Commitment And Hard Work Quotes

Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life’s expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work.

Real love has little to do with falling. It's a climb up the rocky face of a mountain, hard work, and most people are too selfish or too scared to bother. Very few reach the critical point in their relationship that summons the attention of the light and the dark, that place where they will make a commitment to love no matter what obstacles-or temptations- appear in their path.

Wealth File 1. Rich people believe "I create my life." Poor people believe "Life happens to me." 2. Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to not lose. 3. Rich people are committed to being rich. Poor people want to be rich. 4. Rich people think big. Poor people think small. 5. Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles. 6. Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people. 7. Rich people associate with positive, successful people. Poor people associate with negative or unsuccessful people. 8. Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion. 9. Rich people are bigger than their problems. Poor people are smaller than their problems. 10. Rich people are excellent receivers. Poor people are poor receivers. 11. Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time. 12. Rich people think "both". Poor people think "either/or". 13. Rich people focus on their net worth. Poor people focus on their working income. 14. Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well. 15. Rich people have their money work hard for them. Poor people work hard for their money. 16. Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them. 17. Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.

I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.

With such a deep rooted interest you can withstand the setbacks and failures, the days of drudgery, and the hard work that are always a part of any creative action. You can ignore the doubters and critics. You will then feel personally committed to solving the problem and will not rest until you do so.

I was inspired by a question that kept repeating itself in my mind: Could I really change my life? I’d spent so many days, weeks, months, and years thinking about doing things with my life, and now I wanted to know, if I committed to a goal and woke up every single day working hard at it, could I change my life?

This principle - that your spouse should be capable of becoming your best friend - is a game changer when you address the question of compatibility in a prospective spouse. If you think of marriage largely in terms of erotic love, then compatibility means sexual chemistry and appeal. If you think of marriage largely as a way to move into the kind of social status in life you desire, then compatibility means being part of the desired social class, and perhaps common tastes and aspirations for lifestyle. The problem with these factors is that they are not durable. Physical attractiveness will wane, no matter how hard you work to delay its departure. And socio-economic status unfortunately can change almost overnight. When people think they have found compatibility based on these things, they often make the painful discovery that they have built their relationship on unstable ground. A woman 'lets herself go' or a man loses his job, and the compatibility foundation falls apart.

Persistence and passion will make you invincible.

If you are a leader, the true measure of your success is not getting people to work. It’s not getting people to work hard. It is getting people to work hard together. That takes commitment.

Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. And he'd give up on ecology...Then he'd tried believe in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what or even if it could theoretically exist.

Love is a handful of seeds, marriage the garden, and like your gardens, Paula, marriage requires total commitment, hard work, and a great deal of love and care. Be ruthless with the weeds. Pull them out before they take hold. Bring the same dedication to your marriage that you do to your gardens and everything will be all right. Remember that a marriage has to be constantly replenished too, if you want it to flourish...

Striving to be good is the ultimate struggle of every man. Being bad is easy, but being good requires sincere commitment, discipline and strength. We have to work hard every day just to remain good.

Writing is hard work, not magic. It begins with deciding why you are writing and whom you are writing for. What is your intent? What do you want the reader to get out of it? What do you want to get out of it. It's also about making a serious time commitment and getting the project done.

There is no shortcut for hard work that leads to effectiveness. You must stay disciplined because most of the work is behind the scenes.

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.

When black folk say “Black Lives Matter,” they are in search of simple recognition. That they are decent human beings, that they aren’t likely to commit crimes, that they’re reasonably smart. That they’re no more evil than the next person, that they’re willing to work hard to get ahead, that they love their kids and want them to do better than they did. That they are loving and kind and compassionate. And that they should be treated with the same respect that the average, nondescript, unexceptional white male routinely receives without fanfare or the expectation of

It is acknowledged that neither convict prisons, nor the hulks, nor any system of hard labour ever cured a criminal. These forms of chastisement only punish him and reassure society against the offences he might commit. Confinement, regulation, and excessive work have no effect but to develop with these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitrations.

Success is not the result of making one good choice, of taking one step. Real success requires step, after step, after step, after step. It requires choice after choice, it demands life-long education and passion and commitment and persistence and hunger and patience.

To make discoveries in science, both small and important, you must be an expert on the topic addressed. To be an expert innovator requires commitment. Commitment to a subject implies sustained hard work.

To be an artist means to invite an occupation into your life that requires commitment and hard work, but the rewards and satisfaction you’ll get make the work seem like play. But you have to do it every day.

Newton Pulsifer had never...as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. .... Then he'd tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist. To Newt's straightforward mind this was intolerable.

You are to leave your comfortable zone and commit yourself to hard-work to achieve your goals.

He was not forced to acknowledge the facts of his present. He was talked about in terms of his lost potential, what he would never be, rather than what he is. They spoke as if his future was patiently waiting for him to step into it. Most of us understand that your future is not promised to you. It is constructed day by day, through the choices you make. Your future is earned, little by little, through hard work and action. If you don't act accordingly, that dream dissolves. If punishment is based on potential, privileged people will be given lighter sentences. Brock was shielded inside projections of what people like him grow up to become, or are supposed to become...The judge argued that he'd already lost so much, given up so many opportunities, What happens to those who start off with little to lose? Instead of a...Stanford athlete, let's imagine a Hispanic nineteen-year-old working in the fraternity kitchen commits the same crime. Does this story end differently? Does the Washington Post call him a surgeon? My point can be summed up in the line Brock wrote: I just existed in a reality where nothing can go wrong or nobody could think of what I was doing as wrong. Privilege accompanies the light skinned, helped maintain his belief that consequences did not apply to him.

Public and civic value require commitment and hard work among the core group of participants. It also requires that these groups be self-governing and submit to constraints that help them ignore distracting and entertaining material and stay focused instead of some sophisticated task.

Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn't know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn’t know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen. Use the words of the movement to pace yourself. We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit to doing all we can, because the responsibility is ours alone to build a better society and a more peaceful world.

I learned that we may meet a true love and that our lives may be transformed by such an encounter even when it does not lead to sexual pleasure, committed bonding, or even sustained contact. The myth of true love-that fairy-tale vision of two souls who meet, join, and live happily ever thereafter-is the stuff of childhood fantasy. Yet many of us, female and male, carry these fantasies into adulthood and are unable to cope with the reality of what it means to either have an intense life-altering connection that will not lead to an ongoing relationship or to be in a relationship. True love does not always lead to happily ever after, and even when it does sustaining love still takes work.

A trademark of something that works well, the cat body has hardly changed since its inception. Like with today's cats, their digestive systems could handle only flesh. The lesson of the cat is that if you are to become a full-fledged carnivore, you have to commit everything to it. A house cat fed vegetarian food will shrivel and die.

We simply do not allow space in our hearts, minds, or souls for darkness. Instead, we choose faith. Faith in ourselves and the power of hard work. Faith in our God whose overwhelming love sustains us every single day. That's what we choose. We choose love. Our love for our children. Our commitment to leaving them a better world. Our love for our country which has given us so many blessings and advantages. Our love for our fellow citizens: parents working hard to support their kids, men and women in uniform who risk everything to keep us safe, young people from the toughest background who never stop believing in their dreams, some people like so many of you. That's what we choose. And we choose excellence. We choose to tune out all the noise and strive for excellence in everything we do. No cutting corners, no taking shortcuts, no whining. We give 120% every single time. Because excellence is the most powerful answer you can give to the doubters and the haters. It's also the most powerful thing you can do for yourself. Because the process of striving, and struggling, and pushing yourself to new heights, that's how you develop your God-given talent. That's how you make yourself stronger, and smarter, and more able to make a difference for others.

think of the words of Dr. Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Doing our best now is an active thing, and so is knowing better. We don’t show up and then wait to magically know better. We show up and then, when we are corrected, we keep working. We listen hard so we can know better next time. We seek out teachers so we can know better next time. We let burn our ideas about how good and well-meaning we are so we can become better next time. Learning to know better is a commitment. We will only know better if we continue unbecoming.

Healing from child sexual abuse takes commitment and dedication. But if you are willing to work hard, if you are determined to make lasting changes in your life, if you are able to find good resources and skilled support, you can not only heal but also thrive.

Nurturing a plant takes a commitment to gradual, daily care. You can’t grow something by soaking it in a bucket of water all at once. In the same way, you can’t work hard on a goal, giving it your all for one day out of your life, and then forget about it come January 2. Commit to daily tending. Our lives will bloom through daily decisions and habits—daily tending, nurturing, and pruning—not just the giant leaps made once in a while.

