Your mouth can correct what is wrong. Your eyes can see evil and your mouth can speak righteousness. Your body can say I am sick while your mouth can say I am healed. Your eyes can say I am blind but your mouth can say I can see, Your pocket can say I am empty while your mouth can say I am swimming in abundance. Your Doctor can say that you are HIV Postive and Cancer but your mouth can say my body is a holy temple of God and by His stripes I am healed. Your womb can say that you are barren while your mouth can say "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward." Don´t live by sight, live by faith. Put it in practice.

Students at the instituted for Environmental Research at RWTH Aachen discovered something amazing about photosynthesis in undisturbed beech forests. Apparently, the trees synchronize their performance so that they are all equally successful. And that is not what one would expect. Each beech tree grows in a unique location, and conditions can vary greatly in just a few yards. The soil can be stony or loose. It can retain a great deal of water or almost no water. It can be full of nutrients or extremely barren. Accordingly, each tree experiences different growing conditions; therefore, each tree grows more quickly or more slowly and produces more or less sugar or wood, and thus you would expect every tree to be photosynthesizing at a different rate. And that's what makes the research results so astounding. The rate of photosynthesis is the same for all the trees. The trees, it seems, are equalizing differences between the strong and the weak. Whether they are thick or thin, all members of the same species are using light to produce the same amount of sugar per leaf. This equalization is taking place underground through the roots. There's obviously a lively exchange going on down there. Whoever has an abundance of sugar hands some over; whoever is running short gets help. Once again, fungi are involved. Their enormous networks act as gigantic redistribution mechanisms. It's a bit like the way social security systems operate to ensure individual members of society don't fall too far behind.

Sheep and cattle now graze side by side, but actually have very different mineral requirements. Modern cattle need quite a lot of copper because they evolved in parts of Europe and Africa where copper was abundant. Sheep, on the other hand, evolved in copper-poor areas of Asia Minor. As a rule, and not surprisingly, our tolerance for elements is directly proportionate to their abundance in the Earth’s crust. We have evolved to expect, and in some cases actually need, the tiny amounts of rare elements that accumulate in the flesh or fiber that we eat. But step up the doses, in some cases by only a tiny amount, and we can soon cross a threshold. Much of this is only imperfectly understood. No one knows, for example, whether a tiny amount of arsenic is necessary for

Though all the brilliant intellects of the ages were to concentrate upon this one theme, never could they adequately express their wonder at this dense darkness of the human mind. Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life—nay, they themselves even lead in those who will eventually possess it. No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal. And so I should like to lay hold upon someone from the company of older men and say: "I see that you have reached the farthest limit of human life, you are pressing hard upon your hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now, recall your life and make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you count. Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!"7 What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear many men saying: "After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties." And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!

On the Craft of Writing:  The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron  On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker  You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins Prosperity for Writers: A Writer's Guide to Creating Abundance by Honorée Corder  The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield Business for Authors: How To Be An Author Entrepreneur by Joanna Penn  On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark On Mindset:  The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn Vision to Reality: How Short Term Massive Action Equals Long Term Maximum Results by Honorée Corder The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown Mastery by Robert Greene The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy Taking Life Head On: How to Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams by Hal Elrod Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill In

Victory can be created. For even if the enemy is numerous, I can prevent him from engaging. . . . [I]f he does not know my military situation, I can always make him urgently attend to his own preparations so that he has no leisure to plan to fight me. Therefore, determine the enemy's plans and you will know which strategy will be successful and which will not. Agitate him and ascertain the pattern of his movement. Determine his dispositions and so ascertain the field of battle. Probe him and learn where his strength is abundant and where deficient. The ultimate in disposing one's troops is to be without ascertainable shape. Then the most penetrating spies cannot pry in nor can the wise lay plans against you. It is according to the shapes that I lay the plans for victory, but the multitude does not comprehend this. Although everyone can see the outward aspects, none understands the way in which I have created victory. Therefore, when I have won a victory I do not repeat my tactics but respond to circumstances in an infinite variety of ways. Now an army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so any army avoids strength and strikes weakness. And as water shapes its flow in accordance with the ground, so an army manages its victory in accordance with the situation of the enemy. And as water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions. Thus, one able to gain the victory by modifying his tactics in accordance with the enemy situation may be said to be divine. Of the five elements, none is always predominant: of the four seasons, none lasts forever; of the days, some are long and some short, and the moon waxes and wanes.

