Benefits Stop Quotes

Everywhere I've turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my own good—only /they/ were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?

Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was.

The failure to see color only benefits white America. A world without color is a world without racial debt.

Even the most ardent environmentalist doesn't really want to stop pollution. If he thinks about it, and doesn't just talk about it, he wants to have the right amount of pollution. We can't really afford to eliminate it - not without abandoning all the benefits of technology that we not only enjoy but on which we depend.

To save face, it's better not to ask sex from the ex, but to give everything the axe.

Stop entertaining two faced people. You know the ones who have split personalities and untrustworthy habits. Nine times out of ten if they telling you stuff about another person, they're going to tell your business to other people. If they say, "You know I heard........." More than likely it's in their character to share false information. Beware of your box, circle, square! Whatever you want to call it.

To me, the thing about friendship that makes it so singular is that it’s a relationship that’s central to our identity in that it doesn’t necessarily benefit us in any tangible way. It’s a relationship we don’t have to pursue – if we decide to stop being friends one day, nothing will happen, no one’s there to legislate or adjudicate it. It’s two people who every day choose to keep it going, and in that way it’s very powerful because it’s one you choose to work on, and you choose to without any agreement; it’s an unspoken bond.

.. it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading intiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtious circle of proactivity.

My illusions about the world caused me to think that in order to benefit by my reading I ought to possess all the knowledge the book presupposed. I was very far indeed from imagining that often the author did not possess it himself, but had extracted it from other books, as and when he needed it. This foolish conviction forced me to stop every moment, and to rush incessantly from one book to another; sometimes before coming to the tenth page of the one I was trying to read I should, by this extravagant method, have had to run through whole libraries. Nevertheless I stuck to it so persistently that I wasted infinite time, and my head became so confused that I could hardly see or take in anything.

When you assume you make a you-know-what out of U and me. Yep, so let's stop assuming so much. We are often quick to explain details to strangers, who we understand might not be reading our minds, but we often assume that those people closest to us, those who share our household such as spouses, children parents and siblings, can read our minds. And we get upset with them when they don't go figure. I wonder how many angry words are directed not at an action or inaction as would at first appear, but simply at the fact that somebody did not read our minds. So let's give those people we care most about the benefit of the doubt and do a little less assuming and a little more explaining.

Some people will only love you as much as they can use you. their loyalty ends where the benefits stop.

When you're living in a pond of algae, you turn green. It doesn't matter how many times someone tells you to stop.

A lot of people make money off of fear and negativity and any way they can feed it to you is to their benefit in a lot of ways. You can't avoid it completely; you have to be open enough that shit doesn't stick on you, it goes through, because you are gonna be hit and bombarded all the time with negativity... You just let things go on through without trying to stop them or block them.

You’ll find that people often use the excuse “it was the norm” when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of. Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.

If we are to put an end to division, people from all political persuasions will have to stop fighting one another and seek true unity, not just a consensus that benefits one party.

Being surrounded by educated people makes democracy stronger, and it benefits our entire economy.

It’s handwritten,” Freddy whispered. “What is?” He pointed at the sheets of paper Coop held. Glancing down, Coop shook his head. “No, buddy. This is from a printer. It’s been typed.” “No. It hasn’t. Me, Denny, and the twins watched him do it for like an hour. He wrote out each one. By hand. We had to leave when Zoe began to cry. She was completely freaked out.” Freddy leaned in a little bit more and again whispered, “I think if she’d stayed any longer, she would have stabbed him to death. And I don’t think the rest of us would have tried to stop her.

The world needs people who have survived mistakes, tragedies, and trials to help the rest of us through. Where would we be if Victor Frankl had never experienced what he did during the war? He wouldn’t have used his experiences to benefit millions of people around the world. The world needs you to let go of self-pity and shame regarding your life experiences, too. The world needs you to use the things you have learned for good. Stop letting your past mistakes define you and affect your value. Let go of separation and victimhood and find meaning in what you have been through.

No decent person deliberately chooses to be violent or cruel. We must remove our blinkers and learn that in order to live according to our true values, we need to stop viewing animals as commodities to be used, abused and killed for our own selfish benefit.

How To Tell If Somebody Loves You: Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin. You didn’t ask for these things, but this person went ahead and did it anyway. They don’t want to see you looking like a fool with eyelashes and crumbs on your face. They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage! Somebody loves you if they assume the role of caretaker when you’re sick. Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? Fake a case of food poisoning and text them being like, “Oh, my God, so sick. Need water.” Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not they REALLY love you. “That’s terrible. Feel better!” earns you a stay in friendship jail; “Do you need anything? I can come over and bring you get well remedies!” gets you a cozy friendship suite. It’s easy to care about someone when they don’t need you. It’s easy to love them when they’re healthy and don’t ask you for anything beyond change for the parking meter. Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit. Either love me with vomit in my hair or don’t love me at all. Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They’re not passive, they don’t just let you get away with murder. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They aren’t passive observers in your life, they are in the trenches. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you. Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey, babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!" It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is fucking love. Somebody loves you if they want you to be happy, even if that involves something that doesn’t benefit them. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding. When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to. Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment. Somebody loves you if they give you oral sex without expecting anything back. Somebody loves you if they don’t care about your job or how much money you make. It’s a relationship where no one is selling something to the other. No one is the prostitute. Somebody loves you if they’ll watch a movie starring Kate Hudson because you really really want to see it. Somebody loves you if they’re able to create their own separate world with you, away from the internet and your job and family and friends. Just you and them. Somebody will always love you. If you don’t think this is true, then you’re not paying close enough attention.

In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve? The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward. Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience. Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living. Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward. Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success. If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

But as the word satyagraha implies, Gandhi’s passivity was not weakness at all. It meant focusing on an ultimate goal and refusing to divert energy to unnecessary skirmishes along the way. Restraint, Gandhi believed, was one of his greatest assets. And it was born of his shyness: I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

INEZ: To forget about the others? How utterly absurd! I feel you there, in every pore.Your silence clamours in my ears. You can nail up your mouth, cut your tongue out - but you can't prevent your being there. Can you stop your thoughts? I hear them ticking away like a clock, tick-tock, tick-tock, and I'm certain you hear mine. It's all very well skulking on your sofa, but you're everywhere, and every sound comes to me soiled because you've intercepted it on its way. Why, you've even stolen my face; you know it and I don't ! And what about her, about Estelle? You've stolen her from me, too; if she and I were alone do you suppose she'd treat me as she does? No, take your hands from your face, I won't leave you in peace - that would suit your book too well. You'd go on sitting there, in a sort of trance, like a yogi, and even if I didn't see her I'd feel it in my bones - that she was making every sound, even the rustle of her dress, for your benefit, throwing you smiles you didn't see... Well, I won't stand for that, I prefer to choose my hell; I prefer to look you in the eyes and fight it out face to face.

We are the wealthiest species alive today. We want for nothing. Without us, there would be no tunnels, no ambi, no galactic map. But we achieved these things through subjugation. Violence. We destroyed entire worlds - entire species. It took a galactic war to stop us. We learned. We apologized. We changed. But we can't give back the things we took. We're still benefiting from them, and others are still suffering from actions centuries old. So, are we worthy? We, who give so much only because we took so much?

Smith shrugged and came over to Cella and Crush. Another shifter, a black bear, waited to lead them out, the security cameras conveniently and temporarily turned off. “What did you really do to him?” Cella had to ask her. “Nothin’.” “Smith,” she said, stopping by the bear. “The man shit, pissed, and vomited after spending less than thirty minutes with you. There has to be a reason.” “Got me. All I did was stare at him until he told me something I could use.” The bear looked Smith over. “Did you stare at him with those eyes of yours?” “I have my daddy’s eyes.” “Annnnd, we now have our answer,” Cella announced before they made their way out of the maximum security prison and headed home.

Once I was running and there was someone on the treadmill next to me who stopped running to answer a question I asked and flew of the back of the treadmill. Being fully engaged has many benefits.

Five obstacles block our access to the benefits God wants for us: Unbelief, which hinders knowing God Pride, which prevents us from glorifying God Idolatry, which keeps us from being satisfied with God Prayerlessness, which blocks our experience of God's peace Legalism, which stops our enjoyment of God's presence

Here’s a quote from ultramarathoner Dick Collins: Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You don’t want to be out there saying, “Well gee, my leg hurts, I’m a little dehydrated, I’m sleepy, I’m tired, and it’s cold and windy.” And talk yourself into quitting. If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.

One of the strengths, and weaknesses, of liberal democratic societies is giving the benefit of the doubt even to one's enemies

The word of the Lord to us is to stop seeking His benefits and seek Him. We are not to seek His hands any longer, but seek His face.

some people will only "Love You" as much as they can use you. Their loyalty ends where the benefits stop.

One more comment from the heart: I’m old fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. Homo Ludens dances, sings, produces meaningful gestures, strikes poses, dresses up, revels and performs elaborate rituals. I don’t wish to diminish the significance of these distractions-without them human life would pass in unimaginable monotony and possibly dispersion and defeat. But these are group activities above which drifts a more or less perceptible whiff of collective gymnastics. Homo Ludens with a book is free. At least as free as he’s capable of being. He himself makes up the rules of the game, which are subject only to his own curiosity. He’s permitted to read intelligent books, from which he will benefit, as well as stupid ones, from which he may also learn something. He can stop before finishing one book, if he wishes, while starting another at the end and working his way back to the beginning. He may laugh in the wrong places or stop short at words he’ll keep for a life time. And finally, he’s free-and no other hobby can promise this-to eavesdrop on Montaigne’s arguments or take a quick dip in the Mesozoic.

My advice is to stop trying to "network" in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you'll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendship later down the road. You won't know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

According to Chinese and ancient Ayurvedic medicine, at age 60, women end their householder life and begin to develop their souls. Our fertility stops being about having children and starts being about what we create for ourselves that benefits us and the people around us.

You might make people uncomfortable, even those you love them most and it will hurt. The masses will likely misunderstand you and as a result they will judge you and even lash out at you and you may have to walk alone sometimes. Your joy, your freedom and your magic will infuriate those who feel trapped in a life they secretly hate. When your truth threatens someones belief system, they will come at you like a storm and you will have to stand and let them roar all around you. If you're creating change, the people benefiting from the current system will likely try to stop you. Be brave. Stand. Hold space for change. Keep writing. Keep dancing. Keep singing. Keep shining your light on the world. We need your beauty and your truth. We need you- the real you!

Chang Geng seemed to sense his volatile mood. He had just gotten a taste of the benefits of pouting and acting spoiled; he wasn’t about to stop now.

I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

Because women tend to turn their anger inward and blame themselves, they tend to become depressed and their self-esteem is lowered. This, in turn, causes them to become more dependent and less willing to risk rejection or abandonment if they were to stand up for themselves by asserting their will, their opinions, or their needs. Men often defend themselves against hurt by putting up a wall of nonchalant indifference. This appearance of independence often adds to a woman's fear of rejection, causing her to want to reach out to achieve comfort and reconciliation. Giving in, taking the blame, and losing herself more in the relationship seem to be a small price to pay for the acceptance and love of her partner. As you can see, both extremes anger in and anger out-create potential problems. While neither sex is wrong in the way they deal with their anger, each could benefit from observing how the other sex copes with their anger. Most men, especially abusive ones, could benefit from learning to contain their anger more instead of automatically striking back, and could use the rather female ability to empathise with others and seek diplomatic resolutions to problems. Many women, on the other hand, could benefit from acknowledging their anger and giving themselves permission to act it out in constructive ways instead of automatically talking themselves out of it, blaming themselves, or allowing a man to blame them. Instead of giving in to keep the peace, it would be far healthier for most women to stand up for their needs, their opinions, and their beliefs.

Oh, come on now," she said mildly, as a car suddenly pulled into the lane in front of her. She lifted her hand to toot the horn and then didn't bother. Note how I didn't scream and yell like a mad person, she thought for the benefit of that afternoon's psychotic truck driver, just in case he happened to have stopped by to read her mind.

The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.

I have a serious challenge for you if you’re up for it. Want real feedback? Find people who care enough about you to be brutally honest with you. Ask them these questions: “How do I show up to you? What do you think my strengths are? In what areas do you think I can improve? Where do you think I sabotage myself? What’s one thing I can stop doing that would benefit me the most? What’s the one thing I should start doing?

Then if thou hast A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight, And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it That my revengeful services may prove As benefits to thee, for I will fight Against my canker'd country with the spleen Of all the under fiends.

So many of us know the moment when a love connection is over, but few of us stop then. I am not talking about reactive endings. I am talking about the deep intuitive knowing that it is time to move on. Yet we are either too afraid, or too stubborn, or too concerned about the other’s feelings to make our move. But it is perilous to delay, both because we suffer in the wrong connection, and because we hold two souls back from finding the next step on their individual paths. Whether there is another love waiting around the next corner, or whether it is simply time to be alone, no one benefits by staying in an outgrown union. We have to notice the moment of ending and take it to heart. Everyone’s expansion depends on it.

If you want to try using this principle rationally, all you have to do is write four lists: What are the benefits of continuing? What are the benefits of stopping? What are the costs of continuing? What are the costs of stopping?

ritual—any ritual—establishes a certain kind of mindset; perhaps this is why rituals benefit even those who claim they’re not important. When a routine works for us, we don’t have to pay attention to it, but a ritual calls us to fully participate in what we’re doing—even if it’s as simple as savoring a cup of tea. The specific action doesn’t matter, but its rhythm, regularity, and meaning do.

A ‘discouraged worker’ is someone of legal employment age who has stopped actively seeking employment because he or she has simply given up looking, hence the term ‘discouraged.’ Well I’m fucking discouraged at having to pay for the lazy sod!

To see weakness as purely negative is a mistake. Weakness befalls us all, and in many ways. It has its discomforts to be sure and entails loss. But it is also an opportunity—to connect more deeply with others; to see the sacredness in suffering; even to find new areas of growth and success. Stop hiding it, and don’t resist it. Doing so has another benefit for strivers—maybe the most important one of all: you can finally relax a little. When you are honest and humble about your weaknesses, you will be more comfortable in your own skin. When you use your weaknesses to connect with others, love in your life will grow. And finally—finally—you will be able to relax without worrying about being exposed as less than people think you are.

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you were wrong? Maybe, you only saw your point of view and you never once put yourself in the other person's shoes. Maybe, walking away from the senseless drama and spiteful criticism isn't the best thing to do. Maybe, for just once in your life you could wear another person's confusion, pain or misunderstanding. Maybe, your future doesn't require explaining yourself or offering an explanation for your indifference, but your character and reputation does. What if one day you find out that you didn't have all the information you thought you did? What if you find out that your presence was needed for healing? What if you only knew half of it and the other half was just your fear and anger translating everything you experienced? What if you were wrong? What if the same thing happened to you?

What does economic growth actually mean? It means more consumption – and consumption of a specific kind: more consumption of goods and services that are exchanged for money. That means that if people stop caring for their own children and instead pay for childcare, the economy grows. The same if people stop cooking for themselves and purchase restaurant takeaways instead. Economists say this is a good thing. After all, you wouldn’t pay for childcare or takeaway food if it weren’t of benefit to you, right? So, the more things people are paying for, the more benefits are being had. Besides, it is more efficient for one daycare centre to handle 30 children than for each family to do it themselves. That’s why we are all so much richer, happier and less busy than we were a generation ago. Right?

Sometimes you can make yourself do things that are good for you when you believe you’re doing them for someone you love. The benefit comes without selfishness then.

We have the money. We’ve just made choices about how to spend it. Over the years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have restricted housing aid to the poor but expanded it to the affluent in the form of tax benefits for homeowners. 57 Today, housing-related tax expenditures far outpace those for housing assistance. In 2008, the year Arleen was evicted from Thirteenth Street, federal expenditures for direct housing assistance totaled less than $40.2 billion, but homeowner tax benefits exceeded $171 billion. That number, $171 billion, was equivalent to the 2008 budgets for the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Agriculture combined. 58 Each year, we spend three times what a universal housing voucher program is estimated to cost (in total ) on homeowner benefits, like the mortgage-interest deduction and the capital-gains exclusion. Most federal housing subsidies benefit families with six-figure incomes. 59 If we are going to spend the bulk of our public dollars on the affluent—at least when it comes to housing—we should own up to that decision and stop repeating the politicians’ canard about one of the richest countries on the planet being unable to afford doing more. If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources.

For the past half century, we’ve approached the poverty question by attending to the poor themselves—posing questions about their work ethic, say, or their welfare benefits—when we should have been focusing on the fire. The question that should serve as a looping incantation, the one we should ask every time we drive past a tent encampment, those tarped American slums smelling of asphalt and bodies, every time we see someone asleep on the bus, slumped over in work clothes, is simply: Who benefits? Not Why don’t you find a better job? or Why don’t you move? or Why don’t you stop taking out such bad loans? but Who is feeding off this?