He is wretched indeed, who goes up and down in the world, without a God to take care of him, to be his guide and protector, and to bless him in his affairs [. . .] That unconverted men are without God shows that they are liable to all manner of evil [. . .] liable to the power of the devil, to the power of all manner of temptation [. . .] to be deceived and seduced into erroneous opinions [. . .] to embrace damnable doctrines [. . .] to be given up of God to judicial hardness of heart [. . .] to commit all manner of sin, and even the unpardonable sin itself. They cannot be sure they shall not commit that sin. They are liable to build up a false hope of heaven, and so to go hoping to hell [. . .] to die senseless and stupid, as many have died [. . .] to die in such a case as Saul and Judas did, fearless of hell. They have no security from it. They are liable to all manner of mischief, since they are without God. They cannot tell what shall befall them, nor when they are secure from anything. They are not safe one moment. Ten thousand fatal mischiefs may befall them, that may make them miserable forever. They, who have God for their God, are safe from all such evils. It is not possible that they should befall them. God is their covenant God, and they have his faithful promise to be their refuge.

We work hard for the things we want, we compromise, we amend, we persevere, we stay believing, we show commitment. We strive! Later we will see the results

There is a great fulfillment when you commit your life to lifelong learning.

With persistent focus, commitment and enthusiasm, your dream will be reality.

Whatever you have not strived hard to achieve will not strive hard to fade. Success built on hard work is the kind that lasts longer.

Pain and Greed are the drivers of hard work. Which is your calling?

If you had lived with the meaning and purpose that you chose, how would you behave day to day? What would you work hard on? What would you let go? What would you commit to, even if you might not be able to complete it? Exploring death in that way can help us get clear on what matters now.

There are millions of shayaris and ghazals and songs that spin beautiful words about what love is: fire, wine, pain," he goes on. "But that is all passion. Feeling. Love, on the other hand, is an act. A practice. A descision." "Are you saying who you love is a choice?" "No, no. Who you have feelings for-that is not a choice. Feelings happen whether you want them to or not. But love isn't a feeling; it's the act of planting a seed and putting in the time and care it needs to grow. It demands hard work and renewal to survive. It demands commitment. By necessity, it cannot be take lightly.

Breakups were easy, too easy. Because they needed space, because it just wasn’t working, because I was moving, because I was too much. But commitment? To belong? To be really and truly wanted? That was hard.

It turns out the voter's lied. Just like the accusations that they always throw at hard-working public servants, the goddamned electorate turned out to be goddamned liars themselves. They said they respected hard work, commitment and moral courage. They said that the candidate's opponent had lost their vote the moment she gave up on reasoned discourse and calm authority. But when they went into the voting booths in their hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands, they'd thought, You know what, though, she's strong. She'd show them.

We seem normal only to those who don't know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on an early dinner date would be; "And how are you crazy?" The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don't care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with. We make mistakes, too, because are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal state of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for. The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn't exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently - the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the "not overly wrong" person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition. Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not "normal." We should learn to accommodate ourselves to "wrongness", striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and our partners.

Parenting is a commitment. You promise to love your children, no matter what. You promise to keep them safe. You promise to provide for them, to teach them, and to guide them. And with God’s grace, a lot of patience, and hard work, you keep your promises.

We Americans often say that marriage is hard work. I'm not sure that the Hmong would understand this notion. Life is hard work, of course, and work is very hard work -- I'm quite certain they would agree with those statements - but how does marriage become hard work? Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work. A recent survey of young American women found that what women are seeking these days in a husband - more than anything else - is a man who will "inspire" them, which is, by any measure, a tall order. As a point of comparison, young women of the same age, surveyed back in the 1920s, were more likely to choose a partner based on qualities such as "decency" or "honesty," or his ability to provide for a family. But that's not enough anymore. Now we want to be INSPIRED by our spouses! Daily! Step to it, honey!

He doesn’t drink too much. He’s employed and works hard. He doesn’t have commitment issues, kids, or crazy ex-girlfriends. He doesn’t attach way too much emotion to the outcome of UGA football. He’s a mythical, perfect man, difficult to find. Impossible to capture. A unicorn.

I was raised to believe that I am inherently equipped to handle any problems that may arise in my life, racism included. Some combination of hard work, education, and God would topple any and all obstacles and enemies. The only variable was the level of my commitment to the fight.

Raising human offspring is an endeavor nothing less than a continued labor of patience, hard work, organization and ongoing adaptation. All of which is unlike that expected of any other living creatures on the planet (or this sector of the universe, as far as we can tell). It demands the most complex responsibility and long-term commitment of any parenting life-form. Indeed, it is at times, at least for quality parents, an overwhelming, exhausting, even daunting task. Albeit, one that in the end, (and, most of the time even in the middle of it), is more than worth it.

Let nobody give you the impression that the problem of racial injustice will work itself out. Let nobody give you the impression that only time will solve the problem. That is a myth, and it is a myth because time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I’m absolutely convinced that the people of ill will in our nation—the extreme rightists—the forces committed to negative ends—have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic works and violent actions of the bad people who bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, or shoot down a civil rights worker in Selma, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.” Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. Without this hard work, time becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always right to do right.

Dreams Come True When You're Committed To Make Them So!

both of my grandparents had an almost religious faith in hard work and the American Dream. Neither was under any illusions that wealth or privilege didn’t matter in America. On politics, for example, Mamaw had one opinion—“They’re all a bunch of crooks”—but Papaw became a committed Democrat. He had no problem with Armco, but he and everyone like him hated the coal companies in Kentucky thanks to a long history of labor strife. So, to Papaw and Mamaw, not all rich people were bad, but all bad people were rich. Papaw was a Democrat because that party protected the working people.

Lately, because computer technology has made self-publishing an easier and less expensive venture, I'm getting a lot of review copies of amateur books by writers who would be better advised to hone their craft before committing it to print. The best thing you can do as a beginning writer is to write, write, write - and read, read, read. Concentrating on publication prematurely is a mistake. You don't pick up a violin and expect to play Carnegie Hall within the year - yet somehow people forget that writing also requires technical skills that need to be learned, practiced, honed. If I had a dollar for every person I've met who thought, with no prior experience, they could sit down and write a novel and instantly win awards and make their living as a writer, I'd be a rich woman today. It's unrealistic, and it's also mildly insulting to professional writers who have worked hard to perfect their craft. Of course, then you hear stories about people like J.K. Rowling, who did sit down with no prior experience and write a worldwide best-seller...but such people are as rare as hen's teeth. Every day I work with talented, accomplished writers who have many novels in print and awards to their name and who are ‘still’ struggling to make a living. The thing I often find myself wanting to say to new writers is: Write because you love writing, learn your craft, be patient, and be realistic. Anais Nin said about writing, "It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing."

Such individuals lead vigorous lives, are open to a variety of experiences, keep on learning until the day they die, and have strong ties and commitments to other people and to the environment in which they live. They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult; they are hardly ever bored, and they can take in stride anything that comes their way. Perhaps their greatest strength is that they are in control of their lives.

How hard it is, to be forced to the conclusion that people should be, nine tenths of the time, left alone! - When there is that in me that longs for absolute commitment. One of the poem-ideas I had was that one could respect only the people who knew that cups had to be washed up and put away after drinking, and knew that a Monday of work follows a Sunday in the water meadows, and that old age with its distorting-mirror memories follows youth and its raw pleasures, but that it's quite impossible to love such people, for what we want in love is release from our beliefs, not confirmation in them. That is where the 'courage of love' comes in - to have the courage to commit yourself to something you don't believe, because it is what - for the moment, anyway - thrills your by its audacity. (Some of the phrasing of this is odd, but it would make a good poem if it had any words...)

For most humans, transformation does not seem achievable from the distant shores of another person’s life. From far away, transformation looks like a miracle, or the result of magical powers possessed by the transformed person. Transformation is not magic. It’s hard work. But it is also doable work. When we can see another person’s labor toward their transformation, we know it is not some secret sauce but instead a daily commitment to a new way of life.

God does most of his works nowadays thru people. So does Satan. For a good part of my life I was an agent of darkness- committing a multitude of sins listed in the Bible... and perhaps a few that aren't even listed. Fortunately, at any given moment we are able to make a choice- and choose who we are going to be from this moment forward. We can leave the darkness behind and try to shed light on th ose who are lost in the darkness. I am the same person I have always been. At times I struggle to keep both my composure and my integrity. It can be hard, as we live in a world that is rich in hate, greed and selfishness. I am that same sinner, but every morning I get to choose to leave my old ways behind. I thank God that this morning, once again, I am strong enough to choose kindness. Its not an easy choice. But I've tried everything else. Kindness is the only choice I have left. And for that, I am grateful.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No double alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that "non-attachment" is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the otherworldly or the humanistic ideal is "higher." The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives," from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.

