Decrease Me There Quotes

When I run, I always pretend I am running toward Nikki, and it makes me feel like I am decreasing the amount of time I have to wait until I see her again.

When marriages fail, it is not increasing conflict that is the cause. It is decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness...

An expensive coffin does not decrease the deceased’s chances of going to hell.

It’s funny—when you get what you want, it almost automatically decreases in value.

And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!

I’m not much older now than I was then, but in a lot of ways, obviously, I’m a different person. So it is easy for me to recognize that I made some good decisions and some bad ones. But it’s telling that, with this, I knew it was a bad idea even then but I still couldn’t control myself. Knowing something is a bad idea does not always decrease the odds that you will do it. If I had examined my motivations on this one, I probably wouldn’t have liked what I found, so I didn’t.

I think, This will be the last horrible thing I have to go through, until I meet someone else and the whole travesty begins again. I myself bear a sign that reads DON´T DATE ME, I CHAIN-SMOKE, I´M BITTER, AND I INCLUDE GRABBY TODDLER, and this has dramatically decreased my social life. I have resigned myself to a lifetime of jalapeño poppers and cheap wine and Frasier reruns.

We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.

I choke on my coffee. “I thought libidos decrease with age.”  “I’ve got memories to last me a lifetime.”  Mom groans. “By all means, feel free to take them to your grave.

You wish to be anonymous?" "I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned--they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there." "Many can't go there; and many would rather die." "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Weight Watchers holds as a descriptive axiom the transparently true fact that for each of us the universe is deeply and sharply and completely divided into for example in my case, me, on one side, and everything else, on the other. This for each of us exhaustively defines the whole universe... And then they hold by a prescriptive axiom the undoubtedly equally true and inarguable fact that we each ought to desire our own universe to be as full as possible, that the Great Horror consists in an empty, rattling personal universe, one where one finds oneself with Self, on one hand, and vastly empty lonely spaces before Others begin to enter the picture at all, on the other. A non-full universe... The emptier one’s universe is, the worse it is... Weight Watchers perceives the problem as one involving the need to have as much Other around as possible, so that the relation is one of minimum Self to maximum Other... We each need a full universe. Weight Watchers and their allies would have us systematically decrease the Self-component of the universe, so that the great Other-set will be physically attracted to the now more physically attractive Self, and rush in to fill the void caused by that diminution of Self. Certainly not incorrect, but just as certainly only half of the range of valid solutions to the full-universe problem... Is my drift getting palpable? Just as in genetic engineering... There is always more than one solution... An autonomously full universe... Rather than diminishing Self to entice Other to fill our universe, we may also of course obviously choose to fill the universe with Self... Yes. I plan to grow to infinite size... There will of course eventually cease to be room for anyone else in the universe at all.

I've come to read and hear many unlikely things about the times when people lived in freedom, i.e., the unorganized savage state. But the most unlikely thing, it seems to me, is this: how could the olden day governmental power - primitive though it was - have allowed people to live without anything like our Table, without the scheduled walks, without the precise regulation of mealtimes, getting up and going to bed whenever it occurred to them? Various historians even say that, apparently, in those times, light burned in the streets all night long, and all night long, people rode and walked the streets. This I just cannot comprehend in any way. Their faculties of reason may not have been developed, but they must have understood more broadly that living like that amounted to mass murder - literally - only it was committed slowly, day after day. The State (humaneness) forbade killing to death any one person but didn't forbid the half-killing of millions. To kill a man, that is, to decrease the sum of a human life span by fifty years - this was criminal. But decreasing the sum of many humans' lives by fifty million years - this was not criminal. Isn't that funny?

How can anyone think so insanely that the human life has the same value and mankind, the same morality, independent of numbers? It is lucid to me that every time a new child is born, the value of every human in world decreases slightly. It is obvious to me that the morality of the population explosion is wholly unlike than when man was a sparse, noble species in its beginning.

I wondered how long it could last. Maybe someday, years from now.If the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it.I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life. And, if it were possible that the pain would ever soften enough to allow me to do that, I was sure that I would feel grateful for as much time as he'd given me. More than I'd asked for, more than I'd deserved. Maybe someday I'd be able to see it that way.

Not that this let me off the hook. My younger self had come back to shock my older self with what that self had been, or was, or was sometimes capable of being. And only recently I’d been going on about how the witnesses to our lives decrease, and with them our essential corroboration. Now I had some all too unwelcome corroboration of what I was, or had been. If only this had been the document Veronica had set light to.

