Counselors Quotes

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. We are here to help you. 2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings. 3. The dress code will be enforced. 4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds. 5. Our football team will win the championship this year. 6. We expect more of you here. 7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen. 8. Your schedule was created with you in mind. 9. Your locker combination is private. 10. These will be the years you look back on fondly. TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL 1. You will use algebra in your adult lives. 2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away. 3. Students must stay on campus during lunch. 4. The new text books will arrive any day now. 5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores. 6. We are enforcing the dress code. 7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon. 8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals. 9. There is nothing wrong with summer school. 10. We want to hear what you have to say.

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

And I flunked anger management the moment I put the counselor through a stone wall. You might want to keep that in mind. [Thorn]

Oh, and Drew, honey?” The former counselor looked back reluctantly. “In case you think I’m not a true daughter of Aphrodite,” Piper said, “don’t even look at Jason Grace. He may not know it yet, but he’s mine. If you even try to make a move, I will load you into a catapult and shoot you across Long Island Sound.” Drew turned around so fast, she ran into the doorframe. Then she was gone.

Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings.

I want the presence of God Himself, or I don't want anything at all to do with religion... I want all that God has or I don't want any.

So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.

Where does your security lie? Is God your refuge, your hiding place, your stronghold, your shepherd, your counselor, your friend, your redeemer, your saviour, your guide? If He is, you don't need to search any further for security.

Because 'You're perfect just the way you are,' is what your guidance counselor says. And she's an alcoholic.

Haste is a poor counselor

She forces me to endure this ridiculous therapy, when the so-called counselors are little better than misguided do-gooders with degrees. -Artemis Fowl

Looking at the elementary schoolers in their colorful T-shirts from various day camps, Percy felt a twinge of sadness. He should be at Camp Half-Blood right now, settling into his cabin for the summer, teaching sword-fighting lessons in the arena, playing pranks on the other counselors. These kids had no idea just how crazy a summer camp could be.

If you were born with the ability to change someone’s perspective or emotions, never waste that gift. It is one of the most powerful gifts God can give—the ability to influence.

I am going to give you a piece of advice... advice I wish I'd been told in guidance class back in high school, in between the don't-do-acid and don't-drink-and-drive films. I wish our counselors had told us, 'When you grow older a dreadful, horrible sensation will come over you. It's called loneliness, and you think you know what it is now, but you don't. Here is the list of the symptoms, and don't worry—loneliness is the most universal sensation on the planet. Just remember one fact—loneliness will pass. You will survive and you will be a better human for it.

Sensitive people care when the world doesn't because we understand waiting to be rescued and no one shows up. We have rescued ourselves, so many times that we have become self taught in the art of compassion for those forgotten.

I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers--hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark--and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet--for me, anyway--all that's worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

Fear can be a first-rate stool pigeon, a precious safeguard or a wise counselor. If it overwhelms us, we would do well not to shrink back and sulk, but crystallize our potentials, think forward and objectify our goals. ("One could still feel the smell of fear" )

When you attempt suicide, the counselors try to talk you out of trying it again by asking you about other people, which is good prevention if you care about other people.

The world is filled with unmarried marriage counselors.

No Hello. No Hi, Pierce. Nice right hook you have there. No It's lovely to see you. Sorry about your counselor being killed last night. Yes, I see your grandmother is a Fury even though I told you none was after you. I guess I was wrong about that. Just Let's go.

But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.

I think we both need to work on our communication skills. (Kiara) I tried that once. (Nykyrian) And? (Kiara) Darling told me that I could never hold a job as a suicide counselor or hostage negotiator. He said my failure rate would become the stuff of legends. (Nykyrian)

What can I say, I'm a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff which despite the light of progress and all that, still vanishes every day like shadows at noon, goings unheralded, passings unmourned, well, you get the drift. As a counselor once told me -a counselor for Disaffected Yought, I might add: "You like that crap because it reminds you of you." Couldn't of said it better or put it more bluntly. Don't even disagree with it either.