For anyone who thinks "profit" is evil, I have a challenge for you: try NOT to get any profit in the next week. Profit simply means increasing how much valuable stuff you have, and if you don't profit, you die. Literally. For example, don't buy any food for a week, because when you buy food (or anything), it's because you value the food MORE than you value the money you trade for it. If you didn't, you wouldn't make the trade. So you PROFIT (and so does the seller) every time you buy something. And every time you sell something, or work for money, etc. So before condemning "profit" (or "greed" or "selfishness," for that matter), see if you can survive without it. Then stop repeating vague collectivist BS, and learn to distinguish between "win/win" events (voluntary exchange) where BOTH sides profit, and "win/lose" events, where one side benefits by harming the other side. By the way, "government" is ALWAYS the latter.

One reason that returns on black political investment have been so meager is that black politicians often act in ways that benefit themselves but don’t represent the concerns of most blacks.

Andy: Most of the things I did with her partly in mind. And if I said or did an inauthentic thing, I could almost hear her groaning over my shoulder. But now she's gone and I really don't know how I'll get along without her. Melissa: (Looking at him for the first time.) You'll survive, Andy... Andy: I have a wonderful wife, fine children, and a place in the world I feel proud of, but the death of Melissa suddenly leaves a huge gap in my life... Melissa: Oh now, Andy... Andy: The thought of never again being able to write to her, to connect to her, to get some signal back from her, fills me with an emptiness which is hard to describe. Melissa: Now Andy, stop... Andy: I don't think there are many men in this world who have had the benefit of such a friendship with such a woman. But it was more than friendship, too. I know now that I loved her. I loved her even from the day I met her, when she walked into second grade, looking like the lost princess of Oz. Melissa: Oh, Andy, PLEASE. I can't bear it. Andy: I don't think I've ever loved anyone the way I loved her, and I know I never will again. She was at the heart of my life, and already I miss her desperately. I just wanted to say this to you and to her. Sincerely, Andy Ladd. Melissa: Thank you, Andy.

Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances. Even if they are unhappy - very unhappy - it is astonishing how easily they can be prevented from finding it out, or at any rate from attributing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness. To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your children that they are naughty - much naughtier than most children. Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority. You carry so many more guns than they do that they cannot fight you. This is called moral influence, and it will enable you to bounce them as much as you please. They think you know and they will not have yet caught you lying often enough to suspect that you are not the unworldly and scrupulously truthful person which you represent yourself to be; nor yet will they know how great a coward you are, nor how soon you will run away if they fight you with persistency and judgment. You keep the dice and throw them both for your children and yourself. Load them then, for you can easily manage to stop your children from examining them. Tell them how singularly indulgent you are; insist on the incalculable benefit you conferred upon them, firstly in bringing them into the world at all, but more particularly in bringing them into it as your own children rather than anyone else's... You hold all the trump cards, or if you do not you can filch them; if you play them with anything like judgment you will find yourselves heads of happy, united, God-fearing families... True, your children will probably find out all about it some day, but not until too late to be of much service to them or inconvenience to yourself.

I DRANK FOR YEARS, and then I stopped drinking and discovered the sad truth about parties. A sober man at a party is lonely as a journalist, implacable as a coroner, bitter as an angel looking down from heaven. There’s something purely foolish about attending any large gathering of men and women without benefit of some kind of philter or magic dust to blind you and weaken your critical faculties.

We’re human beings, we’re not automatons. You work at your job but you don’t stop being a human being. Being a human being means benefiting from rich cultural traditions—not just our own traditions, but many others—and becoming not just skilled, but also wise. Somebody who can think—think creatively, think independently, explore, inquire—and contribute to society. If you don’t have that, you might as well be replaced by a robot. I think that simply can’t be ignored if we want to have a society that’s worth living in.

The promise of the Church of Color Blindness is that if we stop seeing race, then racism goes away. That racism will go away not through awakening consciousness of privilege and racial harm, not through systemic and institutional change, not through addressing imbalances in power, not through making amends for historical and current-day harm, but instead by simply acting as if the social construct of race has no actual consequences—both for those with white privilege and those without it. The belief is that if you act as if you do not see color, you will not do anything racist or benefit from racism. And if you teach your children to not see race too, you can create a new generation of people who will not do anything racist or benefit from racism.

As long as you are a designer, you have a responsibility to make the world better for the rest of humanity. If you are a designer, you are a human being first. It is your job to stop those that would denigrate humanity for their own selfish benefit.

It seems to me that the whole field of humour could benefit from close and immediate scrutiny. Clearly we need to sort out the jokes which have any kind of genuine psychological value from those which merely encourage drug abuse and should be stopped.

This is incredibly powerful, because when you love yourself enough to stand in your truth no matter what the cost, everyone benefits. You start attracting the kinds of things, people, and opportunities, that are in alignment with who you truly are, which is way more fun than hanging out with a bunch of irritating energy suckers. And by declining to participate in other people’s drama, (i.e. refusing to rip people to shreds, to complain about how unfair the world is, etc.) you not only raise your own frequency, but you offer the drama queens the chance to rise up too, instead of everyone continuing to play a low, lame game.

I vowed I would use the strategy I studied for my own benefit. I would find a way to take all that I wanted, for myself and for my family. What a freeing thought it was to no longer believe I had to deserve something in order to get it.” He’s right; that would be a shockingly freeing thought. “Stop waiting,” Madoc says. “Sink those pretty teeth into something.” I give him a sharp look, trying to decide if he is making fun of me. I lean down and write in the dirt and crust of my own dried blood: Monsters have teeth like mine. He grins as though I am finally getting his point. “That they do.” Oak turns away from the lock in frustration. “Father, what exactly do you think you’re doing?” “We were just talking, she and I,” Madoc says. “Don’t listen to him.” He shakes his head with an exasperated look at his father. “He’s full of bad old-guy advice.” “Just because I’m bad,” Madoc says with a grunt, “doesn’t mean the advice is.

Positive growth can also be compared to a remodeling project. The initial result is horrendous. You find yourself surrounded by excruciating noise, suffocating dust, and bedlam. Only when it is well under way do the benefits start to unfold. Similarly, the initial response to a physical or spiritual exercise program is frequently an intense desire to stop. But after persevering for a while, the positive emotions and benefits kick in. Growth and achievement that result from struggle, diligence, and sacrifice feel very good to us and make us feel happy down the road.

Be glad they didn’t take you,” I told him. “You were better off.” “I doubt that.” “I don’t. You don’t know what it’s like, growing up around a bunch of people who treat you like an inferior, who see you only as a commodity to be used, who couldn’t give a shit about you unless you’re benefitting them in some way. . . .” I stopped, biting my lip. “You’d have tried to fit in, done your best to learn about them, to be one of them. But it would never have worked. You’d have always felt like what you were—an outsider. Because you’re not like them. You’re not . . . like anybody.” I looked up to see his face swimming in front of me. “Be glad they didn’t take you!” “Someone in your life was stupid, too,” he told me. And then he kissed me.

Even if you are not a religious person by nature or training—even if you are an out-and-out skeptic—prayer can help you much more than you believe, for it is a practical thing. What do I mean, practical? I mean that prayer fulfills these three very basic psychological needs which all people share, whether they believe in God or not: 1. Prayer helps us to put into words exactly what is troubling us. We saw in Chapter 4 that it is almost impossible to deal with a problem while it remains vague and nebulous. Praying, in a way, is very much like writing our problems down on paper. If we ask help for a problem—even from God—we must put it into words. 2. Prayer gives us a sense of sharing our burdens, of not being alone. Few of us are so strong that we can bear our heaviest burdens, our most agonizing troubles, all by ourselves. Sometimes our worries are of so ultimate a nature that we cannot discuss them even with our closest relatives or friends. Then prayer is the answer. Any psychiatrist will tell us that when we are pent-up and tense, and in an agony of spirit, it is therapeutically good to tell someone our troubles. When we can’t tell anyone else—we can always tell God. 3. Prayer puts into force an active principle of doing. It’s a first step toward action. I doubt if anyone can pray for some fulfillment, day after day, without benefiting from it—in other words, without taking some steps to bring it to pass. The world-famous scientist, Dr. Alexis Carrel, said: “Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can generate.” So why not make use of it? Call it God or Allah or Spirit—why quarrel with definitions as long as the mysterious powers of nature take us in hand?

The progressive intellectuals and their followers are in awe of what they think they might accomplish through the use of government power. They might benefit if they stopped to smell the roses. Like the rest of the natural world, what real life in a free environment actually accomplishes is much more awesome.

Texas politicians’ government-bashing is both ideological and strategic; they benefit politically by stopping government from having a beneficial presence in people’s lives—as white constituents’ needs mount, the claim that government is busy serving some racialized other instead of them becomes more convincing.

It’s about respecting yourself, instead of catering to your insecure need to be liked. This is incredibly powerful, because when you love yourself enough to stand in your truth no matter what the cost, everyone benefits. You start attracting the kinds of things, people, and opportunities, that are in alignment with who you truly are, which is way more fun than hanging out with a bunch of irritating energy suckers. And by declining to participate in other people’s drama, (i.e. refusing to rip people to shreds, to complain about how unfair the world is, etc.) you not only raise your own frequency, but you offer the drama queens the chance to rise up too, instead of everyone continuing to play a low, lame game.     Never apologize for who you are. It lets the whole world down.

Being obsessively obedient and helpful was another. Everyone loved the kid who was so damn mature for her age. They never saw it as the outward manifestation of inner stress. They never stopped to ask how that kid got to be so mature. They never asked why she couldn't just be a kid. They only reaped the benefits.

Lauren's eyes widened.An entire page had been devoted to the Children's Hospital Benefit Ball.In the center was a color picture of her-with Nick. They were dancing, and he was grinning down at her. Lauren's face was in profile, tilted up to his. The caption read, "Detroit industrialist J. Nicholas Sinclair and companion." "It does look like me, doesn't it?" she hedged, glancing at the excited, avidly curious faces surrounding her desk. "Isn't that an amazing coincidence?" She didn't want her relationship with Nick to be public knowledge until the time was right, and she certainly didn't want her co-workers to treat her any differently. "You mean it isn't you?" one of the women said disappointedly. None of them noticed the sudden lull, the silence sweeping over the office as people stopped talking and typewriters went perfectly still... "Good morning, ladies," Nick's deep voice said behind Lauren. Six stunned women snapped to attention, staring in fascinated awe as Nick leaned over Lauren from behind and braced his hands on her desk. "Hi," he said, his lips so near her ear that Lauren was afraid to turn her head for fear he would kiss her in front of everyone. He glanced at the newspaper spread out on her desk. "You look beautiful, but who's that ugly guy you're dancing with?" Without waiting for an answer, he straightened, affectionately rumpled the hair on the top of her head and strolled into Jim's office, closing the door behind him. Lauren felt like sinking throught the floor in embarrassment. Susan Brook raised her brows. "What an amazing coincidence," she teased.

Shortly after I started hitting some notable milestones on my Spiritual journey, I went into a thrift store that benefits veterans, My eyes were quickly drawn to a dusty and tattered image of Christ laying mixed in with some other things on a shelf. I picked it up, And on it was written these words: "If you accept it... I would give you the gift of seeing yourself as I see you..." The truth and love of that image and simple words stopped me in my tracks and opened my heart. Since then I have received a wonderful gift, to know myself as an Eternal Spiritual Being, a Child of our Loving Father in Heaven. ...And no I didn't buy it, I received the message loud and clear, So I left it there, in hopes that the image and words would speak to someone else's Soul in the same way they had spoken to mine.

It is not fashionable to quote Stalin but he said once, "half a million liquidated is a statistic, but one man killed in a traffic accident is a national tragedy." He was laughing, you see, at the bourgeois sensitivities of the mass. He was a cynic. But what he meant is still true: a movement which protects itself against counter-revolution can hardly stop at the exploitation - or the elimination, Leamas - of a few individuals. It is all one, we have never pretended to be wholly just in the process of rationalising society. Some Roman said it, didn't he, in the Christian Bible - it is expedient that one man should die for the benefit of many.

The battle to be satisfied is a battle of focus. We often spend our time mulling over what we don’t have instead of considering the benefits of what we already possess. To walk in a place of contentment, there are two things you have to do: Focus on the good aspects of what you already have. Stop thinking about what you don’t have.

The only way crime will increase and get out of hand it is because those who are supposed to stop it are part of it and they are benefitting from it.

People stop trying when there’s no benefit for being exceptional and no consequence for being mediocre.

If you don’t share the blessings you receive with others, the Universe will stop sharing blessings with you.

You know , most people wouldn’t default to ‘ I’m gay ’ as a way to stop their parents hassling them .

Who built this tree of universe that has not stopped changing from the very minute (atomic) times undergoing many beautiful and wonderful changes; Who must eat fruits bearing from this tree? Why is that all are not eating these fruits equally without differences? What is the reason? Could someone like us plant another tree like that? Why not? The eternal that does not dry up but continues to give required fruits to the souls. This creator, is he in front of us or not? If not how does this work? Without doubt we all realize that work does not happen without a reason. Therefore, one who is giving us this variety of unlimited fruits without end in this tree of universe must be immensely powerful, with unlimited knowledge, unfathomable, have infinite empathy and having many other amazing qualities. His existence is documented in all vedas and puranas. Although he exists, the reason we are not able to witness, we have to admit is our deficiency in body, faculty and mind. Our ancestors called and praised him as “Paramatma and Sarveshvara.” We have to resolve that we will practice sadhana to be able to see Paramatma and offer to Sarveshvara with great devotion our spiritual practices, without desire for any benefits. This is called Ishwarapranidhana.

The wolf reintroduction has gone so well that, somewhat ironically, the wolves are now threatened by their own success. Indeed, virtually all the conditions for strong public support that were evident in the early years of the program remain intact. The scientific and economic studies cited above support the original predictions of benefits, and agency officials remain committed to the policy. Yet some political actors remain hostile to the program. As NPS management assistant Sacklin said, "No amount of good science will stop a politician.

Representation matters. It matters that you sit in an audience and see yourself onstage. It matters that a company who sells to a multiethnic, multicultural world works to bring every voice in so that they consider as many perspectives as possible. Black, white, Latino, Asian, old, young, gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, differently abled, plus-size, petite—everybody should be at your table. Everybody should be on your stage. Everybody should be on your staff. Everybody should be invited to your kid’s birthday party. Everybody should be welcome in your church. Everybody should be invited over for dinner. Every single woman you know and every single one you don’t could benefit from the truth that she is capable of something great. How is she ever going to believe that if nobody sets an example? How is she ever going to believe that if nobody cares enough to see it in her and speak the truth aloud?

Benefits Now—Costs Later We have seen that predictable problems arise when people must make decisions that test their capacity for self-control. Many choices in life, such as whether to wear a blue shirt or a white one, lack important self-control elements. Self-control issues are most likely to arise when choices and their consequences are separated in time. At one extreme are what might be called investment goods, such as exercise, flossing, and dieting. For these goods the costs are borne immediately, but the benefits are delayed. For investment goods, most people err on the side of doing too little. Although there are some exercise nuts and flossing freaks, it seems safe to say that not many people are resolving on New Year’s Eve to floss less next year and to stop using the exercise bike so much. At the other extreme are what might be called sinful goods: smoking, alcohol, and jumbo chocolate doughnuts are in this category. We get the pleasure now and suffer the consequences later. Again we can use the New Year’s resolution test: how many people vow to smoke more cigarettes, drink more martinis, or have more chocolate donuts in the morning next year? Both investment goods and sinful goods are prime candidates for nudges. Most (nonanorexic) people do not need any special encouragement to eat another brownie, but they could use some help exercising more.

Sister Hoe—who had charge of the wine-making—had told Nona that a heavy dose of fertilizer would coax most plants to open their leaves whatever the weather. “They can’t abide to lose the chance,” the old woman had said. “Worried some other plant will thieve it first. They’re not so different from people really. There’s not much most wouldn’t risk to stop a rival having the benefit of something they want.

When we wonder why crime doesn't stop or end. It is because the people who are committing it. We know them very well and we cant expose them. Instead, we protect them, because we benefit from their crime.

From what I know of you already, you have quite a reputation for providing customer satisfaction." Julie's cheeks burned. For Kate's benefit she said, "I try." "Oh, I'm certain you do more than try. You go all out." He paused for several beats. Then, "I've driven past the gallery thousands of times and always admired the works displayed in the windows. But I haven't had a reason to stop." "And now you did?" "Now I did." She drew herself up. "Well, I'm sure Katherine will find the perfect piece for you. She's very knowledgeable." "He came to see you." "That's right, Ms. Rutledge. Not that Ms. Fields isn't perfectly charming and, I'm sure, knowledgeable." He shot Kate a smile over his shoulder, which she returned before he came back around to Julie. "But I'm placing myself in your very capable hands.

These people look upon inequality as upon an evil. They do not assert that a definite degree of inequality which can be exactly determined by a judgment free of any arbitrariness and personal evaluation is good and has to be preserved unconditionally. They, on the contrary, declare inequality in itself as bad and merely contend that a lower degree of it is a lesser evil than a higher degree in the same sense in which a smaller quantity of poison in a man’s body is a lesser evil than a larger dose. But if this is so, then there is logically in their doctrine no point at which the endeavors toward equalization would have to stop. Whether one has already reached a degree of inequality which is to be considered low enough and beyond which it is not necessary to embark upon further measures toward equalization is just a matter of personal judgments of value, quite arbitrary, different with different people and changing in the passing of time. As these champions of equalization appraise confiscation and “redistribution” as a policy harming only a minority, viz., those whom they consider to be “too” rich, and benefiting the rest—the majority—of the people, they cannot oppose any tenable argument to those who are asking for more of this allegedly beneficial policy. As long as any degree of inequality is left, there will always be people whom envy impels to press for a continuation of the equalization policy. Nothing can be advanced against their inference: If inequality of wealth and incomes is an evil, there is no reason to acquiesce in any degree of it, however low; equalization must not stop before it has completely leveled all individuals’ wealth and incomes.