A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualities of personality —women don’t really care two cents about our looks—by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.

Then he demanded to see the royal storerooms and the lettuce garden. When he came back he looked very grave and said, “Great King, I know very well what sorry news it will be to you, but the cause of your sickness is those very lettuces by which you set such store.” “The lettuces?” cried King Darin. “Impossible! They are all grown from good, healthy seed and guarded day and night.” “Alas!” said El-arairah, “I know it well! But they have been infected by the dreaded Lousepedoodle, that flies in ever decreasing circles through the Gunpat of the Cludge—a deadly virus—dear me, yes!—isolated by the purple Avvago and maturing in the gray-green forests of the Okey Pokey. This, you understand, is to put the matter for you in simple terms, insofar as I can. Medically speaking there are certain complexities with which I will not weary you.

If you don’t drink coffee, you should think about two to four cups a day. It can make you more alert, happier, and more productive. It might even make you live longer. Coffee can also make you more likely to exercise, and it contains beneficial antioxidants and other substances associated with decreased risk of stroke (especially in women), Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Coffee is also associated with decreased risk of abnormal heart rhythms, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.12, 13 Any one of those benefits of coffee would be persuasive, but cumulatively they’re a no-brainer. An hour ago I considered doing some writing for this book, but I didn’t have the necessary energy or focus to sit down and start working. I did, however, have enough energy to fix myself a cup of coffee. A few sips into it, I was happier to be working than I would have been doing whatever lazy thing was my alternative. Coffee literally makes me enjoy work. No willpower needed. Coffee also allows you to manage your energy levels so you have the most when you need it. My experience is that coffee drinkers have higher highs and lower lows, energywise, than non–coffee drinkers, but that trade-off works. I can guarantee that my best thinking goes into my job, while saving my dull-brain hours for household chores and other simple tasks. The biggest downside of coffee is that once you get addicted to caffeine, you can get a “coffee headache” if you go too long without a cup. Luckily, coffee is one of the most abundant beverages on earth, so you rarely have to worry about being without it. Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t developed the habit.

Dear Stephen,’ he begins. ‘This is a difficult letter to write, but I know it will be a great deal more difficult to read. I will come straight to it. I believe you are in the early stages of dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s.’ Elizabeth can hear her heart beating through her chest. Who on earth has chosen to shatter their privacy this way? Who even knows? Her friends? Has one of them written? They wouldn’t dare, not without asking. Not Ibrahim, surely? He might dare. ‘I am not an expert, but it is something I have been looking into. You are forgetting things, and you are getting confused. I know full well what you will say – “But I’ve always forgotten things. I’ve always been confused!” – and you are right, of course, but this, Stephen, is of a different order. Something is not right with you, and everything I read points in just one direction.’ ‘Stephen,’ says Elizabeth, but he gently gestures for hush. ‘You must also know that dementia points in just one direction. Once you start to descend the slope, and please believe me when I say you have started, there is no return. There may be footholds here and there, there may be ledges on which to rest, and the view may still be beautiful from time to time, but you will not clamber back up.’ ‘Stephen, who wrote you this letter?’ Elizabeth asks. Stephen holds up a finger, asking her to be patient a few moments more. Elizabeth’s fury is decreasing. The letter is something she should have written to him herself. This should not have been left to a stranger. Stephen starts

Mom is losing, no doubt, because our vegetables have come to lack two features of interest: nutrition and flavor. Storage and transport take predictable tolls on the volatile plant compounds that subtly add up to taste and food value. Breeding to increase shelf life also has tended to decrease palatability. Bizarre as it seems, we've accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: "Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self.

the only means to decrease my suffering in this anguish will be to observe it closely; and to describe it will give me an occupation.

If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides--excuse me--I don't know that.

Life has taught me one great lesson with time. We increase by giving away and decrease by taking away. Takers never prosper!

If you are unhappy before you achieve, you will be unhappy after. It’s not the achievement that brings happiness, it’s you.

Decreased sleep is both a symptom of mania and a cause, but I didn’t know that at the time, and it probably would not have made any difference to me if I had.

A collection of Russian matryoshka dolls painted brightly in red and blue peeked out at me expectantly from one of the shelves. I couldn’t resist opening one, revealing a smaller doll inside. I opened that too, on and on until I had five dolls, each decreasing in size, all made to perfectly fit inside the largest one. It was exactly how I felt: a fully formed woman, but the little girl inside was still there.