Wait for that wisest of all counselores, Time.

Jane,' she said, climbing down from the chair. 'Remember last year when I built that model wind tower for you and you wrote those poems for me?' And you said you'd never switch homework assignments with me again.' For good reason. My teacher had a hard time believing I wrote Tra-la the joy of tulips blooming, Ha-ha the thrill of bumblebees zooming. I'm alive and I dance, I'm alive though death is always looming. When I finally convinced her that I had, she asked me if I needed to talk to the school counselor.

Fear is never a good counselor and victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man.

Knowledge does not change behavior,” he said. “We have all encountered crazy shrinks and obese doctors and divorced marriage counselors.

Abuse counselors say of the abusive client: “When he looks at himself in the morning and sees his dirty face, he sets about washing the mirror.

Some cry out against the majority's despotism that knocks them off their feet and hacks into their fundamental values. Since the unbearable intrusion on their lifestyle's quality frightens them, they are obsessed with losing their integrity through the backlash of an overpowering "democratorship." Spearheading a reconciliation between freethinking and mediation is of supreme importance because mere resentment can be an evil counselor. ("What after bowling alone?" )

If someone were to ask whether communications skills or meekness is most important to a marriage, I'd answer meekness, hands down. You can be a superb communicator but still never have the humility to ask, 'Is it I?' Communication skills are no substitute for Christlike attributes. As Dr. Douglas Brinley has observed, 'Without theological perspectives, secular exercises designed to improve our relationship and our communication skills (the common tools of counselors and marriage books) will never work any permanent change in one's heart: they simply develop more clever and skilled fighters!

Dierdre the counselor must not have had much of a life, because she scheduled our next appointment on a Sunday. I wasn't so thrilled about it, seeing as it wasn't just my day off-it was also the day my friends had off. Orders were orders, however, so I grudgingly showed up.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.

Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside. -Gabe Singleton remembering his counselor's first advice-

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

With tears of joy, I recalled Fat Mary’s role in my childhood. She had been my consoler and counselor since the day I understood I was alone in the world and had no one who loved me or wanted me. I had decided back then that I would love me, fat me, just as I was. Her role was also to safeguard the meaningful and happy moments of my childhood and bring them to me when I needed to remember life’s goodness.

In them we find administrators and teachers and counselors and leaders and protectors. In them we find our sense of belonging, our sense of community, our very lives.

Counselor Bingham and I looked inside, then looked at each other. He counted. Then I counted. There were thirteen mobile phones in the box, two of them were Android. The rest were all iPhones.

I found the prospect daunting, but somehow comforting, too, because the counselors insisted it could be done, and, after all, many of them were recovering alcoholics themselves.

Bridget who is crazy said that sometimes she thought about suicide when commercials come on during TV. She was sincere and this puzzled the guidance counselors.

it’s not about comparison, as my counselor used to say. My pain is my pain.

Neal! It's your grief counselors. We're here to hug!

Man is a short-sighted creature, sees but a very little way before him; and as his passions are none of his best friends, so his particular affections are generally his worst counselors.

You seriously lack people skills. (Fang) And I flunked anger management the moment I put the counselor through a stone wall. (Thorn)

Books speak plain when counselors blanch.

She forces me to endure this ridiculous therapy when the school's so-called counselors are nothing more than misguided do-gooders with degrees." -Artemis Fowl

Guidance counselors always love to say, 'Just think positively,' but that's impossible when you have this thing inside of you, strangling every ounce of happiness you can muster. My body is an efficient happy-though-killing machine.

Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

You see, counselors, teachers, and various organizations may all agree with you that you are handicapped, but God never will. He loves giving you the opportunity to face what you fear, because when you face what you fear you become fearless.

I hate when counselors and teachers blame everything on low self-esteem in teens. Some of us actually have self-esteem, believe it or not. And when we make mistakes, it's not because of a defect in our psyche. We screw up just because.

