Complaint Change Quotes

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Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses in your life; you realize everything that happens in life is a result of the previous choice you’ve made and start making new choices to change your life.
Roy T. Bennett
How to win in life: 1 work hard 2 complain less 3 listen more 4 try, learn, grow 5 don't let people tell you it cant be done 6 make no excuses
Germany Kent
Hurt people hurt people. We are not being judgmental by separating ourselves from such people. But we should do so with compassion. Compassion is defined as a "keen awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire to see it relieved." People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain. Avoid the reactive response of believeing they are bad; they already think so and are acting that way. They aren't bad; they are damaged and they deserve compassion. Note that compassion is an internal process, an understanding of the painful and troubled road trod by another. It is not trying to change or fix that person.
Will Bowen (Complaint Free Relationships: How to Positively Transform Your Personal, Work, and Love Relationships)
Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses in your life; you realize everything that happens in life is a result of the previous choice you’ve made and start making new choices to change your life.
Roy Bennett
Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses, and start making changes.
Roy Bennett
Who am I? And how I wonder, will this story end? . . . My life? It is'nt easy to explain. It has not been the rip-roaring spectacular I fancied it woulf be, but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers. i suppose it has most resembled a bluechip stock: fairly stable, more ups and downs, and gradually tending over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say this about his life. But do not be misled. I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am common man with common thought and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough. The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind, it's a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that involves a great deal of my life and the path I've chosen to follow. I have no complaints about the places it has taken me, enough complaints to fill a circus tent about other thins, maybe, but the path I've chosen has always been the right one, and I would'nt have had it any other way. Time, unfortunatley, does'nt make it easy to stay on course. The path is straight as ever, but now it is strewn with the rocks and gravel that accumulated over a lifetime . . . There is always a moment right before I begin to read the story when my mind churns, and I wonder, will it happen today? I don't know, for I never know beforehand, and deep down it really doesn't matter. It's the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee, a sort of wager on my part. And though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any other thing, I believe that anything is possible. I realize that odds, and science, are againts me. But science is not the answer; this I know, this I have learned in my lifetime. And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things. So once again, just as I do ecery day, I begin to read the notebook aloud, so that she can hear it, in the hope that the miracle, that has come to dominate my life will once again prevail. And maybe, just maybe, it will.
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
If you aren't diligently working towards changing something that bothers you, you rescind your right to complain about it.
Rob Liano
What’ll it be?” “I’ll have a beer. Bottled. Not light.” “Careful there, Ty,” Jenna said as she popped the top off and slid the bottle to him. “Don’t want to put on too much weight, or you’ll have trouble holding your stick.” He grabbed the bottle and held it to his lips. “Never had any complaints about my abilities with my stick so far.” Jenna arched a brow. “And you’re here alone? With that charm? Shocking.
Jaci Burton (Changing the Game (Play by Play, #2))
I'm remembering how this works. How life doesn't have to be only anxiety about what's gone wrong or could go worng, and complaints about the world around you. How a person you're excited about can remind you there's stuff going on beyond... routine oil changes and homework. Stuff that matters. Stuff to look forward to.
Sara Zarr (How to Save a Life)
Read any women's magazine and you'll see the same complaint over and over again: men - those little boys ten or twenty or thirty years on - are hopeless in bed. They are not interested in "foreplay"; they have no desire to stimulate the erogenous zones of the opposite sex; they are selfish, greedy, clumsy, unsophisticated. These complaints, you can't help feeling, are ironic. Back then, all we wanted was foreplay, and girls weren't interested. They didn't want to be touched, caressed, stimulated, aroused; in fact, they used to thump us if we tried. It's not really very suprising, then, that we're not much good at all that. We spent two or three long and extremely formative years being told very forcibly not even to think about it. Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, foreplay changes from being something that boys want to do and girls don't, to something that women want and men can't be bothered with. (Or so they say. Me, I like foreplay - mostly because the times when all I wanted to do was touch are alarmingly fresh in my mind.) The perfect match, if you ask me, is between the Cosmo woman and the fourteen-year-old boy.
Nick Hornby (High Fidelity)
Knowing your feelings won't change the facts, but knowing the facts can change your feelings.
Marlene Chism (Stop Workplace Drama: Train Your Team to have No Complaints, No Excuses, and No Regrets)
Many rulers would have spent the morning complaining loudly about the cold and the discomfort, as if their complaints would actually serve to alleviate the situation and as if their attendants should be able to do something about it. Not the emperor. He accepted the situation knowing that he could do nothing to change the weather. Best to endure it without making life more difficult for those around him.
John Flanagan (The Emperor of Nihon-Ja (Ranger's Apprentice, #10))
At best, the natural good-nature is edged with complaint or has changed into sullenness and gloom. And now and then it blazes forth in veiled but hot anger.
W.E.B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk)
Changing mainstream media will be hard, but you can help create parallel options. More academics should blog, post videos, post audio, post lectures, offer articles, and more. You’ll enjoy it: I’ve had threats and blackmail, abuse, smears and formal complaints with forged documentation. But it’s worth it, for one simple reason: pulling bad science apart is the best teaching gimmick I know for explaining how good science works.
Ben Goldacre (I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That)
Cigarettes to be fetched for me from the canteen,' said Rubashov. 'Have you got prison vouchers?' 'My money was taken from me on my arrival,' said Rubashov. 'Then you must wait until it has been changed for vouchers.' 'How long will that take in this model establishment of yours?' asked Rubashov. 'You can write a letter of complaint,' said the old man. 'You know quite well that I have neither paper nor pencil,' said Rubashov. 'To buy writing materials you have to have vouchers,' said the warder.
Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon)
Highly traumatized and chronically neglected or abused individuals are dominated by the immobilization/shutdown system. On the other hand, acutely traumatized people (often by a single recent event and without a history of repeated trauma, neglect or abuse) are generally dominated by the sympathetic fight/flight system. They tend to suffer from flashbacks and racing hearts, while the chronically traumatized individuals generally show no change or even a decrease in heart rate. These sufferers tend to be plagued with dissociative symptoms, including frequent spacyness, unreality, depersonalization, and various somatic and health complaints. Somatic symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, migraines, some forms of asthma, persistent pain, chronic fatigue, and general disengagement from life.
Peter A. Levine (In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness)
Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses and start making changes.
Roy Bennett
There was death at the beginning as there would be death again at its end. Though whether it was some fleeting shadow of this that passed across the girl’s dreams and woke her on that least likely of mornings she would never know. All she knew, when she opened her eyes, was that the world was somehow altered. The red glow of her alarm showed it was yet a half hour till the time she had set it to wake her and she lay quite still, not lifting her head, trying to configure the change. It was dark but not as dark as it should be. Across the bedroom, she could clearly make out the dull glint of her riding trophies on cluttered shelves and above them the looming faces of rock stars she had once thought she should care about. She listened. The silence that filled the house was different too, expectant, like the pause between the intake of breath and the uttering of words. Soon there would be the muted roar of the furnace coming alive in the basement and the old farmhouse floorboards would start their ritual creaking complaint. She slipped out from the bedclothes and went to the window. There was snow. The first fall of winter. And from the laterals of the fence up by the pond she could tell there must be almost a foot of it. With no deflecting wind, it was perfect and driftless, heaped in comical proportion on the branches of the six small cherry trees her father had planted last year. A single star shone in a wedge of deep blue above the woods. The girl looked down and saw a lace of frost had formed on the lower part of the window and she placed a finger on it, melting a small hole. She shivered, not from the cold, but from the thrill that this transformed world was for the moment entirely hers. And she turned and hurried to get dressed.
Nicholas Evans (The Horse Whisperer)
In education, we need to begin paying attention to matters routinely ignored. We spend long hours trying to teach a variety of courses on, say, the structure of government or the structure of the amoeba. But how much effort goes into studying the structure of everyday life — the way time is allocated, the personal uses of money, the places to go for help in a society exploding with complexity? We take for granted that young people already know their way around our social structure. In fact, most have only the dimmest image of the way the world of work or business is organized. Most students have no conception of the architecture of their own city's economy, or the way the local bureaucracy operates, or the place to go to lodge a complaint against a merchant. Most do not even understand how their own schools — even universities — are structured, let alone how much structures are changing under the impact of the Third Wave.
Alvin Toffler (Third Wave)
Don’t change the subject,” Blaze snapped.  “You said dragons?  And untie me, damn it.  My wrists hurt.” He shrugged, completely ignoring her complaints.  “Of course there are dragons.  Where you think the myths come from?
Sara King (Alaskan Fire (Guardians of the First Realm, #1))
As a child, we let go of the past easily but not as an adult. As a child, we changed one grade after another without complaints and with eagerness, but now we are changing our grade every day, but without joy and with great dismay.
Debasish Mridha
It would have been worth the complaint and subsequent chewing out I would have received, if the events of the night just wouldn't have happened. I would later look back on this night and pray that things had ended differently. You can't change events that are completely out of your control, though. Even so, anything would have been preferable to that one moment when you find your reality has just been blown to pieces and would never be the same again. That's assuming you live to survive it.
Rose Wynters (Phase One: Identify (Territory of the Dead, #1))
Leaders are solutions conscious. They don’t complain. You would find them repeating this common question; “how will it be done, and by who?
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder)
If you don’t like something change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. —MAYA ANGELOU
Will Bowen (A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted)
By your choices you reveal your commitments.