In competitive swimming, you increase your time in the pool to decrease your time in the pool, and that seems like a complete waste of time to me. Why not buy a duck from me and let it do all your swimming?

Tanaka’s lab has pioneered new research on swimming’s effects on two of the biggest hallmarks of aging: high blood pressure and arthritis. “Over the last four or five years, a funky thing happened—we realized that the effects of swimming actually surpassed the magnitude of the effects of walking or cycling,” he tells me. “None of us knew that before.” Average reduction in blood pressure after land-based exercise training is five to seven points. Swimming, he found, reduces blood pressure by an average of nine points—in the blood-pressure world, that’s significant. It also decreases arterial stiffness, a condition in which the walls of your arteries become less elastic and add strain to the heart muscle.

Let me respectfully remind you Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. On this night the days of our life are decreased by one. Each of us must strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed. Do not squander your life.

All of the thoughts in your head come from you. Sometimes you have angry thoughts about yourself such as, “God, I’m so worthless!” and sometimes you have sad thoughts about yourself like, “I really wish someone could help me and I feel alone.” This exercise is about purposefully preparing to respond to any angry thoughts—either in your mind or in a journal—with something that is kind, the way you would with a friend. If a friend said, “I am so worthless,” you might say, “I think it’s pretty normal to make mistakes. That doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy.” When you think sad thoughts, you can respond the way you would comfort a friend: “I’m sorry you feel alone. It’s okay to cry.” Even though you know it’s still you saying it to yourself and even if you don’t believe it yet, the exercise begins to help you decrease the number of distressing thoughts you have over time.

He nodded to our left, where several humanlike entities were materializing directly in front of us, at a distance, of what appeared to be about thirty feet. My first reaction was to be cautious. “Wil, how do we know their intentions are friendly? What if they try to possess us or something?” He gave me a serious expression. “How do you know if someone on Earth is trying to control you?” “I would pick up on it. I could tell that the person was being manipulative.” “What else?” “I guess they would be taking energy away from me. I would feel a decrease in my sense of wisdom, self-direction.

Deserts unclutter the soul. The hot desert sun vaporizes all manner of luxuries. Then the cold, shelterless nights expose the essential guts of life. I needed to eat, to sleep, to be protected, and to not be alone. Lent had come half a year early. God asked me to fast mental and physical strength. He invited me into holy weakness. I found Jesus there.

My father liked to wonder aloud whether the phoenix was re-created by the fire of its funeral pyre or transformed so that what emerged was a soulless shadow of its former being, identical in appearance but without the joy in life its predecessor had had. He wondered alternatively whether the fire might be purificatory, a redemptive, rejuvenating blaze that destroyed the withered shell of the old phoenix and allowed the creature’s essence to emerge stronger than it was before in a young, new body. Or, he would ask, was the fire a manifestation of entropy, slowly sapping the life-energy of the phoenix over the eons, a little death in a life that could know no beginning and no end but which could nonetheless be subject to an ever-decreasing magnitude? He asked me once if I thought the fires in our lives, the traumas, increased our fulfillment by setting up contrasts that illuminated more clearly our everyday joys; or perhaps I viewed them instead as tests that made us stronger by teaching us to endure; or did I believe, rather, that they simply amplified what we already were, in the end making the strong stronger, the weak weaker, and the dangerous deadly?

These days, it literally is all about ‘me’. In an analysis of over 750,000 books published between 1960 and 2008, Jean Twenge and her colleagues found that the use of first person plural pronouns (i.e. We, Us) decreased 10 per cent, while during this same timeframe, the use of first person singular pronouns (i.e. I, Me) increased 42 per cent, and second person pronouns (i.e. You, Your) quadrupled.

If I must die one day God please allow me to die bankrupt of all my gifts and talents. May I die empty with no wind left in my cell from pouring everything I am, and have into empowering, enlightening, and encouraging others. May we all S-erve W-ith A-ll G-ifts! What part of the world will you create positive change for this week? Procrastination only decreases your options so don't waste another second act now.