Yet it is the Outsider’s belief that life aims at more life, at higher forms of life, something for which the Superman is an inexact poetic symbol (as Dante’s description of the beatific vision is expressed in terms of a poetic symbol); so that, in a sense, Urizen is the most important of the three functions. The fall was necessary, as Hesse realized. Urizen must go forward alone. The other two must follow him. And as soon as Urizen has gone forward, the Fall has taken place. Evolution towards God is impossible without a Fall. And it is only by this recognition that the poet can ever come to ‘praise in spite of; for if evil is ultimately discord, unresolvable, then the idea of dennoch preisen is a self-contradiction. And yet it must be clearly recognized and underlined that this is not the Hegelian ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world’. Even if the evil is necessary, it remains evil, discord, pain. It remains an Existential fact, not something that proves to be something else when you hold it in the right light. It is as if there were two opposing armies: the Hegelian view holds that peace can be secured by proving that there is really no ground for opposition; in short, they are really friends. The Blakeian view says that the discord is necessary, but it can never be resolved until one army has. completely exterminated the other. This is the Existential view, first expressed by Soren Kierkegaard, the Outsider’s view and, incidentally, the religious view. The whole difference between the Existentialist and the Hegelian viewpoint is implicit in the comparison between the title of Hegel’s book, The Philosophy of History, and James Joyce’s phrase, ‘History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake’ Blake provided the Existentialist view with a symbolism and mythology. In Blake’s view, harmony is an ultimate aim, but not the primary aim, of life; the primary aim is to live more abundantly at any cost. Harmony can come later.

A lot of these viruses, a lot of these pathogens that come out of wildlife into domestic animals or people, have existed in wild animals for a very long time,” he said. They don’t necessarily cause any disease. They have coevolved with their natural hosts over millions of years. They have reached some sort of accommodation, replicating slowly but steadily, passing unobtrusively through the host population, enjoying long-term security—and eschewing short-term success in the form of maximal replication within each host individual. It’s a strategy that works. But when we humans disturb the accommodation—when we encroach upon the host populations, hunting them for meat, dragging or pushing them out of their ecosystems, disrupting or destroying those ecosystems—our action increases the level of risk. “It increases the opportunity for these pathogens to jump from their natural host into a new host,” he said. The new host might be any animal (the horse in Australia, the palm civet in China) but often it’s humans, because we are present so intrusively and abundantly. We offer a wealth of opportunity.

Unfortunately, sitting rests the parts of the body that don’t need much of it while working the parts that desperately do. Specifically, it disengages the lower extremities while utilizing the spine. (This is in sharp contrast to squatting, which disengages the spine while utilizing the lower extremities.) Because sitting positions the spine vertically, it provides no rest or relief from the gravitational forces that compress it. Without a periodic therapeutic reprieve through the day, the relentless load overwhelms the entire structure, joints and muscles alike. To maintain an erect seated posture, some muscle groups in the back have to continually contract. Since this requires a great deal of energy, the muscles quickly become fatigued. (That is why slumping is more comfortable: It takes less energy to maintain.) When the muscles tire, you rely on the backrest more and your muscles less. The less you rely on your muscles, the weaker and more dysfunctional they become. The weaker and more dysfunctional they become, the more you rely on the backrest. The more you rely on the backrest, the more you tend to slump. The more you slump, the more pronounced the debilitating C-shaped curvature becomes. This weakens the muscles in your back even further, which causes them to overload the joints they serve. Sitting in chairs affects even the areas seemingly at rest (particularly the hips and knees). Because sitting keeps the joints static for long periods, the muscles that serve them become fixed in a short, tight position. When at last you do get up and move, the muscles impose more stress on these joints, thereby increasing their susceptibility to wear and tear. The prolonged stasis also prevents the joints from being lubricated with nourishing synovial fluid. Once depleted, the hips and knees, like the spine, deteriorate and erode. Is it any wonder that the areas most traumatized by sitting, namely, the lower back, hips, and knees, are also the most arthritic and disabled areas of the body in the world today? The real mystery is why so few people have made the connection between prolonged sitting and the epidemic of chronic pain. In fact, they need only look to their own bodies for an abundance of evidence.

After their arrival at Troy, when they had won a battle(as they clearly did, for otherwise they could not have fortified their camp),even then they appear not to have used the whole of their force, but to have been driven by want of provisions to the cultivation of the Chersonese and to pillage.And in consequence of this dispersion of their forces, the Trojans were enabled to hold out against them during the whole ten years, being always a match for those who remained on the spot. Whereas if the besieging army had brought abundant supplies, and, instead of betaking themselves to agriculture or pillage, had carried on the war persistently with all their forces, they would easily have been masters of the field and have taken the city; since, even divided as they were, and with only a part of their army available at any one time, they held their ground. [...]Poverty was the real reason why the achievements of former ages were insignificant, and why the Trojan War, the most celebrated of them all, when brought to the test of facts, falls short of its fame and of the prevailing traditions to which the poets have given authority. (Book 1 Chapter 11)