I don’t remember when I stopped noticing—stopped noticing every mirror, every window, every scale, every fast-food restaurant, every diet ad, every horrifying model. And I don’t remember when I stopped counting, or when I stopped caring what size my pants were, or when I started ordering what I wanted to eat and not what seemed “safe,” or when I could sit comfortably reading a book in my kitchen without noticing I was in my kitchen until I got hungry—or when I started just eating when I got hungry, instead of questioning it, obsessing about it, dithering and freaking out, as I’d done for nearly my whole life. I don’t remember exactly when recovery took hold, and went from being something I both fought and wanted, to being simply a way of life. A way of life that is, let me tell you, infinitely more peaceful, infinitely happier, and infinitely more free than life with an eating disorder. And I wouldn’t give up this life of freedom for the world. What I know is this: I chose recovery. It was a conscious decision, and not an easy one. That’s the common denominator among people I know who have recovered: they chose recovery, and they worked like hell for it, and they didn’t give up. Recovery isn’t easy, at first. It takes time. It takes more work, sometimes, than you think you’re willing to do. But it is worth every hard day, every tear, every terrified moment. It’s worth it, because the trade-off is this: you let go of your eating disorder, and you get back your life. There are a couple of things I had to keep in mind in early recovery. One was that I was going to recover, even though I didn’t feel “ready.” I realized I was never going to feel ready—I was just going to jump in and do it, ready or not, and I am deeply glad that I did. Another was that symptoms were not an option. Symptoms, as critically necessary and automatic as they feel, are ultimately a choice. You can choose to let the fallacy that you must use symptoms kill you, or you can choose not to use symptoms. Easier said than done? Of course. But it can be done. I had to keep at the forefront of my mind the reasons I wanted to recover so badly, and the biggest one was this: I couldn’t believe in what I was doing anymore. I couldn’t justify committing my life to self-destruction, to appearance, to size, to weight, to food, to obsession, to self-harm. And that was what I had been doing for so long—dedicating all my strength, passion, energy, and intelligence to the pursuit of a warped and vanishing ideal. I just couldn’t believe in it anymore. As scared as I was to recover, to recover fully, to let go of every last symptom, to rid myself of the familiar and comforting compulsions, I wanted to know who I was without the demon of my eating disorder inhabiting my body and mind. And it turned out that I was all right. It turned out it was all right with me to be human, to have hungers, to have needs, to take space. It turned out that I had a self, a voice, a whole range of values and beliefs and passions and goals beyond what I had allowed myself to see when I was sick. There was a person in there, under the thick ice of the illness, a person I found I could respect. Recovery takes time, patience, enormous effort, and strength. We all have those things. It’s a matter of choosing to use them to save our own lives—to survive—but beyond that, to thrive. If you are still teetering on the brink of illness, I invite you to step firmly onto the solid ground of health. Walk back toward the world. Gather strength as you go. Listen to your own inner voice, not the voice of the eating disorder—as you recover, your voice will get clearer and louder, and eventually the voice of the eating disorder will recede. Give it time. Don’t give up. Love yourself absolutely. Take back your life. The value of freedom cannot be overestimated. It’s there for the taking. Find your way toward it, and set yourself free.

I know this may be a disappointment for some of you, but I don’t believe there is only one right person for you. I think I fell in love with my wife, Harriet, from the first moment I saw her. Nevertheless, had she decided to marry someone else, I believe I would have met and fallen in love with someone else. I am eternally grateful that this didn’t happen, but I don’t believe she was my one chance at happiness in this life, nor was I hers. Another error you might easily make in dating is expecting to find perfection in the person you are with. The truth is, the only perfect people you might know are those you don’t know very well. Everyone has imperfections. Now, I’m not suggesting you lower your standards and marry someone with whom you can’t be happy. But one of the things I’ve realized as I’ve matured in life is that if someone is willing to accept me—imperfect as I am—then I should be willing to be patient with others’ imperfections as well. Since you won’t find perfection in your partner, and your partner won’t find it in you, your only chance at perfection is in creating perfection together. There are those who do not marry because they feel a lack of “magic” in the relationship. By “magic” I assume they mean sparks of attraction. Falling in love is a wonderful feeling, and I would never counsel you to marry someone you do not love. Nevertheless—and here is another thing that is sometimes hard to accept—that magic sparkle needs continuous polishing. When the magic endures in a relationship, it’s because the couple made it happen, not because it mystically appeared due to some cosmic force. Frankly, it takes work. For any relationship to survive, both parties bring their own magic with them and use that to sustain their love. Although I have said that I do not believe in a one-and-only soul mate for anyone, I do know this: once you commit to being married, your spouse becomes your soul mate, and it is your duty and responsibility to work every day to keep it that way. Once you have committed, the search for a soul mate is over. Our thoughts and actions turn from looking to creating. . . . Now, sisters, be gentle. It’s all right if you turn down requests for dates or proposals for marriage. But please do it gently. And brethren, please start asking! There are too many of our young women who never go on dates. Don’t suppose that certain girls would never go out with you. Sometimes they are wondering why no one asks them out. Just ask, and be prepared to move on if the answer is no. One of the trends we see in some parts of the world is our young people only “hanging out” in large groups rather than dating. While there is nothing wrong with getting together often with others your own age, I don’t know if you can really get to know individuals when you’re always in a group. One of the things you need to learn is how to have a conversation with a member of the opposite sex. A great way to learn this is by being alone with someone—talking without a net, so to speak. Dates don’t have to be—and in most cases shouldn’t be—expensive and over-planned affairs. When my wife and I moved from Germany to Salt Lake City, one of the things that most surprised us was the elaborate and sometimes stressful process young people had developed of asking for and accepting dates. Relax. Find simple ways to be together. One of my favorite things to do when I was young and looking for a date was to walk a young lady home after a Church meeting. Remember, your goal should not be to have a video of your date get a million views on YouTube. The goal is to get to know one individual person and learn how to develop a meaningful relationship with the opposite sex.

Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. What will keep us from stopping? Plain old stubbornness. I like the idea of stubbornness because it’s less lofty than “tenacity” or “perseverance.” We don’t have to be heroes to be stubborn. We can just be pains in the butt. When we’re stubborn, there’s no quit in us. We’re mean. We’re mulish. We’re ornery. We’re in till the finish. We will sink our junkyard-dog teeth into Resistance’s ass and not let go, no matter how hard he kicks.

Many things in this period have been hard to bear, or hard to take seriously. My own profession went into a protracted swoon during the Reagan-Bush-Thatcher decade, and shows scant sign of recovering a critical faculty—or indeed any faculty whatever, unless it is one of induced enthusiasm for a plausible consensus President. (We shall see whether it counts as progress for the same parrots to learn a new word.) And my own cohort, the left, shared in the general dispiriting move towards apolitical, atonal postmodernism. Regarding something magnificent, like the long-overdue and still endangered South African revolution (a jagged fit in the supposedly smooth pattern of axiomatic progress), one could see that Ariadne’s thread had a robust reddish tinge, and that potential citizens had not all deconstructed themselves into Xhosa, Zulu, Cape Coloured or ‘Eurocentric’; had in other words resisted the sectarian lesson that the masters of apartheid tried to teach them. Elsewhere, though, it seemed all at once as if competitive solipsism was the signifier of the ‘radical’; a stress on the salience not even of the individual, but of the trait, and from that atomization into the lump of the category. Surely one thing to be learned from the lapsed totalitarian system was the unwholesome relationship between the cult of the masses and the adoration of the supreme personality. Yet introspective voyaging seemed to coexist with dull group-think wherever one peered about among the formerly ‘committed’. Traditionally then, or tediously as some will think, I saw no reason to discard the Orwellian standard in considering modern literature. While a sort of etiolation, tricked out as playfulness, had its way among the non-judgemental, much good work was still done by those who weighed words as if they meant what they said. Some authors, indeed, stood by their works as if they had composed them in solitude and out of conviction. Of these, an encouraging number spoke for the ironic against the literal mind; for the generously interpreted interest of all against the renewal of what Orwell termed the ‘smelly little orthodoxies’—tribe and Faith, monotheist and polytheist, being most conspicuous among these new/old disfigurements. In the course of making a film about the decaffeinated hedonism of modern Los Angeles, I visited the house where Thomas Mann, in another time of torment, wrote Dr Faustus. My German friends were filling the streets of Munich and Berlin to combat the recrudescence of the same old shit as I read: This old, folkish layer survives in us all, and to speak as I really think, I do. not consider religion the most adequate means of keeping it under lock and key. For that, literature alone avails, humanistic science, the ideal of the free and beautiful human being. [italics mine] The path to this concept of enlightenment is not to be found in the pursuit of self-pity, or of self-love. Of course to be merely a political animal is to miss Mann’s point; while, as ever, to be an apolitical animal is to leave fellow-citizens at the mercy of Ideolo’. For the sake of argument, then, one must never let a euphemism or a false consolation pass uncontested. The truth seldom lies, but when it does lie it lies somewhere in between.

the rich seem to believe that for the poor and struggling, only the prospects of continued poverty and struggle could possibly motivate them to hard work and success. If people are poor, then they must not be poor enough, on this rendering, for if they were, surely they would have gotten sufficiently motivated so as to not be poor any more. Make no mistake; this is the thinking of the sadist, akin to those who say we should make prisons as awful as possible so as to deter people from committing crime.