Q: Your customer-service representatives handle roughly sixty calls in an eighty-hour shift, with a half-hour lunch and two fifteen-minute breaks. By the end of the day, a problematic number of them are so exhausted by these interactions that their ability to focus, read basic conversational cues, and maintain a peppy demeanor is negatively affected. Do you: A. Increase staffing so you can scale back the number of calls each rep takes per shift -- clearly, workers are at their cognitive limits B. Allow workers to take a few minutes to decompress after difficult calls C. Increase the number or duration of breaks D. Decrease the number of objectives workers have for each call so they aren't as mentally and emotionally taxing E. Install a program that badgers workers with corrective pop-ups telling them that they sound tired. Seriously---what kind of fucking sociopath goes with E?

Later, after many satisfied thirsts, it was neither decrease of desire, nor satiety, that came to me with age; but often, foreseeing the all-too-rapid exhaustion of desire, possession appeared to me of lesser value than the quest, and I came more and more to prefer to quenching thirst, thirst itself; to sensual delight, its promise; to satisfaction, a never-ending expansion of love. How many times then, on the verge of harvesting a joy, have I suddenly turned away, as might have done an ascetic

Recently a group of researchers conducted a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs. The researchers reported a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. In line with their hypothesis, they found a decrease in usages such as we and us and an increase in I and me. The researchers also reported a decline in words related to social connection and positive emotions, and an increase in words related to anger and antisocial behavior, such as hate or kill.

it amazes me that somebody could escape from a courthouse and then go to jail, and be allowed to escape again. when you think about the responsibilities of a jail, right, if we use an analogy and we think about a for profit business. you can see people from that business sitting around... well we need to increase sales, we need to decrease costs. if you're in a meeting in a jail, you would think they would talk about people not escaping. that seems to be really a central concept to what a jail does...

Van Houten interrupted me, tapping his glass as he talked until Lidewij refilled it again. “So Zeno is most famous for his tortoise paradox. Let us imagine that you are in a race with a tortoise. The tortoise has a ten-yard head start. In the time it takes you to run that ten yards, the tortoise has maybe moved one yard. And then in the time it takes you to make up that distance, the tortoise goes a bit farther, and so on forever. You are faster than the tortoise but you can never catch him; you can only decrease his lead.

...one of the first results of my Theistic conversion was a marked decrease...in the fussy attentiveness which I had so long paid to the progress of my own opinions and the states of my own mind. For many healthy extroverts self-examination first begins with conversion. For me it was almost the other way round. Self-examination did of course continue. But it was...at stated intervals, and for a practical purpose; a duty, a discipline, an uncomfortable thing, no longer a hobby or a habit. To believe and to pray were the beginning of extroversion. I had been, as they say, "taken out of myself'.

I woke several more times, only drinking a bit of water before passing out again.  Each time the pain in my head decreased a little until, finally, I woke with more clarity. “Water,” I whispered into the darkness. Again, an arm snaked under me and lifted me for a cool drink.  I drained the cup.  The arm lowered me, and I settled back onto the pillow.  My ears rang in the silence. “How long have I been sleeping?” I asked just to hear something. Instead of an answer, I got a tight hug. “I really hope you’re Clay,” I whispered breathlessly. His gruff laugh wrapped around me, just as comforting as his hug. “Can

…the third article we discovered was by Linda Hartling, who ties together research from several areas to propose a model explaining how humiliation can lead to violence. Hartling suggests that humiliation can trigger a series of reactions, including social pain, decreased self-awareness, increased self-defeating behavior, and decreased self-regulation, that ultimately lead to violence. Hartling and colleagues state that “humiliation is not only the most underappreciated force in international relations, it may be the missing link in the search for root causes of political instability and violent conflict…perhaps the most toxic social dynamic of our age.” This connection between humiliation and aggression/violence explains much of what we’re seeing today. Amplified by the reach of social media, dehumanizing and humiliating others are becoming increasingly normalized, along with violence. Now, rather than humiliating someone in front of a small group of people, we have the power to eviscerate someone in front of a global audience of strangers. I know we all have deeply passionate and cultural beliefs, but shame and humiliation will never be effective social justice tools. They are tools of oppression. I remember reading this quote from Elie Wiesel years ago and it’s become a practice for me-even when I’m enraged or afraid: “Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence.