Marlene Chism (Stop Workplace Drama: Train Your Team to have No Complaints, No Excuses, and No Regrets)
Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter,
Ram Dass (Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying)
I agree completely with Paul de Kruif, the author of this book, when he says that men must learn that birth is no longer thought of as inevitable and unavoidable in those parts of the world we consider civilized. It's easy for men to talk — they don't and never will have to bear the woes that women do! I believe that in the course of the next century the notion that it's a woman's duty to have children will change and make way for the respect and admiration of all women, who bear their burdens without complaint or a lot of pompous words!
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
When we look at other people, we are prone to construct our own ideal images of ourselves, which we then detract from and judge. Imagine, for example, a child who never talks back to his parents, excels in both schoolwork and sports, attends a good university, and joins a large company. There are parents who will compare their child to such an image of an ideal child—which is an impossible fiction—and then be filled with complaints and dissatisfaction. They treat the idealized image as one hundred points, and they gradually subtract from that. This is truly a “judgment” way of thinking. Instead, the parents could refrain from comparing their child to anyone else, see him for who he actually is, and be glad and grateful for his being there. Instead of taking away points from some idealized image, they could start from zero. And if they do that, they should be able to call out to his existence itself.
Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness)
No amount of angry protest will get a true asshole to listen. As we explained in chapter 1, he is entrenched in his outlook; he is exceedingly good at walling out complaints, and, in this, he will most likely never change. Although neither resignation nor all-out resistance seems finally acceptable, we often have only the faintest sense of an ever-elusive better way.
Aaron James (Assholes: A Theory)
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior removed from their websites the links to climate change data. The USDA removed the inspection reports of businesses accused of animal abuse by the government. The new acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, said he wanted to end public access to records of consumer complaints against financial institutions. Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, statistics that detailed access to drinking water and electricity in Puerto Rico were deleted from the FEMA website. In a piece for FiveThirtyEight, Clare Malone and Jeff Asher pointed out that the first annual crime report released by the FBI under Trump was missing nearly three-quarters of the data tables from the previous year.
Michael Lewis (The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy)
I noticed early on in motherhood that my children inherited my tendency toward the negative. Years ago, while driving home from a soccer game, I was listening to my kids whine about their day. Practically everything made their list of complaints, and I was sick of it. I decided something had to change, so I made up a new game. "All right, Luka and Matea," I yelled from the front seat, "I have a new game for us. It's called Yeah, But. Every time you have something negative to say, you have to follow it up with a 'Yeah, but . . . " and then add something positive. I'll start. Ugh, I'm almost out of gas and the last thing I feel like doing right now is stopping at a gas station. Yea, but . . . I have a car! And I have money for gas, and I don't ever want to take those things for granted. Okay, your turn now.
Kristina Kuzmic (Hold On, But Don't Hold Still)
The very concept of trying to “teach” a lover things feels patronizing, incongruous, and plain sinister. If we truly loved someone, there could be no talk of wanting him or her to change. Romanticism is clear on this score: true love should involve an acceptance of a partner’s whole being. It is this fundamental commitment to benevolence that makes the early months of love so moving. Within the new relationship, our vulnerabilities are treated with generosity. Our shyness, awkwardness, and confusion endear (as they did when we were children) rather than generate sarcasm or complaint; the trickier sides of us are interpreted solely through the filter of compassion. From these moments, a beautiful yet challenging and even reckless conviction develops: that to be properly loved must always mean being endorsed for all that one is. Marriage
Alain de Botton (The Course of Love)
I was extremely curious about the alternatives to the kind of life I had been leading, and my friends and I exchanged rumors and scraps of information we dug from official publications. I was struck less by the West's technological developments and high living standards than by the absence of political witch-hunts, the lack of consuming suspicion, the dignity of the individual, and the incredible amount of liberty. To me, the ultimate proof of freedom in the West was that there seemed to be so many people there attacking the West and praising China. Almost every other day the front page of Reference, the newspaper which carded foreign press items, would feature some eulogy of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. At first I was angered by these, but they soon made me see how tolerant another society could be. I realized that this was the kind of society I wanted to live in: where people were allowed to hold different, even outrageous views. I began to see that it was the very tolerance of oppositions, of protesters, that kept the West progressing. Still, I could not help being irritated by some observations. Once I read an article by a Westerner who came to China to see some old friends, university professors, who told him cheerfully how they had enjoyed being denounced and sent to the back end of beyond, and how much they had relished being reformed. The author concluded that Mao had indeed made the Chinese into 'new people' who would regard what was misery to a Westerner as pleasure. I was aghast. Did he not know that repression was at its worst when there was no complaint? A hundred times more so when the victim actually presented a smiling face? Could he not see to what a pathetic condition these professors had been reduced, and what horror must have been involved to degrade them so? I did not realize that the acting that the Chinese were putting on was something to which Westerners were unaccustomed, and which they could not always decode. I did not appreciate either that information about China was not easily available, or was largely misunderstood, in the West, and that people with no experience of a regime like China's could take its propaganda and rhetoric at face value. As a result, I assumed that these eulogies were dishonest. My friends and I would joke that they had been bought by our government's 'hospitality." When foreigners were allowed into certain restricted places in China following Nixon's visit, wherever they went the authorities immediately cordoned off enclaves even within these enclaves. The best transport facilities, shops, restaurants, guest houses and scenic spots were reserved for them, with signs reading "For Foreign Guests Only." Mao-tai, the most sought-after liquor, was totally unavailable to ordinary Chinese, but freely available to foreigners. The best food was saved for foreigners. The newspapers proudly reported that Henry Kissinger had said his waistline had expanded as a result of the many twelve-course banquets he enjoyed during his visits to China. This was at a time when in Sichuan, "Heaven's Granary," our meat ration was half a pound per month, and the streets of Chengdu were full of homeless peasants who had fled there from famine in the north, and were living as beggars. There was great resentment among the population about how the foreigners were treated like lords. My friends and I began saying among ourselves: "Why do we attack the Kuomintang for allowing signs saying "No Chinese or Dogs" aren't we doing the same? Getting hold of information became an obsession. I benefited enormously from my ability to read English, as although the university library had been looted during the Cultural Revolution, most of the books it had lost had been in Chinese. Its extensive English-language collection had been turned upside down, but was still largely intact.
Jung Chang (Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China)
You go on about reasons," Cora said, "call things by other names, as if it changes what they are. But that doesn't make them true." ...."It's true though, your complaint. We come up with all sorts of fancy talk to hide things.
Colson Whitehead (The Underground Railroad)
believe that in the course of the next century the notion that it’s a woman’s duty to have children will change and make way for the respect and admiration of all women, who bear their burdens without complaint or a lot of pompous words!
Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank: The Definitive Edition)
I believe that in the course of the next century the notion that it’s a woman’s duty to have children will change and make way for the respect and admiration of all women, who bear their burdens without complaint or a lot of pompous words!
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
Complaining about our circumstances, which is really a complaint against God, does not demonstrate trust in God. And remember, when our faith is at a low ebb, we can still trust God, until the answer we are looking for comes our way. The sooner we stop complaining, the quicker God will be able to change our circumstances for our benefit.      So, if you want to enter God's land of promise, and see his word fulfilled in your life, change your attitude. Start thanking God, not just for the good times, but for the bad times too!
Christopher Roberts (365 Days With God: A Daily Devotional)
Most people have no understanding of the psychological changes of captivity. Social judgment of chronically traumatized people therefore tends to be extremely harsh. The chronically abused person's apparent helplessness and passivity, her entrapment in the past, her intractable depression and somatic complaints, and her smoldering anger often frustrate the people closest to her. Moreover, if she has been coerced into betrayal of relationships, community loyalties, or moral values, she is frequently subjected to furious condemnation. Observers who have never experienced prolonged terror and who have no understanding of coercive methods of control presume that they would show greater courage and resistance than the victim in similar circumstances. Hence the common tendency to account for the victim's behavior by seeking flaws in her personality or moral character. ... The propensity to fault the character of the victim can be seen even in the case of politically organized mass murder. The aftermath of the Holocaust witnessed a protracted debate regarding the 'passivity' of the Jews and their 'complicity' in their fate. But the historian Lucy Dawidowicz points out that 'complicity' and 'cooperation' are terms that apply to situations of free choice. They do not have the same meaning in situations of captivity.
Judith Lewis Herman (Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror)
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?’ Amos 3:3 ‘Does This Person Belong in your Life?’ A toxic relationship is like a limb with gangrene: unless you amputate it the infection can spread and kill you. Without the courage to cut off what refuses to heal, you’ll end up losing a lot more. Your personal growth - and in some cases your healing - will only be expedited by establishing relationships with the right people. Maybe you’ve heard the story about the scorpion who asked the frog to carry him across the river because he couldn’t swim. ‘I’m afraid you’ll sting me,’ replied the frog. The scorpion smiled reassuringly and said, ‘Of course I won’t. If I did that we’d both drown!’ So the frog agreed, and the scorpion hopped on his back. Wouldn’t you know it: halfway across the river the scorpion stung him! As they began to sink the frog lamented, ‘You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Why’d you do it?’ The scorpion replied, ‘I can’t help it. It’s my nature!’ Until God changes the other person’s nature, they have the power to affect and infect you. For example, when you feel passionately about something but others don’t, it’s like trying to dance a foxtrot with someone who only knows how to waltz. You picked the wrong dance partner! Don’t get tied up with someone who doesn’t share your values and God-given goals. Some issues can be corrected through counselling, prayer, teaching, and leadership. But you can’t teach someone to care; if they don’t care they’ll pollute your environment, kill your productivity, and break your rhythm with constant complaints. That’s why it’s important to pray and ask God, ‘Does this person belong in my life?