He that loves a book will never want a [close] friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.

Teachers, parents, guidance counselors... all of them are always pushing this crap about how it's okay to be different, just be yourself. Don't give in to peer pressure, blah, blah, blah. The truth is, it's really only okay to be yourself if that self is within an accepted range of "normal." You like soccer instead of basketball, Johnny? Well, okay, I guess, so long as you still like sports. What's that, Susie, you want to wear the blue sweater instead of the red? You know we're all about expressing individuality here... so long as it's still a sweater.

The counselor says that with more time and more surgeries, I will begin to feel normal again. She says this with a mouth that can still smile. It’s so easy to be reassuring when you have lips.

Cardan’s eyebrows rise, but he has all the appearance of blissful unconcern. “My lady, you flatter me. I had no idea you were interested.” Her gaze is unflinching as she passes her gift to one of Cardan’s personal guard. “May you grow into the wisdom of your counselors.” “The fervent prayer of many,” he says.

In the high school classroom you are a drill sergent, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.

Abuse counselors say of the abusive client: “When he looks at himself in the morning and sees his dirty face, he sets about washing the mirror.” In other words, he becomes upset and accusatory when his partner exhibits the predictable effects of chronic mistreatment, and then he adds insult to injury by ridiculing her for feeling hurt by him. He even uses her emotional injuries as excuses to mistreat her further.

I’ve lost her. Can you give me any guidance?” – Sundown “On what? A new personality? Car buying? I’m a Wolf, cowboy, not a life counselor.” – Sasha

Wow,” says Peter, “when your guidance counselor tells you to die, you really have problems.

If you skip one class, everyone knows about it. The teacher will track you down, or one of the guidance counselors will track you down and ask if you're smoking pot. According to the geniuses running this place, the only reason you would skip class is if you're smoking pot, though I actually find my classes more enjoyable when I'm high.

All these people like my mother paying counselors and clinics to reattach them to reality; all of us people here paying Sony and Sega to reattach us to unreality.

He turned to Edwin. "You know, the stuff you just told me makes more sense than all the weird things the counselors and psychologist have told me in school and at the detention center." Edwin tapped Cole's shoulder with the broken stick. "That's because those people still think you can get rid of the left end of the stick.

Then his gaze shifted to the wild bush sprouting from her head. “Wow. Did I do that to your hair?” He looked oddly pleased at the thought. Rylann made a mental note to throw a flat iron in her purse the next time she had sex in the shower with a billionaire ex-con. Not that there was going to be a next time. “Not all of us are lucky enough to have freakishly perfect, shampoo-commercial hair. This is what happens when I get wet.” His expression turned wicked. “I know exactly what happens when you get wet, counselor.” Yep, she’d walked right into that one.

I’m a combat specialist and marriage counselor.

We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. Tell a counselor how angry you are. Share it with friends and family. Scream into a pillow. Find ways to get it out without hurting yourself or someone else. Try walking, swimming, gardening—any type of exercise helps you externalize your anger. Do not bottle up anger inside. Instead, explore it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.

For to us a child is born, for to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. - Isaiah 9:6

This is how we came by our factions: Candor, Erudite, Amity, Abnegation and Dauntless." Max smiles. "In them we find administrators and teachers and counselors and leaders and protectors. In them we find our sense of belonging, our sense of community, our very lives.

When I was 14, a camp counselor explained what "eating out" was and I vowed to never have it done to me. It seemed cannibalistic and unhygienic. I also remember that she claimed--in front of an entire cabin of girls--to have been "eaten out" by one of the maintenance men in a hot tub. Under hot water. Either something is amiss in my memory of this conversation or she found the most talented man on the planet and all hope is lost for the rest of us.

Skilled therapists and caregivers learn to discriminate between active and passive suicidal ideation, and do not panic and catastrophize when encountering the latter. Instead, the counselor invites the survivor to explore his suicidal thoughts and feelings knowing that in most cases, verbal ventilation of the flashback pain underneath it will deconstruct the suicidality.