Of course, the cadavers, in life, donated themselves freely to this fate, and the language surrounding the bodies in front of us soon changed to reflect that fact. We were instructed to no longer call them “cadavers”; “donors” was the preferred term. And yes, the transgressive element of dissection had certainly decreased from the bad old days. (Students no longer had to bring their own bodies, for starters, as they did in the nineteenth century. And medical schools had discontinued their support of the practice of robbing graves to procure cadavers—that looting itself a vast improvement over murder, a means once common enough to warrant its own verb: burke, which the OED defines as “to kill secretly by suffocation or strangulation, or for the purpose of selling the victim’s body for dissection.”) Yet the best-informed people—doctors—almost never donated their bodies. How informed were the donors, then? As one anatomy professor put it to me, “You wouldn’t tell a patient the gory details of a surgery if that would make them not consent.” Even if donors were informed enough—and they might well have been, notwithstanding one anatomy professor’s hedging—it wasn’t so much the thought of being dissected that galled. It was the thought of your mother, your father, your grandparents being hacked to pieces by wisecracking twenty-two-year-old medical students. Every time I read the pre-lab and saw a term like “bone saw,” I wondered if this would be the session in which I finally vomited. Yet I was rarely troubled in lab, even when I found that the “bone saw” in question was nothing more than a common, rusty wood saw. The closest I ever came to vomiting was nowhere near the lab but on a visit to my grandmother’s grave in New York, on the twentieth anniversary of her death. I found myself doubled over, almost crying, and apologizing—not to my cadaver but to my cadaver’s grandchildren. In the midst of our lab, in fact, a son requested his mother’s half-dissected body back. Yes, she had consented, but he couldn’t live with that. I knew I’d do the same. (The remains were returned.) In

Leaning back in his chair, Ian listened to Larimore’s irate summation of the wild and fruitless chase he’d been sent on for two days by Lady Thornton and her butler: “And after all that,” Larimore flung out in high dudgeon, “I returned to the house on Promenade Street to demand the butler allow me past the stoop, only to have the man-“ “Slam the door in your face?” Ian suggested dispassionately. “No, my lord, he invited me in,” Larimore bit out. “He invited me to search the house to my complete satisfaction. She’s left London,” Larimore finished, avoiding his employer’s narrowed gaze. “She’ll go to Havenhurst,” Ian said decisively, and he gave Larimore directions to find the small estate. When Larimore left, Ian picked up a contract he needed to read and approve; but before he’d read two lines Jordan stalked into his study unannounced, carrying a newspaper and wearing an expression Ian hadn’t seen before. “Have you seen the paper today?” Ian ignored the paper and studied his friend’s angry face instead. “No, why?” “Read it,” Jordan said, slapping it down on the desk. “Elizabeth allowed herself to be questioned by a reporter from the Times. Read that.” He jabbed his finger at a few lines near the bottom of the article about Elizabeth by one Mr. Thomas Tyson. “That was your wife’s response when Tyson asked her how she felt when she saw you on trial before your peers.” Frowning at Jordan’s tone, Ian read Elizabeth’s reply: My husband was not tried before his peers. He was merely tried before the Lords of the British Realm. Ian Thornton has no peers. Ian tore his gaze from the article, refusing to react to the incredible sweetness of her response, but Jordan would not let it go. “My compliments to you, Ian,” he said angrily. “You serve your wife with a divorce petition, and she responds by giving you what constitutes a public apology!” He turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Ian behind to stare with clenched jaw at the article. One month later Elizabeth had still not been found. Ian continued trying to purge her from his mind and tear her from his heart, but with decreasing success. He knew he was losing ground in the battle, just as he had been slowly losing it from the moment he’d looked up and seen her walking into the House of Lords.

Then I look into my students’ faces, and they look solemnly back at me. “So why does our writing matter, again?” they ask. Because of the spirit, I say. Because of the heart. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

UKIP SHIPPING FORECAST by Nicholas Pegg After a UKIP councillor claimed widespread flooding in the UK was God’s punishment for allowing same-sex marriage, author/performer Nicholas Pegg wrote his own version of the Shipping Forecast. His recording went viral, receiving 250,000 hits in four days. ‘And now the shipping forecast issued by UKIP on Sunday the 19 January 2014 at 1200 UTC. There are warnings of gays in Viking, Forties, Cromarty, Southeast Iceland and Bongo Bongo land. The general synopsis at midday: Low intelligence expected, becoming Little England by midnight tonight. And now the area forecasts for the next 24 hours. Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire: south easterly gay seven to severe gay nine, occasionally bisexual. Showers – gay. Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher: women veering southerly 4 or 5, losing their identity and becoming sluts. Rain – moderate or gay. German blight, immigration veering north – figures variable, becoming psychotic. Showers – gay. Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth: benefit tourism 98%, becoming variable – later slight, or imaginary. Showers – gay. Biscay, Trafalgar: warm, lingering nationalism. Kiss me Hardy, later becoming heterosexual – good. FitzRoy, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey: right or extreme right, veering racist 4 or 5, increasing to 5 to 7. Homophobic outburst – back-peddling westerly and becoming untenable. Showers – gay. Fair Isle, Faeroes, South East Iceland: powerbase decreasing, variable – becoming unelectable. Good. And that concludes the forecast.