Patience Johnson
I know you,” he added, helping to arrange the blanket over my shoulders. “You won’t drop the subject until I agree to check on your cousin, so I’ll do it. But only under one condition.” “John,” I said, whirling around to clutch his arm again. “Don’t get too excited,” he warned. “You haven’t heard the condition.” “Oh,” I said, eagerly. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Thank you. Alex has never had a very good life-his mother ran away when he was a baby, and his dad spent most of his life in jail…But, John, what is all this?” I swept my free hand out to indicate the people remaining on the dock, waiting for the boat John had said was arriving soon. I’d noticed some of them had blankets like the one he’d wrapped around me. “A new customer service initiative?” John looked surprised at my change of topic…then uncomfortable. He stooped to reach for the driftwood Typhon had dashed up to drop at his feet. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, stiffly. “You’re giving blankets away to keep them warm while they wait. When did this start happening?” “You mentioned some things when you were here the last time….” He avoided meeting my gaze by tossing the stick for his dog. “They stayed with me.” My eyes widened. “Things I said?” “About how I should treat the people who end up here.” He paused at the approach of a wave-though it was yards off-and made quite a production of moving me, and my delicate slippers, out of its path. “So I decided to make a few changes.” It felt as if one of the kind of flowers I liked-a wild daisy, perhaps-had suddenly blossomed inside my heart. “Oh, John,” I said, and rose onto my toes to kiss his cheek. He looked more than a little surprised by the kiss. I thought I might actually have seen some color come into his cheeks. “What was that for?” he asked. “Henry said nothing was the same after I left. I assumed he meant everything was much worse. I couldn’t imagine it was the opposite, that things were better.” John’s discomfort at having been caught doing something kind-instead of reckless or violet-was sweet. “Henry talks too much,” he muttered. “But I’m glad you like it. Not that it hasn’t been a lot of added work. I’ll admit it’s cut down on the complaints, though, and even the fighting amongst our rowdier passengers. So you were right. Your suggestions helped.” I beamed up at him. Keeper of the dead. That’s how Mr. Smith, the cemetery sexton, had referred to John once, and that’s what he was. Although the title “protector of the dead” seemed more applicable. It was totally silly how much hope I was filled with by the fact that he’d remembered something I’d said so long ago-like maybe this whole consort thing might work out after all. I gasped a moment later when there was a sudden rush of white feathers, and the bird he’d given me emerged from the grizzly gray fog seeming to engulf the whole beach, plopping down onto the sand beside us with a disgruntled little humph. “Oh, Hope,” I said, dashing tears of laughter from my eyes. Apparently I had only to feel the emotion, and she showed up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you behind. It was his fault, you know.” I pointed at John. The bird ignored us both, poking around in the flotsam washed ashore by the waves, looking, as always, for something to eat. “Her name is Hope?” John asked, the corners of his mouth beginning to tug upwards. “No.” I bristled, thinking he was making fun of me. Then I realized I’d been caught. “Well, all right…so what if it is? I’m not going to name her after some depressing aspect of the Underworld like you do all your pets. I looked up the name Alastor. That was the name of one of the death horses that drew Hades’s chariot. And Typhon?” I glanced at the dog, cavorting in and out of the waves, seemingly oblivious of the cold. “I can only imagine, but I’m sure it means something equally unpleasant.
Meg Cabot (Underworld (Abandon, #2))
The seasons long for each other, like men and women, in order that they may be cured of their excesses. Spring, if it lingers more than a week beyond its span, starts to hunger for summer to end the days of perpetual promise. Summer in its turn soon begins to sweat for something to quench its heat, and the mellowest of autumns will tire of gentility at last, and ache for a quick sharp frost to kill its fruitfulness. Even winter—the hardest season, the most implacable—dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself. So August gave way to September and there were few complaints.
Clive Barker
I’m afraid Helen can’t go anywhere at the moment. She’s been in bed all day, ill with a nervous condition.” His eyes changed, some unfathomable emotion spangling the dark depths. “A nervous condition,” he repeated, his voice iced with scorn. “That seems a common complaint among aristocratic ladies. Someday I’d like to know what makes you all so nervous.
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
We can change our habits. We needn’t be at the mercy of thoughts like ‘that’s just my personality’ or ‘it’s in my genes so there’s nothing I can do about it’. Negative habits can be replaced with positive ones, selfish ones with kind ones, suspicion with trust, hostility with empathy and complaints with gratitude. – David R. Hamilton, Why Kindness is Good for You
Om Swami (The Book of Kindness: How to Make Others Happy and Be Happy Yourself)
Mesolithic hearths likely did more than cook, warm and feed. They opened people to connections with each other, deepening the human social network. Studies of extant hunter-gatherer cultures show that campfires change the nature of human conversation. During the day talk is of economic matters, complaints or jokes. Around the fire the imagination opens and stories emerge. People talk of connections and rifts, of the spirit world, of kinship. Fire anneals the human community, joining strands. Our minds seem particularly attuned to the sounds of fire. Research shows the blood pressure of subjects drops and their sociability increases when the crackle of bring woods fills their ears. The sight of a soundless fire has little effect.
David George Haskell (The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature's Great Connectors)
Time. For some it was a great healer, the ultimate fixer of bad break-ups, shake-ups, and heartache… For others, Time was an insidious stealer of all things they want most in life, stripping it away from them by sneakily changing the rules of obtaining it… For all the joyful wishes and hopeful desires held near and dear to our hearts, Time was the one element most likely to keep it from our reach. To me, Time was all of these, and none. Time simply is. It’s the framework in which we play out the games of our lives, but the secret is not to control it. It is not to master it. It is simply to learn to exist fully within the moment, to be aware of every facet of our being, and to wring every ounce of joy from it. Perhaps we were our own thieves, lamenting the absence of even a spare moment to enjoy life, when all it really takes is to stop the complaints, take the moment firmly in hand, and make it our own. Because the secret is that Time passes, and if you let it, it will leave you in its wake, aching with every beat of your heart and in every fiber of your being for what you have missed.
Madelyn Alt (A Witch in Time (A Bewitching Mystery, #6))
Changing my narrative from one of complaint and dissatisfaction to a more positive one changed my mood, but it didn’t change all the other negatives that had tipped the balance of our marital life into dysfunction. Memories of good times were a reminder that life cannot be measured in purely black and white terms. The good and bad coexist in a tenuous equilibrium that is always in flux.
Ranjani Rao (Rewriting My Happily Ever After - A Memoir of Divorce and Discovery)
the treatment of hypochondria: Mercury acts in this disease, 1, by abstracting morbid excitement from the brain to the mouth. 2, by removing visceral obstructions. And, 3, by changing the cause of our patient’s complaints and fixing them wholly upon his sore mouth. The salivation will do still more service if it excite some degree of resentment against the patient’s physician or friends.
Lydia Kang (Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything)
Some USDA inspectors have expressed grave concern about the unhygienic conditions in meat plants, and yet they have little voice to enact change. They no longer have the authority to stop the line if they notice something suspicious, nor can they take remedial action. In fact, in order for a federal inspector's complaint to be seriously considered, the company itself must agree that there is a problem.
Melanie Joy (Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism)
I called the Keep, introduced myself to the disembodied female voice on the phone, and asked for the Beast Lord. In less than fifteen seconds Curran came on the line. “I’m going into hiding with Jim.” The silence on the other side of the phone had a distinctly sinister undertone. Perhaps he thought that his kissing superpowers had derailed me. Fat chance. I would keep him from having to kill Derek. That was a burden he didn’t need. “I thought about this morning,” I said, doing my best to sound calm and reasonable. “I’ve instructed the super to change the locks. If I ever catch you in my apartment again, I will file a formal complaint. I’ve taken your food, under duress, but I did take it. You rescued me once or twice, and you’ve seen me near naked. I realize that you’re judging this situation by shapeshifter standards, and you expect me to fall on my back with my legs spread.” “Not necessarily.” His voice matched mine in calmness. “You can fall on your hands and knees if you prefer. Or against the wall. Or on the kitchen counter. I suppose I might let you be on top, if you make it worth my while.” I didn’t grind my teeth—he would’ve heard it. I had to be calm and reasonable. “My point is this: no.” “No?” “There will be no falling, no sex, no you and me.” “I wanted to kiss you when you were in your house. In Savannah.” Why the hell was my heart pounding? “And?” “You looked afraid. That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.” Be calm and reasonable. “You flatter yourself. You’re not that scary.” “After I kissed you this morning, you were afraid again. Right after you looked like you were about to melt.” Melt? “You’re scared there might be something there, between you and me.” Wow. I struggled to swallow that little tidbit. “Every time I think you’ve reached the limits of arrogance, you show me new heights. Truly, your egotism is like the Universe—ever expanding.” “You thought about dragging me into your bed this morning.” “I thought about stabbing you and running away screaming. You broke into my house without permission and slobbered all over me. You’re a damn lunatic! And don’t give me that line about smelling my desire; I know it’s bullshit.” “I didn’t need to smell you. I could tell by the dreamy look in your eyes and the way your tongue licked the inside of my mouth.” “Enjoy the memory,” I ground out. “That’s the last time it will ever happen.” “Go play your games with Jim. I’ll find you both when I need you.” Arrogant asshole. “I tell you what, if you find us before those three days run out, I’ll cook you a damn dinner and serve it to you naked.” “Is that a promise?” “Yes. Go fuck yourself.” I slammed the phone down. Well, then. That was perfectly reasonable. On the other side of the counter an older, heavyset man stared at me like I had sprouted horns. Glenda handed me the money I’d given her. “That was some conversation. It was worth ten bucks.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels, #3))
...the chronically traumatized individuals generally show no change or even a decrease in heart rate. These sufferers tend to be plagued with dissociative symptoms, including frequent spacyness, unreality, depersonalization, and various somatic and health complaints. Somatic symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, migraines, some forms of asthma, persistent pain, chronic fatigue, and general disengagement from life.