One central characteristic of the Model T now generally forgotten is that it was the first car of consequence to put the driver’s seat on the left-hand side. Previously, nearly all manufacturers placed the driver on the outer, curb-side of the car so that an alighting driver could step out onto a grassy verge or dry sidewalk rather than into the mud of an unpaved road. Ford reasoned that this convenience might be better appreciated by the lady of the house, and so arranged seating for her benefit. The arrangement also gave the driver a better view down the road, and made it easier for passing drivers to stop and have a conversation out facing windows. Ford was no great thinker, but he did understand human nature. Such, in any case, was the popularity of Ford’s seating plan for the Model T that it soon became the standard adopted by all cars.

Grant says it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words. In the T-shirt-folding study, the team members reported perceiving the introverted leaders as more open and receptive to their ideas, which motivated them to work harder and to fold more shirts.

I want to fuck you,” he said, and she stopped breathing. “I want to rip your clothes off and fuck you until you’re screaming. And if you don’t start leaving me the hell alone, I’m going to do it. I’m a demon, sweetheart, and I don’t practice self-fucking-control. So I’m warning you now, stop following me around trying to make conversation and stop rubbing up against me on that goddamn sofa or you’re going to end up on your back under me, got it?

Look at me! Look at me!” I said. “Everywhere I’ve turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my good—only they were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?

In the same way, if a man asks what is the point of behaving decently, it is no good replying, "in order to benefit society," for trying to benefit society, in other words being unselfish (for "society" after all only means "other people"), is one of the things decent behaviour consists in; all you are really saying is that decent behaviour is decent behaviour. You would have said just as much if you had stopped at the statement, "Men ought to be unselfish.

gave as many classes personally as I could, not only for the benefit of the troops, but for myself. I found that the teacher learns as much as, if not more than, his students, and it also kept my own skills sharpened to a fine edge. It’s easy to lose touch with the basics, and you become less inclined to get them back once you’ve moved up the ladder; I’d seen too many high-ranking officers who’d stopped trying, having decided, I guessed, that they were “above all that.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t gone out of my way to do something just for him that didn’t benefit me in any way. I’d been so focused on what I wanted from Will that I’d never really stopped to think about what he might want from me.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life, therefore, I demand of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of self-confidence. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my definite chief aim in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full faith that it will gradually influence my thoughts and actions so that I will become a self-reliant, and successful person.

I would respect feminist who said "Single moms, are you kidding me? Stop taking government benefits because, the government is the patriarchy. So, you are taking things from the patriarchy so you dont have to be responsible. Any woman who takes money from the government using cops who usually extract it from men by force is not a feminist. Is a exceedingly bad bride of the state." I would admire that but, of course feminism doesn't have anything to do with any of that stuff. Look, it's fine. Have your fun. Make fun of men. Go for it. Yea, we're all idiots, we're all selfish, greedy bastards. Ok, it's fine because the government is going to run out of money soon and then all these woman are going to try to find some guy to latch onto when the benefits stop flowing and I mean, you saw this happening with the soviet union. "Now we need you! You guys are great! We missed you so much! Give me some money!" It's just a bunch of noise from a bunch of people who are stealing from the productive.

Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet. Governments and corporations do not live. They have no power, no capacity in and of themselves. They are given life and derive all their authority from their ability to assist, benefit, and transform the lives of the people they touch. All authority emanates from the consent of the governed and the satisfaction of the customer.

And although better coverage of the outbreak’s evolution in the press couldn’t have stopped the influenza virus, a single newspaper headline in Philadelphia saying “Don’t Go to Any Parades; for the Love of God Cancel Your Stupid Parade” could have saved hundreds of lives. It would have done a lot more than those telling people, “Don’t Get Scared!” Telling people that things are fine is not the same as making them fine. This failure is in the past. Journalists and editors had their reasons. Risking jail time is no joke. But learning from this breakdown in truth-telling is important because the fourth estate can’t fail again. We are fortunate today to have organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization that track how diseases are progressing and report these findings. In the event of an outbreak similar to the Spanish flu, they will be wonderful resources. I hope we’ll be similarly lucky to have journalists who will be able to share necessary information with the public. The public is at its strongest when it is well informed. Despite Lippmann’s claims to the contrary, we are smart, and we are good, and we are always stronger when we work together. If there is a next time, it would be very much to our benefit to remember that.

If you want to try using this principle rationally, all you have to do is write four lists: What are the benefits of continuing? What are the benefits of stopping? What are the costs of continuing? What are the costs of stopping? And then you look at those four lists and make a decision based on your estimates of maximizing benefit and minimizing cost. Remember to consider both the long-term and the short-term costs and benefits. And if you decide to continue, remember to include completing the cycle in your plan.

Complaining about our circumstances, which is really a complaint against God, does not demonstrate trust in God. And remember, when our faith is at a low ebb, we can still trust God, until the answer we are looking for comes our way. The sooner we stop complaining, the quicker God will be able to change our circumstances for our benefit.      So, if you want to enter God's land of promise, and see his word fulfilled in your life, change your attitude. Start thanking God, not just for the good times, but for the bad times too!

Detachment also involves accepting reality—the facts. It requires faith—in ourselves, in God, in other people, and in the natural order and destiny of things in this world. We believe in the rightness and appropriateness of each moment. We release our burdens and cares, and give ourselves the freedom to enjoy life in spite of our unsolved problems. We trust that all is well in spite of the conflicts. We trust that Someone greater than ourselves knows, has ordained, and cares about what is happening. We understand that this Someone can do much more to solve the problem than we can. So we try to stay out of His way and let Him do it. In time, we know that all is well because we see how the strangest (and sometimes most painful) things work out for the best and for the benefit of everyone.

Why did these leaders’ effectiveness turn on whether their employees were passive or proactive? Grant says it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words.

A big report published in 2015 showed why the government is so keen to silence the Professor David Nutts of this world. It showed that the total costs of alcohol use in England (including the NHS, police and welfare) amount to £3.9 billion. While alcohol taxation in England rakes in £10.4 billion. So, heavy drinkers make the country £6.5 billion, after the costs of taking them to hospital, policing them or giving them benefits. A tidy profit indeed. Now it becomes clear why the British government don’t want people to stop drinking. ‘Shut it, Professor Nutt.

Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.

Restraint, Gandhi believed, was one of his greatest assets. And it was born of his shyness: I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

Whatever one thinks about affirmative action, no one can justify a white woman masquerading as a Native American to capitalize on benefits reserved for historically disadvantaged minorities. Warren now owns two homes, a $3 million Victorian in Cambridge and a posh condo in Washington, D.C.50

When I say: Everything is going wrong in my life. God says: Focus on Me instead of your circumstances, and remember how I’ve taken care of you before. Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits. (Ps. 103:1–2)

How much are you lifting?” “Seven hundred.” Alrighty then. I will just stand over here, out of your way, and hope you don’t remember my promise to kick your ass. He grinned. “Wanna spot me?” “No thanks. How about I just scream verbal encouragements at you?” I took a deep breath and barked. “No pain, no gain! That pain is just weakness leaving your body! Come on! Push! Push! Make that weight your bitch!” He cracked up. The weight stopped, perilously close to his chest, while he shook with laughter. I stepped up and grabbed the bar. It put me into an incredibly compromising position, since his head was really close to my thighs and the area directly above them, but I didn’t want to explain to a rabid Pack how I was responsible for the Beast Lord crushing his chest with a weight bar. I put my back into it. There was no way in hell I could ever pull it up without him pushing. The bar crept up very slowly. “Curran, stop playing and lift.” I looked down and saw him looking straight at me. He had a smile on his face. The sight of me puffing and straining apparently amused him to no end. He raised the bar up and slid it into the twin forks on the side of the bench. I beat a hasty retreat, putting a few feet between him and me. He sat, pulled his shirt off, and used it to wipe the sweat off his chest. Slowly. Flexing a bit for my benefit. I turned around and looked at the scenery. Having a streak of drool hang from my mouth would seriously cramp my style. Besides, if he full-out flexed, I would probably faint. Or jump off the building.

Practicing loving kindness meditation is like digging deep into the ground until we reach the purest water. We look deeply into ourselves until insight arises and our love flows to the surface. Joy and happiness radiate from our eyes, and everyone around us benefits from our smile and our presence. If we take good care of ourselves, we help everyone. We stop being a source of suffering to the world, and we become a reservoir of joy and freshness. Here and there are people who know how to take good care of themselves, who live joyfully and happily. They are our strongest support. Whatever they do, they do for everyone.

When we get so emotionally hung up on trying to force something that is not the right fit, we can often benefit from a sounding board. Someone who is not emotionally involved in the situation and unaffected by the choice we make can give us the permission to stop forcing something that is clearly not working out.

If they think the behavior is safe, we should emphasize all the good things that will happen if they do it—they’ll want to act immediately to obtain those certain gains. But when people believe a behavior is risky, that approach doesn’t work. They’re already comfortable with the status quo, so the benefits of change aren’t attractive, and the stop system kicks in. Instead, we need to destabilize the status quo and accentuate the bad things that will happen if they don’t change. Taking a risk is more appealing when they’re faced with a guaranteed loss if they don’t. The prospect of a certain loss brings the go system online.

CENTURY, AFTER TERRANS DISCOVERED IN THE TWENTIETH THAT IT KILLED YOU!” “It took them two hundred years to stop doing it?” I ask, bewildered. “ISN’T THAT INSANE?” Magellan says. “HONESTLY, DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE A SPECIES THAT WOULD BENEFIT FROM SOME KIND OF BENEVOLENT MACHINE OVERLORD?” “Silent mode,” Tyler says.

Things I've Learned in 18 Years of Life   1) True love is not something found, rather [sic] something encountered. You can’t go out and look for it. The person you marry and the person you love could easily be two different people. So have a beautiful life while waiting for God to bring along your once-in-a-lifetime love. Don't allow yourself to settle for anything less than them. Stop worrying about who you're going to marry because God's already on the front porch watching your grandchildren play.   2) God WILL give you more than you can handle, so you can learn to lean on him in times of need. He won't tempt you more than you can handle, though. So don't lose hope. Hope anchors the soul.   3) Remember who you are and where you came from. Remember that you are not from this earth. You are a child of heaven, you're invaluable, you are beautiful. Carry yourself that way.   4) Don't put your faith in humanity, humanity is inherently flawed. We are all imperfect people created and loved by a perfect God. Perfect. So put your faith in Him.   5) I fail daily, and that is why I succeed.   6) Time passes, and nothing and everything changes. Don't live life half asleep. Don't drag your soul through the days. Feel everything you do. Be there physically and mentally. Do things that make you feel this way as well.   7) Live for beauty. We all need beauty, get it where you can find it. Clothing, paintings, sculptures, music, tattoos, nature, literature, makeup. It's all art and it's what makes us human. Same as feeling the things we do. Stay human.   8) If someone makes you think, keep them. If someone makes you feel, keep them.   9) There is nothing the human brain cannot do. You can change anything about yourself that you want to. Fight for it. It's all a mental game.   10) God didn’t break our chains for us to be bound again. Alcohol, drugs, depression, addiction, toxic relationships, monotony and repetition, they bind us. Break those chains. Destroy your past and give yourself new life like God has given you.   11) This is your life. Your struggle, your happiness, your sorrow, and your success. You do not need to justify yourself to anyone. You owe no one an explanation for the choices that you make and the position you are in. In the same vein, respect yourself by not comparing your journey to anyone else's.   12) There is no wrong way to feel.   13) Knowledge is everywhere, keep your eyes open. Look at how diverse and wonderful this world is. Are you going to miss out on beautiful people, places, experiences, and ideas because you are close-minded? I sure hope not.   14) Selfless actions always benefit you more than the recipient.   15) There is really no room for regret in this life. Everything happens for a reason. If you can't find that reason, accept there is one and move on.   16) There is room, however, for guilt. Resolve everything when it first comes up. That's not only having integrity, but also taking care of your emotional well-being.   17) If the question is ‘Am I strong enough for this?’ The answer is always, ‘Yes, but not on your own.’   18) Mental health and sanity above all.   19) We love because He first loved us. The capacity to love is the ultimate gift, the ultimate passion, euphoria, and satisfaction. We have all of that because He first loved us. If you think about it in those terms, it is easy to love Him. Just by thinking of how much He loves us.   20) From destruction comes creation. Beauty will rise from the ashes.   21) Many things can cause depression. Such as knowing you aren't becoming the person you have the potential to become. Choose happiness and change. The sooner the better, and the easier.   22) Half of happiness is as simple as eating right and exercising. You are one big chemical reaction. So are your emotions. Give your body the right reactants to work with and you'll be satisfied with the products.

Another view of the Constitution was put forward early in the twentieth century by the historian Charles Beard (arousing anger and indignation, including a denunciatory editorial in the New York Times). He wrote in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution: Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government. In short, Beard said, the rich must, in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the laws by which government operates. Beard applied this general idea to the Constitution, by studying the economic backgrounds and political ideas of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the Constitution. He found that a majority of them were lawyers by profession, that most of them were men of wealth, in land, slaves, manufacturing, or shipping, that half of them had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of the fifty-five held government bonds, according to the records of the Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slaveowners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds. Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups. He wanted to make it clear that he did not think the Constitution was written merely to benefit the Founding Fathers personally, although one could not ignore the $150,000 fortune of Benjamin Franklin, the connections of Alexander Hamilton to wealthy interests through his father-in-law and brother-in-law, the great slave plantations of James Madison, the enormous landholdings of George Washington. Rather, it was to benefit the groups the Founders represented, the “economic interests they understood and felt in concrete, definite form through their own personal experience.

Participants in brainstorming sessions usually believe that their group performed much better than it actually did, which points to a valuable reason for their continued popularity—group brainstorming makes people feel attached. A worthy goal, so long as we understand that social glue, as opposed to creativity, is the principal benefit.

When you were born again, He put His Son on the inside of you. You have the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, and more. (See Gal. 5:22–23.) Your spirit is always rejoicing, always healthy, always believing, always full of hope, and always exactly like Jesus is. The only reason you don’t benefit from it is that your mind is going more by what it feels in the physical realm than what you see in the Word of God. We trust what we see in a mirror more than we trust what we see in the spiritual mirror. We’re basing our life on external things—how we feel and what the situation looks like—rather than on the truth of what God’s Word says. My teachings entitled Spirit, Soul

Gender isn’t simply some faucet that we can turn on and off in order to appease other people, whether they be heterosexist bigots or queerer-than-thou hipsters. How about this: Let’s stop pretending that we have all the answers, because when it comes to gender, none of us is fucking omniscient.   Instead of trying to fictionalize gender, let’s talk about the moments in life when gender feels all too real. Because gender doesn’t feel like drag when you’re a young trans child begging your parents not to cut your hair or not to force you to wear that dress. And gender doesn’t feel like a performance when, for the first time in your life, you feel safe and empowered enough to express yourself in ways that resonate with you, rather than remaining closeted for the benefit of others. And gender doesn’t feel like a construct when you finally find that special person whose body, personality, identity, and energy feels like a perfect fit with yours. Let’s stop trying to deconstruct gender into nonexistence, and instead start celebrating it as inexplicable, varied, profound, and intricate.

Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.

After you hit puberty, it's just one thing after the other until the day you die. You have some good years in your twenties, after you've stopped embarrassing yourself constantly and before your back goes out and your knees start to creak. And those are just the physical things. They say as you get older, your essential nature is revealed. Sort of like a balsamic reduction of the soul.

The history of socialism offers a twofold lesson: the fall of the collective as a transforming agent of everyday life, and the rise of technology and its problems. Given this twofold experience, and given that the idea of a revolutionary transformation of the everyday has almost vanished, the withdrawal into an everyday which has not been transformed but which has benefited from a small proportion of technical progress becomes perfectly understandable. No, what is most astonishing is perhaps the fact that this withdrawal has in no way stopped collective organization and overorganization continuing to operate on its own level: the state, important decisions, bureaucracy. ‘Reprivatized’ life has its own level, and the large institutions have theirs. These levels are juxtaposed or superimposed.