Another pastor from India gave me some simple and powerful advice I hope never leaves me. His ministry has led over three million people to Jesus. All these people are being discipled. When I asked how he organized this massive army, he replied, “Americans always want to know about strategy. This is what I will tell you: my leaders are the most humble men I know, and they know Jesus deeply.” He proceeded to tell me that his biggest mistakes were the times when he allowed people into leadership who were not humble. He got so excited about releasing their gifts, but it always led to their destruction. To this day, he says those are his biggest regrets. Now his main criterion for identifying leaders is humility, and his leadership problems have significantly decreased. We would never admit it, but we often search for leaders the way the world does. We look at outward appearances.

He nodded. “From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you. It was the night of the Nethercourt gathering three years ago. You wore a green gown and your eyes seemed to be alive with color. You entered the room and I had to have you… I would have had you, except that Owen told me you were his new mistress.” Mariah blinked in increasing disbelief at the detail John could recount of the night of their first meeting. “I—I had no idea of your feelings.” “Of course not.” John frowned. “I made certain you did not, nor did Owen. I would not have betrayed him in such a manner. But my desire for you never decreased. Although I suppose that fact is rather clear since I have taken you not once, but twice in recent days. And without much finesse either time, for which I apologize.” Mariah set her cup away and leaned back in the chair to stare at him. “You act as though I received no pleasure from those encounters. I assure you, I did. A great deal, both times.” He smiled, almost in relief. “Good. I would hate to think I have left a poor impression.

Many iGen’ers are so addicted to social media that they find it difficult to put down their phones and go to sleep when they should. “I stay up all night looking at my phone,” admits a 13-year-old from New Jersey in American Girls. She regularly hides under her covers at night, texting, so her mother doesn’t know she’s awake. She wakes up tired much of the time, but, she says, “I just drink a Red Bull.” Thirteen-year-old Athena told me the same thing: “Some of my friends don’t go to sleep until, like, two in the morning. “I assume just for summer?” I asked. “No, school, too,” she said. “And we have to get up at six forty-five.” Smartphone use may have decreased teens’ sleep time: more teens now sleep less than seven hours most nights (see Figure 4.12). Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night, so a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived. Fifty-seven percent more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991. In just the three years between 2012 and 2015, 22% more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep.

Besides increasing or decreasing the stimulation level of the environment, you can also achieve an optimal level of arousal by drinking beverages that have a direct impact on neocortical arousal.38 Alcohol, at least initially, has the effect of lowering arousal. After a couple of glasses of wine the extraverts are more likely to dip below the optimal arousal level, whereas their introverted friends, nudged closer to optimal arousal, may appear unexpectedly garrulous. Coffee, being a stimulant, has the opposite effect. After ingesting about two cups of coffee, extraverts carry out tasks more efficiently, whereas introverts perform less well. This deficit is magnified if the task they are engaged in is quantitative and if it is done under time pressure. For an introvert, an innocent couple of cups of coffee before a meeting may prove challenging, particularly if the purpose of the meeting is a rapid-fire discussion of budget projections, data analysis, or similar quantitative concerns. In the same meeting an extraverted colleague is likely to benefit from a caffeine kick that creates, in the eyes of the introverts, the illusion of competency.

My assignment as the post’s adjutant and personnel officer (I ended the war a captain) put me in close contact with the civilian bureaucrats and it didn’t take long for me to decide I didn’t think much of the inefficiency, empire building, and business-as-usual attitude that existed in wartime under the civil service system. If I suggested that an employee might be expendable, his supervisor would look at me as if I were crazy. He didn’t want to reduce the size of his department; his salary was based to a large extent on the number of people he supervised. He wanted to increase it, not decrease it. I discovered it was almost impossible to remove an incompetent or lazy worker and that one of the most popular methods supervisors used in dealing with an incompetent was to transfer him or her out of his department to a higher-paying job in another department. We had a warehouse filled with cabinets containing old records that had no use or historic value. They were totally obsolete. Well, with a war on, there was a need for the warehouse and the filing cabinets, so a request was sent up through channels requesting permission to destroy the obsolete papers. Back came a reply—permission granted provided copies are made of each paper destroyed.