Peter A. Levine
80% of people’s complaints are about situations that can be changed in one day. The other 20% are about real complaints that can’t be changed, and then what does complaining about it do? So you’re unhappy about the situation you’re in? Change it. Now. Cut the ropes. Don’t text her back. Change your job. Learn a new skill. Sell your house and move to a new city. Start over. Get healthy, start running. Or play tennis. Or anything that gets you moving. Cut out processed food. Cut out sugar. Read books. Listen to audiobooks. Or watch YouTube videos. You live in a time where there are zero excuses. You can do anything you want! You want a new life? Well, you can have it? But no one will hand it to you on a silver plate, you will have to stand up from that couch and go get it yourself. Because no one else cares. No one cares about how you live your life but you.
Charlotte Eriksson (He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss)
It would be superfluous to mention more who, though others deemed them the happiest of men, have expressed their loathing for every act of their years, and with their own lips have given true testimony against themselves; but by these complaints they changed neither themselves nor others. For when they have vented their feelings in words, they fall back into their usual round. Heaven knows! such lives as yours, though they should pass the limit of a thousand years, will shrink into the merest span; your vices will swallow up any amount of time. The space you have, which reason can prolong, although it naturally hurries away, of necessity escapes from you quickly; for you do not seize it, you neither hold it back, nor impose delay upon the swiftest thing in the world, but you allow it to slip away as if it were something superfluous and that could be replaced.
Seneca (On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It (Penguin Great Ideas))
On the other hand, she happily kept him informed about plans she had with other people, providing a steady flow of information about excursions that were about to happen, details of dates or parties that were always this close to coming together. As long as he listened, without complaint, to an endless description of activities that were supposed to happen without him, there was a 30 percent chance, at least, that Anna would change her mind at the last minute, claim to be unable to handle the unbearable burden of whatever her social plans were supposed to be, and decide to hang out with him instead. She'd arrive at his house and collapse in exaggerated relief: "I am so glad we're doing this, I was so not in the mood for another party at Maria's." As though they were both equally at the mercy of circumstance, similarly oblivious to the power dynamic that governed their "friendship.
Kristen Roupenian (You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories)
The customer service agents who accepted the defaults of Internet Explorer and Safari approached their job the same way. They stayed on script in sales calls and followed standard operating procedures for handling customer complaints. They saw their job descriptions as fixed, so when they were unhappy with their work, they started missing days, and eventually just quit. The employees who took the initiative to change their browsers to Firefox or Chrome approached their jobs differently. They looked for novel ways of selling to customers and addressing their concerns. When
Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
While the exact changes Muhammad made to this tradition are far too complex to discuss in detail here, it is sufficient to note that women in the Ummah were, for the first time, given the right both to inherit the property of their husbands and to keep their dowries as their own personal property throughout their marriage. Muhammad also forbade a husband to touch his wife’s dowry, forcing him instead to provide for his family from his own wealth. If the husband died, his wife would inherit a portion of his property; if he divorced her, the entire dowry was hers to take back to her family. As one would expect, Muhammad’s innovations did not sit well with the male members of his community. If women could no longer be considered property, men complained, not only would their wealth be drastically reduced, but their own meager inheritances would now have to be split with their sisters and daughters—members of the community who, they argued, did not share an equal burden with the men. Al-Tabari recounts how some of these men brought their grievances to Muhammad, asking, “How can one give the right of inheritance to women and children, who do not work and do not earn their living? Are they now going to inherit just like men who have worked to earn that money?” Muhammad’s response to these complaints was both unsympathetic and shockingly unyielding. “Those who disobey God and His Messenger, and who try to overstep the boundaries of this [inheritance] law will be thrown into Hell, where they will dwell forever, suffering the most shameful punishment” (4:14). If Muhammad’s male followers were disgruntled about the new inheritance laws, they must have been furious when, in a single revolutionary move, he both limited how many wives a man could marry and granted women the right to divorce their husbands.
Reza Aslan (No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam)
There is no specific test for multiple sclerosis.  Its early symptoms - fatigue, loss of sensation, weakness and visual changes - are frequently misdiagnosed as psychoneurosis or an even more severe psychiatric disorder, such as hysteria, particularly in women. When doctors could find no organic cause for [Jacqueline Du Pré's] complaints, they prescribed a year's rest, and referred her to a psychiatrist... When she consulted a doctor in Australia about her tenacious fatigue and occasional double vision in her right eye, he dismissed her symptoms as "adolescent trauma" and suggested she take up a relaxing hobby.
Carol Easton (Jacqueline du Pré: A Life)
In Uprooting Racism, Paul Kivel makes a useful comparison between the rhetoric abusive men employ to justify beating up their girlfriends, wives, or children and the publicly traded justifications for widespread racism. He writes: During the first few years that I worked with men who are violent I was continually perplexed by their inability to see the effects of their actions and their ability to deny the violence they had done to their partners or children. I only slowly became aware of the complex set of tactics that men use to make violence against women invisible and to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. These tactics are listed below in the rough order that men employ them.… (1) Denial: “I didn’t hit her.” (2) Minimization: “It was only a slap.” (3) Blame: “She asked for it.” (4) Redefinition: “It was mutual combat.” (5) Unintentionality: “Things got out of hand.” (6) It’s over now: “I’ll never do it again.” (7) It’s only a few men: “Most men wouldn’t hurt a woman.” (8) Counterattack: “She controls everything.” (9) Competing victimization: “Everybody is against men.” Kivel goes on to detail the ways these nine tactics are used to excuse (or deny) institutionalized racism. Each of these tactics also has its police analogy, both as applied to individual cases and in regard to the general issue of police brutality. Here are a few examples: (1) Denial. “The professionalism and restraint … was nothing short of outstanding.” “America does not have a human-rights problem.” (2) Minimization. Injuries were “of a minor nature.” “Police use force infrequently.” (3) Blame. “This guy isn’t Mr. Innocent Citizen, either. Not by a long shot.” “They died because they were criminals.” (4) Redefinition. It was “mutual combat.” “Resisting arrest.” “The use of force is necessary to protect yourself.” (5) Unintentionality. “[O]fficers have no choice but to use deadly force against an assailant who is deliberately trying to kill them.…” (6) It’s over now. “We’re making changes.” “We will change our training; we will do everything in our power to make sure it never happens again.” (7) It’s only a few men. “A small proportion of officers are disproportionately involved in use-of-force incidents.” “Even if we determine that the officers were out of line … it is an aberration.” (8) Counterattack. “The only thing they understand is physical force and pain.” “People make complaints to get out of trouble.” (9) Competing victimization. The police are “in constant danger.” “[L]iberals are prejudiced against police, much as many white police are biased against Negroes.” The police are “the most downtrodden, oppressed, dislocated minority in America.” Another commonly invoked rationale for justifying police violence is: (10) The Hero Defense. “These guys are heroes.” “The police routinely do what the rest of us don’t: They risk their lives to keep the peace. For that selfless bravery, they deserve glory, laud and honor.” “[W]ithout the police … anarchy would be rife in this country, and the civilization now existing on this hemisphere would perish.” “[T]hey alone stand guard at the upstairs door of Hell.
Kristian Williams (Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America)
He had panicked. Tessier cursed his own stupidity. He should have remained in the column where he would have been protected. Instead, he saw an enemy coming for him like a revenant rising from a dark tomb, and had run first instead of thinking. Except this was no longer a French stronghold. The forts had all been captured and surrendered and the glorious revolutionary soldiers had been defeated. If the supply ships had made it through the blockade, Vaubois might still have been able to defend the city, but with no food, limited ammunition and disease rampant, defeat was inevitable. Tessier remembered the gut-wrenching escape from Fort Dominance where villagers spat at him and threw rocks. One man had brought out a pistol and the ball had slapped the air as it passed his face. Another man had chased him with an ancient boar spear and Tessier, exhausted from the fight, had jumped into the water. He had nearly drowned in that cold grey sea, only just managing to cling to a rock whilst the enemy searched the shoreline. The British warship was anchored outside the village, and although Tessier could see men on-board, no one had spotted him. Hours passed by. Then, when he considered it was clear, he swam ashore to hide in the malodorous marshland outside Mġarr. His body shivered violently and his skin was blue and wrinkled like withered fruit, but in the night-dark light he lived. He had crept to a fishing boat, donned a salt-stained boat cloak and rowed out to Malta's monochrome coastline. He had somehow managed to escape capture by abandoning the boat to swim into the harbour. From there it had been easy to climb the city walls and to safety. He had written his account of the marines ambush, the fort’s surrender and his opinion of Chasse, to Vaubois. Tessier wanted Gamble cashiered and Vaubois promised to take his complaint to the senior British officer when he was in a position to. Weeks went past. Months. A burning hunger for revenge changed to a desire for provisions. And until today, Tessier reflected that he would never see Gamble again. Sunlight twinkled on the water, dazzling like a million diamonds scattered across its surface. Tessier loaded his pistol in the shadows where the air was still and cool. He had two of them, a knife and a sword, and, although starving and crippled with stomach cramps, he would fight as he had always done so: with everything he had.
David Cook (Heart of Oak (The Soldier Chronicles, #2))
The academic movement known generally as ‘theory’ had taken social history ‘by storm’ – her phrase. Since she had studied at a traditional university which offered old-fashioned narrative accounts of the past, she was having to take on a new vocabulary, a new way of thinking. Sometimes, as we lay side by side in bed (the evening of the tarragon chicken had been a success) I listened to her complaints and tried to look and sound sympathetic. It was no longer proper to assume that anything at all had ever happened in the past. There were only historical documents to consider, and changing scholarly approaches to them, and our own shifting relationship to those approaches, all of which were determined by ideological context, by relations to power and wealth, to race, class, gender and sexual orientation.