I believe I have said this before, but it’s worth repeating. The patient’s resources stop where the therapist’s beliefs stop. It is critical that the therapist have an open mind and complete faith in the patient’s deeper resources. The most formidable and potent resources must be approached with respect, taken seriously and accepted on faith. Understand the information and knowledge shared with the therapist is entirely dependent on his or her level of development, their ability to properly use what is communicated for the patient’s or therapist’s benefit and welfare, and the level of trust and belief the resource has in the therapist. The success of their bond and their mission is founded on mutual trust, respect, and faith in each others abilities and potentials. Remember this!” The Guardian

introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity,

the government moved swiftly to mandate that all trains should have “positive train control,” an electronic signaling system that will automatically stop or slow down a train to prevent a crash if the engineer misses a red signal. Although the system may ultimately benefit the railroads marginally by making it possible to run extra trains, effectively they are being asked to pay several billion dollars

When Bruhn and Wolf first presented their findings to the medical community, you can imagine the kind of skepticism they faced. They went to conferences where their peers were presenting long rows of data arrayed in complex charts and referring to this kind of gene or that kind of physiological process, and they themselves were talking instead about the mysterious and magical benefits of people stopping to talk to one another on the street and of having three generations under one roof. Living a long life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were—that is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we made—on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community.

Globalization in particular is a tide that is impossible for any ruler to order back. Many of a country’s problems are inherently global, including migration, pandemics, terrorism, cybercrime, nuclear proliferation, rogue states, and the environment. Pretending they don’t exist is not tenable forever, and they can be solved only through international cooperation. Nor can the benefits of globalization—more affordable goods, larger markets for exports, the reduction in global poverty—be denied indefinitely. And with the Internet and inexpensive travel, there will be no stopping the flow of people and ideas (especially, as we will see, among younger people). As for the battle against truth and fact, over the long run they have a built-in advantage: when you stop believing in them, they don’t go away. The deeper question is whether the rise of populist movements, whatever damage they do in the short term, represents the shape of things to come—whether, as a recent Boston Globe editorial lamented/gloated, “The Enlightenment had a good run.” Do the events around 2016 really imply that the world is headed back to the Middle Ages? As with climate change skeptics who claim to be vindicated by a nippy morning, it’s easy to overinterpret recent events.

If both you and your plane are on time, the airport is merely a diffuse, short, miserable prelude to the intense, long, miserable plane trip. But what if there's five hours between your arrival and your connecting flight, or your plane is late arriving and you've missed your connection, or the connecting flight is late, or the staff of another airline are striking for a wage-benefit package and the government has not yet ordered out the National Guard to control this threat to international capitalism so your airline staff is trying to handle twice as many people as usual, or there are tornadoes or thunderstorms or blizzards or little important bits of the plane missing or any of the thousand other reasons (never under any circumstances the fault of the airlines, and rarely explained at the time) why those who go places on airplanes sit and sit and sit and sit in airports, not going anywhere? In this, probably its true aspect, the airport is not a prelude to travel, not a place of transition: it is a stop. A blockage. A constipation. The airport is where you can't go anywhere else. A nonplace in which time does not pass and there is no hope of any meaningful existence. A terminus: the end. The airport offers nothing to any human being except access to the interval between planes.

Shall I stop in to check on Bella before I go?” “Not dressed like that. You would give her palpitations if she knew you were going into danger for her benefit.” “Luckily, I am mostly immune to Bella’s powers and could cure such palpitations with a thought,” Gideon mused. Jacob raised a brow, taking the medic’s measure. He could not recall the last time he had heard the Ancient crack wise about anything. It was not a wholly unpleasant experience, and it amused the Enforcer. “I . . . am aware of what is occurring between you and Legna, as you know,” Jacob mentioned with casual quiet. “I am only recently Imprinted myself, but should you require—” He broke off, suddenly uncomfortable. “Of course, you probably know far more about Imprinting than I ever will.” He is reaching out to you. Legna’s soft encouragement made Gideon suddenly aware of that fact. It was one of those nuances he would have missed completely, rusty as he was with matters of friendship and how to relate better to others. “I am glad for the offer of any help you can provide,” Gideon said quickly. “In fact, I had wanted to ask you . . . something . . .” What did I want to ask him? he asked Legna urgently. I do not know! I did not tell you to engage him, just to graciously accept his offer. Oh. My apologies. Still, you are clever enough to think of something, are you not? Legna knew he was baiting her, so she laughed. Ask him why it is you seem to constantly irritate me. I will ask him no such thing, Magdelegna. Well then, you had better come up with an alternative, because that is the only suggestion I have. “Yes?” Jacob was encouraging neutrally, trying to be patient as the medic seemed to gather his thoughts. “Do you find that your mate tends to lecture you incessantly?” he asked finally. Jacob laughed out loud. “You know something, I can actually advise you about that, Gideon.” “Can you?” The medic actually sounded hopeful. “Give up. Now. While you still have your sanity. Arguing with her will get you nowhere. And, also, never ever ask questions that refer to the whys and wherefores of women, females, or any other feminine-based criticism. Otherwise you will only earn an argument at a higher decibel level. Oh, and one other thing.” Gideon cocked a brow in question. “All the rules I just gave you, as well as all the ones she lays down during the course of your relationship, can and will change at whim. So, as I see it, you can consider yourself just as lost as every other man on the planet. Good luck with it.” “That is not a very heartening thought,” Gideon said wryly, ignoring Legna’s giggle in his background thoughts.

Your words and your behavior must be in line with your beliefs before you can begin to enjoy a truly authentic life. When you stop worrying about pleasing everyone and, instead, are willing to be bold enough to live according to your own values, you'll experience many benefits: -Your self confidence will soar. The more you're able to see that you don't have to make people happy, the more independence and confidence you'll gain. You'll feel content with the decisions you make, even when other people disagree with your actions, because you'll know you made the right choice. -You'll have more time and energy to devote to your goals. Instead of wasting energy trying to become the person you think others want you to be, you'll have time and energy to work on yourself. When you channel that effort toward your goals, you'll be much more likely to be successful. -You'll feel less stressed. When you set limits and healthy boundaries, you'll experience a lot less stress and irritation. You'll feel like you have more control over your life. -You'll establish healthier relationships. Other people will develop more respect for you when you behave in an assertive manner. Your communication will improve and you'll be able to prevent yourself from building a lot of anger and resentment toward people. -You'll have increased willpower. An interesting 2008 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that people have much more willpower when they're making choices on their own accord rather than out of an attempt to please someone else. If you're only doing something to make someone else happy, you'll struggle to reach your goal. You'll be motivated to keep p the good work if you're convinced it's the best choice for you.

According to Jay Belsky, a leading proponent of this view and a psychology professor and child care expert at the University of London, the reactivity of these kids’ nervous systems makes them quickly overwhelmed by childhood adversity, but also able to benefit from a nurturing environment more than other children do. In other words, orchid children are more strongly affected by all experience, both positive and negative. Scientists have known for a while that high-reactive temperaments come with risk factors. These kids are especially vulnerable to challenges like marital tension, a parent’s death, or abuse. They’re more likely than their peers to react to these events with depression, anxiety, and shyness. Indeed, about a quarter of Kagan’s high-reactive kids suffer from some degree of the condition known as “social anxiety disorder,” a chronic and disabling form of shyness.

Similarly, at Microsoft, many employees enjoy their own private offices, yet they come with sliding doors, movable walls, and other features that allow occupants to decide when they want to collaborate and when they need private time to think. These kinds of diverse workspaces benefit introverts as well as extroverts, the systems design researcher Matt Davis told me, because they offer more spaces to retreat to than traditional open-plan offices.

But later that night, as I brush my teeth in the bathroom, I overhear Baba and Thaya Jaan talking in the guest room next door. “ All this music all the time. You shouldn’t let Amina do so much singing and piano,” Thaya Jaan says. I stop brushing and strain to hear every word, trying to follow. “But, Bhai Jaan, she is so talented. Her music teachers say she is really quite gifted.” “Yes, but music is forbidden in Islam. It’s a waste of time and has no benefit. Instead of filling her head with music, she should focus on memorizing Quran.” The toothpaste suddenly tastes bitter. I spit it out and wait to hear what Baba will say. Surely he’ll say the things he’s always told me, like how music makes him feel closer to God and that my talent is a gift from Allah. But all Baba says is, “Yes, Bhai Jaan,” and then he stays quiet. I am numb. Is Thaya Jaan right? Am I doing something wrong?

What makes earned secure attachment unique, however, is its correlation with parenting that promotes secure attachment in the next generation (Roisman et al., 2002). This research challenges the prevailing view that suboptimal attachment in the parent generation predicts the likelihood of providing less-than-optimal attachment experiences for the next generation. Instead, it suggests that human beings can transform the implicit memories and explicit narrative of the past by internalizing healthy adult attachment experiences until they achieve the benefits conferred by secure attachment. The fact that earned secure attachment transmits the ability to offer the same to the next generation is a hopeful sign. It implies that we can help our clients bring a stop to the intergenerational legacy of trauma in their families and create a new legacy through the intergenerational transmission of secure attachment.

I think it's a question of whether cruelty is well or badly used. Cruelty well used (if we can speak well of something bad) is short-lived and decisive, no more than is necessary to secure your position and then stop; you don't go on being cruel but use the power it has given you to deliver maximum benefits to your subjects. Cruelty is badly used when you're not drastic enough at the beginning but grow increasingly cruel later on, rather than easing off.

Be angry with me if you wish. I suppose I deserve it. Be whatever you have to be with me. But stop this charade and be yourself. That’s all I ask.” He stood silent for a moment, looking at me with haughty disapproval. And then he came to take the other chair. He poured himself more brandy without offering me any. I could smell that it was the apricot one we had shared in my cabin less than a year ago. He sipped it and then observed, “Be myself. And who would that be?” He set down the glass, leaned back in the chair, and then crossed his arms on his chest. “I don’t know. I wish you were the Fool,” I said quietly. “But I think we have come too far to go back to that pretense. Yet if we could, I would. Willingly.” I looked away from him. I kicked at the end of a hearth log, pushing it farther into the fire and waking new flames in a gust of sparks. “When I think of you now, I do not even know how to name you to myself. You are not Lord Golden to me. You never truly were. Yet you are not the Fool anymore, either.” I steeled myself as the words came to me, unplanned but obvious. How can the truth be so difficult to say? For a teetering instant, I feared he would misunderstand my words. Then I knew that he would know exactly what I meant by them. For years, he had understood my feelings, in the silences he kept. Before we parted company, I had to repair, somehow, the rift between us. The words were the only tool I had. They echoed of the old magic, of the power one gained when one knew someone’s true name. I was determined. And yet, the utterance still came awkward to my tongue. “You said once that I might call you ‘Beloved,’ if I no longer wished to call you ‘Fool.’” I took a breath. “Beloved, I have missed your company.” He lifted a hand and covered his mouth. Then he disguised the gesture by rubbing his chin as if he thought something through carefully. I do not know what expression he hid behind his palm. When he dropped his hand from his face, he was smiling wryly. “Don’t you think that might cause some talk about the keep?” I let his comment pass for I had no answer to it. He had spoken to me in the Fool’s mocking voice. Even as it soothes my heart, I had to wonder if it was a sham for my benefit. Did he show me what I wished to see, or what he was? “Well.” He sighed. “I suppose that if you were going to have an appropriate name for me, it would still be Fool. So let us leave it at that, Fitzy. To you, I am the Fool.” He looked into the fire and laughed softly. “It balances, I suppose. Whatever is to come for us, I will always have these words to recall now.” He looked at me and nodded gravely, as if thanking me for returning something precious to him. There were so many things I wanted to discuss with him. I wanted to review the Prince’s mission and talk about Web and ask him why he now gambled so much and what his wild extravagances meant. But I suddenly wanted to add no more words to what we had said tonight. As he had said, it balanced now. It was a hovering scale between us; I would chance no word that might tip it awry again. I nodded to him and rose slowly. When I reached the door, I said quietly, “Then, good night, Fool.” I opened the door and went out into the corridor. “Good night, beloved,” he said from his fireside chair. I shut the door softly behind myself.

Given an area of law that legislators were happy to hand over to the affected industries and a technology that was both unfamiliar and threatening, the prospects for legislative insight were poor. Lawmakers were assured by lobbyists a) that this was business as usual, that no dramatic changes were being made by the Green or White papers; or b) that the technology presented a terrible menace to the American cultural industries, but that prompt and statesmanlike action would save the day; or c) that layers of new property rights, new private enforcers of those rights, and technological control and surveillance measures were all needed in order to benefit consumers, who would now be able to “purchase culture by the sip rather than by the glass” in a pervasively monitored digital environment. In practice, somewhat confusingly, these three arguments would often be combined. Legislators’ statements seemed to suggest that this was a routine Armageddon in which firm, decisive statesmanship was needed to preserve the digital status quo in a profoundly transformative and proconsumer way. Reading the congressional debates was likely to give one conceptual whiplash. To make things worse, the press was—in 1995, at least—clueless about these issues. It was not that the newspapers were ignoring the Internet. They were paying attention—obsessive attention in some cases. But as far as the mainstream press was concerned, the story line on the Internet was sex: pornography, online predation, more pornography. The lowbrow press stopped there. To be fair, the highbrow press was also interested in Internet legal issues (the regulation of pornography, the regulation of online predation) and constitutional questions (the First Amendment protection of Internet pornography). Reporters were also asking questions about the social effect of the network (including, among other things, the threats posed by pornography and online predators).

if you want the ‘other side’ to stop heeding the blatant propaganda, and stop judging you by inaccurate stereotypes, you must be ready to suspend your credulity and suspicion and offer them the same benefit of the doubt. Maybe your original suspicions will be confirmed; perhaps they will be repudiated—in either case, you’ll have the certainty that you made up your own mind, rather than allowing yourself to be brainwashed and manipulated by groups whose agendas both sides know to be suspect.

When Bruhn and Wolf first presented their findings to the medical community, you can imagine the kind of skepticism they faced. They went to conferences where their peers were presenting long rows of data arrayed in complex charts and referring to this kind of gene or that kind of physiological process, and they themselves were talking instead about the mysterious and magical benefits of people stopping to talk to one another on the street and of having three generations under one roof. Living a long life,

Several years ago I was lecturing in British Columbia. Dr [Simon] Wessely was speaking and he gave a thoroughly enjoyable lecture on M.E. and CFS. He had the hundreds of staff physicians laughing themselves silly over the invented griefs of the M.E. and CFS patients who according to Dr Wessely had no physical illness what so ever but a lot of misguided imagination. I was appalled at his sheer effectiveness, the amazing control he had over the minds of the staid physicians….His message was very clear and very simple. If I can paraphrase him: “M.E. and CFS are non-existent illnesses with no pathology what-so-ever. There is no reason why they all cannot return to work tomorrow. The next morning I left by car with my crew and arrived in Kelowna British Columbia that afternoon. We were staying at a patient’s house who had severe M.E. with dysautanomia and was for all purposes bed ridden or house bound most of the day. That morning she had received a phone call from her insurance company in Toronto. (Toronto is approximately 2742 miles from Vancouver). The insurance call was as follows and again I paraphrase: “Physicians at a University of British Columbia University have demonstrated that there is no pathological or physiological basis for M.E. or CFS. Your disability benefits have been stopped as of this month. You will have to pay back the funds we have sent you previously. We will contact you shortly with the exact amount you owe us”. That night I spoke to several patients or their spouses came up to me and told me they had received the same message. They were in understandable fear. What is important about this story is that at that meeting it was only Dr Wessely who was speaking out against M.E. and CFS and how … were the insurance companies in Toronto and elsewhere able to obtain this information and get back to the patients within a 24 hour period if Simon Wessely was not working for the insurance industry… I understand that it was also the insurance industry who paid for Dr Wessely’s trip to Vancouver.

You’re not wearing drawers,” he murmured, his hand wandering avidly over her bare limbs. “It’s too hot today,” she said breathlessly, wiggling to evade him, pushing ineffectually at the mound of his hand beneath her dress. “I most certainly did not discard them for your benefit, and… Nick, stop that. The maid is going to come in at any moment.” “Then I’ll have to be fast.” “You’re never fast. Nick… oh…” Her body curled against his as he reached the patch of hair between her thighs, the sweet cleft already rich with moisture as her well-tutored body responded to his touch. “I’m going to do this to you next week at the Markenfields’ ball,” he said softly, running his thumb along the humid seam of her sex. “I’m going to take you to some private corner… and pull up the front of your dress, and stroke and tease you until you come.” “No,” she protested faintly, her eyes closing as she felt his long middle finger slide inside her. “Oh, yes.” Nick withdrew his wet finger and ruthlessly tickled the softly straining crest until he felt her body tensing rhythmically in his lap. “I’ll keep you quiet with my mouth,” he whispered. “And I’ll be kissing you when you climax with my fingers inside you… like this…” He thrust his two middle fingers inside the warm, pulsing channel and covered her lips with his as she moaned and shuddered violently. When he had siphoned the last few shivers of pleasure from her body, Nick lifted his mouth and smiled smugly into her flushed face. “Was that fast enough for you?” -Nick & Lottie

Breathhold Walking Anders Olsson uses this technique to increase carbon dioxide and, thus, increase circulation in his body. It’s not much fun, but the benefits, Olsson told me, are many. Go to a grassy park, beach, or anywhere else where the ground is soft. Exhale all the breath, then walk slowly, counting each step. Once you feel a powerful sense of air hunger, stop counting and take a few very calm breaths through the nose while still walking. Breathe normally for at least a minute, then repeat the sequence. The more you practice this technique, the higher the count. Olsson’s record is 130 steps; mine is about a third of that. 4-7-8 Breathing This technique, made famous by Dr. Andrew Weil, places the body into a state of deep relaxation. I use it on long flights to help fall asleep. Take a breath in, then exhale through your mouth with a whoosh sound. Close the mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four. Hold for a count of seven. Exhale completely through your mouth, with a whoosh, to the count of eight. Repeat this cycle for at least four breaths.