Nature vs. nurture is part of this—and then there is what I think of as anti-nurturing—the ways we in a western/US context are socialized to work against respecting the emergent processes of the world and each other: We learn to disrespect Indigenous and direct ties to land. We learn to be quiet, polite, indirect, and submissive, not to disturb the status quo. We learn facts out of context of application in school. How will this history, science, math show up in our lives, in the work of growing community and home? We learn that tests and deadlines are the reasons to take action. This puts those with good short-term memories and a positive response to pressure in leadership positions, leading to urgency-based thinking, regardless of the circumstance. We learn to compete with each other in a scarcity-based economy that denies and destroys the abundant world we actually live in. We learn to deny our longings and our skills, and to do work that occupies our hours without inspiring our greatness. We learn to manipulate each other and sell things to each other, rather than learning to collaborate and evolve together. We learn that the natural world is to be manicured, controlled, or pillaged to support our consumerist lives. Even the natural lives of our bodies get medicated, pathologized, shaved or improved upon with cosmetic adjustments. We learn that factors beyond our control determine the quality of our lives—something as random as which skin, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, or belief system we are born into sets a path for survival and quality of life. In the United States specifically, though I see this most places I travel, we learn that we only have value if we can produce—only then do we earn food, home, health care, education. Similarly, we learn our organizations are only as successful as our fundraising results, whether the community impact is powerful or not. We learn as children to swallow our tears and any other inconvenient emotions, and as adults that translates into working through red flags, value differences, pain, and exhaustion. We learn to bond through gossip, venting, and destroying, rather than cultivating solutions together. Perhaps the most egregious thing we are taught is that we should just be really good at what’s already possible, to leave the impossible alone.

When children are old enough to begin grasping the concepts of faith, they should make a habit of bringing home verses of Scripture from church. They should recite these verses to their parents at mealtime. Then they should write the verses down and put them in little pouches or pockets, just as they put pennies and other coins in a purse. Let the pouch of faith be a golden one. Verses about coming to faith, such as Psalm 51:5; John 1:29; Romans 4:25; and Romans 5:12, are like gold coins for that little pouch. Let the pouch of love be a silver one. The verses about doing good, such as Matthew 5:11; Matthew 25:40; Galatians 5:13; and Hebrews 12:6, are like silver coins for this pouch. No one should think they are too smart for this game and look down on this kind of child’s play. Christ had to become a man in order to train us. If we want to train children, then we must become children with them. I wish this kind of child’s play was more widespread. In a short time, we would see an abundance of Christian people rich in Scripture and in the knowledge of God. They would make more of these pouches, and by using them, they would learn all of Scripture. As it is now, people go to hear a sermon and leave again unchanged. They act like a sermon is only worth the time it takes to hear it. No one thinks about learning anything from it or remembering it. Some people listen to sermons for three or four years and still don’t learn enough to respond to a single question about faith. More than enough has been written in books, but not nearly enough has been driven into our hearts.

The carciofini were good at the moment, no doubt about it, particularly the romagnolo, a variety of artichoke exclusive to the region, so sweet and tender it could even be eaten raw. Puntarelle, a local bitter chicory, would make a heavenly salad. In the Vini e Olio he found a rare Torre Ercolana, a wine that combined Cabernet and Merlot with the local Cesanese grape. The latter had been paired with the flavors of Roman cuisine for over a thousand years: they went together like an old married couple. There was spring lamb in abundance, and he was able to track down some good abbachio, suckling lamb that had been slaughtered even before it had tasted grass. From opportunities like these, he began to fashion a menu, letting the theme develop in his mind. A Roman meal, yes, but more than that. A springtime feast, in which every morsel spoke of resurgence and renewal, old flavors restated with tenderness and delicacy, just as they had been every spring since time began. He bought a bottle of oil that came from a tiny estate he knew of, a fresh pressing whose green, youthful flavors tasted like a bowl of olives just off the tree. He hesitated before a stall full of fat white asparagus from Bassano del Grappa, on the banks of the fast-flowing river Brenta. It was outrageously expensive, but worth it for such quality, he decided, as the stallholder wrapped a dozen of the pale spears in damp paper and handed it to Bruno with a flourish, like a bouquet of the finest flowers. His theme clarified itself the more he thought about it. It was to be a celebration of youth---youth cut short, youth triumphant, youth that must be seized and celebrated.