Multi-generational sexual child abuse is such a common cause of the proliferation of pedophilia that Hitler/Himmler research focused on this genetic trait for mind control purposes. While I personally could not relate to the idea of sex with a child, I had parents and brothers and sisters who did. I still believe that George Bush revealed today’s causation of the rapid rise in pedophilia through justifications I heard him state. The rape of a child renders them compliant and receptive to being led without question. This, Bush claims, would cause them to intellectually evolve at a rate rapid enough to “bring them up to speed” to grasp the artificial intelligence emanating from DARPA. He believed that this generation conditioned with photographic memory through abuse was necessary for a future he foresaw controlled by technology. Since sexual abuse enhanced photographic memory while decreasing critical analysis and free thought, there would ultimately be no free will soul expression controlling behavior. In which case, social engineering was underway to create apathy while stifling spiritual evolution. Nevertheless, to short sighted flat thinking individuals such as Bush, spiritual evolution was not a consideration anyway. Instead, controlling behavior in a population diminished by global genocide of ‘undesirables’ would result in Hitler’s ‘superior race’ surviving to claim the earth. Perceptual justifications such as these that were discussed at the Bohemian Grove certainly did not provide me with the complete big picture. It did, however, provide a view beyond the stereotyped child molester in a trench coat that helped in understanding the vast crimes and cover-ups being discussed at this seminar in Houston.

Did you know that if you’re a middle-aged woman, you have only a small window of opportunity between the beginning of perimenopause and the start of menopause to start estrogen replacement therapy to protect not only your brain but also your bones and cardiovascular system? I did not, until I dug into the science, because as a woman who was diagnosed with a stage 0 breast lump, I was scared off like so many of us from the results of the Women’s Health Initiative, which got blasted out all over the news and initially showed a link between estrogen replacement therapy and breast cancer, but guess what? That study had so many flaws, its findings are little more than useless and possibly harmful. Worse, women like me without uteri show a decrease in breast cancer with estrogen replacement therapy. But this information never made it either into the headlines or into our gynecologists’ offices. I had to find it in scientific publications such as The Lancet online. In fact, get this: Our medical system barely trains gynecologists in menopausal medicine. A recent study found that only 20 percent of ob-gyn residency programs in the U.S. provide any menopause training. Yes, any. Which means that 80 percent of all gynecological residents in school today are getting no training whatsoever in post-reproductive women’s health. These are people whose job it is to know everything going on in our ladyparts, but they have not been taught the basic tenets of how to care for either us or our plumbing after we stop menstruating. And by “us” I mean 30 percent of all women alive on earth at any given moment. Half of my middle-aged female friends deal with chronic urinary tract infections. Oh, well, we think, throwing up our hands in defeat and consuming far too many antibiotics than are rational or safe or even good for the future safety of humanity. It took Dr. Rachel Rubin, a urologist in Washington, D.C., reaching out to me over Twitter to explain that UTIs in menopausal women do not have to be recurrent. They can be mitigated with, yes, vaginal estrogen. Not once was I ever

This, in turn, has given us a “unified theory of aging” that brings the various strands of research into a single, coherent tapestry. Scientists now know what aging is. It is the accumulation of errors at the genetic and cellular level. These errors can build up in various ways. For example, metabolism creates free radicals and oxidation, which damage the delicate molecular machinery of our cells, causing them to age; errors can build up in the form of “junk” molecular debris accumulating inside and outside the cells. The buildup of these genetic errors is a by-product of the second law of thermodynamics: total entropy (that is, chaos) always increases. This is why rusting, rotting, decaying, etc., are universal features of life. The second law is inescapable. Everything, from the flowers in the field to our bodies and even the universe itself, is doomed to wither and die. But there is a small but important loophole in the second law that states total entropy always increases. This means that you can actually reduce entropy in one place and reverse aging, as long as you increase entropy somewhere else. So it’s possible to get younger, at the expense of wreaking havoc elsewhere. (This was alluded to in Oscar Wilde’s famous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Mr. Gray was mysteriously eternally young. But his secret was the painting of himself that aged horribly. So the total amount of aging still increased.) The principle of entropy can also be seen by looking behind a refrigerator. Inside the refrigerator, entropy decreases as the temperature drops. But to lower the entropy, you have to have a motor, which increases the heat generated behind the refrigerator, increasing the entropy outside the machine. That is why refrigerators are always hot in the back. As Nobel laureate Richard Feynman once said, “There is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. This suggests to me that it is not at all inevitable and that it is only a matter of time before biologists discover what it is that is causing us the trouble and that this terrible universal disease or temporariness of the human’s body will be cured.