Good,” and Judge Robertson began to ramble on about the benefits and drawbacks of living with either parent. Penny’s attention wandered, she had stopped pretending the judge’s eyebrow’s had metamorphosis into butterflies and began to wonder if any adult actually read the books on these walls, and if she flipped through would she find blank pages after a while, or a joke page, just to surprise someone who actually sat through the book. That’s what she would do if she had to write something so awful, and who would want to check? -Child of Fire

motivation for not eating meat and dairy is to maintain optimal health, not to rid myself of the obsession and compulsion that are the hallmark of addiction. If obsession and compulsion are the issue—smoking cigarettes, not being able to stop texting your toxic ex, self-harm—and you want to get past it, you need a Bright Line. If health is your objective, there is no evidence that perfect is better than “really good.” Seriously. You can comply with a health goal 95 percent of the time, and it will benefit you as much as 100 percent perfection.

If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they were good decisions. (It’s hard to picture a god who makes bad ones.) And why would they expend their energies on causing me harm? What good would it do them—or the world, which is their primary concern? And if they haven’t made decisions about me as an individual, they certainly have about the general welfare. And anything that follows from that is something I have to welcome and embrace. And if they make no decisions, about anything—and it’s blasphemous even to think so (because if so, then let’s stop sacrificing, praying, swearing oaths, and doing all the other things we do, believing the whole time that the gods are right here with us)—if they decide nothing about our lives . . . well, I can still make decisions. Can still consider what it’s to my benefit to do. And what benefits anyone is to do what his own nature requires. And mine is rational. Rational and civic. My city and state are Rome—as Antoninus. But as a human being? The world. So for me, “good” can only mean what’s good for both communities.

Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words. In the T-shirt-folding study, the team members reported perceiving the introverted leaders as more open and receptive to their ideas, which motivated them to work harder and to fold more shirts.

Here, reader, thou must pardon us if we stop a while to lament the capriciousness of Nature in forming this charming part of the creation designed to complete the happiness of man; with their soft innocence to allay his ferocity, with their sprightliness to soothe his cares, and with their constant friendship to relieve all the troubles and disappointments which can happen to him. Seeing then that these are the blessings chiefly sought after and generally found in every wife, how must we lament that disposition in these lovely creatures which leads them to prefer in their favour those individuals of the other sex who do not seem intended by nature as so great a masterpiece! For surely, however useful they may be in the creation, as we are taught that nothing, not even a louse, is made in vain, yet these beaus, even that most splendid and honoured part which in this our island nature loves to distinguish in red, are not, as some think, the noblest work of the Creator. For my own part, let any man chuse to himself two beaus, let them be captains or colonels, as well-dressed men as ever lived, I would venture to oppose a single Sir Isaac Newton, a Shakespear, a Milton, or perhaps some few others, to both these beaus; nay, and I very much doubt whether it had not been better for the world in general that neither of these beaus had ever been born than that it should have wanted the benefit arising to it from the labour of any one of those persons. If this be true, how melancholy must be the consideration that any single beau, especially if he have but half a yard of ribbon in his hat, shall weigh heavier in the scale of female affection than twenty Sir Isaac Newtons!

Man has two windows to his mind : through one he can see his own self as it is; through the other, he can see what he ought to be. It is our task to analyse and explore the body, the brain and the mind of man separately; but if we stop here, we derive no benefit despite our scientific knowledge. It is necessary to know about the evil effects of injustice, wickedness, vanity and the like, and the disaster they spell where the three are found together. And mere knowledge is not enough, it should be followed by appropriate action. An ethical idea is like an architect's plan.

International trade seems to be the topic of the night, but there are a few differentiations—one talk is about the newest tax codes and how they can better benefit corporations. Snore. Another presents a variation on an old business model. It’s an original idea, but not practical. By the time the fifth student finishes, I’ve met my limit. I nudge Celia out of her reverie. “I’m ready to go,” I begin to say, but stop myself before I get the words out. The woman ascending the stairs to the stage has caught my eye, and all thoughts of leaving disappear. Something about the way she moves is captivating—the wiggle of her hips suggests an undercurrent of sexuality, and her back is straight with confidence. Then she turns toward the audience, and my breathe catches. Even here, twelve rows away, I can tell she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her dark brown hair falls just so around her face, accentuating sharp cheekbones. Her eyes are dark. Her short dress reveals long, lean legs. The modest cleavage of her outfit can’t hide perfectly plump tits. There’s something else—something about her carriage that makes me sit up and take notice. And she hasn’t even spoken yet.

Speak to me about power. What is it?” I do believe I’m being out-Cambridged. “You want me to discuss power? Right here and now?” Her shapely head tilts. “No time except the present.” “Okay.” Only for a ten. “Power is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn’t, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would.” Immaculée Constantin is unreadable. “How?” “By coercion and reward. Carrots and sticks, though in bad light one looks much like the other. Coercion is predicated upon the fear of violence or suffering. ‘Obey, or you’ll regret it.’ Tenth-century Danes exacted tribute by it; the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact rested upon it; and playground bullies rule by it. Law and order relies upon it. That’s why we bang up criminals and why even democracies seek to monopolize force.” Immaculée Constantin watches my face as I talk; it’s thrilling and distracting. “Reward works by promising ‘Obey and benefit.’ This dynamic is at work in, let’s say, the positioning of NATO bases in nonmember states, dog training, and putting up with a shitty job for your working life. How am I doing?” Security Goblin’s sneeze booms through the chapel. “You scratch the surface,” says Immaculée Constantin. I feel lust and annoyance. “Scratch deeper, then.” She brushes a tuft of fluff off her glove and appears to address her hand: “Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power’s comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral.” Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. “Power will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying. ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away.’ That thought sickens me, Hugo Lamb, like nothing else. Doesn’t it sicken you?

So should patients born under Libra and Gemini be deprived of treatment? You would say no, of course, and that would make you wiser than many in the medical profession: the CCSG trial found that aspirin was effective at preventing stroke and death in men, but not in women;30 as a result, women were undertreated for a decade, until further trials and overviews showed a benefit. That is just one of many subgroup analyses that have misled us in medicine, often incorrectly identifying subgroups of people who wouldn’t benefit from a treatment that was usually effective. So, for example, we thought the hormone-blocking drug tamoxifen was no good for treating breast cancer in women if they were younger than fifty (we were wrong). We thought clotbusting drugs were ineffective, or even harmful, when treating heart attacks in people who’d already had a heart attack (we were wrong). We thought drugs called ‘ACE inhibitors’ stopped reducing the death rate in heart failure patients if they were also on aspirin (we were wrong). Unusually, none of these findings was driven by financial avarice: they were driven by ambition, perhaps; excitement at new findings, certainly; ignorance of the risks of subgroup analysis; and, of course, chance.

There’s something purely foolish about attending any large gathering of men and women without benefit of some kind of philter or magic dust to blind you and weaken your critical faculties. I don’t mean to make a big deal out of sobriety, by the way. Of all the modes of human consciousness available to the modern consumer I consider it to be the most overrated. I stopped drinking not because I had a drinking problem, although I suppose I may have, but because alcohol had mysteriously become so poisonous to my body that one night half a bottle of George Dickel stopped my heart for almost twenty seconds (it turned out I was allergic to the stuff).

Some collaborative work is fine for introverts, even beneficial. But it should take place in small groups—pairs or threesomes—and be carefully structured so that each child knows her role. Roger Johnson, co-director of the Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota, says that shy or introverted kids benefit especially from well-managed small-group work because “they are usually very comfortable talking with one or two of their classmates to answer a question or complete a task, but would never think of raising their hand and addressing the whole class. It is very important that these students get a chance to translate their thoughts into language

JULY 9 STOP WORRYING LONG ENOUGH to hear My voice. I speak softly to you, in the depths of your being. Your mind shuttles back and forth, hither and yon, weaving webs of anxious confusion. As My thoughts rise up within you, they become entangled in those sticky webs of worry. Thus, My voice is muffled, and you hear only “white noise.” Ask My Spirit to quiet your mind so that you can think My thoughts. This ability is an awesome benefit of being My child, patterned after My own image. Do not be deafened by the noise of the world or that of your own thinking. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Sit quietly in My Presence, letting My thoughts reprogram your thinking.

One day, Matthew, the little boy with the brain tumor who had charmed the ward a few years back, was readmitted. His hypothalamus had, in fact, been slightly damaged during the operation to remove his tumor; the adorable eight-year-old was now a twelve-year-old monster. He never stopped eating; he threw violent fits. His mother’s arms were scarred with purple scratches. Eventually Matthew was institutionalized: he had become a demon, summoned by one millimeter of damage. For every surgery, a family and a surgeon decide together that the benefits outweigh the risks, but this was still heartbreaking. No one wanted to think about what Matthew would be like as a three-hundred-pound twenty-year-old.

He twirled her around a few more times before he said offhandedly, "Aren't you tired of fighting yet? I'm beginning to find it quite tedious m'self. I've even given you the benefit of the doubt-" "Don't do me any favor." He cocked his head to the side because she'd turned away to mumble that. "Are you challenging me to make you sweet and lovable again? I believe you are!" Her eyes flew back to his, but she could't do anything more than sputter over the absurdity. His pale eyes were twinkling, holding back laughter no doubt. What the devil as he doing! Je couldn't be serious.Yet he rubbed his cheek against hers right there on the dance floor! "What-" She should never have turned in toward that unexpected caress. Was she destined to bump lips with him by accident? She drew back instantly while she had the presence of mine to do so. But he didn't.In fact, he moved closer, his mouth actually persuing hers until there was nothing accidental about it! She stumbled as her sensed whirled. That just encouraged him to hold her closer and kiss her more deeply. She was fast approaching the point of not caring! Desperately, she tore her mouth away to gasp out, "You're going to cause a scandal!" "I do believe it would be worth it," he said softly by her ear. "But it's only a minor infraction and quite overlooked, since everyone here knows we're married." "No,they don't.I didn't have it announced." He stopped abruptly. Several other couples even bumped into them. "Why not?" She looked away from his frown, which make her feel distinctly uneasy. How to explain her earlier hesitancy without him seeing it for what it was, a full-blown panic? But he didn't wait for her answer. Suddenly he was leading her off the dance floor. He began a social circuit around the room, missing no one who wasn't currently dancing. From group to group he stopped to introduce Rebecca as his wife,the Marchioness of Rochwood. He did it curtly,as if here completing a task assigned to him, which gave her the odd feeling he was punishing her.She was mortified. Most of those people thought he was joking! They knew him.They knew his reputation. And he wasn't behaving the least bit normally.

Another person posted this to the group Hashimoto’s 411: I can’t do this any more, I am beside myself and can’t stop crying. Today, I received a disability denial letter from Social Security stating that my condition is not severe enough to qualify. . . . I don’t know what to do, I feel like I am no longer living but just existing and miserable because I feel so sick. My unemployment extended benefits are going to run out and then we’ll be in big trouble if we can’t pay our bills, which include lots of medical bills because I don’t have insurance. I just don’t want to be here any more, and think my husband would be better off not having to deal with me, and with my life insurance he would be much better off financially.

Peter Navarro never hid his antagonism toward me. He stopped me one day in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where we were tested routinely for COVID, and again blasted my failure to encourage people to take hydroxychloroquine, the lack of which he said was causing people to die. He would not let it go. Perhaps he just had a thing about me. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I arranged with Cliff Lane to have Navarro present via Zoom his case on hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness to the entire NIH guidelines panel cochaired by Cliff in early August. This group was thirty-five of the top experts in infectious disease, public health, and epidemiology from all over the country. Navarro made his presentation, and uniformly they politely said, “Mr. Navarro, there’s nothing there. These are anecdotes, and all the evidence indicates hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work and can even cause harm.” Navarro’s answer was that he valued his reading of the existing medical literature on hydroxychloroquine as much as or more than theirs. “If I am wrong, no one is harmed. If you are wrong, thousands of people die.” The truth was the exact opposite. By that time, the FDA, which had given hydroxychloroquine emergency approval early in the pandemic, had revoked it on June 15, after it was found to cause heart problems and even death, not to mention proving ineffective against COVID. I had given Navarro one last chance, but he still could not accept reality.

Most people today are not aware that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain helped restore Great Britain’s financial stability during the Great Depression and also passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits, pay pensions to retired workers, and otherwise help those hit hard by the slumping economy. But history does remember his failure to confront Hitler. That is Chamberlain’s enduring legacy. So too will Iran’s construction of nuclear weapons, if it manages to do so in the next few years, become President Barack Obama’s enduring legacy. Regardless of his passage of health care reform and regardless of whether he restores jobs and helps the economy recover, Mr. Obama will be remembered for allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Globalization in particular is a tide that is impossible for any ruler to order back. Many of a country’s problems are inherently global, including migration, pandemics, terrorism, cybercrime, nuclear proliferation, rogue states, and the environment. Pretending they don’t exist is not tenable forever, and they can be solved only through international cooperation. Nor can the benefits of globalization—more affordable goods, larger markets for exports, the reduction in global poverty—be denied indefinitely. And with the Internet and inexpensive travel, there will be no stopping the flow of people and ideas (especially, as we will see, among younger people). As for the battle against truth and fact, over the long run they have a built-in advantage: when you stop believing in them, they don’t go away.

Strangely, we have come to a moment in human history when the message of the Sermon on the Mount could indeed save us, but it can no longer be heard above the din of dueling doctrines. Consider this: there is not a single word in that sermon about what to believe, only words about what to do. It is a behavioral manifesto, not a propositional one. Yet three centuries later, when the Nicene Creed became the official oath of Christendom, there was not a single word in it about what to do, only words about what to believe! Thus the most important question we can ask in the church today concerns the object of faith itself. The earliest metaphors of the gospel speak of discipleship as transformation through an alternative community and the reversal of conventional wisdom. In much of the church today, our metaphors speak of individual salvation and the specific promises that accompany it. The first followers of Jesus trusted him enough to become instruments of radical change. Today, worshipers of Christ agree to believe things about him in order to receive benefits promised by the institution, not by Jesus. This difference, between following and worshiping, is not insignificant. Worshiping is an inherently passive activity, since it involves the adoration of that to which the worshiper cannot aspire. It takes the form of praise, which can be both sentimental and self-satisfying, without any call to changed behavior or self-sacrifice. In fact, Christianity as a belief system requires nothing but acquiescence. Christianity as a way of life, as a path to follow, requires a second birth, the conquest of ego, and new eyes with which to see the world. It is no wonder that we have preferred to be saved.

Growling softly, Peril opened her mouth again. The next two pieces sailed straight past her head, but the third finally splatted between her teeth, and she snapped her jaws shut around it. It felt like a cold slimy frog had just leaped into her mouth. She chewed for a moment, as long as she could bear it, and then swallowed fast. “No,” she said. “Definitely no. Horrifying amounts of no. That was one hundred percent disgusting.” Turtle laughed. “You’re so wrong,” he said. “It’s awesome. That’s how fish should be eaten.” “Blergh,” Peril said strongly. She hopped to the next boulder, heading for the shore. “I’m going to find something that is the opposite of fish, scorch it, and then coat my tongue with char to get that taste out of my mouth. YUUUCK. You are the worst. I would be so justified in setting you on fire while you’re asleep tonight.” “Duly noted,” Turtle said serenely. “Did I mention I’ll be sleeping at the bottom of the river? You know, if you’re looking for me.” He grinned at her. Peril paused on the riverbank, squinting at him. She had been joking, of course. There were a number of excellent reasons not to set Turtle on fire, which outweighed any potential benefits to doing so. But it unsettled her for a moment to realize that by sleeping in the river — even by standing in the river right now — he could foil any plan she did make, if she ever needed to burn him up. Not that I would. Probably. I most likely would never need to. And I wouldn’t want to, of course, that, too. But she’d never run into a situation where someone could stop her like that, apart from Clay. Maybe I did have an unfair advantage fighting SeaWings in the arena. If I were fighting them in their own part of the world —

In his 1966 book, Tragedy and Hope, Professor Carroll Quigley said: [T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.1 Their scheme is close to fulfillment unless public outrage stops them. They plan global control of money, credit and debt to be able to dominate economies, politics, commerce, and military adventures, so that these might be conducted in a way that benefits them advantageously. In fact, the power to create money can build or destroy nations. In private hands, it goes to the root of today’s problems.