You're thirty-four or thirty-five, gainfully employed, never been married. You think maybe you'll settle down one day, perhaps when you're forty, but for now, you work hard at your job, so you want to play hard, too. You tend to skew more toward dating women in their mid-twenties, because women in their early twenties seem just a little too young and women in their thirties frustrate you with the way they all want to talk about marriage and kids by the third date. You'll go out with a girl a few times, you'll have a lot of fun together, and when she starts pushing for something more serious, you'll move on to something else, wondering why it is that women can't be content to just 'date' without needing a commitment. And why would you want to commit to one person right now? For men as attractive as you, this city is one big candy store, filled with so many shiny treats, you couldn't possibly choose just one. So instead, you run around with your obviously healthy ego, sampling as many of the goods as you can get your hands on--simply because you can.

Marriage will demand you deliberately choose the action of love, but the feelings of being in love can make us willing, eager, to commit to that sacrifice, even if one should be able to, with God’s help, make it without involving the original emotion. If you look at a man and you know that you would lay your life down for him, in whatever way it was required of you, that—that is the type of spark you need. It’s only a spark. That’s all being in love is—the beginning, the moment that ignites, the feeling. Everything else is hard work.

Maureen says, “It amazed me to realize that the women’s tendency to focus on their work rather than effectively communicating what they were doing got interpreted as a lack of commitment. This seemed counterintuitive, because you’d think hard work would demonstrate loyalty.

The subject is: how many men do we really need? Think it over, they say. Men are dangerous. Men commit the great majority of crimes. Men are less intelligent, less diligent, less hard-working, their brains are in their muscles and their pricks. Men are more likely to suffer from diseases and they are a drain on the resources of the country. Of course we need them to have babies, but how many do we need for that? Not as many as women. Good, clean, obedient men, of course there will always be a place for those. But how many is that? Maybe one in ten.

It feels impossibly hard and incalculably stupid to commit to that love, to bear it and be borne by it, but that is what I feel—it is the wellspring that reading leads me to, every time. Loving this world, loving being alive in it, means living up to that world; living up to that love. I can’t say I love this world or living in it if I don’t bother to know it; indeed, be known by it. It’s that mutual promise of knowing that reading holds us in—an inheritance that belongs to us, whether we accept it or not. Whether we read its pages or not. This book remains just one small part of that work: that inheritance, and that love.

Bradley is one of the few basketball players who have ever been appreciatively cheered by a disinterested away-from-home crowd while warming up. This curious event occurred last March, just before Princeton eliminated the Virginia Military Institute, the year's Southern Conference champion, from the NCAA championships. The game was played in Philadelphia and was the last of a tripleheader. The people there were worn out, because most of them were emotionally committed to either Villanova or Temple-two local teams that had just been involved in enervating battles with Providence and Connecticut, respectively, scrambling for a chance at the rest of the country. A group of Princeton players shooting basketballs miscellaneously in preparation for still another game hardly promised to be a high point of the evening, but Bradley, whose routine in the warmup time is a gradual crescendo of activity, is more interesting to watch before a game than most players are in play. In Philadelphia that night, what he did was, for him, anything but unusual. As he does before all games, he began by shooting set shots close to the basket, gradually moving back until he was shooting long sets from 20 feet out, and nearly all of them dropped into the net with an almost mechanical rhythm of accuracy. Then he began a series of expandingly difficult jump shots, and one jumper after another went cleanly through the basket with so few exceptions that the crowd began to murmur. Then he started to perform whirling reverse moves before another cadence of almost steadily accurate jump shots, and the murmur increased. Then he began to sweep hook shots into the air. He moved in a semicircle around the court. First with his right hand, then with his left, he tried seven of these long, graceful shots-the most difficult ones in the orthodoxy of basketball-and ambidextrously made them all. The game had not even begun, but the presumably unimpressible Philadelphians were applauding like an audience at an opera.

We are committed to involving as many people as possible, as young as possible, as soon as possible. Sometimes too young and too soon! But we intentionally err on the side of too fast rather than too slow. We don’t wait until people feel “prepared” or “fully equipped.” Seriously, when is anyone ever completely prepared for ministry? Ministry makes people’s faith bigger. If you want to increase someone’s confidence in God, put him in a ministry position before he feels fully equipped. The messages your environments communicate have the potential to trump your primary message. If you don’t see a mess, if you aren’t bothered by clutter, you need to make sure there is someone around you who does see it and is bothered by it. An uncomfortable or distracting setting can derail ministry before it begins. The sermon begins in the parking lot. Assign responsibility, not tasks. At the end of the day, it’s application that makes all the difference. Truth isn’t helpful if no one understands or remembers it. If you want a church full of biblically educated believers, just teach what the Bible says. If you want to make a difference in your community and possibly the world, give people handles, next steps, and specific applications. Challenge them to do something. As we’ve all seen, it’s not safe to assume that people automatically know what to do with what they’ve been taught. They need specific direction. This is hard. This requires an extra step in preparation. But this is how you grow people. Your current template is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting. We must remove every possible obstacle from the path of the disinterested, suspicious, here-against-my-will, would-rather-be-somewhere-else, unchurched guests. The parking lot, hallways, auditorium, and stage must be obstacle-free zones. As a preacher, it’s my responsibility to offend people with the gospel. That’s one reason we work so hard not to offend them in the parking lot, the hallway, at check-in, or in the early portions of our service. We want people to come back the following week for another round of offending! Present the gospel in uncompromising terms, preach hard against sin, and tackle the most emotionally charged topics in culture, while providing an environment where unchurched people feel comfortable. The approach a church chooses trumps its purpose every time. Nothing says hypocrite faster than Christians expecting non-Christians to behave like Christians when half the Christians don’t act like it half the time. When you give non-Christians an out, they respond by leaning in. Especially if you invite them rather than expect them. There’s a big difference between being expected to do something and being invited to try something. There is an inexorable link between an organization’s vision and its appetite for improvement. Vision exposes what has yet to be accomplished. In this way, vision has the power to create a healthy sense of organizational discontent. A leader who continually keeps the vision out in front of his or her staff creates a thirst for improvement. Vision-centric churches expect change. Change is a means to an end. Change is critical to making what could and should be a reality. Write your vision in ink; everything else should be penciled in. Plans change. Vision remains the same. It is natural to assume that what worked in the past will always work. But, of course, that way of thinking is lethal. And the longer it goes unchallenged, the more difficult it is to identify and eradicate. Every innovation has an expiration date. The primary reason churches cling to outdated models and programs is that they lack leadership.

A desire to attain short-term happiness while laboring under the weight a looming death sentence is an obvious paradox. Suicide, as distinguished from medical euthanasia, is an emotional reaction to the absurdity of life. Suicide is a panic-stricken reflex induced by the sinister twins of fear and foreboding. A rational person does not commit self-murder because their longing for happiness is incongruent with their present day reality. Suicide is a superficial response to hard times; suicide is a pusillanimous solution. A more measured reaction and, therefore, ultimately a braver and logical tactic is to meet life’s pillbox of irrationality headfirst. Upon soul-searching reflection, a thinking person accepts that while he or she might never comprehend a unifying meaning of life they still prefer to experience each permitted day of life to the fullest. A pragmatic person accepts the cold fact that happiness is fleeting and death is inevitable. By acknowledging and accepting the underlying absurdity of life, the prisoner awakens to discover his own humanity. By refusing to cooperate with death, by working each day to expand personal consciousness, by savoring each moment of life regardless of its hazards, adversities, misfortunes, and seemingly lack of overriding purpose, an impertinent ward of time transcends his or her incarnate incarceration.

Imagine a psychiatrist sitting down with a broken human being saying, I am here for you, I am committed to your care, I want to make you feel better, I want to return your joy to you, I don't know how I will do it but I will find out and then I will apply one hundred percent of my abilities, my training, my compassion and my curiosity to your health -- to your well-being, to your joy. I am here for you and I will work very hard to help you. I promise. If I fail it will me my failure, not yours. I am the professional. I am the expert. You are experiencing great pain right now and it is my job and my mission to cure you from your pain. I am absolutely committed to your care... I know you are suffering. I know you are afraid, I love you. I want to cure you and I won't stop trying to help you. You are my patient. I am your doctor. You are my patient. Imagine a doctor phoning you at all hours of the day and night to tell you that he or she had been reading some new stuff on the subject of whatever and was really excited about how it might help you. Imagine a doctor calling you in an important meeting and saying listen, I'm so sorry to bother you but I"ve been thinking really hard about your problems and I'd like to try something completely new. I need to see you immediately! I"m absolutely committed to your care! I think this might help you. I won't give up on you.

Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? I don’t do games. I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do affairs. Usually, when I meet a woman and take interest in her, I will be loyal to her, and only her. I expect the same. I don’t share well. I’m all for exclusiveness in everything I do, and own. I’m not afraid of commitment or hard work. You’re right; I’m not new to this. I’ve been in many relationships. This is good news, Sophie. It means I won’t waste your time. Rest assured, if I’m with you it’s because that’s exactly where I want to be. If ever I want out of a relationship, I leave. My commitment ends there. It’s simple enough and this is the only thing that makes sense to me.

We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways--because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners.