Feminist theory sometimes portrays men as being united with all other men in their common purpose of oppressing women. But the evolution of human mating suggests that this scenario cannot be true, because men and women compete primarily against members of their own gender. Men strive to control resources mainly at the expense of other men. Men deprive other men of their resources, exclude other men from positions of status and power, and derogate other men in order to make them less desirable to women. Indeed, the fact that nearly 70 percent of all homicides are inflicted by men on other men reveals the tip of the iceberg of the cost of competition to men. The fact that men on average die years earlier than women in every culture is further testimony to the penalties men pay for this struggle with other men. Women do not escape damage inflicted by members of their own sex. Women compete with each other for access to high-status men, have sex with other women’s husbands, and lure men away from their wives. Mate poaching is a ubiquitous sexual strategy of our species. Women slander and denigrate their rivals and are especially harsh toward women who pursue short-term sexual strategies. Women and men are both victims of the sexual strategies of their own gender and so can hardly be said to be united with their own gender for some common goal. Moreover, both men and women benefit from the strategies of the opposite sex. Men lavish resources and protection on certain women, including their wives, their sisters, their daughters, and their mistresses. A woman’s father, brothers, and sons all benefit from her selection of a mate who is flush with abundance. Contrary to the view that men or women are united with all members of their own sex for the purpose of oppressing the other sex, each individual shares key interests with particular members of each sex and is in conflict with other members of each sex. Simple-minded views of a same-sex conspiracy have no foundation in reality.

Naval’s Laws The below is Naval’s response to the question “Are there any quotes you live by or think of often?” These are gold. Take the time necessary to digest them. “These aren’t all quotes from others. Many are maxims that I’ve carved for myself.” Be present above all else. Desire is suffering (Buddha). Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else (Buddhist saying). If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day. Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else. All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. Earn with your mind, not your time. 99% of all effort is wasted. Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. Praise specifically, criticize generally (Warren Buffett). Truth is that which has predictive power. Watch every thought. (Always ask, “Why am I having this thought?”) All greatness comes from suffering. Love is given, not received. Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts (Eckhart Tolle). Mathematics is the language of nature. Every moment has to be complete in and of itself. A Few of Naval’s Tweets that are Too Good to Leave Out “What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” “If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.” “We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.” “The guns aren’t new. The violence isn’t new. The connected cameras are new, and that changes everything.” “You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus.” “My one repeated learning in life: ‘There are no adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.” “A busy mind accelerates the passage of subjective time.

Sadly though, this side of heaven, we can only attempt to have a fore-shadow of the romance to come. Even the best marriages and the men and women who valiantly strive to follow the Bible’s model of marriage fall short. I am sure many of us have failed in obtaining the type of earthly relationship God planned and intended to display His love. Pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, sex outside of a marriage covenant, and love-less, dysfunctional marriages are just the beginning. Many have been abused, sold, objectified, molested, even raped. All manner of perversion and depravity have marred the beauty God intended. We are broken, injured, hurt, marginalized, left feeling like so much less than what God requires. If you are one broken, please hear this: It should not have been. It was not God’s way or His will that you were treated like anything less than His highly valued, flawless beauty—His beloved. If you are one who lost your way and engaged in things beneath your royal standing, He died, arose and lives to forgive and restore. Yes, we know a good and solid Biblical marriage gives the closest representation of godly intimacy. But let’s get real for a minute. So few of us have ever experienced that for ourselves or grew up in homes where that was our example, we desperately need to trust God for our own healing and restoration in this area before we can ever hope to experience it in our relationships. I am convinced God’s priority for us is to learn about spiritual intimacy with Him. He can restore marriages, liberate from sexual addictions, save spouses, give us a godly man. But I think, for the most part, those things happen after we realize and accept our need for Christ. His priority will always be our spirit intimately one with His, because He puts the spirit above the flesh. We have to lay our souls bare and ask for His touch. God alone can reclaim our perception of intimacy for His holy and righteous glory. He can restore our hearts and minds to righteousness, clean and pure so we might experience holy intimacy through the Spirit until we see Him face to face in glory.

WALLS OF JERICHO... TUMBLE Either a very short instance or an entire lifetime I knew you. You touched me. Moved me. Without your presence, even for a millisecond, I wouldn’t be who I am. In an abundance or a speck, I have loved you. As you move on, I will never forget you. I am forever impacted. I’ll forever call you my friend. ... goodbye.  