Ian McEwan (Machines Like Me)
One way to track the pulse of a society is to measure its words. Their meanings and values change with the times and movements of history. Take the word “servant.” Before complaint became a national way of life, it was considered an honor to serve someone. There was no higher cause than to provide for the needs of others out of love. Yet in a culture that panders to self-expression and individualism, “servant” has virtually disappeared from our vocabularies. The six o’clock news features one self-absorbed person after another assertively demanding his or her individual rights. Occasionally a newscast ends with a “human interest” story on someone who serves others. What surprises us is not that this person is featured, but the obvious fact that the servant—one who looks after more than his own self-interest—is now considered a novelty, the odd man out.
Bill Hybels (Descending Into Greatness)
A Safety Travel with Sinclair James International Traveling to somewhere completely foreign to you may be challenging but that is what travelers always look for. It can be a good opportunity to find something new and discover new places, meet new people and try a different culture. However, it can involve a lot of risk as well. You may be surprised to find yourself naked and penniless on the side of the road trying to figure out what you did wrong. These kinds of situations come rarely when you are careful and cautious enough but it is not impossible. Sinclair James International Travel and Tours, your Australian based traveling guide can help you travel safely through the following tips: 1. Pack all Security Items In case of emergencies, you should have all the safety tools and security items with you. Carry a card with your name and number with you and don’t forget to scribble down the numbers of local police station, fire department, list of hospitals and other necessary numbers that you may need. Place them in each compartment and on your pockets. If ever you find yourself being a victim of pick pocketing in Manila, Philippines or being driven around in circles in the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, you will definitely find these numbers very helpful. It is also advisable to put your name and an emergency number in case you are in trouble and may need someone else to call. 2. Protect your Passport Passports nowadays have RFID which can be scanned from a distance. We have heard some complaints from fellow travelers of being victims of scams which involves stealing of information through passports. An RFID blocking case in a wallet may come in handy to prevent hackers from stealing your information. 3. Beware of Taxis When you exit the airport, taxis may all look the same but some of them can be hiding a defective scam to rob tourists during their drive. It is better to ask an official before taking a taxi as many unmarked ones claim that they are legitimate. Also, if the fare isn’t flat rate, be sure you know the possible routes. Some drivers will know better and will take good care of you, but others will take longer routes to increase the fare. If you know your options, you can suggest a different route to avoid paying too much. 4. Be aware of your Rights Laws change from state to state, and certainly from country to country, but ignorance to them will get you nowhere. In fact, in many cases you can get yourself out of trouble by knowing the laws that will affect you. When traveling to other countries, make sure to review the laws and policies that can affect your activities. There are a lot of misconceptions and knowing these could save you a headache. Sinclair James International
James Sinclair
Gaman. I've fought my whole life against it, but looking back, it's all I know how to do. I used gammon when I saw that first text to Dad when I was twelve. I used gammon with Trish when she got popular and made all those new, popular friends. I used gaman when I had a crush on her. I thought I'd changed when we moved to California and I finally made real friends, finally kissed Jamie, finally started to live a little. I thought I was done with gaman. But I was wrong. I tried to do something about Dad, and I failed. I tried to tell Mom the truth about me, and I chickened out. I tried to take action when I thought Jamie might leave me, and I screwed up. So I've resigned myself to my fate like a good Japanese girl, and I'm doing my best to pull myself together, squelch the complaints, and endure, endure, endure. Gaman. This is what Mom has been training me for since I was born, and it's clearly what I'm best at.
Misa Sugiura (It's Not Like It's a Secret)
The case of a patient with dissociative identity disorder follows: Cindy, a 24-year-old woman, was transferred to the psychiatry service to facilitate community placement. Over the years, she had received many different diagnoses, including schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder. Dissociative identity disorder was her current diagnosis. Cindy had been well until 3 years before admission, when she developed depression, "voices," multiple somatic complaints, periods of amnesia, and wrist cutting. Her family and friends considered her a pathological liar because she would do or say things that she would later deny. Chronic depression and recurrent suicidal behavior led to frequent hospitalizations. Cindy had trials of antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytics, all without benefit. Her condition continued to worsen. Cindy was a petite, neatly groomed woman who cooperated well with the treatment team. She reported having nine distinct alters that ranged in age from 2 to 48 years; two were masculine. Cindy’s main concern was her inability to control the switches among her alters, which made her feel out of control. She reported having been sexually abused by her father as a child and described visual hallucinations of him threatening her with a knife. We were unable to confirm the history of sexual abuse but thought it likely, based on what we knew of her chaotic early home life. Nursing staff observed several episodes in which Cindy switched to a troublesome alter. Her voice would change in inflection and tone, becoming childlike as ]oy, an 8-year-old alter, took control. Arrangements were made for individual psychotherapy and Cindy was discharged. At a follow-up 3 years later, Cindy still had many alters but was functioning better, had fewer switches, and lived independently. She continued to see a therapist weekly and hoped to one day integrate her many alters.
Donald W. Black (Introductory Textbook of Psychiatry, Fourth Edition)
A few years ago, the British chocolate manufacturer Cadbury’s received a large number of customer complaints, claiming that they had changed the taste of their Dairy Milk brand. They were at first baffled, because the formulation hadn’t been altered for years. However, what they had done was change the shapes of the blocks you would break off a bar, rounding their corners. And smoother shapes taste sweeter. Truly. Nothing about perception is completely objective, even though we act as though it is. When we complain that a room is hot, there may be no point at which we agree about what ‘hot’ means; it may merely mean ‘a few degrees warmer than the room I was in previously, to which I have become acclimatised’. ‘Time flies when you are having fun’ is an early piece of psychophysical insight. To your watch, an hour always means exactly the same thing, regardless of whether you are drinking champagne or being waterboarded. However, to the human brain, the perception of time is more elastic.*
Rory Sutherland (Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life)
I went up to his gravestone and repeated what the others had done: I placed a pebble on his tomb and silently said to him: 'Well, Oskar, at last we meet again, but this is not the time for reproaches and complaints. It would not be fair to you or to me. Now you are in another world, in eternity, and I can no longer ask you all those questions to which in life you would have given evasive replies... and death is the best evasion of all. I have received no answer, my dear, I do not know why you abandoned me... But what not even your death or my old age can change is that we are still married, this is how we are before God. I have forgiven you everything, everything...' Murmuring these words, I let them push my wheelchair up the slight incline leading to the gravestone that marks the place where his remains are laid to rest, outside the Jewish cemetery of Jerusalem. I knew that somehow the power of my thoughts had reached him, and felt, after all those years, a strange inner peace filling my spirit.
Emilie Schindler (Where Light and Shadow Meet: A Memoir)
He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea. This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog — in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy — The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom, While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down to doom. I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but they that feel can tell- Oh, I was plunging to despair. In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints- No more the whale did me confine. With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The face of my Deliverer God. My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.
Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
In such families, internalizing children often learn to feel ashamed of the following normal behaviors: Enthusiasm Spontaneity Sadness and grief over hurt, loss, or change Uninhibited affection Saying what they really feel and think Expressing anger when they feel wronged or slighted On the other hand, they are taught that the following experiences and feelings are acceptable or even desirable: Obedience and deference toward authority Physical illness or injury that puts the parent in a position of strength and control Uncertainty and self-doubt Liking the same things as the parent Guilt and shame over imperfections or being different Willingness to listen, especially to the parent’s distress and complaints Stereotyped gender roles, typically people-pleasing in girls and toughness in boys If you were an internalizing child with an emotionally immature parent, you were taught many self-defeating things about how to get along in life. Here are some of the biggest ones: Give first consideration to what other people want you to do. Don’t speak up for yourself. Don’t ask for help. Don’t want anything for yourself. Internalizing children of emotionally immature parents learn that “goodness” means being as self-effacing as possible so their parents can get their needs met first. Internalizers come to see their feelings and needs as unimportant at best and shameful at worst. However, once they become conscious of how distorted this mind-set is, things can change rather quickly.
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
Read the following chain of events and see whether a similar pattern might apply to other toxic products that were reported in the news during your lifetime: 1. Workers were told that the paint was nontoxic, although there was no factual basis for this declaration. The employers discounted scientists. The workers believed their superiors. 2. Health complaints were made in ever-increasing frequency. It became obvious that something was seriously wrong. 3. U.S. Radium and other watch-dial companies began a campaign of disinformation and bogus medical tests - some of which involved X-rays and may even have made the condition worse. 4. Doctors, dentists, and researchers complied with U.S. Radium's and other companies' requests and refused to release their data to the public. 5. Medical professionals also aided the companies by attributing worker deaths to other causes. Syphilis was often cited as the diagnosis, which had the added benefit to management of being a smear on the victims' reputations. 6. One worker, Grace Fryer, decided to sue U.S. Radium. It took Fryer two years to find a lawyer who was willing to take on U.S. Radium. Only four other workers joined her suit; they became known as the "Radium Girls." 7. In 1928, the case was settled in the middle of the trial before it went to the jury for deliberation. The settlement for each of the five "Radium Girls" was $10,000 (the equivalent of $124,000 in 2009 dollars), plus $600 a year while the victim lived and all medical expenses. Remember the general outline of this scenario because you will see it over and over again: The company denies everything while the doctors and researchers (and even the industrial hygienists) in the company's employ support the company's distorted version of the facts. Perhaps one worker in a hundred will finally pursue justice, one lawyer out of the hundreds of thousands in the United States will finally step up to the plate, and the case will be settled for chump change.