These women do not stop to ponder the consequences of their claims to be playing with the boys. They do not consider the full male experience, but cosplay the particular parts the system wants them to play. She works hard for the corporation. She has meaningless sex. She acts tough. She isn't afraid to fight. She then wonders why women are depressed more, committing suicide more often, and why one in four are on mental medication. Playing at just a few parts of the male role drives women to medication, drinking, and despair. It is womans ignorance of masculinity that they would ever dare to claim she was performing a father's role. No man would claim to do a mother's role, for he knows he could never be a mother. A dog may jump around and act like a cat, but it is still a dog.

She had touched a woman who had not only known her father but who had killed with him. All she remembered of the man they called Sunset Harkless was that he smelled like dust and cinnamon. That and that he’d sometimes throw her high up in the air before catching her when she was too young to tie her own shoes. Her father, a man she hardly knew, had committed murder. He had committed sexual assault. She was ashamed to have come from him. And the hard truth was, despite the work she did, the work she believed in, she had not been sure she wanted to see her father free in the world. She had not wanted to have him appear in her life. She had not wanted the world to know she was his daughter. And then he’d died and all she’d had left was dust and cinnamon and the feeling of flying, then falling.

We have been seduced by sound bites. It is difficult to imagine how we are going to have an intelligent conversation around complex theopolitical issues as long as the average news consumer in America is willing to be sound-bite driven. We face a sorry state of affairs in our culture when few people seem willing to take the time for nuanced discussion on the complicated challenges we face. Politicians of all parties have been willing to foster this sound-bite mentality because it has worked for them. Most Americans work hard and are faced with too little time and too many distractions to study the issues well enough to make an informed judgment on them. As long as news consumers are willing to be manipulated by sound bites and are unwilling to commit the time to understand the complexities, we will continue to see artificial and simplistic distinctions drive too much of our conversation, resulting in divisions and disagreements that rarely get at the substantive issues.

Commitment is important. Do you need the piece of paper? Not necessarily, but I do think marriage is more than that, and it’s a strange reflex to minimize the commitment to just ‘a piece of paper’. For me, marriage is about saying, ‘Yes, we’ve already committed, but now we’re going to make vows to each other in front of our friends and our family, and they’re going to hold us accountable for those vows. We’re going to hold each other accountable for them too. We’re going to try to stay together, no matter what. We’re going to stick it out. We’re not going to run away when it gets too hard or too scary, and we’re going to try to always see the best in each other: today, tomorrow and twenty years from now.’ The fact that you’re willing to do that with someone? To commit to really trying to make it work? I think that’s a very sexy, lovely thing. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and there’s nothing wrong with that. But marrying someone means that you’re going to give it a go anyway.

In knowledge work, when you agree to a new commitment, be it a minor task or a large project, it brings with it a certain amount of ongoing administrative overhead: back-and-forth email threads needed to gather information, for example, or meetings scheduled to synchronize with your collaborators. This overhead tax activates as soon as you take on a new responsibility. As your to-do list grows, so does the total amount of overhead tax you’re paying. Because the number of hours in the day is fixed, these administrative chores will take more and more time away from your core work, slowing down the rate at which these objectives are accomplished. At moderate workloads, this effect might be frustrating: a general sense that completing your work is taking longer than it should. As your workload increases, however, the overhead tax you’re paying will eventually pass a tipping point, beyond which logistical efforts will devour so much of your schedule that you cannot complete old tasks fast enough to keep up with the new. This feedback loop can quickly spiral out of control, pushing your workload higher and higher until you find yourself losing your entire day to overhead activities: meeting after meeting conducted against a background hum of unceasing email and chat. Eventually the only solution becomes to push actual work into ad hoc sessions added after hours—in the evenings and early mornings, or over the weekend—in a desperate attempt to avoid a full collapse of all useful output. You’re as busy as you’ve ever been, and yet hardly get anything done.

Why do we make gardens? The act seems so extravagant, so illogical. Don’t we have enough hard work in our lives already? Are we looking for more? Why on earth do we bother? It takes a kind of courage. You have to learn to cherish. You have to dare, to take the risk, to bother, to care. To make a garden, you have to be able to love and to see yourself as capable of nurturing. It takes patience, too. If the garden is to thrive you must commit yourself to it for years, for the creation of a garden takes place over time. Like a child, a garden has needs that have to be met, whether we feel like it or not, day after day. You have to have confidence. You have to take charge and be responsible. You have to act upon the garden. And you have to let it act upon you. Because it will act upon you. And will knit you together with the rest of the world. It will not let you stand apart. The challenge is hard, but it is irresistible. To get dirty, to get involved. To act and be acted upon. That is life. If we stop accepting that challenge, we stop living.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that "non-attachment" is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the otherworldly or the humanistic ideal is "higher." The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives," from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man

Newton Pulsifer had never had a cause in his life. Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He’d have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he’d have preferred a half-hour’s chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He’d sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn’t come. And then he’d tried to become an official Atheist and hadn’t got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. And he’d given up on ecology when the ecology magazine he’d been subscribing to had shown its readers a plan of a self-sufficient garden, and had drawn the ecological goat tethered within three feet of the ecological beehive. Newt had spent a lot of time at his grandmother’s house in the country and thought he knew something about the habits of both goats and bees, and concluded therefore that the magazine was run by a bunch of bib-overalled maniacs. Besides, it used the word “community” too often; Newt had always suspected that people who regularly used the word “community” were using it in a very specific sense that excluded him and everyone he knew. Then he’d tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he’d innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He’d found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn’t really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist. To Newt’s straightforward mind this was intolerable. Newt had not believed in the Cub Scouts and then, when he was old enough, not in the Scouts either. He was prepared to believe, though, that the job of wages clerk at United Holdings [Holdings] PLC, was possibly the most boring in the world. This is how Newton Pulsifer looked as a man: if he went into a phone booth and changed, he might manage to come out looking like Clark Kent.

Lutch Crawford always talked straight to the point. That’s how he got so much work done. “Fawn, about the other night, with all that moon. How do you feel now?” “I feel the same way,” she said tightly. Lutch had a little habit of catching his lower lip with his teeth and letting go when he was thinking was hard. There was a pause about long enough to do this. Then he said, “You been hearing rumors about you and me?” “Well I—” She caught her breath. “Oh, Lutch—” I heard the wicker, sharp and crisp, as she came up out of it. “Hold on!” Lutch snapped. “There’s nothing to it, Fawn. Forget it.” I heard the wicker again, slow, the front part, the back part. She didn’t say anything. “There’s some things too big for one or two people to fool with, honey,” he said gently. “This band’s one of ’em. For whatever it’s worth, it’s bigger than you and me. It’s going good and it’ll go better. It’s about as perfect as a group can get. It’s a unit. Tight. So tight that one wrong move’ll blow out all its seams. You and me, now—that’d be a wrong move.” “How do you know? What do you mean?” “Call it a hunch. Mostly, I know that things have been swell up to now, and I know that you—we—anyway, we can’t risk a change in the good old status quo.” “But—what about me?” she wailed. “Tough on you?” I’d known Lutch a long time, and this was the first time his voice didn’t come full and easy. “Fawn, there’s fourteen cats in this aggregation and they all feel the same way about you as you do about me. You have no monopoly. Things are tough all over. Think of that next time you feel spring fever coming on.” I think he bit at his lower lip again. In a soft voice like Skid’s guitar with the bass stop, he said, “I’m sorry, kid.” “Don’t call me kid!” she blazed. “You better go practice your scales,” he said thickly. The door slammed. After a bit he let me out. He went and sat by the window, looking out. “Now what did you do that for?” I wanted to know. “For the unit,” he said, still looking out the window. “You’re crazy. Don’t you want her?” What I could see of his face answered that question. I don’t think I’d realized before how much he wanted her. I don’t think I’d thought about it. He said, “I don’t want her so badly I’d commit murder for an even chance at her. You do. If anyone wants her worse than I do, I don’t want her enough. That’s the way I see it.

A woman who dates as if she deserves a man’s love: ·      Pays more attention to what a man does than what a man says. ·      Does not make excuses for a man’s poor behavior, no matter how dreamy he is. ·      Does not need to walk on eggshells with a man for fear of being let go. ·      Does not lose sleep over a man that clearly does not want her. ·      Does not confuse the emotional drama of being treated poorly with “being in love.” ·      Does not have to settle for an unloving man because of her age, status, etc. ·      Does not waste emotional energy trying to understand “how could he be this way?” or trying to decipher “why does he keep treating me this way?” ·      Does not risk her dignity trying to chase a man who has dumped her. ·      Does not waste her time dating men with whom she never knows where she stands. ·      Is honest and forthright with both herself and the men she dates when it comes to what she wants and needs in a relationship. ·      Presents herself as high-quality girlfriend material and desires both love AND respect from a man. ·      Works hard on herself to develop the irresistible qualities that men desire in the woman they want to cultivate a long-term, committed relationship with…

You’ve heard the expression “total war”; it’s pretty common throughout human history. Every generation or so, some gasbag likes to spout about how his people have declared “total war” against an enemy, meaning that every man, woman, and child within his nation was committing every second of their lives to victory. That is bullshit on two basic levels. First of all, no country or group is ever 100 percent committed to war; it’s just not physically possible. You can have a high percentage, so many people working so hard for so long, but all of the people, all of the time? What about the malingerers, or the conscientious objectors? What about the sick, the injured, the very old, the very young? What about when you’re sleeping, eating, taking a shower, or taking a dump? Is that a “dump for victory”? That’s the first reason total war is impossible for humans. The second is that all nations have their limits. There might be individuals within that group who are willing to sacrifice their lives; it might even be a relatively high number for the population, but that population as a whole will eventually reach its maximum emotional and physiological breaking point. The Japanese reached theirs with a couple of American atomic bombs. The Vietnamese might have reached theirs if we’d dropped a couple more, 2 but, thank all holy Christ, our will broke before it came to that. That is the nature of human warfare, two sides trying to push the other past its limit of endurance, and no matter how much we like to talk about total war, that limit is always there…unless you’re the living dead. For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth. That’s the kind of enemy that was waiting for us beyond the Rockies. That’s the kind of war we had to fight.