The kingdom of Bosnia forms a division of the Ottoman empire, and is a key to the countries of Roumeli (or Romeli). Although its length and breadth be of unequal dimensions, yet it is not improper to say it is equal in climate to Misr and Sham (Egypt and Syria). Each one of its lofty mountains, exalted to Ayuk, (a bright red star that * The peace of Belgrade was signed on the first of September, 1739. By this peace the treaty of Passarowitz was nullified, and the rivers Danube, Save, and Una re-established, as the boundaries of the two empires. See note to page 1. always follows the Hyades,) is an eye-sore to a foe. By reason of this country's vicinity to the infidel nations, such as the deceitful Germans, Hungarians, Serbs (Sclavonians), the tribes of Croats, and the Venetians, strong and powerful, and furnished with abundance of cannon, muskets, and other weapons of destruction, it has had to carry on fierce war from time to time with one or other, or more, of these deceitful enemies—enemies accustomed to mischief, inured to deeds of violence, resembling wild mountaineers in asperity, and inflamed with the rage of seeking opportunities of putting their machinations into practice; but the inhabitants of Bosnia know this. The greater part of her peasants are strong, courageous, ardent, lion-hearted, professionally fond of war, and revengeful: if the enemy but only show himself in any quarter, they, never seeking any pretext for declining, hasten to the aid of each other. Though in general they are harmless, yet in conflict with an enemy they are particularly vehement and obstinate; in battle they are strong-hearted ; to high commands they are obedient, and submissive as sheep; they are free from injustice and wickedness; they commit no villany, and are never guilty of high-way robbery; and they are ready to sacrifice their lives in behalf of their religion and the emperor. This is an honour which the people of Bosnia have received as an inheritance from their forefathers, and which every parent bequeaths to his son at his death. By far the greater number of the inhabitants, but especially the warlike chiefs, capudans, and veterans of the borders, in order to mount and dismount without inconvenience, and to walk with greater freedom and agility, wear short and closely fitted garments: they wear the fur of the wolf and leopard about their shoulders, and eagles' wings in their caps, which are made of wolf-skins. The ornaments of their horses are wolf and bearskins: their weapons of defence are the sword, the javelin, the axe, the spear, pistols, and muskets : their cavalry are swift, and their foot nimble and quick. Thus dressed and accoutred they present a formidable appearance, and never fail to inspire their enemies with a dread of their valour and heroism. So much for the events which have taken place within so short a space of time.* It is not in our power to write and describe every thing connected with the war, or which came to pass during that eventful period. Let this suffice. * It will be seen by the dates given in page 1, that the war lasted about two years and five months. Prepared and printed from the rare and valuable collection of Omer EfFendi of Novi, a native of Bosnia, by Ibrahim.* * This Ibrahim was called Basmajee^ the printer. He is mentioned in history as a renegado, and to have been associated with the son of Mehemet Effendi, the negotiator of the peace of Paasarowitz, and who was, in 1721, deputed on a special em-, bassy to Louis XV. Seyd Effendi, who introduced the art of printing into Turkey. Ibrahim, under the auspices of the government, and by the munificence of Seyd Effendi aiding his labours^ succeeded in sending from the newly instituted presses several works, besides the Account of the War in Bosnia.

This is only the beginning of a huge “Copernican revolution” (to borrow a phrase from Matthew Taylor, one of Tony Blair’s advisers) that is putting the user at the center of the public-sector universe. The current centralized state has been shaped by the idea that information is in short supply: It derives its power from the fact that it knows lots of things that ordinary people do not. But information is now one of the world’s most abundant resources: available in huge quantities and accessible to anyone with a computer or a smart phone. As Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, and Jared Cohen, who worked for Hillary Clinton, point out in The New Digital Age, this changes the nature of the relationship between individuals and authority. The top-down state may become more like a network that can mobilize the energies and abilities of thousands or even millions of well-informed citizens—or “prosumers,” as one cyberguru, Don Tapscott, has called them.

Sadly though, this side of heaven, we can only attempt to have a fore-shadow of the romance to come. Even the best marriages and the men and women who valiantly strive to follow the Bible’s model of marriage fall short. I am sure many of us have failed in obtaining the type of earthly relationship God planned and intended to display His love. Pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, sex outside of a marriage covenant, and love-less, dysfunctional marriages are just the beginning. Many have been abused, sold, objectified, molested, even raped. All manner of perversion and depravity have marred the beauty God intended. We are broken, injured, hurt, marginalized, left feeling like so much less than what God requires. If you are one broken, please hear this: It should not have been. It was not God’s way or His will that you were treated like anything less than His highly valued, flawless beauty—His beloved. If you are one who lost your way and engaged in things beneath your royal standing, He died, arose and lives to forgive and restore.

Umar, despite his strong character and impressive personality, had lost control of himself for a short while, his emotions seizing him so strongly that it brought out a heretofore unsuspected fragility, causing him to react like a child refusing the ruling of God, of reality, of life. By contrast, Abu Bakr, who was normally so sensitive, who wept so abundantly and so intensely when he read the Quran, had received the news of the Prophet’s death with deep sorrow but also with extraordinary calm and unsuspected inner strength. At that particular moment, the two men’s roles were inverted, thus showing that through his departure the Prophet offered us a final teaching: in the bright depths of spirituality, sensitivity can produce a degree of strength of being that nothing can disturb. Conversely, the strongest personality, if it forgets itself for a moment, can become vulnerable and fragile. The

Have you ever seen a plant that appears to be dying? What happens when you give it water and sun? Doesn’t it start to blossom again?” I think this is similar to the human psyche. If you give a person what they so desperately need, they will develop into a most beautiful, exquisite being. I truly believe that’s what Human Design has the capacity to provide to people. My accomplishments in such a short period of