Monona Rossol
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As Frank promised, there was no other public explosion. Still. The multiple times when she came home to find him idle again, just sitting on the sofa staring at the rug, were unnerving. She tried; she really tried. But every bit of housework—however minor—was hers: his clothes scattered on the floor, food-encrusted dishes in the sink, ketchup bottles left open, beard hair in the drain, waterlogged towels bunched on bathroom tiles. Lily could go on and on. And did. Complaints grew into one-sided arguments, since he wouldn’t engage. “Where were you?” “Just out.” “Out where?” “Down the street.” Bar? Barbershop? Pool hall. He certainly wasn’t sitting in the park. “Frank, could you rinse the milk bottles before you put them on the stoop?” “Sorry. I’ll do it now.” “Too late. I’ve done it already. You know, I can’t do everything.” “Nobody can.” “But you can do something, can’t you?” “Lily, please. I’ll do anything you want.” “What I want? This place is ours.” The fog of displeasure surrounding Lily thickened. Her resentment was justified by his clear indifference, along with his combination of need and irresponsibility. Their bed work, once so downright good to a young woman who had known no other, became a duty. On that snowy day when he asked to borrow all that money to take care of his sick sister in Georgia, Lily’s disgust fought with relief and lost. She picked up the dog tags he’d left on the bathroom sink and hid them away in a drawer next to her bankbook. Now the apartment was all hers to clean properly, put things where they belonged, and wake up knowing they’d not been moved or smashed to pieces. The loneliness she felt before Frank walked her home from Wang’s cleaners began to dissolve and in its place a shiver of freedom, of earned solitude, of choosing the wall she wanted to break through, minus the burden of shouldering a tilted man. Unobstructed and undistracted, she could get serious and develop a plan to match her ambition and succeed. That was what her parents had taught her and what she had promised them: To choose, they insisted, and not ever be moved. Let no insult or slight knock her off her ground. Or, as her father was fond of misquoting, “Gather up your loins, daughter. You named Lillian Florence Jones after my mother. A tougher lady never lived. Find your talent and drive it.” The afternoon Frank left, Lily moved to the front window, startled to see heavy snowflakes powdering the street. She decided to shop right away in case the weather became an impediment. Once outside, she spotted a leather change purse on the sidewalk. Opening it she saw it was full of coins—mostly quarters and fifty-cent pieces. Immediately she wondered if anybody was watching her. Did the curtains across the street shift a little? The passengers in the car rolling by—did they see? Lily closed the purse and placed it on the porch post. When she returned with a shopping bag full of emergency food and supplies the purse was still there, though covered in a fluff of snow. Lily didn’t look around. Casually she scooped it up and dropped it into the groceries. Later, spread out on the side of the bed where Frank had slept, the coins, cold and bright, seemed a perfectly fair trade. In Frank Money’s empty space real money glittered. Who could mistake a sign that clear? Not Lillian Florence Jones.
Toni Morrison (Home)
Justice, solidarity, freedom, equal rights—these are all ideas that come straight out of the Enlightenment. In fact, out of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism is very anti-capitalist, contrary to what everybody says. And classical liberal and Enlightenment ideals lead in a very direct path, I think, to what was called libertarian socialism, or anarchism, or something like that. The idea is that people have a fundamental core right and need to be free and creative, not under external constraints. Any form of authority requires legitimation. The burden of proof is always on an authoritarian structure, whatever it may be, whether it's owning people, sex-linked, or even child-parent relationships. Any form of authority has to be challenged. Sometimes they can be justified, and maybe in that case, okay, you live with them. But for the most part, not. That would then lead quite directly to what were kind of truisms about a century ago. I mean, now they sound really crazy because there's been such a deterioration of values. But if you look at the thinking of just ordinary people, like say the working-class press in the mid-19th century, which grew where the ideas just grew out of the same soil—Enlightenment, classical liberal soil—the ideas are clear. Obviously, people should not be machines. They shouldn't be tools of production. They shouldn't be ordered around. We don't want chattel slavery, you know, like black slaves in the South, but we also don't want what was called, since the 18th century, wage slavery, which is not very different. Namely, where you have to rent yourself to survive. In a way, it was argued with some plausibility that you're worse off than a slave in that scenario. Actually, slave owners argued that. When slave owners were defending slavery, there was a kind of a moral debate that went on. It had shared moral turf, as a lot of moral debate did. The slave owners made a plausible point. They said, "Look, we own our workers. You just rent your workers. When you own something, you take much better care of it than when you rent it." To put it a little anachronistically, if you rent a car, you're not going to pay as much attention to taking care of it as if you own the car, for obvious reasons. Similarly, if you own people, you're going to take more care of them than if you rent people. If you rent people and you don't want them anymore, you throw them out. If you own people, well, you've got a sort of an investment in them, so you make them healthier and so on. So, the slave owners, in fact, argued, "Look, we're a lot more moral than you guys with your capitalist, wage slave system." Ordinary working people understood that. After the Civil War, you find in the American working-class press bitter complaints over the fact that, "Look, we fought to end chattel slavery, and now you're driving us into wage slavery, which is the same sort of thing." This is one core institution in society where people are forced to become tools of others, to be cast out if they're not necessary. It's a grotesque arrangement, totally contrary to the ideals of classical liberalism or Enlightenment values or anything else. It's now become sort of standard doctrine, but that's just a victory of absolutism, and we should dismantle all that stuff. Culturally, it starts with changes. You've got to change your minds and your spirit, and recover what was a common understanding in a more civilized period, let's say a century ago, in the shop floors of Lowell, Massachusetts. Recover that understanding, and then we work to simply democratize all institutions, free them up, and eliminate authoritarian structures. As I say, you find them everywhere. From families up to corporations, there are all kinds of authoritarian structures in the world. They all ought to be challenged. Very few of them can resist that challenge. They survive mainly because they're not challenged.
Noam Chomsky
The horsemen are: Criticism This is when you pick on the person rather than complain about a specific behaviour.  E.g. “You never clean up after yourself. You must love living in a pig sty.”  When a complaint would be, “I find it really irritating when you leave your dirty clothes on the floor. Could you put them in the laundry?” Contempt Behaviour that indicates disgust with a person – sneering, name calling, mocking, etc. Defensiveness Refusing to accept part of the responsibility or even consider one’s own flaws.  Changing the subject to the other person’s flaws instead or blaming them for starting it somehow.  “You’re the one who…”  Stonewalling Refusing to engage in the discussion.  The silent treatment.  Walking out.  Shutting down the conversation.
Darian Smith (The Psychology Workbook for Writers)
Are our lives like car-worn ruts In the face of the ground Created through habitual use And so set in place that they dictate An unalterable course of drudgery, Complaints, and same 'ol same 'ol, Which if bucked threatens our security? That is one long sentence, isn't it? You can change it.
Mark LeClair DeGange
Many of our most common physical complaints are created or exacerbated by a modern schedule at odds with the body’s needs. Fortunately, physiologists have generated a lot of new research about the body’s clock and how behavior either helps strengthen the clock’s signals or gets in its way. This new field is called chronobiology, and it offers insights about how you can set a daily schedule that will keep you healthy and energized.
Suhas Kshirsagar (Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life: How to Harness the Power of Clock Genes to Lose Weight, Optimize Your Workout, and Finally Get a Good Night's Sleep (How to Harness the Pro))
From time to time complaints are made about the ringing of church bells. It seems strange that a generation which tolerates the uproar of the internal combustion engine and the wailing of the jazz band should be so sensitive to the one loud noise that is made to the glory of God. England, alone in the world, has perfected the art of change-ringing and the true ringing of bells by rope and wheel and will not lightly surrender her unique heritage.
Dorothy L. Sayers
God wants us to lament. Complaint doesn't see the goodness of the character of God. Lament is authentic about the feelings but knows the goodness and benevolence of God.