Healing begins, the Denver Post announced Thursday morning. The headline spanned the full width of page one thirty-six hours after the attack. Ministers, psychiatrists, and grief counselors cringed. It was an insanely premature assessment.

I have never seen a client make a serious effort to confront his abusiveness unless somebody required him to do the work. The abuser who truly enters counseling voluntarily, with no one holding anything over his head, quits within a few sessions, unless he finds a counselor he can manipulate.

If you have been raped or sexually assaulted and you have been blamed, or fear that you may be blamed, I just want you to understand this: You are not to blame. There is nothing you did to make someone hurt you, nor is there anything you could have done differently to prevent or stop it.

After it's all over, the early childhood, a chain of birthdays woven with candlelight, piles of presents, voices of relatives singing and praising your promise and future, after the years of schooling, fitting yourself into different size desks, memorizing, reciting, reporting, and performing for jury after jury of teachers, counselors, and administrators, you still feel inadequate, alone, vulnerable, and naked in a world that can be unforgiving and terribly demanding.

Counselor, you can come along, but I prefer to interview Stella alone.” “Let’s just say I’ll think about that.” “Is there a legal precedence that you feel you need to be there?” “No, no legal precedence. Just looking out for my client.” “Stella is now my client, as well. I don’t take any of my cases lightly. I’ve been hired to find the murderer and that’s what I intend to do. Stella is the starting point, and her interview is pivotal. If you are in the interview room with us, she may not divulge information that could be crucial to my going further. I hope you can understand my position in this.

Dissociation leaves us disconnected from our memories, our identities and our emotions. It breaks the trauma into digestible components, so that different aspects of the trauma get stored in different compartments in our brain. What happens as a result is that the information from the trauma becomes disorganized and we are not able to integrate these pieces into a coherent narrative and process trauma fully until, hopefully, with the help of a validating, trauma-informed counselor who guides us to the appropriate therapies best suited to our needs, we confront the trauma and triggers in a safe place.

You said you survived, Anna, but you didn't. You triumphed. Everything about you is a testament to courage and strength." When she stared at him, obviously stunned, he smiled a little. "You didn't get either from a social worker or a counselor. They just helped you figure out how to use it. I figure you got it from your mother. She must have been a hell of a woman." "She was," Anna murmured, near tears again. "So are you.

...You want to know whether the problems that you teenagers feel—will they follow you over the rest of your lives? Will your hearts always be aching? Is that what you are asking me?” Goodman shifted in discomfort. “Something like that,” he said. “Yes,” said the counselor in a suddenly plangent voice. “Always they will be aching. I wish I could tell you something else, but I wouldn’t be telling the truth. My wise and gentle friends, this is the way it will be from now on.” No one could say anything. “We are so, so fucked,” Jules finally said...

Those of us who work in the field of trauma and abuse, whether psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, doctors, counselors, or psychotherapists, have been provided with beautiful tools for understanding the impact of trauma. We become adept at understanding the dynamic of why the messenger is always shot and broadcast the Bionic insight of why the visionary is not bearable to the group. However, when it comes to military mind control, abuse within religious belief groups or cults, and deliberately created dissociative identity disorder, we enter the least resourced field of all.

Women have always been healers. They were the unlicensed doctors and anatomists. They were abortionists, nurses and counselors. They were the pharmacists, cultivating healing herbs, and exchanging the secrets of their uses. They were midwives, traveling from home to home and village to village. For centuries women were doctors without degrees, barred from books and lectures, learning from each other, and passing on experience from neighbor to neighbor and mother to daughter. They were called “wise women” by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. Medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.