Through these experiences, I have realized the true power of this program. All I did was follow my Strategy. I have made tremendous strides in living this “new” life in such a short period of time. My self-esteem has blossomed! I’m more confident; I’m a better communicator; I’m more empathetic and compassionate toward others. I’m able to articulate ideas to people and manage to provide them with inspiration to start thinking about things differently where they may not have done that before. This

He was probably never married. Some suppose that he was a widower. Jewish and rabbinical custom, the completeness of his moral character, his ideal conception of marriage as reflecting the mystical union of Christ with his church, his exhortations to conjugal, parental, and filial duties, seem to point to experimental knowledge of domestic life. But as a Christian missionary moving from place to place, and exposed to all sorts of hardship and persecution, he felt it his duty to abide alone.357 He sacrificed the blessings of home and family to the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.358 His "bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible" (of no value), in the superficial judgment of the Corinthians, who missed the rhetorical ornaments, yet could not help admitting that his "letters were weighty and strong."359  Some of the greatest men have been small in size, and some of the purest souls forbidding in body. Socrates was the homeliest, and yet the wisest of Greeks. Neander, a converted Jew, like Paul, was short, feeble, and strikingly odd in his whole appearance, but a rare humility, benignity, and heavenly aspiration beamed from his face beneath his dark and bushy eyebrows. So we may well imagine that the expression of Paul’s countenance was highly intellectual and spiritual, and that he looked "sometimes like a man and sometimes like an angel."360 He was afflicted with a mysterious, painful, recurrent, and repulsive physical infirmity, which he calls a "thorn in the flesh, " and which acted as a check upon spiritual pride and self-exultation over his abundance of revelations.361  He bore the heavenly treasure in an earthly vessel and his strength was made perfect in weakness.362  But all the more must we admire the moral heroism which turned weakness itself into an element of strength, and despite pain and trouble and persecution carried the gospel salvation triumphantly from Damascus to Rome.

All right, thought Kauffman, imagine that you had a primordial soup containing some molecule A that was busily catalyzing the formation of another molecule B. the first molecule probably wasn't a very effective catalyst, since it essentially formed at random. But then, it didn't need to be very effective. Even a feeble catalyst would have made B-type molecules form faster than they would have otherwise. Now, thought Kauffman, suppose that molecule B itself had a weak catalytic effect, so that it boosted the production of some molecule C. And suppose that C also acted as a catalyst, and so on. If the pot of primordial soup was big enough, he reasoned, and if there were enough different kinds of molecules in there to start with, then somewhere down the line you might very well have found a molecule Z that closed the loop and catalyzed the creation of A. But now you would have had more A around, which means that there would have been more catalyst available to enhance the formation of B, which then would have enhanced the formation of C, and on and on. In other words, Kauffman realized, if the conditions in your primordial soup were right, then you wouldn't have to wait for random reactions at all. The compounds in the soup could have formed a coherent, self-reinforcing web of reactions. Furthermore, each molecule in the web would have catalyzed the formation of other molecules in the web-so that all the molecules in the web would have steadily grown more and more abundant relative to molecules that were not part of the web. Taken as a whole, in short, the web would have catalyzed its own formation. It would have been an "autocatalytic set.

In times of soul-searching people become sentimental. It infuriates Lorraine. As a nurse, she has to be tough, stoic and absorbent of other people’s emotions. The last quality is called sympathy, and she used to have it in abundance. But now it’s more of an irritant, like snoring or body odour. You learn to live with these things." From the short story, Sanctuary.

The event that hastened the confrontation between the army and the Palace was the starvation in the northern provinces. Usually it is said that periodic droughts cause bad crops and therefore starvation. But it is the elites of starving countries that propagate this idea. It is a false idea. The unjust or mistaken allocation of funds and national property is the most frequent source of hunger. There was a lot of grain in Ethiopia, but it had first been hidden by the rich and then thrown on the market at a doubled price, inaccessible to peasants and the poor. Figures about the hundreds of thousands who starved next to abundantly stocked granaries were published. On the orders of local dignitaries, the police finished off whole clans of still-living human skeletons. This situation of intense evil, of horror, of desperate absurdity, became the signal for the conspiring officers to go to work. The mutiny involved all the divisions in turn, and it was probably the army that had been the main prop of Imperial power. After a short period of bewilderment, shock, and hesitation, H. S. began to realize that he was losing his most important instrument.