You’re as beautiful as you were the night we made our son,” she whispered, bending to kiss him tenderly. His fingers traced her dark eyebrows, her cheeks, her mouth. “I wish we could have another baby,” he said heavily. “So do I. But I’m too old,” she said sadly. She lay her cheek against his broad, damp chest and stroked the silver-tipped hair that covered it. “We’ll have to hope for grandchildren, if he ever forgives us.” He held her tightly, as if by holding her he could keep her safe. What he felt for her was ferociously protective. She misunderstood the tightening of his arms. She smiled and sighed. “We can’t, again. Cecily will think we’ve deserted her.” His hand smoothed her long hair. “She probably knows exactly what we’re doing,” he said on a chuckle. “She loves you.” “She likes you. Maybe we could adopt her.” “Better if our son marries her.” She grinned. “We can hope.” She sat up and stretched, liking the way he watched her still-firm breasts. “The last time I felt like this was thirty-six years ago,” she confided. “The same is true for me,” he replied. She searched his eyes, already facing her departure. She would have to go back to the reservation, home. He could still read her better than she knew. He drew her hand to his mouth. “It’s too late, but I want to marry you. This week. As soon as possible.” She was surprised. She didn’t know what to say. “I love you,” he said. “I never stopped. Forgive me and say yes.” She considered the enormity of what she would be agreeing to do. Be his hostess. Meet his friends. Go to fund-raising events. Wear fancy clothes. Act sophisticated. “Your life is so different from mine,” she began. “Don’t you start,” he murmured. “I’ve seen what it did to Cecily when Tate used that same argument with her about all the differences. It won’t work with me. We love each other too much to worry about trivial things. Say yes. We’ll work out all the details later.” “There will be parties, benefits…” He pulled her down into his arms and kissed her tenderly. “I don’t know much about etiquette,” she tried again. He rolled her over, pinning her gently. One long leg inserted itself between both of hers as he kissed her. “Oh, what the hell,” she murmured, and wrapped her legs around his, groaning as the joints protested. “Arthritis?” he asked. “Osteoarthritis.” “Me, too.” He shifted, groaning a little himself as he eased down. “We’ll work on new positions one day. But it’s…too late…now. Leta…!” he gasped. She didn’t have enough breath to answer him. He didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t. Bad joints notwithstanding, they managed to do quite a few things that weren’t recommended for people their ages. And some that weren’t in the book at all.

1:145-146 NO SURE SENSE Say: No one knows the unseen except God (27:65). With that text I put this question: How do you feel about doing work that brings no benefit to you or anyone? Aren't you always aware of a destination when you walk out your door? Do you ever walk out, look around in all directions, then go back into your house and sit there with no purpose, for no reason? You often plan work without knowing what will come of it. You plant seeds with no guarantee they will sprout. You enter into a business deal with no sure sense it will make profit. Many do not reach the point they move toward, but that doesn't man they stop trying. Certainty comes only with work we do in the invisible, but we cannot know that. Journeys taken and seeds planted there never disappoint. The saints and hermits and prophets might be able to give us some of their confidence if we could work along with them.

As negroes moved from unionism toward political action, white labor in the North not only moved in the opposite direction from political action to union organization, but also evolved the American Blindspot for the Negro and his problems. It lost interest and vital touch with Southern labor and acted as though the millions of laborers in the South did not exist. Thus labor went into the great war of 1877 against Northern capitalists unsupported by the black man, and the black man went his way in the South to strengthen and consolidate his power, unsupported by Northern labor. Suppose for a moment that Northern labor had stopped the bargain of 1876 and maintained the power of the labor vote in the South; and suppose that the Negro with new and dawning consciousness of the demands of labor as differentiated from the demands of capitalists, had used his vote more specifically for the benefit of white labor, South and North?

Your butler informed me you were here. I thought-that is, I wondered how things were going.” “And since my butler didn’t know,” Ian concluded with amused irritation, “you decided to call on Elizabeth and see if you could discover for yourself?” “Something like that,” the vicar said calmly. “Elizabeth regards me as a friend, I think. And so I planned to call on her and, if you weren’t here, to put in a good word for you.” “Only one?” Ian said mildly. The vicar did not back down; he rarely did, particularly in matters of morality or justice. “Given your treatment of her, I was hard pressed to think of one. How did matters turn out with your grandfather?” “Well enough,” Ina said, his mind on meeting with Elizabeth. “He’s here in London.” “And?” “And,” Ian said sardonically, “you may now address me as ‘my lord.’” “I’ve come here,” Duncan persisted implacably, “to address you as ‘the bridegroom.’” A flash of annoyance crossed Ian’s tanned features. “You never stop pressing, do you? I’ve managed my own life for thirty years, Duncan. I think I can do it now.” Duncan had the grace to look slightly abashed. “You’re right, of course. Shall I leave?” Ian considered the benefits of Duncan’s soothing presence and reluctantly shook his head. “No. In fact, since you’re here,” he continued as they neared the top step, “you may as well be the one to announce us to the butler. I can’t get past him.” Duncan lifted the knocker while bestowing a mocking glance on Ian. “You can’t get past the butler, and you think you’re managing very well without me?” Declining to rise to that bait, Ian remained silent. The door opened a moment later, and the butler looked politely from Duncan, who began to give his name, to Ian. To Duncan’s startled disbelief, the door came crashing forward in his face. An instant before it banged into its frame Ian twisted, slamming his shoulder into it and sending the butler flying backward into the hall and ricocheting off the wall. In a low, savage voice he said, “Tell your mistress I’m here, or I’ll find her myself and tell her.” With a glance of furious outrage the older man considered Ian’s superior size and powerful frame, then turned and started reluctantly for a room ahead and to the left, where muted voices could be heard. Duncan eyed Ian with one gray eyebrow lifted and said sardonically, “Very clever of you to ingratiate yourself so well with Elizabeth’s servants.” The group in the drawing room reacted with diverse emotions to Bentner’s announcement that “Thornton is here and forced his way into the house.” The dowager duchess looked fascinated, Julius looked both relived and dismayed, Alexandra looked wary, and Elizabeth, who was still preoccupied with her uncle’s unstated purpose for his visit, looked nonplussed. Only Lucinda showed no expression at all, but she laid her needlework aside and lifted her face attentively toward the doorway.

KEY TAKEAWAYS – Sharpening Your Creative Mind PRACTICE UNNECESSARY CREATION Use personal creative projects to explore new obsessions, skills, or ways of working in a low-pressure environment. WANDER LONELY AS A CLOUD Make time for your mind—and body—to wander when you’re stuck. Disengaging from the problem allows your subconscious to do its work. DEFINE “FINISHED” FROM THE START Keep your inner perfectionist in check by defining what finished looks like at the beginning of a project. And when you get there, stop! DON’T GO ON AUTOPILOT Repetition is the enemy of insight. Take unorthodox—even wacky—approaches to solving your stickiest problems and see what happens. SEARCH FOR THE SOURCE When the well runs dry, don’t blame a lack of talent. Creative blocks frequently piggyback on other problems. See if you can identify them. LOVE YOUR LIMITATIONS Look at constraints as a benefit, rather than an impediment. They activate our creative thinking by upping the ante.

The next day, as they walked, a stranger rode up, matching the Georgia-man’s pace. “Niggers for sale?” He wanted to buy two women. The two men negotiated, argued, and insulted each other a little. The new man stared at the women and told them what he thought he’d do with them. The coffle kept moving. The white men rode along, bargaining. Maybe the deal could be sweetened, allowed the Georgia-man, if the South Carolinian paid to have the chains knocked off the men. One thousand dollars for the two, plus blacksmith fees. They stopped at a forge, and they kept arguing. The new man stated for everyone’s benefit that he had worked African men to death in iron collars. The blacksmith came out, and he asked what “the two gentlemen were making such a frolick about,” Ball later said. Frolicking: Down there, Ball realized, the Carolinians’ play, the time when they were most fully themselves, was evidently when they were arguing, negotiating, dealing, and intimidating the enslaved.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life, therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant, and successful person.

one result of Napoleon’s destruction was a great increase in British power. For a century after Waterloo Britain enjoyed global pre-eminence at a historically small price in blood and treasure. Russian pride and interests sometimes suffered from this, most obviously in the Crimean War. In the long run, too, British power meant the global hegemony of liberal-democratic principles fatal to any version of Russian empire. But this is to look way into the future: in 1815 Wellington and Castlereagh disliked democracy at least as much as Alexander I did. Under no circumstances could Russian policy in the Napoleonic era have stopped Britain’s Industrial Revolution, or its effects on British power. Moreover, in the century after 1815 Russia grew greatly in wealth and population, benefiting hugely from integration into the global capitalist economy whose main bulwark was Britain. In the nineteenth as in the twentieth century Russia had much less to fear from Britain than from land-powers intent on dominating the European continent.

Another surprising consequence of kin solidarity is that the family is a subversive organization. That conclusion flies in the face of the right-wing view that the church and the state have always been steadfast upholders of the family and of the left-wing view that the family is a bourgeois, patriarchal institution designed to suppress women, weaken class solidarity, and manufacture docile consumers. The jounalist Ferdinand Mount has documented how ever political and religious movement in history has sought to undermine the family. The reasons are obvious. Not only is the family a rival coalition competing for a person’s loyalties, but it is a rival with an unfair advantage: relatives innately care for one another more than comrades do. They bestow nepotistic benefits, forgive the daily frictions that strain other organizations, and stop at nothing to avenge wrongs against a member. Leninism, Nazism, and other totalitarian ideologies always demand a new loyalty “higher” than, and contrary to, family ties. So have religions from early Christianity to the Moonies

We could have dramatically reduced COVID fatalities and hospitalizations using early treatment protocols and repurposed drugs including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and many, many others.” Dr. McCullough has treated some 2,000 COVID patients with these therapies. McCullough points out that hundreds of peer-reviewed studies now show that early treatment could have averted some 80 percent of deaths attributed to COVID. “The strategy from the outset should have been implementing protocols to stop hospitalizations through early treatment of Americans who tested positive for COVID but were still asymptomatic. If we had done that, we could have pushed case fatality rates below those we see with seasonal flu, and ended the bottlenecks in our hospitals. We should have rapidly deployed off-the-shelf medications with proven safety records and subjected them to rigorous risk/benefit decision-making,” McCullough continues. “Using repurposed drugs, we could have ended this pandemic by May 2020 and saved 500,000 American lives, but for Dr. Fauci’s hard-headed, tunnel vision on new vaccines and remdesivir.

McCullough observes that, “We could have dramatically reduced COVID fatalities and hospitalizations using early treatment protocols and repurposed drugs including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and many, many others.” Dr. McCullough has treated some 2,000 COVID patients with these therapies. McCullough points out that hundreds of peer-reviewed studies now show that early treatment could have averted some 80 percent of deaths attributed to COVID. “The strategy from the outset should have been implementing protocols to stop hospitalizations through early treatment of Americans who tested positive for COVID but were still asymptomatic. If we had done that, we could have pushed case fatality rates below those we see with seasonal flu, and ended the bottlenecks in our hospitals. We should have rapidly deployed off-the-shelf medications with proven safety records and subjected them to rigorous risk/benefit decision-making,” McCullough continues. “Using repurposed drugs, we could have ended this pandemic by May 2020 and saved 500,000 American lives, but for Dr. Fauci’s hard-headed, tunnel vision on new vaccines and remdesivir.

This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.” She regarded him where he lay. “Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.” She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back. “You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him. “The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.” “You would drift off while I’m confiding?” “I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.” “I am unused to this friendly napping.” “You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?” “We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.” But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back. “Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly. “Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day. God

Statement on Hamas (October 10th, 2023) When Israel strikes, it's "national security" - when Palestine strikes back, it's "terrorism". Just like over two hundred years ago when native americans resisted their homeland being stolen, it was called "Indian Attack". Or like over a hundred years ago when Indian soldiers in the British Army revolted against the empire, in defense of their homeland, it was called "Sepoy Mutiny". The narrative never changes - when the colonizer terrorizes the world, it's given glorious sounding names like "exploration" and "conquest", but if the oppressed so much as utters a word in resistance, it is branded as attack, mutiny and terrorism - so that, the real terrorists can keep on colonizing as the self-appointed ruler of land, life and morality, without ever being held accountable for violating the rights of what they deem second rate lifeforms, such as the arabs, indians, latinos and so on. After all this, some apes will still only be interested in one stupid question. Do I support Hamas? To which I say this. Until you've spent a lifetime under an oppressive regime, you are not qualified to ask that question. An ape can ask anything its puny brain fancies, but it's up to the human to decide whether the ape is worthy of a response. What do you think, by the way - colonizers can just keep coming as they please, to wipe their filthy feet on us like doormat, and we should do nothing - just stay quiet! For creatures who call themselves civilized, you guys have a weird sense of morality. Yet all these might not get through your thick binary skull, so let me put it to you bluntly. I don't stand with Hamas, I am Hamas, just like, I don't stand with Ukraine, I am Ukraine. Russia stops fighting, war ends - Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. Israel ends invasion, war ends - Palestine ends resistance, Palestine ends. However, I do have one problem here. Why do civilians have to die, if that is indeed the case - which I have no way of confirming, because news reports are not like reputed scientific data, that a scientist can naively trust. During humankind's gravest conflicts news outlets have always peddled a narrative benefiting the occupier and demonizing the resistance, either consciously or subconsciously. So never go by news reports, particularly on exception circumstances like this. No matter the cause, no civilian must die, that is my one unimpeachable law. But the hard and horrific fact of the matter is, only the occupier can put an end to the death and destruction peacefully - the resistance does not have that luxury.

Look, you and I are in the same boat,” he said softly. “We’re loners in the crew. Unlike Bailey, we don’t want to hook-up for good. We just want to let off some steam. We could be friends with benefits.” “Fuck buddies, huh?” “I like your term better,” Vaughn said, giving a flash of anger at the men still eyeing us. “I might need to leave you, so I can kick their asses.” “I think I can manage without you.” “Was that a masturbation hint?” “No, but you bring up a very good point. I could blow off steam on my own.” Vaughn finished his beer then smiled. “I’ll give you oral. No vibrator in the world can say the same.” Holding his gaze, I was silent until finishing my beer. Finally, I gave Vaughn a smile and nodded. “One night of empty awesome sex. Tomorrow, we act like acquaintances, not even friends. I want to be someone you barely remember exists.” “No problem, gingersnap. Do you like Harleys? Mine really likes snuggling between a hot girl’s thighs.” “Stop while you’re ahead.” Standing up, Vaughn held out a hand. I ignored his gesture and stood up on my own. When I noticed the two guys still watching us, I flipped them off before taking Vaughn’s arm. “Like they ever had a chance,” I muttered and Vaughn’s smile grew. “Takes a special man to talk a girl out of abstinence.” “Whatever you need to tell yourself.

the world needs the US administration to be a leader for women’s rights, not an opponent of them. The administration’s new policies are not trying to help women meet their needs. There isn’t any reliable research that says women benefit when they have children they don’t feel ready to raise. The evidence says the opposite. When women can decide whether and when to have children, it saves lives, promotes health, expands education, and creates prosperity—no matter what country in the world you’re talking about. The US is doing the opposite of what the Philippines and the UK did. It is using policy to shrink the conversation, suppress voices, and allow the powerful to impose their will on the poor. Most of the work I do lifts me up, some of it breaks my heart, but this just makes me angry. These policies pick on poor women. Mothers struggling in poverty need the time, money, and energy to take care of each child. They need to be able to delay their pregnancies, time and space their births, and earn an income as they raise their children. Each one of these steps is advanced by contraceptives, and each one is jeopardized by these policies. Women who are well off won’t be harmed, and women with a stable income have options. But poor women are trapped. They will suffer the most from these changes and can do the least to stop them.

Some studies have already shown that diversity courses, in which members of dominant groups are told that racism is everywhere and that they themselves perpetuate it, have resulted in increased hostility towards marginalized groups.65 It is bad psychology to tell people who do not believe that they are racist—who may even actively despise racism—that there is nothing they can do to stop themselves from being racist—and then ask them to help you. It is even less helpful to tell them that even their own good intentions are proof of their latent racism. Worst of all is to set up double-binds, like telling them that if they notice race it is because they are racist, but if they don’t notice race it’s because their privilege affords them the luxury of not noticing race, which is racist. Finally, by focusing so intently on race and by objecting to “color blindness”—the refusal to attach social significance to race—critical race Theory threatens to undo the social taboo against evaluating people by their race. Such an obsessive focus on race, combined with a critique of liberal universalism and individuality (which Theory sees as largely a myth that benefits white people and perpetuates the status quo), is not likely to end well—neither for minority groups nor for social cohesion more broadly. Such attitudes tear at the fabric that holds contemporary societies together.

And so, when I tell stories today about digital transformation and organizational agility and customer centricity, I use a vocabulary that is very consistent and very refined. It is one of the tools I have available to tell my story effectively. I talk about assumptions. I talk about hypotheses. I talk about outcomes as a measure of customer success. I talk about outcomes as a measurable change in customer behavior. I talk about outcomes over outputs, experimentation, continuous learning, and ship, sense, and respond. The more you tell your story, the more you can refine your language into your trademark or brand—what you’re most known for. For example, baseball great Yogi Berra was famous for his Yogi-isms—sayings like “You can observe a lot by watching” and “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s not just a hook or catchphrase, it helps tell the story as well. For Lean Startup, a best-selling book on corporate innovation written by Eric Ries, the words were “build,” “measure,” “learn.” Jeff Patton, a colleague of mine, uses the phrase “the differences that make a difference.” And he talks about bets as a way of testing confidence levels. He’ll ask, “What will you bet me that your idea is good? Will you bet me lunch? A day’s pay? Your 401(k)?” These words are not only their vocabulary. They are their brand. That’s one of the benefits of storytelling and telling those stories continuously. As you refine your language, the people who are beginning to pay attention to you start adopting that language, and then that becomes your thing.