Kristen Strong (Girl Meets Change: Truths to Carry You through Life's Transitions)
Madame Montoni's sufferings, at length, rose above her pride, and, when Emily had before entered the room, she would have told them all, had not her husband prevented her; now that she was no longer restrained by his presence, she poured forth all her complaints to her niece. "O Emily!" she exclaimed, "I am the most wretched of women—I am indeed cruelly treated! Who, with my prospects of happiness, could have foreseen such a wretched fate as this?—who could have thought, when I married such a man as the Signor, I should ever have to bewail my lot? But there is no judging what is for the best—there is no knowing what is for our good! The most flattering prospects often change—the best judgments may be deceived—who could have foreseen, when I married the Signor, that I should ever repent my GENEROSITY?" Emily
Eliza Parsons (The Complete Northanger Horrid Novel Collection (9 Books of Gothic Romance and Horror))
Don’t worry about design, if you listen to your code a good design will appear...Listen to the technical people. If they are complaining about the difficulty of making changes, then take such complaints seriously and give them time to fix things. -Martin Fowler, Chief Scientist, ThoughtWorks (from Is Design Dead?) If
Jason Fried (Getting Real)
out and started again? Well, she hated cold tea, so she tipped it onto the grass, holding her breath. No complaint, so she began again. ‘Milk?’ Hannah studied him from under her hair. ‘Yes, please, just a small amount. Lapsang is a very delicate tea and too much milk kills the flavour.’ ‘I’ll need lots of milk then.’ Balancing the cup, saucer and spoon carefully, she offered it. ‘Thank you, Miss Hollis.’ ‘Hannah.’ She poured her own tea, wondering if it would taste like the ashtray it smelled like. With cup only in hand, she leaned against the back of the wooden chair then threw a leg over the side arm. ‘So, Miss Hollis, what brings you to Cornwall?’ ‘Call me Hannah. Miss Hollis makes me sound like some old school marm.’ ‘Is that a problem? Most old school marms, as you call them, of my acquaintance are delightful people.’ ‘Sure, but boring I bet.’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘Right. Not to you, maybe.’ Hannah braved a sip and winced. ‘Back to the question: what has brought you to Cornwall?’ ‘Bloody bad luck,’ she said, frowning at her tea. ‘No need to swear,’ he said. ‘I didn’t swear.’ ‘You did,’ he said. ‘What? Are you talking about bloody?’ she asked. ‘Yes. It is a curse.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, maybe in the dark ages it was, but it isn’t now.’ She began to wonder if she’d walked through a time machine when she’d come through the gate earlier. It was a nice one, though. The orchard was beautifully laid out and the table and chairs were a lovely weathered blue. ‘Who advised you of this?’ he asked. Hannah sat up and put her empty cup on the table, not quite sure when she had drunk it. ‘Look, it’s a word that’s used every day.’ ‘Yes, but does that change its meaning?’ he asked. ‘No, but no one takes it like that any more.’ ‘Who is no one?’ he asked. ‘I mean no one who hasn’t lived in the dark ages.’ She looked at his wrinkled skin and tried to guess his age. ‘You mean anyone over the age of, say, sixty?’ he suggested. ‘Yeah, sort of.’ ‘Well, as I fit that category, could you refrain from using it?’ ‘Yeah, I guess. If it bothers you that much.’ ‘Thank you. Would you be kind enough to pour more tea?’ Old Tom leaned back into his chair. The sun wasn’t coming through the east window when Maddie opened her eyes for the second time that day; instead, she found Mark standing at the end of the bed with a tray. She blinked. When she last peered at the bedside clock, it had been eight a.m. and she’d thought that if she slept for another hour, she would begin to feel human. What a wasted day. What had Hannah been up to? Had she come into the room and seen her like this? Well, it was a lesson in what not to do in life. The end of last night, no, this morning, was more than fuzzy; in fact, she didn’t remember coming up to her room. The last clear memory was saying goodbye to Tamsin and Anthony. She and Mark had gone back into the kitchen and had another glass of wine or two. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘It’s not that late?’ ‘Almost time for a drink.’ He smiled. She winced. ‘Oh, don’t.’ ‘Would a bit of tea and toast help?’ ‘It might.’ Maddie eased herself onto her elbows and then slipped back down again. She was only wearing knickers. Mark’s eyes widened. ‘Could you hand me that shirt on the end of the bed?’ she asked. ‘Certainly.’ She wrestled with it under the duvet. ‘Sorry. I couldn’t find your pyjamas last night.’ ‘What?’ Maddie
Liz Fenwick (The Cornish House)
Please realize that every complaint is an affirmation of something you think you don’t want in your life. Every time you get angry, you’re affirming that you want more anger in your life. Every time you feel like a victim, you’re affirming that you want to continue to feel like a victim. If you feel that Life isn’t giving you what you want, then it’s certain that you will never have the goodies that Life gives to others—that is, until you change the way you think and talk.
Louise L. Hay (21 Days to Master Affirmations)
As Pico Iyer pointed out, the act of quitting “means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting—whether a job or a habit—means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
PHILOSOPHER: It’s simply that it’s scary to take even one step forward; also, that you don’t want to make realistic efforts. You don’t want to change so much that you’d be willing to sacrifice the pleasures you enjoy now—for instance, the time you spend playing and engaged in hobbies. In other words, you’re not equipped with the courage to change your lifestyle. It’s easier with things just as they are now, even if you have some complaints or limitations.
Ichiro Kishimi (The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness)
To become a complainer can also mean becoming the object of other people’s complaints.7 Members of her department submitted an informal complaint to Human Resources identifying her as a bully. It should not surprise us that a “pushy minority” can morph into a bully. Bullying often works to create a narrative about a person as behind whatever is deemed problematic. She was a new head of department; she was trying to make changes to the culture of that department.
Sara Ahmed (Complaint!)
To change the world, we need an “I have a dream” speech, not an “I have a complaint” speech.
Miroslav Volf (For the Life of the World (Theology for the Life of the World): Theology That Makes a Difference)
A society of prohibition requires all its members to sacrifice their individual, private ways of obtaining enjoyment for the sake of the social order as a whole. That is to say, one receives an identity from society in exchange for one’s immediate access to enjoyment, which one must give up. This is, traditionally, the way in which society as such functions. This type of society operates in the manner of a sports team: the team demands individual sacrifices in order to ensure the team’s success. In order for the team to win, the individual must give up her or his dreams of wholly individual achievement and fit her or his abilities into the structure of the team. In a society of commanded enjoyment, this dynamic changes dramatically. Rather than demanding that its members give up their individual enjoyment for the sake of the whole, the society of enjoyment commands their enjoyment—private enjoyment becomes of paramount importance—and the importance of the social order as a whole seems to recede. Contemporary complaints about sports stars who are more concerned about individual statistics and money than about their team’s fortunes are indicative of this transformation. These sports stars are not simply anomalous narcissists. In the society of enjoyment, individual, private accomplishments and rewards are more important than the success of the team. In such a society, it is no longer requisite that subjects accept a constant dissatisfaction as the price for existing within a social order. To return to the example of the sports team, one can remain a member of the team without having to subordinate one’s own individual agenda to the larger plans of the team. Dissatisfaction now appears as something that one need not experience, in contrast to life in the society of prohibition, where dissatisfaction inheres in the very fabric of social existence itself. In the society of enjoyment, the private enjoyment that threatened the stability of the society of prohibition becomes a stabilizing force and even acquires the status of a duty.
Todd McGowan (The End of Dissatisfaction: Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of Enjoyment (Psychoanalysis and Culture))
Our misery and unhappiness, according to Rumi, is directly connected to our insolence and refusal to praise. Sadly, instead of thankfulness, we developed an ungrateful nature. Sa’adi strikes at our self-centered ego: The sun, the moon, the air, the water and theearth are all serving you, aiding life’s purpose,and preparing for your food. Yet, you regard allthis unthankfully, absorbed in your own littletroubles, which are as nothing before the greatforces of nature, always working, night and day. When our tongue desires to complain, we should go contrary to it and find a reason to be thankful instead. For anything that could be better, there is always something else that could be worse. If we overcome our culture of complaint and get in touch with gratitude, it will change the way we see everything. The thought of the self will vanish, and the thought of others will take root. Rather than always wanting, we will care more about giving. Instead of relying on our imperfect understanding, we will look up to find greater meaning. Even virtues, such as tolerance and forgiveness, will arise in our hardened hearts as they soften. Life will thus unfold itself more beautifully. Our half-empty cup will fill to the brim. So when I say, “I can’t complain,” you should understand what I truly mean: I choose not to.
Jawad Mian (Stray Reflections)
Woven was founded on the belief that the key to growth in today’s highly competitive and ever-changing environment is through the delivery of exceptional experiences. Woven provide outsourced call answering and customer complaints handling services.
We are Woven
In order for Japan to become an equal member of the international community, the western perception of time had to be accepted. The western calendar was adopted with much complaint in 1872, with the decision that the third day of the succeeding twelfth month would become the first day of 1873. The decree added: On this day a ceremony…will be held, and the Emperor will inform the sun goddess and the imperial ancestors of the change…. The day will be divided into 24 hours instead of twelve two-hour periods, as hitherto.
Jilly Traganou (The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan)
Our brains adjust to both harmony and disagreement. We unconsciously try to please others, we also want to agree with others. Why? Humans value social conformity so much that they'll change their own responses - even their perceptions - to align with the group, even when the group is blatantly wrong. We are wired to conform. Your brain would rather not deal with conflict and debate. It would much prefer to lounge in the comfort of like-mindedness. The instinct for agreement has a huge impact in our lives. It is one of the reasons why in a culture of complaint, we join the fray.
Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day)
I lost sympathy with many of my patients. After twenty-five years of listening to their complaints I finally snapped. I woke up one morning bent out of shape about this client who was forty-three but acting sixteen. Every week he’d come with the same complaints, “Someone hurt me. Life is unfair. It’s not my fault.” For three years I’d been making suggestions, and for three years he’d done nothing. Then, listening to him this one day, I suddenly understood. He wasn’t changing because he didn’t want to. He had no intention of changing. For the next twenty years we would go through this charade. And I realised in that same instant that most of my clients were exactly like him.’ ‘Surely, though, some were trying.’ ‘Oh, yes. But they were the ones who got better quite quickly. Because they worked hard at it and genuinely wanted it. The others said they wanted to get better, but I think, and this isn’t popular in psychology circles’ – here she leaned forward and whispered, conspiratorially – ‘I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.’ Myrna leaned back again in her chair and took a long breath. ‘Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead “still” lives, waiting.’ ‘Waiting for what?’ ‘Waiting for someone to save them. Expecting someone to save them or at least protect them from the big, bad world. The thing is no one else can save them because the problem is theirs and so is the solution. Only they can get out of it.
Louise Penny (Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #1))
God in the Hebrew Bible, as it emerged from its editing process, is almighty; he creates heaven and earth with a word, and he is above all other gods-but he creates a serpent who undoes all his creative work. Often he acts like a large and powerful and somewhat bad-tempered human being. Like any landlord, he walks in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. He gets angry. He bargains with his people. He changes his mind. He falls into vindictive rages, as in the case of Noah's flood or the Tower of Babel or the unfortunate cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he plays atrocious games, as in the case of his command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. He has a somewhat bizarre preoccupation with the length of Samson's hair. He performs prodigious wonders, such as slaughtering the first-born sons of Egypt and leading the Israelites to safety through the parted waters of the Red Sea-only to discover that those who have witnessed those stupendous miracles quickly forget them and turn to complaint and the worship of other gods. Like all of us, the God of the Hebrew Bible is a mess of contradictions.