A Malthusian catastrophe (also known as Malthusian trap, population trap, Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian spectre, Malthusian crunch) occurs when population growth outpaces agricultural production, causing population to be limited by famine or war. It is named after Thomas Robert Malthus, who suggested that while technological advances could increase a society's supply of resources, such as food, and thereby improve the standard of living, the resource abundance would enable population growth, which would eventually bring the per capita supply of resources back to its original level. The modern formulation of the Malthusian theory was developed by Qumarul Ashraf and Oded Galor. Their theoretical structure suggests that as long as: (i) higher income has a positive effect on reproductive success, and (ii) land is limited factor of production, then technological progress has only a temporary effect in income per capita. While in the short-run technological progress increases income per capita, resource abundance created by technological progress would enable population growth, and would eventually bring the per capita income back to its original long-run level.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. —Katherine Mansfield (1886–1974) New Zealand short story writer

What are the “proud and lofty” things of contemporary cultures? To what do nations and peoples point in showing off their “honor” and “glory”? It would be interesting, for example, to count how many times those very words – “honor” and “glory” and their variants and equivalents – are used in our own day at national festivals and political rallies. The variants are seemingly endless. “National honor.” “Our honor is at stake.” “We are gathered today to honor those who...” “Our glorious heritage.” “Our glorious flag.” “What a glorious nation we live in!” People boast about the nations of which they are citizens. They also boast about ethnic identities, religious affiliations, race, gender, and clan. They point in pride to natural wonders they claim as their own possessions – “This land was made for you and me.” They show off their military might, their economic clout, their material abundance. The Lord of hosts has a day against all of these things: against nations who brag about being “Number One,” against racist pride, against the idealizing of “human potential,” against our self-actualization manifestos, against our reliance on missiles and bombers, against art and technology, against philosophy textbooks and country music records, against Russian vodka and South African diamonds, against trade centers and computer banks, against throne-rooms and presidential memorabilia. In short, God will stand in judgment of all idolatrous and prideful attachments to military, technological, commercial, and cultural might. He will destroy all of those rebellious projects that glorify oppression, exploitation, and the accumulation of possessions. It is in such projects that we can discern today our own ships of Tarshish and cedars from Lebanon.

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of. We don’t have enough exercise. We don’t have enough work. We don’t have enough profits. We don’t have enough power. We don’t have enough wilderness. We don’t have enough weekends. Of course, we don’t have enough money—ever. We’re not thin enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough —ever. Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack. ... What begins as a simple expression of the hurried life, or even the challenged life, grows into the great justification for an unfulfilled l i f e. We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.

When a manager has a criminal record or a history of cheating investors or even just feels above the law, I stop right there. Crooks don’t suddenly sprout a sense of fiduciary duty. When a piece of evidence might or might not tag a bad guy, I use it only if it hints at other investment defects. Glamorous hype stocks are more likely to be scams, but I avoid them because they are usually overpriced and prone to raising capital constantly. Intricate corporate structures make analysis difficult, even if nothing bad is going on. To spot bad guys, look for the fraud triangle: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. Philosopher Hannah Arendt had it right that “most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” Watch for when massive option grants or hefty fees compel people to try too hard. Pride can be a dominant motive when an audience believes in someone’s magical powers. Charismatic promoters often suppress the boards of directors, auditors, and other naysayers that might prevent them from doing what they want. They cluster in industries and geographies where capital is abundantly available with little scrutiny or accountability. Lax accounting standards are also a draw. Don’t buy anything someone is pushing hard. By avoiding the bad-guy stocks—and it’s a short list—I slash the possibility of a disastrous outcome but scarcely reduce my opportunity set.

The first necessary component of wonder is profound gratitude. But the word "gratitude" may need a little explanation. It comes from the same word as the word "freedom"; when something is "gratis", we consider it free. Gratitude is the freeing expression of a free heart toward one who freely gave. There are actually two basic emotions within the grateful heart. One erupts on the spur of the moment; it is unstudied and unenduring. A raise from the boss, a new car, a generous gift. All those are wonderful things, but they are not really full of wonder, they can easily be forgotten and replaced by one unpleasant experience. The gratitude that I’m speaking of is not sporadic, it cannot be spent or exhausted. It is the transformation of a mind that is more grateful for the •giver• than for the gift; for the •purpose• than for the present; for •life itself• rather than for abundance. It values a relationship rather than any benefit made possible by the relationship. Even more, it is the capacity to receive, rather than the gift itself, to trust even when the moment seems devoid of immediate fulfillment. It is more than happiness; it is more than peace. In short, where there is no gratitude, there is no wonder.

It's easy for us to confuse real love for ourselves with narcissism or conceit, but I think they are very different. Instead of the hollowness narcissism is designed to conceal, I've seen that real love for myself comes from a sense of inner abundance or inner sufficiency. It comes from feeling whole, which is innate to us, hidden underneath our fears and cultural conditioning and self-judgments. So it's not going to take learning tennis or creating a video that goes viral or becoming a world-class chef to be worthy of love. Those are all great things, but we are worthy whether or not we accomplish them.