My kingdom isn’t the sort that grows in this world,’ replied Jesus. ‘If my kingdom were from this world, my supporters would have fought, to stop me being handed over to the Judaeans. So then, my kingdom is not the sort that comes from here.’ (John 18:36) This translation captures something that many commentators gloss over. Yes, Jesus’ kingdom is not like the kingdoms of this world. It doesn’t originate the same way or behave like the kingdoms of this world. But Jesus’ kingdom is still for this world, for the benefit and blessing of this world, for the redemption and rescue of this world. If Jesus were an earthly king of this age, then there would be soldiers killing to bring about his kingdom, just as they do for every other earthly kingdom: victory through violence. Yet that’s not how Jesus’ kingdom will come. The kingdom will come rather through the imperial violence done to him on the cross and through the anti-imperial, death-reversing, justice-loving power of resurrection. Then the kingdom spreads, not through conquest, but through the spirit’s life-giving and liberating power being experienced by more and more people and through their life-giving contributions to the world. At the heart of John’s kingdom-theology is God’s love revealed in the death of his Son, the Lamb, the Messiah. This is conquest, but by love. This is power, but in weakness. This is kingship, but in self-giving suffering for others. This kingdom is not one that arises from within the world. But as it advances, as it spreads, it dispels and displaces the dark forces in the world.24

Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned

Evie.” She glanced at Sebastian. Whatever she saw in his face caused her to walk around the bed to him. “Yes,” she said with a concerned frown. “Dearest, this is going to help you—” “No.” It would kill him. It was difficult enough already to fight the fever and the pain. If he was further weakened by a long bloodletting he wouldn’t be able to hold on any longer. Frantically Sebastian tugged at his tautly stretched arm, but the binding held fast and the chair didn’t even wobble. Bloody hell. He stared up at his wife wretchedly, battling a wave of light-headedness. “No,” he rasped. “Don’t…let him…” “Darling,” Evie whispered, bending over to kiss his shaking mouth. Her eyes were suddenly shiny with unshed tears. “This may be your best chance—your only chance—” “I’ll die. Evie…” Rising fear caused blackness to streak across his vision, but he forced his eyes to stay open. Her face became a blur. “I’ll die,” he whispered again. “Lady St. Vincent,” came Dr. Hammond’s steady, kind voice, “your husband’s anxiety is quite understandable. However, his judgment is impaired by illness. At this time, you are the one who is best able to make decisions for his benefit. I would not recommend this procedure if I did not believe in its efficacy. You must allow me to proceed. I doubt Lord St. Vincent will even remember this conversation.” Sebastian closed his eyes and let out a groan of despair. If only Hammond were some obvious lunatic with a maniacal laugh…someone Evie would instinctively mistrust. But Hammond was a respectable man, with all the conviction of someone who believed he was doing the right thing. The executioner, it seemed, could come in many guises. Evie was his only hope, his only champion. Sebastian would never have believed it would come to this…his life depending on the decision of an unworldly young woman who would probably allow herself to be persuaded by the Hammond’s authority. There was no one else for Sebastian to appeal to. He felt her gentle fingers at the side of his fevered face, and he stared up at her pleadingly, unable to form a word. Oh God, Evie, don’t let him— “All right,” Evie said softly, staring at him. Sebastian’s heart stopped as he thought she was speaking to the doctor…giving permission to bleed him. But she moved to the chair and deftly untied Sebastian’s wrist, and began to massage the reddened skin with her fingertips. She stammered a little as she spoke. “Dr. H-Hammond…Lord St. Vincent does not w-want the procedure. I must defer to his wishes.” To Sebastian’s eternal humiliation, his breath caught in a shallow sob of relief. “My lady,” Hammond countered with grave anxiety, “I beg you to reconsider. Your deference to the wishes of a man who is out of his head with fever may prove to be the death of him. Let me help him. You must trust my judgment, as I have infinitely more experience in such matters.” Evie sat carefully on the side of the bed and rested Sebastian’s hand in her lap. “I do respect your j-j—” She stopped and shook her head impatiently at the sound of her own stammer. “My husband has the right to make the decision for himself.” Sebastian curled his fingers into the folds of her skirts. The stammer was a clear sign of her inner anxiety, but she would not yield. She would stand by him. He sighed unsteadily and relaxed, feeling as if his tarnished soul had been delivered into her keeping.

Disparity, Education and Economy Every dollar spent on luxury is a dollar of disparity. Citizens of earth could force big tech to pay their employees fair wages tomorrow, if they just stop buying their fancy, overpriced products and go for humbler alternatives unless the companies bring down their disparities in salary. The CEO may enjoy certain benefits of their position, but not until those working at the bottom can afford the fundamentals of life for their family. I'll say it to you plainly. An employee wronged is a company wronged. You see, trying to build a disparity-free economy pursuing revenue is like trying to achieve pregnancy through vasectomy. So long as greed drives the economy, it's not economy, but catastrophe. So long as greed drives the industries, it's not industrialization, it is vandalization. Ambition to climb the ladder of status so that you could be on the affluent side of disparity, is no ambition of a civilized human, it's the ambition of a caveman. So, before you pursue an ambition in life, educate yourself on a civilized definition of ambition. Yet the situation in our world is so pathetic that that's exactly the kind of ambition educational institutes sell. Schools and universities don't teach you to build a civilized society free from disparity, they teach you clever tactics to be on the affluent side of disparity. This is not education, this is castration. Concern for the society should be the bedrock of education - collective welfare should be the bedrock of economy - if not, we might as well start living as hobos on the streets, because with greed as the driving principle of education and economy, sooner or later all of us will end up on the streets.

Like all disappearing forms, art seeks to duplicate itself by means of simulation, but it will nevertheless soon be gone, leaving behind an immense museum of artificial art and abandoning the field completely to advertising. A dizzying eclecticism of form, a dizzying eclecticism of pleasure - such, already, was the agenda of the baroque. For the baroque, however, the vortex of artifice has a fleshly aspect. Like the practitioners of the baroque, we too are irrepressible creators of images, but secretly we are iconoclasts - not in the sense that we destroy images, but in the sense that we manufacture a profusion of images in which there is nothing to see. Most present-day images - be they video images, paintings, products of the plastic arts, or audiovisual or synthesized images - are literally images in which there is nothing to see. They leave no trace, cast no shadow, and have no consequences. The only feeling one gets from such images is that behind each one there is something that has disappeared. The fascination of a monochromatic picture is the marvellous absence of form - the erasure, though still in the form of art, of all aesthetic syntax. Similarly, the fascination of trans sexuality is the erasure - though in the form of spectacle - of sexual difference. These are images that conceal nothing, that reveal nothing - that have a kind of negative intensity. The only benefit of a Campbell's soup can by Andy Warhol (and it is an immense benefit) is that it releases us from the need to decide between beautiful and ugly, between real and unreal, between transcendence and immanence. Just as Byzantine icons made it possible to stop asking whether God existed - without, for all that, ceasing to believe in him.

When examining the history of any human network, it is therefore advisable to stop from time to time and look at things from the perspective of some real entity. How do you know if an entity is real? Very simple – just ask yourself, ‘Can it suffer?’ When people burn down the temple of Zeus, Zeus doesn’t suffer. When the euro loses its value, the euro doesn’t suffer. When a bank goes bankrupt, the bank doesn’t suffer. When a country suffers a defeat in war, the country doesn’t really suffer. It’s just a metaphor. In contrast, when a soldier is wounded in battle, he really does suffer. When a famished peasant has nothing to eat, she suffers. When a cow is separated from her newborn calf, she suffers. This is reality. Of course suffering might well be caused by our belief in fictions. For example, belief in national and religious myths might cause the outbreak of war, in which millions lose their homes, their limbs and even their lives. The cause of war is fictional, but the suffering is 100 per cent real. This is exactly why we should strive to distinguish fiction from reality. Fiction isn’t bad. It is vital. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can function. We can’t play football unless everyone believes in the same made-up rules, and we can’t enjoy the benefits of markets and courts without similar make-believe stories. But the stories are just tools. They should not become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality. Then we begin entire wars ‘to make a lot of money for the corporation’ or ‘to protect the national interest’. Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; how come we find ourselves sacrificing our lives in their service?

1. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life. Therefore I demand of myself persistent, continuous action towards its attainment, and I here and now promise to take such action. 2. I realise the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action and gradually transform themselves into physical reality. Therefore I will concentrate my thoughts for 30 minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. 3. I know through the principle of autosuggestion that any desire I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object. Therefore I will devote 10 minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of self-confidence . 4. I have clearly written down a description of my Definite Chief Aim in life. I will never stop trying until I have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. 5. I fully realise that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice. Therefore I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism by developing love for all humanity because I know that a negative attitude towards others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory and repeat it aloud once a day, with full faith that it will gradually influence my thoughts and actions so that I will become a self-reliant and successful person.

Isn't there something in Genesis about not looking back? A stupid glance over my shoulder showed her expression relaxing, glad I wasn't taking anything that couldn't be replaced and glad I didn't destroy anything that couldn't be repaired. "Do you care for me, Georgia?" I asked her. "Tell me you don't and I'm out of your life forever." She stood in the driveway with her arms wrapped around herself like she was freezing. "Andre is on his way." "I didn't ask you about no Andre." "He'll be here in a minute." My head hurt, but I pressed her. "It's a yes-or-no question." "Can we talk when Andre gets back? We can-" "Stop talking about him. I want to know if you love me." "Andre…" She said his name one time too many. For what happened next, she would have to take some of the blame. I asked her a simple question and she refused to give me a simple answer. I turned from her and made a sharp left turn, pounding across the yard, feeling the dry grass crunch under my shoes. Six long strides put me at the base of the massive tree. I touched the rough bark, an instant of reflection, to give Old Hickey the benefit of the doubt. But in reality, a hickory tree was a useless hunk of wood. Tall, and that's all. To break the shell of a hickory nut, you needed a hammer and an act of Congress, and even then you needed a screwdriver to get at the meat, which was about as tasty as a clod of limestone. Nobody would ever mourn a hickory tree except Celestial, and maybe Andre. When I was a boy, so little I couldn't manage much more than a George Washington hatcher, Big Roy taught me how to take down a tree. Bend your knees, swing hard and low, follow up with a straight chop. Celestial was crying like the baby we never had, yelping and mewing with every swing. Believe me when I say that I didn't slow my pace, even though my shoulders burned and my arms strained and quivered. With every blow, wedges of fresh wood flew from the wounded trunk peppering my face with hot bites. "Speak up, Georgia," I shouted, hacking at the thick grey bark, experiencing pleasure and power with each stroke. "I asked you if you loved me.

The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha — and now see: these 'times to come' are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it. — These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.

Ironically,” she commented, “this will be the first time I’ve ever done anything to please my father.” With a sympathetic murmur, Matthew gathered Daisy close against him. He knew her father as well as anyone, having become well acquainted with the man’s tempers, his self-absorption, his impossible standards. And yet he understood what it had required for Bowman to build a great fortune from scratch, the sacrifices he’d had to make. Bowman had discarded everything that would have gotten in the way of achieving his goals. Including closeness with his wife and children. For the first time it occurred to Matthew that Bowman and his family would benefit from someone acting as a mediator, to ease their communications with each other. If such a thing were in his power, he would find a way to do it. “You,” he whispered in Daisy’s hair, “are the best thing he’s ever done. Someday he’ll realize that.” He felt her smile against his skin. “I doubt it. But it’s nice of you to say so. You don’t have to be concerned on that account, you know. I reconciled myself to the way he was a long time ago.” Once again Matthew was taken unaware by the extent of the feelings she inspired in him, his own limitless desire to fill her with happiness. “Whatever you need,” he whispered, “Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you. Just tell me.” Daisy stretched comfortably, a pleasant shiver running through her limbs. She touched his lips with her fingers, tracing the smoothness. “I want to know what your five-dollar wish was for.” “Is that all?” He smiled beneath her exploring fingertips. “I wished you would find someone who wanted you as much as I did. But I knew it wouldn’t come true.” The candlelight slid over Daisy’s delicate features as she raised her head to look at him. “Why not?” “Because I knew no one could ever want you as much as I do.” Daisy levered herself farther over him until her hair tumbled in a dark curtain around them both. “What was your wish?” Matthew asked, combing his fingers through the fall of shimmering hair. “That I could find the right man to marry.” Her tender smile stopped his heart. “And then you appeared.

Listen well, my dear, listen well! The sinner, which I am and which you are, is a sinner, but in times to come he will be Brahma again, he will reach the Nirvana, will be Buddha—and now see: these "times to come" are a deception, are only a parable! The sinner is not on his way to become a Buddha, he is not in the process of developing, though our capacity for thinking does not know how else to picture these things. No, within the sinner is now and today already the future Buddha, his future is already all there, you have to worship in him, in you, in everyone the Buddha which is coming into being, the possible, the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect, or on a slow path towards perfection: no, it is perfect in every moment, all sin already carries the divine forgiveness in itself, all small children already have the old person in themselves, all infants already have death, all dying people the eternal life. It is not possible for any person to see how far another one has already progressed on his path; in the robber and dice-gambler, the Buddha is waiting; in the Brahman, the robber is waiting. In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, I see whatever exists as good, death is to me like life, sin like holiness, wisdom like foolishness, everything has to be as it is, everything only requires my consent, only my willingness, my loving agreement, to be good for me, to do nothing but work for my benefit, to be unable to ever harm me. I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life; therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality; therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for 30 minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know that through the principle of autosuggestion any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it; therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment.4 Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism by developing love for all humanity—because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself. Sixth. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant and successful person. Back of this formula is a law of Nature which no one has yet been able to explain. It has baffled the scientists of all ages. The psychologists have named this the “Law of Autosuggestion” and let it go at that.

But it is also true that a society of equal opportunity, without a top 1 percent hoarding the wealth and power, would actually benefit the vast majority of White people much more than racism does. It is not coincidental that slavery kept the vast majority of southern Whites poor. It is not coincidental that more White Americans thrived during the antiracist movements from the 1930s to the early 1970s than ever before or since. It is not coincidental that the racist movements that followed in the late twentieth century paralleled the stagnation or reduction of middle-and low-income Whites’ salaries and their skyrocketing costs of living. Antiracists should stop connecting selfishness to racism, and unselfishness to antiracism. Altruism is wanted, not required. Antiracists do not have to be altruistic. Antiracists do not have to be selfless. Antiracists merely have to have intelligent self-interest, and to stop consuming those racist ideas that have engendered so much unintelligent self-interest over the years. It is in the intelligent self-interest of middle-and upper-income Blacks to challenge the racism affecting the Black poor, knowing they will not be free of the racism that is slowing their socioeconomic rise until poor Blacks are free of racism. It is in the intelligent self-interest of Asians, Native Americans, and Latina/ os to challenge anti-Black racism, knowing they will not be free of racism until Black people are free of racism. It is in the intelligent self-interest of White Americans to challenge racism, knowing they will not be free of sexism, class bias, homophobia, and ethnocentrism until Black people are free of racism. The histories of anti-Asian, anti-Native, and anti-Latina/ o racist ideas; the histories of sexist, elitist, homophobic, and ethnocentric ideas: all sound eerily similar to this history of racist ideas, and feature some of the same defenders of bigotry in America. Supporting these prevailing bigotries is only in the intelligent self-interest of a tiny group of super rich, Protestant, heterosexual, non-immigrant, White, Anglo-Saxon males. Those are the only people who need to be altruistic in order to be antiracist. The rest of us merely need to do the intelligent thing for ourselves.

However we decide to apportion the credit for our improved life spans, the bottom line is that nearly all of us are better able today to resist the contagions and afflictions that commonly sickened our great-grandparents, while having massively better medical care to call on when we need it. In short, we have never had it so good. Or at least we have never had it so good if we are reasonably well-off. If there is one thing that should alarm and concern us today, it is how unequally the benefits of the last century have been shared. British life expectancies might have soared overall, but as John Lanchester noted in an essay in the London Review of Books in 2017, males in the East End of Glasgow today have a life expectancy of just fifty-four years—nine years less than a man in India. In exactly the same way, a thirty-year-old black male in Harlem, New York, is at much greater risk of dying than a thirty-year-old male Bangladeshi from stroke, heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. Climb aboard a bus or subway train in almost any large city in the Western world and you can experience similar vast disparities with a short journey. In Paris, travel five stops on the Metro’s B line from Port-Royal to La Plaine—Stade de France and you will find yourself among people who have an 82 percent greater chance of dying in a given year than those just down the line. In London, life expectancy drops reliably by one year for every two stops traveled eastward from Westminster on the District Line of the Underground. In St. Louis, Missouri, make a twenty-minute drive from prosperous Clayton to the inner-city Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood and life expectancy drops by one year for every minute of the journey, a little over two years for every mile. Two things can be said with confidence about life expectancy in the world today. One is that it is really helpful to be rich. If you are middle-aged, exceptionally well-off, and from almost any high-income nation, the chances are excellent that you will live into your late eighties. Someone who is otherwise identical to you but poor—exercises as devotedly, sleeps as many hours, eats a similarly healthy diet, but just has less money in the bank—can expect to die between ten and fifteen years sooner. That’s a lot of difference for an equivalent lifestyle, and no one is sure how to account for it.