In Gretchen Schmelzer’s excellent, gentle book, Journey Through Trauma, she insists on the fifth page: “Some of you may choose a therapist: a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, counselor, or member of the clergy. Some of you may choose some form of group therapy. But I am telling you up front, at the beginning: in order to heal, you will need to get help. I know you will try to look for the loophole in this argument—try to find a way that you can do this on your own—but you need to trust me on this. If there were a way to do it on your own I would have found it. No one looked harder for that loophole than I did.

Look, I don’t care what the Ooga-Boogas do. It sounds like they need a family counselor, not a sniper. (Steele) They’re not Ooga-Boogas, they’re Uhbukistanis. (Syd) Whatever. My personal belief is that we should leave Ooga-Booga Land to the Oomp-Loompas. Let them fight it out with the Snozzwangers, Wangdoogles, and the mean Vermicious Knids. I’d rather go peal carrots with a spoon. (Steele)

Just one person. It really honestly just takes one positive person. One positive person can help you. And that can go a long, long way. - Alexis

I have no wish to paint the world in colors more somber than those it wears, but as the world gives way to darkness it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss the understanding that the world is in fact oneself. It is a thing which you have created, no more, no less. And when you cease to be so will the world. There will be other worlds. Of course. But they are the worlds of other men and your understanding of them was never more than an illusion anyway. Your world-- the only one that matters-- will be gone. And it will never come again

My high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Inverholl, once had me take an aptitude test to figure out my future. The number one job recommendation for my set of skills was an air traffic accident investigator, of which there are fewer than fifty in the world. The number two job was a museum curator for Chinese-American studies. The number three job was a circus clown.

I really do forget about everything. Because that’s what a moment like this does to you. It makes you feel like something so small inside of something so massive that it’s beyond comprehension. It strips away all of your problems, all of your hardships, all of your worldly needs and wants and desires, forcing you to realize just how insignificant all of it really is. It’s like the Earth becomes completely silent and still, and all that your mind can understand or feel is the vastness of the Universe and you gasp thinking about your place within it. Who needs psychiatrists? Who needs grief counselors and life coaches and motivational speakers? Fuck all that. Just stare at the night sky and let yourself get lost in it every now and then.

After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited--long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms--what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true 'calling.

I'm sorry about these two," Mike told the waitress. "Just so you know, I'll be embarrassed with you." "It's just that we haven't seen each other since summmer camp," Becky said. "And we'd formed such a bond playing wily tricks on our camp counselors," Felix said. "Remember how you replaced Miss Pepper's shampoo with liquid Jell-O and turned her hair green?" "It was sheer genius when you stretched cling film over all the toilet seats." "Oh." The waitress turned to Mike, as if to address the only sane member of the group. "So, are ya'll ready to eat now, or are you waiting for your date to arrive?" Mike played with the menu. "Actually, she's my date." "These are my two husbands," Becky said. "We're from Utah. You know, Mormom.

Perhaps people felt there was nothing more they could do, you know? After all, how can someone be helped who doesn’t see the need? A Christian counselor I saw for a while described such situations as, “a White Elephant everyone can see but no one wants to deal with; everyone hopes the problem will just go away on its own.” Just like with my mom. Back then it seemed women were almost expected to go a little loopy sometimes. After all we’re the ones with raging hormones that get out of whack – by our periods, PMS or pregnancy and childbirth – and cause craziness and bizarre behavior. And because of those uncontrollable hormones, women are also more emotional and predisposed to depression. These are things my mom was actually told by her parents, her family, her husbands and friends... even her doctor. Eventually, she made herself believe that her erratic behavior stemmed from PMS, not mania or alcohol.

This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.

By the time she turned fifteen, all of that was gone. She hardly spoke in class. She refused to function in any sort of school event, and rather than discuss her feelings she deferred the world with a hard and perfectly practiced smile. Apparently—if her sister is to be believed—Karen spent every night of her fourteenth year composing that smile in front of a blue plastic handled mirror. Tragically her creation proved flawless and though her near aphonia should have alarmed any adept teacher or guidance counselor, it was invariably rewarded with the pyritic prize of high school popularity.

but true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience.