I can never lack. Everything that I don’t have - I am, and everything that I have - I am; everything that has been - I am, and everything that will be - I am. That’s abundance.

We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.

The catastrophe that lies in wait for us is not connected to a depletion of resources. Energy itself, in all its forms, will become more and more abundant (at any rate, within the broadest time frame that could conceivably concern us as humans). Nuclear energy is inexhaustible, as are solar energy, the force of the tides, of the great fluxes of nature, and indeed of natural catastrophes, earthquakes and volcanoes (and technological imagination may be relied on to find ways and means to harness them). What is alarming, by contrast, is the dynamics of disequilibrium, the uncontrollability of the energy system itself, which is capable of getting out of hand in deadly fashion in very short order. We have already had a few spectacular demonstrations of the consequences of the liberation of nuclear energy (Hiroshima, Chernobyl), but it must be remembered that any chain reaction at all, viral or radioactive, has catastrophic potential. Our degree of protection from pandemics is epitomized by the utterly useless glacis that often surrounds nuclear power stations. It is not impossible that the whole system of world-transformation through energy has already entered a virulent and epidemic stage corresponding to the most essential character of energy itself: a fall, a differential, an imbalance - a catastrophe in miniature which to begin with has positive effects but which, once overtaken by its own impetus, assumes the dimensions of a global catastrophe.

It is while working with the Short Path that the man discovers he may apply its principles to his worldly existence, his earthly fortunes too. He learns that the ultimate source of his physical welfare is not the ego but the Overself. If he looks only to the little ego for his supply, he must accept all its narrow limitations, its dependence on personal effort alone. But if he looks farther and recognizes his true source of welfare is with the Overself, with its miracle-working Grace, he knows that all things are possible to it. Hope, optimism, and high expectation make his life richer, more abundant.

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.3 Scarcity

News in abundance was offered in return. The porters of the Livingstone East-Coast Aid Expedition had plenty to relate to the porters sent by Mr. Stanley. Mirambo's war dragged on its length, and matters had changed very little since they were there before, either for better or for worse. They found the English officers extremely short of goods; but Lieut. Cameron, no doubt with the object of his Expedition full in view, very properly felt it a first duty to relieve the wants of the party that had performed this Herculean feat of bringing the body of the traveller he had been sent to relieve, together with every article belonging to him at the time of his death, as far as this main road to the coast.

You will fall short of achieving your goals if your focus is fragmented and your attention, energy, and concentration diversified.

Without a good plan, you might fall short of reaching your dreams and goals.

Long-term goals provide focus, but inspiration comes from the accomplishment of short-term goals.

At the end of your life you want to arrive at a well-designed destination rather than an unexpected destination, and you do this by setting life goals, not short-term, not medium, not long-term, but life goals.

Facing the couple, Cardinal Fitzroy said, “My dear friends, you have come together in this place so that the Lord may seal and strengthen your love in the presence of the Church’s minister and this gathering of friends. Christ abundantly blesses this love. Since it is your intention to enter into marriage, join your hands, and declare your consent. Byron, do you take Jean to be your wife, to be true to her in good times and bad, to love and honor her in all the days of your life?” “I do,” he said. Jean made the same promises to Byron. Knowing that standing was still a challenge for the groom, Fitzroy had kept things short and cut to the quick. He said, “You have both declared your consent. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with His blessings. Frank stepped forward and

Facing the couple, Cardinal Fitzroy said, “My dear friends, you have come together in this place so that the Lord may seal and strengthen your love in the presence of the Church’s minister and this gathering of friends. Christ abundantly blesses this love. Since it is your intention to enter into marriage, join your hands, and declare your consent. Byron, do you take Jean to be your wife, to be true to her in good times and bad, to love and honor her in all the days of your life?” “I do,” he said. Jean made the same promises to Byron. Knowing that standing was still a challenge for the groom, Fitzroy had kept things short and cut to the quick. He said, “You have both declared your consent. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with His blessings. Frank stepped forward and handed a ring to Byron. In a clear, evenly paced voice, the groom put the ring on Jean’s finger, saying, “Jean, take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity.” Frank gave his sister a second ring. She placed it on her groom’s finger. “Byron, take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity.” Fitzroy concluded, “Lord, grant that those who wear these rings may always have a deep faith in each other. May they always live together in peace, good will and love.” Beaming now, the Cardinal added, “And as we in the Church are wont to say, ‘Amen.’ Kiss your beautiful wife, lad.

To have an abundant life, rich and full, means seeing the shortness of the day and seizing it, living the bucket list before the sun sets. It requires the quick gulp and the leaping blind, discarding what is heavy and worthless, investing in eternal things, counting as precious the gifts as they come and holding them loose because they will soon be gone.