Paul Graham, computer scientist and cofounder of Y Combinator—the start-up funder of Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Twitch—encapsulated Ibarra’s tenets in a high school graduation speech he wrote, but never delivered: It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it turns out to be hard, partly because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs. . . . Most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school. . . . In such a world it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans. And yet every May, speakers all over the country fire up the Standard Graduation Speech, the theme of which is: don’t give up on your dreams. I know what they mean, but this is a bad way to put it, because it implies you’re supposed to be bound by some plan you made early on. The computer world has a name for this: premature optimization. . . . . . . Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. This is what most successful people actually do anyway. In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don’t commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward.

1. Choose to love each other even in those moments when you struggle to like each other. Love is a commitment, not a feeling. 2. Always answer the phone when your husband/wife is calling and, when possible, try to keep your phone off when you’re together with your spouse. 3. Make time together a priority. Budget for a consistent date night. Time is the currency of relationships, so consistently invest time in your marriage. 4. Surround yourself with friends who will strengthen your marriage, and remove yourself from people who may tempt you to compromise your character. 5. Make laughter the soundtrack of your marriage. Share moments of joy, and even in the hard times find reasons to laugh. 6. In every argument, remember that there won’t be a winner and a loser. You are partners in everything, so you’ll either win together or lose together. Work together to find a solution. 7. Remember that a strong marriage rarely has two strong people at the same time. It’s usually a husband and wife taking turns being strong for each other in the moments when the other feels weak. 8. Prioritize what happens in the bedroom. It takes more than sex to build a strong marriage, but it’s nearly impossible to build a strong marriage without it. 9. Remember that marriage isn’t 50–50; divorce is 50–50. Marriage has to be 100–100. It’s not splitting everything in half but both partners giving everything they’ve got. 10. Give your best to each other, not your leftovers after you’ve given your best to everyone else. 11. Learn from other people, but don’t feel the need to compare your life or your marriage to anyone else’s. God’s plan for your life is masterfully unique. 12. Don’t put your marriage on hold while you’re raising your kids, or else you’ll end up with an empty nest and an empty marriage. 13. Never keep secrets from each other. Secrecy is the enemy of intimacy. 14. Never lie to each other. Lies break trust, and trust is the foundation of a strong marriage. 15. When you’ve made a mistake, admit it and humbly seek forgiveness. You should be quick to say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” 16. When your husband/wife breaks your trust, give them your forgiveness instantly, which will promote healing and create the opportunity for trust to be rebuilt. You should be quick to say, “I love you. I forgive you. Let’s move forward.” 17. Be patient with each other. Your spouse is always more important than your schedule. 18. Model the kind of marriage that will make your sons want to grow up to be good husbands and your daughters want to grow up to be good wives. 19. Be your spouse’s biggest encourager, not his/her biggest critic. Be the one who wipes away your spouse’s tears, not the one who causes them. 20. Never talk badly about your spouse to other people or vent about them online. Protect your spouse at all times and in all places. 21. Always wear your wedding ring. It will remind you that you’re always connected to your spouse, and it will remind the rest of the world that you’re off limits. 22. Connect with a community of faith. A good church can make a world of difference in your marriage and family. 23. Pray together. Every marriage is stronger with God in the middle of it. 24. When you have to choose between saying nothing or saying something mean to your spouse, say nothing every time. 25. Never consider divorce as an option. Remember that a perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other. FINAL

I always return others’ energies to their higher selves or pass it to the Divine to hand back, instead of directly sending it back to the others. I learned this lesson the hard way. I once had a client who had been suicidal for decades. We determined that her father’s death wish had entered into her own system through her physical energetic field. We returned this wish to her father energetically, and he committed suicide the next day. As a healer, I now send energy only through higher channels, so it will produce loving, rather than acute, effects. I ask the Divine to link each person involved to his or her own healing stream of grace (as introduced on page 65). Healing streams of grace surround and emanate from everyone. They are, essentially, energetic strands of love. The very fact that these exist means that we don’t have to earn this grace/love, but only to allow it. Healing your energy boundaries requires only that you connect yourself to the healing stream intended for you; healing others or keeping them from penetrating your boundaries invites them to access their own healing streams of grace. I then ask the Divine to lift the negative or intrusive energy from my client and return it to the other’s higher self. This process works for illnesses, death wishes, curses, cords, entity release, and all other concerns. Finally, I ask that my client receive the healing needed for both his or her body and physical energetic boundary.

In a hurry to escape he let himself out of the house and walked to the truck. Before he could climb inside Marilee raced down the steps. Breathless,she came to a sudden halt in front of him. At the dark look in his eyes she swallowed. "Please don't go,Wyatt. I've been such a fool." "You aren't the only one." He studied her with a look that had her heart stuttering.A look so intense, she couldn't look away. "I've been neating myself up for days,because I wanted things to go my way or no way." "There's no need.You're not the only one." Her voice was soft,throaty. "You've always respected my need to be independent.But I guess I fought the battle so long,I forgot how to stop fighting even after I'd won the war." "You can fight me all you want. You know Superman is indestructable." Again that long,speculative look. "I know I caught you off guard with that proposal. It won't happen again. Even when I understood your fear of commitment, I had to push to have things my way.And even though I still want more, I'm willing to settle for what you're willing to give,as long as we can be together." She gave a deep sigh. "You mean it?" "I do." "Oh,Wyatt.I was so afraid I'd driven you away forever." He continued studying her. "Does this mean you're suffering another change of heart?" "My heart doesn't need to change. In my heart,I've always known how very special you are.It's my head that can't seem to catch up." She gave a shake of her head,as though to clear it. "I'm so glad you understand me. I've spent so many years fighting to be my own person, it seems I can't bear to give up the battle." A slow smile spread across his face, changing it from darkness to light. "Marilee,if it's a sparring partner you want,I'm happy to sigh on. And if,in time,you ever decide you want more, I'm your man." He framed her face with his hands and lowered his head,kissing her long and slow and deep until they were both sighing with pleasure. Her tears started again,but this time they were tears of joy. Wyatt brushed them away with his thumbs and traced the tracks with his lips. Marilee sighed at the tenderness. It was one of the things she most loved about this man. Loved. Why did she find it so hard to say what she was feeling? Because,her heart whispered, love meant commitment and promises and forever after,and that was more than she was willing to consider. At least for now. After a moment he caught her hand. "Where are we going?" "Your place.It's closer than the ranch, and we've wasted too much time already." "i can't leave the ambulance..." "All right." He turned away from the ranch truck and led her toward her vehicle. "See how easy I am?" At her little laugh he added, "I'm desperate for some time alone with you." Alone. She thought about that word. She'd been alone for so long.What he was offering had her heart working overtime. He was willing to compromise in order to be with her. She was laughing through her tears as she turned the key in the ignition. The key that had saved his life. "Wyatt McCord,I can't think of anything I'd rather be than alone with you.

The heart of the issue is not simply that a group that gets a large portion of its budget from the Walton family fortune is unlikely to be highly critical of Walmart. The 1990s was the key decade when the contours of the climate battle were being drawn—when a collective strategy for rising to the challenge was developed and when the first wave of supposed solutions was presented to the public. It was also the period when Big Green became most enthusiastically pro-corporate, most committed to a low-friction model of social change in which everything had to be ‘win- win.’ And in the same period many of the corporate partners of groups like the EDF and the Nature Conservancy—Walmart, FedEx, GM—were pushing hard for the global deregulatory framework that has done so much to send emissions soaring. This alignment of economic interests—combined with the ever powerful desire to be seen as ‘serious’ in circles where seriousness is equated with toeing the pro-market line —fundamentally shaped how these green groups conceived of the climate challenge from the start. Global warming was not defined as a crisis being fueled by overconsumption, or by high emissions industrial agriculture, or by car culture, or by a trade system that insists that vast geographical distances do not matter—root causes that would have demanded changes in how we live, work, eat, and shop. Instead, climate change was presented as a narrow technical problem with no end of profitable solutions within the market system, many of which were available for sale at Walmart.