From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

Remember you future counselors and bringers of relief: there will never be a cure for life's problems because so many of tomorrow's problems will be new. Good words, like good work and good thinking, help, even if good words are a lot like highway paint. They can keep plenty of heavy things moving at 70 MPH from going the wrong way. But that doesn't mean life won't cross over if it has to. Learn to avoid the collisions. Find other directions. Often a new yes is the best no. Life lived well doesn't get easier but it does get better. Learn to let things go by. And don't be reluctant: life is al[l]ways surpassing us by. Enjoy it.

Misery is like an animal, it needs food to survive—so starve it. Surround yourself with art and beauty that brightens your darkest days. Listen to music and poetry that always fill the cracks of your broken heart. Read quotes and passages that can soothe and motivate you when you feel the most discouraged. Spend time with people who make you laugh and distract you from your troubles. Nourish your soul and hopefully the mind will follow. However, if you find you can't help yourself, there's no shame in asking others for help. Sometimes asking for help is just as heroic as giving it. There are treatments and therapies and counselors that you could benefit from—but no one finds answers if they're too afraid to ask the questions. Don't let your pride tell you otherwise.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin self-immolation, disaster? Is Kitsey right? If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you?

He feels, as he increasingly does, that his life is something that has happened to him, rather than something he has had any role in creating. He has never been able to imagine what his life might be; even as a child, even as he dreamed of other places, of other lives, he wasn’t able to visualize what those other places and lives would be; he had believed everything he had been taught about who he was and what he would become. But his friends, Ana, Lucien, Harold and Julia: They had imagined his life for him. They had seen him as something different than he had ever seen himself as; they had allowed him to believe in possibilities that he would never have conceived. He saw his life as the axiom of equality, but they saw it as another riddle, one with no name—Jude = x—and they had filled in the x in ways Brother Luke, the counselors at the home, Dr. Traylor had never written for him or encouraged him to write for himself. He wishes he could believe their proofs the way they do; he wishes they had shown him how they had arrived at their solutions.

I made him a promise." Kevin dragged his stare away from Neil's face to follow Andrew's progress. "He's waiting to see if I can keep it." "I don't understand." Kevin said nothing for so long Neil almost gave up waiting for an answer. Finally he explained, "Andrew on his drugs is useless, but Andrew off his drugs is worse. His high school counselor saw the difference between his junior and senior years and swore this medicine saved his life. A sober Andrew is…" Kevin thought for a moment, trying to remember her exact words, and crooked his fingers at Neil as he quoted, "destructive and joyless. "Andrew has neither purpose nor ambition," Kevin said. "I was the first person who ever looked at Andrew and told him he was worth something. When he comes off these drugs and has nothing else to hold him up I will give him something to build his life around." "He agreed to this?" Neil asked. "But he's fighting you every step of the way. Why?" "When I first said you would be Court, why were you upset with me?" "Because I knew it'd never happen," Neil said, "but I wanted it anyway." Kevin said nothing. Neil waited, then realized he'd answered his own question.