How to choose a best website development company RNS IT Solutions is the best Software development company. When choosing a development company for your website, it is very important not only to look at the price, but also the quality of the work you hope to obtain and it is that a good Web of quality, realized of the hand of good engineers who have been working in the sector for years, can make you recover the investment in a short time and generate great benefits in the long term. Of course, to have a quality website the initial investment will probably be greater than you expect and maybe right now you think that the web you need does not require much quality, or a lot of work, but stop to think for a moment and consider the possibility that you are totally wrong, because that may depend on the future of your company as well as Web Development company India.The image that you want to transmit to the clients of the same one and the investment that you will have to do in the web once developed. With all this I do not mean that you have to ask for a loan from the bank to pay for the web. If the project you have in mind takes more work than you initially thought and the budget is out of your expectations, you can always limit and remove features that are dispensable. In this way you can publish the Web as soon as possible, so that once the initial investment is amortized, you can continue investing in adding those features that were left in the background. There are few Web Development Company In India hat right now could not survive, if they were not involved in the online world and it costs much less to make you a quality professional website, with a higher initial investment, to make you a website on which you have to invest, and then large amounts in development and consulting to correct deficiencies initially not contemplated. In the worst case, a bad development, may even force you to throw all the code of the web to the trash, to have to start from scratch. But what is quality of Web Development Services India? Let's see the characteristics that a website must have in order to be considered quality and professional: In any development project, meetings are always held to develop an initial analysis, gathering all the requirements and objectives of the web that the client wants. At this point you should have a proactive attitude, proposing functionalities that could be interesting or alternative ideas that we know can generate good results.

You might well wonder how on earth, after all their countless betrayals and cruelties, men like Agathocles could sit safe on their thrones for years and even defend themselves against foreign enemies without their citizens ever conspiring against them; and this while many others, equally ready to use cruelty, weren’t even able to hold on to their power in peacetime, never mind in war. I think it’s a question of whether cruelty is well or badly used. Cruelty well used (if we can ever speak well of something bad) is short-lived and decisive, no more than is necessary to secure your position and then stop; you don’t go on being cruel but use the power it has given you to deliver maximum benefits to your subjects. Cruelty is badly used when you’re not drastic enough at the beginning but grow increasingly cruel later on, rather than easing off. A leader who takes the first approach has a chance, like Agathocles, of improving his position with his subjects and with God too; go the other way and you have no chance at all. It’s worth noting that when you take hold of a state, you must assess how much violence and cruelty will be necessary and get it over with at once, so as not to have to be cruel on a regular basis. When you’ve stopped using violence your subjects will be reassured and you can then win them over with generosity. If you don’t do all it takes at the beginning, because you were badly advised or didn’t have the nerve, then you’ll always have to be wielding the knife; and you’ll never be able to count on your subjects, since with all the violence you’re handing out they won’t be able to count on you. So get the violence over with as soon as possible; that way there’ll be less time for people to taste its bitterness and they’ll be less hostile. Favours, on the other hand, should be given out slowly, one by one, so that they can be properly savoured. Most of all, though, a ruler should have the kind of relationship with his subjects where nothing that can happen, good or bad, will force him to change his approach, because if hard times demand it, your cruelty will come too late, while any concessions you make will be seen as wrung out of you and no one will be impressed. 9 Monarchy with public support Now let’s turn to our second case, where a private citizen becomes king in his own country not by crime or unacceptable violence, but with the support of his fellow-citizens. We can call this a monarchy with public support and to become its king you don’t have to be wholly brilliant or extraordinarily lucky, just shrewd in a lucky way. Obviously, to take control of this kind of state you need the support of either the common people or the wealthy families, the nobles. In

The US traded its manufacturing sector’s health for its entertainment industry, hoping that Police Academy sequels could take the place of the rustbelt. The US bet wrong. But like a losing gambler who keeps on doubling down, the US doesn’t know when to quit. It keeps meeting with its entertainment giants, asking how US foreign and domestic policy can preserve its business-model. Criminalize 70 million American file-sharers? Check. Turn the world’s copyright laws upside down? Check. Cream the IT industry by criminalizing attempted infringement? Check. It’ll never work. It can never work. There will always be an entertainment industry, but not one based on excluding access to published digital works. Once it’s in the world, it’ll be copied. This is why I give away digital copies of my books and make money on the printed editions: I’m not going to stop people from copying the electronic editions, so I might as well treat them as an enticement to buy the printed objects. But there is an information economy. You don’t even need a computer to participate. My barber, an avowed technophobe who rebuilds antique motorcycles and doesn’t own a PC, benefited from the information economy when I found him by googling for barbershops in my neighborhood. Teachers benefit from the information economy when they share lesson plans with their colleagues around the world by email. Doctors benefit from the information economy when they move their patient files to efficient digital formats. Insurance companies benefit from the information economy through better access to fresh data used in the preparation of actuarial tables. Marinas benefit from the information economy when office-slaves look up the weekend’s weather online and decide to skip out on Friday for a weekend’s sailing. Families of migrant workers benefit from the information economy when their sons and daughters wire cash home from a convenience store Western Union terminal. This stuff generates wealth for those who practice it. It enriches the country and improves our lives. And it can peacefully co-exist with movies, music and microcode, but not if Hollywood gets to call the shots. Where IT managers are expected to police their networks and systems for unauthorized copying – no matter what that does to productivity – they cannot co-exist. Where our operating systems are rendered inoperable by “copy protection,” they cannot co-exist. Where our educational institutions are turned into conscript enforcers for the record industry, they cannot co-exist. The information economy is all around us. The countries that embrace it will emerge as global economic superpowers. The countries that stubbornly hold to the simplistic idea that the information economy is about selling information will end up at the bottom of the pile. What country do you want to live in?

Focus intently and beat procrastination.    Use the Pomodoro Technique (remove distractions, focus for 25 minutes, take a break).    Avoid multitasking unless you find yourself needing occasional fresh perspectives.    Create a ready-to-resume plan when an unavoidable interruption comes up.    Set up a distraction-free environment.    Take frequent short breaks. Overcome being stuck.    When stuck, switch your focus away from the problem at hand, or take a break to surface the diffuse mode.    After some time completely away from the problem, return to where you got stuck.    Use the Hard Start Technique for homework or tests.    When starting a report or essay, do not constantly stop to edit what is flowing out. Separate time spent writing from time spent editing. Learn deeply.    Study actively: practice active recall (“retrieval practice”) and elaborating.    Interleave and space out your learning to help build your intuition and speed.    Don’t just focus on the easy stuff; challenge yourself.    Get enough sleep and stay physically active. Maximize working memory.    Break learning material into small chunks and swap fancy terms for easier ones.    Use “to-do” lists to clear your working memory.    Take good notes and review them the same day you took them. Memorize more efficiently.    Use memory tricks to speed up memorization: acronyms, images, and the Memory Palace.    Use metaphors to quickly grasp new concepts. Gain intuition and think quickly.    Internalize (don’t just unthinkingly memorize) procedures for solving key scientific or mathematical problems.    Make up appropriate gestures to help you remember and understand new language vocabulary. Exert self-discipline even when you don’t have any.    Find ways to overcome challenges without having to rely on self-discipline.    Remove temptations, distractions, and obstacles from your surroundings.    Improve your habits.    Plan your goals and identify obstacles and the ideal way to respond to them ahead of time. Motivate yourself.    Remind yourself of all the benefits of completing tasks.    Reward yourself for completing difficult tasks.    Make sure that a task’s level of difficulty matches your skill set.    Set goals—long-term goals, milestone goals, and process goals. Read effectively.    Preview the text before reading it in detail.    Read actively: think about the text, practice active recall, and annotate. Win big on tests.    Learn as much as possible about the test itself and make a preparation plan.    Practice with previous test questions—from old tests, if possible.    During tests: read instructions carefully, keep track of time, and review answers.    Use the Hard Start Technique. Be a pro learner.    Be a metacognitive learner: understand the task, set goals and plan, learn, and monitor and adjust.    Learn from the past: evaluate what went well and where you can improve.

How Google Works (Schmidt, Eric) - Your Highlight on Location 3124-3150 | Added on Sunday, April 5, 2015 10:35:40 AM In late 1999, John Doerr gave a presentation at Google that changed the company, because it created a simple tool that let the founders institutionalize their “think big” ethos. John sat on our board, and his firm, Kleiner Perkins, had recently invested in the company. The topic was a form of management by objectives called OKRs (to which we referred in the previous chapter), which John had learned from former Intel CEO Andy Grove.173 There are several characteristics that set OKRs apart from their typical underpromise-and-overdeliver corporate-objective brethren. First, a good OKR marries the big-picture objective with a highly measurable key result. It’s easy to set some amorphous strategic goal (make usability better … improve team morale … get in better shape) as an objective and then, at quarter end, declare victory. But when the strategic goal is measured against a concrete goal (increase usage of features by X percent … raise employee satisfaction scores by Y percent … run a half marathon in under two hours), then things get interesting. For example, one of our platform team’s recent OKRs was to have “new WW systems serving significant traffic for XX large services with latency < YY microseconds @ ZZ% on Jupiter.”174 (Jupiter is a code name, not the location of Google’s newest data center.) There is no ambiguity with this OKR; it is very easy to measure whether or not it is accomplished. Other OKRs will call for rolling out a product across a specific number of countries, or set objectives for usage (e.g., one of the Google+ team’s recent OKRs was about the daily number of messages users would post in hangouts) or performance (e.g., median watch latency on YouTube videos). Second—and here is where thinking big comes in—a good OKR should be a stretch to achieve, and hitting 100 percent on all OKRs should be practically unattainable. If your OKRs are all green, you aren’t setting them high enough. The best OKRs are aggressive, but realistic. Under this strange arithmetic, a score of 70 percent on a well-constructed OKR is often better than 100 percent on a lesser one. Third, most everyone does them. Remember, you need everyone thinking in your venture, regardless of their position. Fourth, they are scored, but this scoring isn’t used for anything and isn’t even tracked. This lets people judge their performance honestly. Fifth, OKRs are not comprehensive; they are reserved for areas that need special focus and objectives that won’t be reached without some extra oomph. Business-as-usual stuff doesn’t need OKRs. As your venture grows, the most important OKRs shift from individuals to teams. In a small company, an individual can achieve incredible things on her own, but as the company grows it becomes harder to accomplish stretch goals without teammates. This doesn’t mean that individuals should stop doing OKRs, but rather that team OKRs become the more important means to maintain focus on the big tasks. And there’s one final benefit of an OKR-driven culture: It helps keep people from chasing competitors. Competitors are everywhere in the Internet Century, and chasing them (as we noted earlier) is the fastest path to mediocrity. If employees are focused on a well-conceived set of OKRs, then this isn’t a problem. They know where they need to go and don’t have time to worry about the competition. ==========

Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen

I can’t remember a specific time when the comments and the name-calling started, but one evening in November it all got much worse,’ she said. ‘My brother Tobias and me were doing our homework at the dining room table like we always did.’ ‘You’ve got a brother?’ She hesitated before nodding. ‘Papa was working late at the clinic in a friend’s back room – it was against the law for Jews to work as doctors. Mama was making supper in the kitchen, and I remember her cursing because she’d just burned her hand on the griddle. Tobias and me couldn’t stop laughing because Mama never swore.’ The memory of it made her mouth twitch in an almost-smile. Then someone banged on our front door. It was late – too late for social calling. Mama told us not to answer it. Everyone knew someone who’d had a knock on the door like that.’ ‘Who was it?’ ‘The police, usually. Sometimes Hitler’s soldiers. It was never for a good reason, and it never ended happily. We all dreaded it happening to us. So, Mama turned the lights out and put her hand over the dog’s nose.’ Esther, glancing sideways at me, explained: ‘We had a sausage dog called Gerta who barked at everything. ‘The knocking went on and they started shouting through the letter box, saying they’d burn the house down if we didn’t answer the door. Mama told us to hide under the table and went to speak to them. They wanted Papa. They said he’d been treating non-Jewish patients at the clinic and it had to stop. Mama told them he wasn’t here but they didn’t believe her and came in anyway. There were four of them in Nazi uniform, stomping through our house in their filthy great boots. Finding us hiding under the table, they decided to take Tobias as a substitute for Papa. ‘When your husband hands himself in, we’ll release the boy,’ was what they said. ‘It was cold outside – a freezing Austrian winter’s night – but they wouldn’t let Tobias fetch his coat. As soon as they laid hands on him, Mama started screaming. She let go of Gerta and grabbed Tobias – we both did – pulling on his arms, yelling that they couldn’t take him, that he’d done nothing wrong. Gerta was barking. I saw one of the men swing his boot at ther. She went flying across the room, hitting the mantelpiece. It was awful. She didn’t bark after that.’ It took a moment for the horror of what she was saying to sink in. ‘Don’t tell me any more if you don’t want to,’ I said gently. She stared straight ahead like she hadn’t heard me. ‘They took my brother anyway. He was ten years old. ‘We ran into the street after them, and it was chaos – like the end of the world or something. The whole town was fully of Nazi uniforms. There were broken windows, burning houses, people sobbing in the gutter. The synagogue at the end of our street was on fire. I was terrified. So terrified I couldn’t move. But Mum kept running. Shouting and yelling and running after my brother. I didn’t see what happened but I heard the gunshot.’ She stopped. Rubbed her face in her hands. ‘Afterwards they gave it a very pretty name: Kristallnacht – meaning “the night of broken glass”. But it was the night I lost my mother and my brother. I was sent away soon after as part of the Kindertransport, though Papa never got used to losing us all at once. Nor did I. That’s why he came to find me. He always promised he’d try.’ Anything I might’ve said stayed stuck in my throat. There weren’t words for it, not really. So I put my arm through Esther’s and we sat, gazing out to sea, two old enemies who were, at last, friends. She was right – it was her story to tell. And I could think of plenty who might benefit from hearing it.

White Man, to you my voice is like the unheard call in the wilderness. It is there, though you do not hear it. But, this once, take the time to listen to what I have to say. Your history is highlighted by your wars. Why is it all right for your nations to conquer each other in your attempts at domination? When you sailed to our lands, you came with your advanced weapons. You claimed you were a progressive, civilized people. And today, White Man, you have the ultimate weapons. Warfare which could destroy all men, all creation. And you allow such power to be in the hands of those few who have such little value in true wisdom. White Man, when you first came, most of our tribes began with peace and trust in dealing with you, strange white intruders. We showed you how to survive in our homelands. We were willing to share with you our vast wealth. Instead of repaying us with gratitude, you, White Man, turned on us, your friends. You turned on us with your advanced weapons and your cunning trickery. When we, the Indian people, realized your intentions, we rose to do battle, to defend our nations, our homes, our food, our lives. And for our efforts, we are labelled savages, and our battles are called massacres. And when our primitive weapons could not match those which you had perfected through centuries of wars, we realized that peace could not be won, unless our mass destruction took place. And so we turned to treaties. And this time, we ran into your cunning trickery. And we lost our lands, our freedom, and were confined to reservations. And we are held in contempt. 'As long as the Sun shall rise...' For you, White Man, these are words without meaning. White Man, there is much in the deep, simple wisdom of our forefathers. We were here for centuries. We kept the land, the waters, the air clean and pure, for our children and our children's children. Now that you are here, White Man, the rivers bleed with contamination. The winds moan with the heavy weight of pollution in the air. The land vomits up the poisons which have been fed into it. Our Mother Earth is no longer clean and healthy. She is dying. White Man, in your greedy rush for money and power, you are destroying. Why must you have power over everything? Why can't you live in peace and harmony? Why can't you share the beauty and the wealth which Mother Earth has given us? You do not stop at confining us to small pieces of rock an muskeg. Where are the animals of the wilderness to go when there is no more wilderness? Why are the birds of the skies falling to their extinction? Is there joy for you when you bring down the mighty trees of our forests? No living things seems sacred to you. In the name of progress, everything is cut down. And progress means only profits. White Man, you say that we are a people without dignity. But when we are sick, weak, hungry, poor, when there is nothing for us but death, what are we to do? We cannot accept a life which has been imposed on us. You say that we are drunkards, that we live for drinking. But drinking is a way of dying. Dying without enjoying life. You have given us many diseases. It is true that you have found immunizations for many of these diseases. But this was done more for your own benefit. The worst disease, for which there is no immunity, is the disease of alcoholism. And you condemn us for being its easy victims. And those who do not condemn us weep for us and pity us. So, we the Indian people, we are still dying. The land we lost is dying, too. White Man, you have our land now. Respect it. As we once did. Take care of it. As we once did. Love it. As we once did. White Man, our wisdom is dying. As we are. But take heed, if Indian wisdom dies, you, White Man, will not be far behind. So weep not for us. Weep for yourselves. And for your children. And for their children. Because you are taking everything today. And tomorrow, there will be nothing left for them.