Richard Marius (Martin Luther: The Christian between God and Death)
It would be unnecessary to mention who, but those that have expressed their loathing for every act of their years, and with their own lips have given testimony against themselves; but by these complaints have changed neither themselves nor others. For when they have vented their feelings in words, they fall back into their usual round. Heaven knows! Such lives as these, though they shall continue to exist for thousands of years, will shrink into the merest span; vices will swallow up any amount of time.
James Harris (On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader)
She may wake up and recognize that she is wedded to abuse, that she is not loved. That moment of awakening is the moment of heartbreak. Heartbroken women in longtime marriages or partnerships rarely leave their men. They learn to make an identity out of their suffering, their complaint, their bitterness.
bell hooks (The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love)
Do not treat this as a time of introspective penitence. To the extent you must clean up, do it with the attitude of someone showering and changing clothes, getting ready for the best banquet you have ever been to. This does not include three weeks of meditating on how you are not worthy to go to banquets. Of course you are not. Haven’t you heard of grace? Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism. At the same time, remembering your Puritan fathers, you must hate the sin while loving the stuff. Sin is not resident in the stuff. Sin is found in the human heart—in the hearts of both true gluttons and true scrooges—both those who drink much wine and those who drink much prune juice. If you are called up to the front of the class, and you get the problem all wrong, it would be bad form to blame the blackboard. That is just where you registered your error. In the same way, we register our sin on the stuff. But—because Jesus was born in this material world, that is where we register our piety as well. If your godliness won’t imprint on fudge, then it is not true godliness. Some may be disturbed by this. It seems a little out of control, as though I am urging you to “go overboard.” But of course I am urging you to go overboard. Think about it—when this world was “in sin and error pining,” did God give us a teaspoon of grace to make our dungeon a tad more pleasant? No. He went overboard.
Douglas Wilson (God Rest Ye Merry: Why Christmas is the Foundation for Everything)
If you believe your limits, your life will be very limited. Improving your memory and concentration is not only about what you need to do more of; it is also about what you need to do less of. It is amazing how quickly you can learn a new skill when you decide to let go of your excuses, judgments, and complaints. If you consistently change your approach and increase your desire to learn this information, you will master it.
Kevin Horsley (Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive (Mental Mastery, #1))
Carlton Church Warning - Nuclear Fraud Scheme North Korea has been producing different nuclear weapons since last year. They have sent warning on the neighboring countries about their plan for a nuclear test. Not just South Korea, but other countries like China, U.S., and Japan have stated their complaints. Even the United Nations has been alarmed by North Korea’s move. During the last period of World War, a bomb has been used to attack Japan. Happened on 6th of August 1945, Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb just 10 kilometers away from Tokyo. This is why people and organizations like Carlton Church who’s against the use of nuclear power for production of armory in war. Many protested that it is a threat to mankind and environment. Groups who are in favor of the nuclear use explained its advantage. They say it can be helpful in generating electricity that can be used for residential and commercial purposes. They also expound how it is better to use than coal mining as it is “less harmful to the environment.” Nuclear Use: Good or Bad? Groups who are against the use of nuclear reactor and weapons try to persuade people about its catastrophic result to the environment and humankind. If such facility will be used to create weapons, there is a possibility for another world war. But the pro-nuclear groups discuss the good effects that can be gained from it. They give details on how greenhouse gas effect of coal-burning can emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxide, and toxic compounds of mercury to the atmosphere every year. Burning coal can produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity but it also amounts to over two pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. They also added that the amount of carbon dioxide it produces contributes to climate change. Sulfur dioxide may cause the formation of acid rain and nitrogen oxide, if combined with VOCs, will form smog. Nuclear power plants do not emit harmful pollutants or other toxic gases. Generating energy from nuclear involves intricate process, but as a result, it produces heat. These plants have cooling towers that release water vapor. If the facility has been properly managed it may not contribute disturbance in the atmosphere. It may sound better to use compared to coal. But studies have shown that the vapor that came from nuclear plants have an effect to some coastal plants. The heated water that was released goes back to lakes and seas, and then the heat will eventually diffuse into surface warming. As a result of the increased water temperature on the ocean bodies, it changes the way carbon dioxide is transferred within the air. In effect, major shifts in weather patterns such as hurricanes may occur. It does not stop there. The nuclear power plant produces radioactive waste, which amounts to 20 metric tons yearly. Exposure to high-level radiation is extremely harmful and fatal to human and animals. The waste material must be stored carefully in remote locations for many years. Carlton Church and other anti-nuclear groups persuade the public to initiate banning of the manufacturing of nuclear products and give warnings about its health hazards and environmental effects.
Glory
If you don’t like something change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Will Bowen (A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted)
How dare you have no money for me to steal! A bank robber in this state was so furious when told that the tellers' tills were empty, he threatened to file a complaint with management before fleeing. When the robber walked in, the tellers were on a shift change and waiting for their cash drawers to be filled. The indignant but hapless robber was caught 10 blocks away.
Leonard Birdsong (Professor Birdsong’s “365” Weird Criminal Law Stories for Every Day of the Year)
Carlton Church: Australia in Doubt on Building Nuclear Plant With the continuous trend of nuclear proliferation, the nuclear-free Australia is in critical dilemma on whether to start the industry in the country or not. On one end of the coin, the negative effects of nuclear generation will surely cause skepticisms and complaints. On the other side, nuclear fuel industry is worth exploring. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been reserved when it comes to nuclear talks but he did admit that “Australia should ‘look closely’ at expanding its role in the global nuclear energy industry, including leasing fuel rods to other countries and then storing the waste afterwards”. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill set up a royal commission in March to undertake an independent investigation into the state’s participation in the nuclear fuel cycle. Carlton Church International, non-profit organization campaigning against nuclear use, says there is no need for Australia to venture into nuclear turmoil as they already have an extensive, low cost coal and natural gas reserves. Other critics has also seconded this motion as it is known that even Turnbull has pointed out that the country has plentiful access to coal, gas, wind and solar sources. During an interview, he also stated, “I’m not talking about the politics. We’ve got so much other affordable sources of energy, not just fossil fuel like coal and gas but also wind, solar. The ability to store energy is getting better all the time, and that’s very important for intermittent sources of energy, particularly wind and solar. But playing that part in the nuclear fuel cycle I think is something that is worth looking at closely”. A survey was also conducted among random people and a lot of them have been reluctant about the nuclear issue. Some fear that the Fukushima Daichii Incident would happen, knowing the extent of the damage it has caused even to those living in Tokyo, Japan. Another review also stated, “We only have to look at the Fukushima disaster in Japan to be reminded of the health, social and economic impacts of a nuclear accident, and to see that this is not a safe option for Australians.” According to further studies by analysts, 25 nuclear reactors can be built around Australia producing a third of the country’s electricity by 2050. But it also found nuclear power would be much more expensive to produce than coal-fired power if a price was not put on carbon dioxide emissions. Greenpeace dismissed nuclear power as “an expensive distraction from the real solutions to climate change, like solar and wind power”. - See more at: carltonchurchreview.blogspot
Sabrina Carlton
Fallout avoid a DUI Lawyer The brutal truth is that this effect swallowing and is surprisingly stiff back. Problems and opportunities caused by drunk drivers are frightening. There is a reasonable demand and good heavy penalties only in the hope of avoiding a criminal. The reality is, sad to say, people that many of us are caught up in their original crimes and facing a big change in everyday life and dangerous consequences. Across the country, low crime rate and reduce contains a number from the understanding of the consequences of the ever more stringent. Privileges rear suspension imprisonment, fines, ignition programs and more are binding on all the possibilities and potential impact. Ideal to this procedure, which is full of dangers and pitfalls, in the sense of finding a positive DUI lawyers to get form? Unfortunately, it may be impossible, and many so-called authorities, the practical experience of the senses, a goat for certain customers. An important aspect is the number of measurements to choose high quality coming DUI lawyers. Breakfast is my way to someone who has experience to fulfill. This means that someone who had the food study drunken 50 penalties. He wanted to try, if someone who works mainly candidates with DUI Lawyers. This special mention of the many methods that come from expected with this film with less destructive. On your own, because you to maintain a professional DUI law towards pace, the situation in other readouts. It seems contradictory, but even if someone switches deftly defended many conditions, but also a person who to stay away from the demonstration says. The demo is the last thing should be, especially if they are responsible for themselves. As an alternative to the other, determine the direction of an attorney who is familiar with the specifics of the work and to help to suspend the license and, hopefully, to inform the prosecution of more than a very low price or misplaced. Sometimes the profits to avoid the interest rate and the term of the hard disk, especially for lawyer’s first area infringer years drunk help of the beautiful region. Other cases are in different directions, which can be implemented, which may contribute to an excellent result. The only way to get the opportunity of a personal imaginary profession rather than receiving. Inevitably, any DUI lawyer to explain myself properly to you from serious sanctions targeting drunken price almost never consumed and protect commitment. Can these days of increased restrictions reduce patrols and even a person consumes also be a number. Whatever complaints taxis, sleeping on the couch or taking a walk on the estate has raised overnight in prisons and the ability to deal with this part of the transaction. Even at a time when the only work in the easiest possible development is still very worrying turning point in history and let yourself.
Steve White