Don’t strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else. Admitting a weakness is a sign of strength. Acknowledging weakness doesn’t make a leader less effective. Everybody in your organization benefits when you delegate responsibilities that fall outside your core competency. Thoughtful delegation will allow someone else in your organization to shine. Your weakness is someone’s opportunity. Leadership is not always about getting things done “right.” Leadership is about getting things done through other people. The people who follow us are exactly where we have led them. If there is no one to whom we can delegate, it is our own fault. As a leader, gifted by God to do a few things well, it is not right for you to attempt to do everything. Upgrade your performance by playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses. There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination. Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing. My competence in these areas defines my success as a pastor. A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don’t show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor). In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time. To develop a competent team, help the leaders in your organization discover their leadership competencies and delegate accordingly. Once you step outside your zone, don’t attempt to lead. Follow. The less you do, the more you will accomplish. Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed. Accepting the status quo is the equivalent of accepting a death sentence. Where there’s no progress, there’s no growth. If there’s no growth, there’s no life. Environments void of change are eventually void of life. So leaders find themselves in the precarious and often career-jeopardizing position of being the one to draw attention to the need for change. Consequently, courage is a nonnegotiable quality for the next generation leader. The leader is the one who has the courage to act on what he sees. A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act on what he sees, to speak up when everyone else is silent. Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside. The first person to step out in a new direction is viewed as the leader. And being the first to step out requires courage. In this way, courage establishes leadership. Leadership requires the courage to walk in the dark. The darkness is the uncertainty that always accompanies change. The mystery of whether or not a new enterprise will pan out. The reservation everyone initially feels when a new idea is introduced. The risk of being wrong. Many who lack the courage to forge ahead alone yearn for someone to take the first step, to go first, to show the way. It could be argued that the dark provides the optimal context for leadership. After all, if the pathway to the future were well lit, it would be crowded. Fear has kept many would-be leaders on the sidelines, while good opportunities paraded by. They didn’t lack insight. They lacked courage. Leaders are not always the first to see the need for change, but they are the first to act. Leadership is about moving boldly into the future in spite of uncertainty and risk. You can’t lead without taking risk. You won’t take risk without courage. Courage is essential to leadership.

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide. (Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?) Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other. In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own. I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel. Is there a tunnel?" he said.

unsolicited advice to adolescent girls with crooked teeth and pink hair When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up. When he says you gave him blue balls, say you’re welcome. When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her. Then head-butt her. When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red. When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen. When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: “Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,” do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom. When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time. When the skinhead girls jump you in a bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red. When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screw driver, a beer bottle, your two good hands. When your father locks the door, break the window. When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife. When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them, do not turn red. When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know. When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: “I fucked your boyfriend,” assure her that it is not true. When your dog pees the rug, kiss her, apologize for being late. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Jersey City, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him. Do not regret this. Do not turn red. When your mother hits you, do not strike back.

How to Survive Racism in an Organization that Claims to be Antiracist: 10. Ask why they want you. Get as much clarity as possible on what the organization has read about you, what they understand about you, what they assume are your gifts and strengths. What does the organization hope you will bring to the table? Do those answers align with your reasons for wanting to be at the table? 9. Define your terms. You and the organization may have different definitions of words like "justice", "diveristy", or "antiracism". Ask for definitions, examples, or success stories to give you a better idea of how the organization understands and embodies these words. Also ask about who is in charge and who is held accountable for these efforts. Then ask yourself if you can work within the structure. 8. Hold the organization to the highest vision they committed to for as long as you can. Be ready to move if the leaders aren't prepared to pursue their own stated vision. 7. Find your people. If you are going to push back against the system or push leadership forward, it's wise not to do so alone. Build or join an antiracist cohort within the organization. 6. Have mentors and counselors on standby. Don't just choose a really good friend or a parent when seeking advice. It's important to have on or two mentors who can give advice based on their personal knowledge of the organization and its leaders. You want someone who can help you navigate the particular politics of your organization. 5. Practice self-care. Remember that you are a whole person, not a mule to carry the racial sins of the organization. Fall in love, take your children to the park, don't miss doctors' visits, read for pleasure, dance with abandon, have lots of good sex, be gentle with yourself. 4. Find donors who will contribute to the cause. Who's willing to keep the class funded, the diversity positions going, the social justice center operating? It's important for the organization to know the members of your cohort aren't the only ones who care. Demonstrate that there are stakeholders, congregations members, and donors who want to see real change. 3. Know your rights. There are some racist things that are just mean, but others are against the law. Know the difference, and keep records of it all. 2. Speak. Of course, context matters. You must be strategic about when, how, to whom, and about which situations you decide to call out. But speak. Find your voice and use it. 1. Remember: You are a creative being who is capable of making change. But it is not your responsibility to transform an entire organization.