I know a lot of people like me. People who work overtime, never turning down additional work for fear of disappointing their boss. They're available to friends and loved ones twenty-four seven, providing an unending stream of support and advice. They care about dozens and dozens of social issues yet always feel guilty about not doing "enough" to address them, because there simply aren't enough hours in the day. These types of people often try to cram every waking moment with activity. After a long day at work, they try to teach themselves Spanish on the Duolingo app on their phone, for example, or they try to learn how to code in Python on sites like Code Academy. People like this -- people like me -- are doing everything society has taught us we have to do if we want to be virtuous and deserving of respect. We're committed employees, passionate activists, considerate friends, and perpetual students. We worry about the future. We plan ahead. We try to reduce our anxiety by controlling the things we can control -- and we push ourselves to work very, very hard. Most of us spend the majority of our days feeling tired, overwhelmed, and disappointed in ourselves, certain we've come up short. No matter how much we've accomplished or how hard we've worked, we never believe we've done enough to feel satisfied or at peace. We never think we deserve a break. Through all the burnouts, stress-related illnesses, and sleep-deprived weeks we endure, we remain convinced that having limitations makes us "lazy" -- and that laziness is always a bad thing.

The main thing is to abhor dishonesty, any kind of dishonesty, but above all, dishonesty with regard to your own self. Be aware of your dishonesty and ponder it every hour, every minute of the day. Never be squeamish, both with regard to yourself and others; what appears to you disgusting in yourself is cleansed by the very fact that you have acknowledged it within yourself. Avoid giving in to fear too, since all fear is only the consequence of falsity. Never be afraid of your own faint-heartedness in the endeavour to love, nor even too fearful of any bad actions that you may commit in the course of that endeavour. I am sorry I cannot say anything more comforting to you, for active love compared with contemplative love is a hard and awesome business. Contemplative love seeks a heroic deed that can be accomplished without delay and in full view of everyone. Indeed, some people are even ready to lay down their lives as long as the process is not long drawn out but takes place quickly, as though it were being staged for everybody to watch and applaud. Active love, on the other hand, is unremitting hard work and tenacity, and for some it is a veritable science. But let me tell you in advance: even as you may realize with horror that, in spite of your best efforts, not only have you not come any nearer to your goal, but you may even have receded from it, it is precisely at that moment, I tell you, that you will suddenly reach your goal and clearly behold the wondrous power of God, who has at all times loved you, at all times mysteriously guided you. I am sorry

Old folks here will tell you there’s fire in dry bamboo. In the past, matches were hard to come by and didn’t always work. When people went into the forest, they could just find some dry wood, and they knew there was fire in it. Whenever they wanted to cook, they only had to rub two pieces of dry bamboo together to start a fire. They would just keep rubbing them together. At first the wood was cold. Rubbing for a while, it got hot, then after some time there was smoke. But it did take a while to get hot, and even more time to make smoke and finally fire. Now we, their children and descendants in these times, don’t have much patience. If we try to rub pieces of bamboo to make fire, within two minutes we’re getting restless. We get fed up and put the sticks down: “Time to take a break!” Then when we pick them up again, we find they’re cold. We start rubbing once more, but we’re starting from the beginning again so they don’t get hot very quickly, and again we get impatient. Like this, we could keep at it for an hour or a whole day and wouldn’t see any fire. We rub and stop, rub and stop. Then we start to criticize the old people: “These old-timers are crazy. I don’t know what they’re talking about. They must be lying. I’ve been rubbing the sticks all this time and still there’s nothing.” This is what happens if our understanding and commitment to practice don’t go far enough. There’s not enough heat, but we expect to have fire. The old folks have done that, but they know it takes some effort. You have to keep rubbing without taking a break; if you take a break, you only get cold sticks.

It is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play? Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall? Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo? Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy? Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase? Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper? Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists? Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree —no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand? Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together? Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built? Why it is called a TV set when you get only one? Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically? Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic? Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is? Why is the word abbreviation so long? Why is diminutive so undiminutive? Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables? Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus? And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress? ...

committing suicide, both for your own sake and that of your companions. Both sexually and socially the polar explorer must make up his mind to be starved. To what extent can hard work, or what may be called dramatic imagination, provide a substitute? Compare our thoughts on the march; our food dreams at night; the primitive way in which the loss of a crumb of biscuit may give a lasting sense of grievance. Night after night I bought big buns and chocolate at a stall on the island platform at Hatfield station, but always woke before I got a mouthful to my lips; some companions who were not so highly strung were more fortunate, and ate their phantom meals. And the darkness, accompanied it may be almost continually by howling blizzards which prevent you seeing your hand before your face. Life in such surroundings is both mentally and physically cramped; open-air exercise is restricted and in blizzards quite impossible, and you realize how much you lose by your inability to see the world about you when you are out-of-doors. I am told that when confronted by a lunatic or one who under the influence of some great grief or shock contemplates suicide, you should take that man out-of-doors and walk him about: Nature will do the rest. To normal people like ourselves living under abnormal circumstances Nature could do much to lift our thoughts out of the rut of everyday affairs, but she loses much of her healing power when she cannot be seen, but only felt, and when that feeling is intensely uncomfortable. Somehow in judging polar life you must discount compulsory endurance; and find out what a man can shirk, remembering always that it is a sledging life which

We know that a loving Father has allowed us to live in a time when Jesus Christ has called prophets and others to serve as judges in Israel. Because of that we listen to a prophet's voice or sit in counsel with a bishop with the hope that we will hear correction. . . . We know He has placed servants to offer us both His covenants and His correction. We see the giving and the taking of correction as priceless and sacred. That is at least one of the reasons why the Lord warned us to seek as our teachers only men and women who are inspired of Him. And that is one of the reasons why we welcome prophets to lead us. . . . Because He loves us and because the purpose of the plan is to become like Him, He requires exactness of us. And the promises He makes to us always include the power to grow in our capacity to keep covenants. He makes it possible for us to know His rules. When we try with all our hearts to meet His standards, He gives us the companionship of the Holy Ghost. That in turn increases our power both to keep commitments and to discern what is good and true. And that is the power to learn, both in our temporal studies and in the learning we need for eternity. . . . For the child of God who has enough faith in the plan of salvation to treat it as reality, hard work is the only reasonable option. Life at its longest is short. What we do here determines the rest of our condition for eternity. God our Father has offered us everything He has and asks only that we give Him all we have to give. That is an exchange so imbalanced in our favor that no effort would be too much and no hours too long in service to Him, to the Savior, and to our Father's children. Hard work is the natural result of simply knowing and believing what it means to be a child of God.

...The gulag—with its millions of victims, if you listen to Solzehnitsyn and Sakharov—supposedly existed in the Soviet Union right down to the very last days of communism. If so—as I've asked before—where did it disappear to? That is, when the communist states were overthrown, where were the millions of stricken victims pouring out of the internment camps with their tales of torment? I'm not saying they don't exist; I'm just asking, where are they? One of the last remaining camps, Perm-35—visited in 1989 and again in '90 by Western observers—held only a few dozen prisoners, some of whom were outright spies, as reported in the Washington Post. Others were refuseniks who tried to flee the country. The inmates complained about poor-quality food, the bitter cold, occasional mistreatment by guards. I should point out that these labor camps were that: they were work camps. They weren't death camps that you had under Nazism where there was a systematic extermination of the people in the camps. So there was a relatively high survival rate. The visitors also noted that throughout the 1980s, hundreds of political prisoners had been released from the various camps, but hundreds are not millions. Even with the great fall that took place after Stalin, under Khrushchev, when most of the camps were closed down...there was no sign of millions pouring back into Soviet life—the numbers released were in the thousands. Why—where are the victims? Why no uncovering of mass graves? No Nuremburg-style public trials of communist leaders, documenting the widespread atrocities against these millions—or hundreds of millions, if we want to believe our friend at the Claremont Institute. Surely the new...anti-communist rulers in eastern Europe and Russia would have leaped at the opportunity to put these people on trial. And the best that the West Germans could do was to charge East German leader Erich Honecker and seven of his border guards with shooting persons who tried to escape over the Berlin Wall. It's a serious enough crime, that is, but it's hardly a gulag. In 1955[sic], the former secretary of the Prague communist party was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. 'Ah, a gulag criminal!' No, it was for ordering police to use tear gas and water cannons against demonstrators in 1988. Is this the best example of bloodthirsty communist repression that the capitalist restorationists could find in Czechoslovakia? An action that doesn't even qualify as a crime in most Western nations—water cannons and tear gas! Are they kidding? No one should deny that crimes were committed, but perhaps most of the gulag millions existed less in reality and more in the buckets of anti-communist propaganda that were poured over our heads for decades.

So, absent the chance to make every job applicant work as hard as a college applicant, is there some quick, clever, cheap way of weeding out bad employees before they are hired? Zappos has come up with one such trick. You will recall from the last chapter that Zappos, the online shoe store, has a variety of unorthodox ideas about how a business can be run. You may also recall that its customer-service reps are central to the firm’s success. So even though the job might pay only $11 an hour, Zappos wants to know that each new employee is fully committed to the company’s ethos. That’s where “The Offer” comes in. When new employees are in the onboarding period—they’ve already been screened, offered a job, and completed a few weeks of training—Zappos offers them a chance to quit. Even better, quitters will be paid for their training time and also get a bonus representing their first month’s salary—roughly $2,000—just for quitting! All they have to do is go through an exit interview and surrender their eligibility to be rehired at Zappos. Doesn’t that sound nuts? What kind of company would offer a new employee $2,000 to not work? A clever company. “It’s really putting the employee in the position of ‘Do you care more about money or do you care more about this culture and the company?’ ” says Tony Hsieh, the company’s CEO. “And if they care more about the easy money, then we probably aren’t the right fit for them.” Hsieh figured that any worker who would take the easy $2,000 was the kind of worker who would end up costing Zappos a lot more in the long run. By one industry estimate, it costs an average of roughly $4,000 to replace a single employee, and one recent survey of 2,500 companies found that a single bad hire can cost more than $25,000 in lost productivity, lower morale, and the like. So Zappos decided to pay a measly $2,000 up front and let the bad hires weed themselves out before they took root. As of this writing, fewer than 1 percent of new hires at Zappos accept “The Offer.

Close friendships, Gandhi says, are dangerous, because “friends react on one another” and through loyalty to a friend one can be led into wrong-doing. This is unquestionably true. Moreover, if one is to love God, or to love humanity as a whole, one cannot give one's preference to any individual person. This again is true, and it marks the point at which the humanistic and the religious attitude cease to be reconcilable. To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others. The autobiography leaves it uncertain whether Gandhi behaved in an inconsiderate way to his wife and children, but at any rate it makes clear that on three occasions he was willing to let his wife or a child die rather than administer the animal food prescribed by the doctor. It is true that the threatened death never actually occurred, and also that Gandhi — with, one gathers, a good deal of moral pressure in the opposite direction — always gave the patient the choice of staying alive at the price of committing a sin: still, if the decision had been solely his own, he would have forbidden the animal food, whatever the risks might be. There must, he says, be some limit to what we will do in order to remain alive, and the limit is well on this side of chicken broth. This attitude is perhaps a noble one, but, in the sense which — I think — most people would give to the word, it is inhuman. The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals. No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid. There is an obvious retort to this, but one should be wary about making it. In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that “non-attachment” is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man only rejects it because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for “non-attachment” is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the other-worldly or the humanistic ideal is “higher”. The point is that they are incompatible. One must choose between God and Man, and all “radicals” and “progressives”, from the mildest Liberal to the most extreme Anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.

Petre's commitment to Roman Catholicism combined with her openness to mental and moral subjectivism formed a rare alchemy among early twentieth-century Catholics. Her exposure to thinkers like Nietzsche did not strip her of her faith. She argued that despite Nietzsche's professed atheism, his life and thought offered much for Catholics to admire. His was a 'strenuous,' 'suffering,' 'unselfish' 'life militant' marked by 'purity, integrity, [and] utter unworldliness.' Despite being the sweetheart of libertine artists and writers, Nietzsche criticized the decadence and pessimism of modern aesthetics. Likewise, the goal of his celebration of free will and his critique of sin was not an orgiastic 'self-abandonment, but ... strong self-possession; a mastering of one's own life and conduct' and a recognition that true contrition is not legislated from without but cultivated from within a deep reverence for the 'mysterious laws of our being.' Petre insisted that in Nietzsche, Catholics could find a fellow seeker of moral strenuousness: 'There is to be here no dilettantism, but sheer hard work.

To speak of a communication failure implies a breakdown of some sort. Yet this does not accurately portray what occurs. In truth, communication difficulties arise not from breakdown but from the characteristics of the system itself. Despite promising beginnings in our intimate relationships, we tend over time to evolve a system of communication that suppresses rather than reveals information. Life is complicated, and confirming or disconfirming the well-being of a relationship takes effort. Once we are comfortably coupled, the intense, energy-consuming monitoring of courtship days is replaced by a simpler, more efficient method. Unable to witness our partners’ every activity or verify every nuance of meaning, we evolve a communication system based on trust. We gradually cease our attentive probing, relying instead on familiar cues and signals to stand as testament to the strength of the bond: the words “I love you,” holidays with the family, good sex, special times with shared friends, the routine exchange, “How was your day?” We take these signals as representative of the relationship and turn our monitoring energies elsewhere. ... Not only do the initiator’s negative signals tend to become incorporated into the existing routine, but, paradoxically, the initiator actively contributes to the impression that life goes on as usual. Even as they express their unhappiness, initiators work at emphasizing and maintaining the routine aspects of life with the other person, simultaneously giving signals that all is well. Unwilling to leave the relationship yet, they need to privately explore and evaluate the situation. The initiator thus contrives an appearance of participation,7 creating a protective cover that allows them to “return” if their alternative resources do not work out. Our ability to do this—to perform a role we are no longer enthusiastically committed to—is one of our acquired talents. In all our encounters, we present ourselves to others in much the same way as actors do, tailoring our performance to the role we are assigned in a particular setting.8 Thus, communication is always distorted. We only give up fragments of what really occurs within us during that specific moment of communication.9 Such fragments are always selected and arranged so that there is seldom a faithful presentation of our inner reality. It is transformed, reduced, redirected, recomposed.10 Once we get the role perfected, we are able to play it whether we are in the mood to go on stage or not, simply by reproducing the signals. What is true of all our encounters is, of course, true of intimate relationships. The nature of the intimate bond is especially hard to confirm or disconfirm.11 The signals produced by each partner, while acting out the partner role, tend to be interpreted by the other as the relationship.12 Because the costs of constantly checking out what the other person is feeling and doing are high, each partner is in a position to be duped and misled by the other.13 Thus, the initiator is able to keep up appearances that all is well by falsifying, tailoring, and manipulating signals to that effect. The normal routine can be used to attest to the presence of something that is not there. For example, initiators can continue the habit of saying, “I love you,” though the passion is gone. They can say, “I love you” and cover the fact that they feel disappointment or anger, or that they feel nothing at all. Or, they can say, “I love you” and mean, “I like you,” or, “We have been through a lot together,” or even “Today was a good day.

Are you ready, children?” Father Mikhail walked through the church. “Did I keep you waiting?” He took his place in front of them at the altar. The jeweler and Sofia stood nearby. Tatiana thought they might have already finished that bottle of vodka. Father Mikhail smiled. “Your birthday today,” he said to Tatiana. “Nice birthday present for you, no?” She pressed into Alexander. “Sometimes I feel that my powers are limited by the absence of God in the lives of men during these trying times,” Father Mikhail began. “But God is still present in my church, and I can see He is present in you. I am very glad you came to me, children. Your union is meant by God for your mutual joy, for the help and comfort you give one another in prosperity and adversity and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children. I want to send you righteously on your way through life. Are you ready to commit yourselves to each other?” “We are,” they said. “The bond and the covenant of marriage was established by God in creation. Christ himself adorned this manner of life by his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. A marriage is a symbol of the mystery of the union between Christ and His Church. Do you understand that those whom God has joined together, no man can put asunder?” “We do,” they said. “Do you have the rings?” “We do.” Father Mikhail continued. “Most gracious God,” he said, holding the cross above their heads, “look with favor upon this man and this woman living in a world for which Your Son gave His life. Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world. Defend this man and this woman from every enemy. Lead them into peace. Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle upon their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their friendship, in their sleeping and in their waking, in their joys and their sorrows, in their life and in their death.” Tears trickled down Tatiana’s face. She hoped Alexander wouldn’t notice. Father Mikhail certainly had. Turning to Tatiana and taking her hands, Alexander smiled, beaming at her unrestrained happiness. Outside, on the steps of the church, he lifted her off the ground and swung her around as they kissed ecstatically. The jeweler and Sofia clapped apathetically, already down the steps and on the street. “Don’t hug her so tight. You’ll squeeze that child right out of her,” said Sofia to Alexander as she turned around and lifted her clunky camera. “Oh, wait. Hold on. Let me take a picture of the newlyweds.” She clicked once. Twice. “Come to me next week. Maybe I’ll have some paper by then to develop them.” She waved. “So you still think the registry office judge should have married us?” Alexander grinned. “He with his ‘of sound mind’ philosophy on marriage?” Tatiana shook her head. “You were so right. This was perfect. How did you know this all along?” “Because you and I were brought together by God,” Alexander replied. “This was our way of thanking Him.” Tatiana chuckled. “Do you know it took us less time to get married than to make love the first time?” “Much less,” Alexander said, swinging her around in the air. “Besides, getting married is the easy part. Just like making love. It was the getting you to make love to me that was hard. It was the getting you to marry me…” “I’m sorry. I was so nervous.” “I know,” he said. He still hadn’t put her down. “I thought the chances were twenty-eighty you were actually going to go through with it.” “Twenty against?” “Twenty for.” “Got to have a little more faith, my husband,” said Tatiana, kissing his lips.