Deep humility. Examination: Have I looked down on anyone? Have I been too stung by criticism? Have I felt snubbed and ignored? Consider the free grace of Jesus until I sense (a) decreasing disdain, since I am a sinner too, and (b) decreasing pain over criticism, since I should not value human approval over God’s love. In light of his grace, I can let go of the need to keep up a good image—it is too great a burden and is now unnecessary. I reflect on free grace until I experience grateful, restful joy. A well-guided zeal. Examination: Have I avoided people or tasks that I know I should face? Have I been anxious and worried? Have I failed to be circumspect, or have I been rash and impulsive? Consider the free grace of Jesus until there is (a) no cowardly avoidance of hard things, since Jesus faced evil for me, and (b) no anxious or rash behavior, since Jesus’ death proves that God cares and will watch over me. It takes pride to be anxious, and I recognize I am not wise enough to know how my life should go. I reflect on free grace until I experience calm thoughtfulness and strategic boldness. A burning love. Examination: Have I spoken or thought unkindly of anyone? Am I justifying myself by caricaturing someone else in my mind? Have I been impatient and irritable? Have I been self-absorbed, indifferent, and inattentive to people? Consider the free grace of Jesus until there is (a) no coldness or unkindness, as I think of the sacrificial love of Christ for me, (b) no impatience, as I think of his patience with me, and (c) no indifference, as I think of how God is infinitely attentive to me. I reflect on free grace until I feel some warmth and affection. A “single” eye. Examination: Am I doing what I do for God’s glory and the good of others, or am I being driven by fears, need for approval, love of comfort and ease, need for control, hunger for acclaim and power, or the fear of other people? (Luke 12:4–5). Am I looking at anyone with envy? Am I giving in to even the first motions of sexual lust or gluttony? Am I spending my time on urgent things rather than important things because of these inordinate desires? Consider how the free grace of Jesus provides me with what I am looking for in these other things.

There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.) Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide. When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.

Parental efforts to gain leverage generally take two forms: bribery or coercion. If a simple direction such as “I'd like you to set the table” doesn't do, we may add an incentive, for example, “If you set the table for me, I'll let you have your favorite dessert.” Or if it isn't enough to remind the child that it is time to do homework, we may threaten to withdraw some privilege. Or we may add a coercive tone to our voice or assume a more authoritarian demeanor. The search for leverage is never-ending: sanctions, rewards, abrogation of privileges; the forbidding of computer time, toys, or allowance; separation from the parent or separation from friends; the limitation or abolition of television time, car privileges, and so on and so on. It is not uncommon to hear someone complain about having run out of ideas for what still might remain to be taken away from the child. As our power to parent decreases, our preoccupation with leverage increases. Euphemisms abound: bribes are called variously rewards, incentives, and positive reinforcement; threats and punishments are rechristened warnings, natural consequences, and negative reinforcements; applying psychological force is often referred to as modifying behavior or teaching a lesson. These euphemisms camouflage attempts to motivate the child by external pressure because his intrinsic motivation is deemed inadequate. Attachment is natural and arises from within; leverage is contrived and imposed from without. In any other realm, we would see the use of leverage as manipulation. In parenting, such means of getting a child to follow our will have become embraced by many as normal and appropriate. All attempts to use leverage to motivate a child involve the use of psychological force, whether we employ “positive” force as in rewards or “negative” force as in punishments. We apply force whenever we trade on a child's likes or when we exploit a child's dislikes and insecurities in order to get her to do our will. We resort to leverage when we have nothing else to work with — no intrinsic motivation to tap, no attachment for us to lean on. Such tactics, if they are ever to be employed, should be a last resort, not our first response and certainly not our modus operandi. Unfortunately, when children become peer-oriented, we as parents are driven to leverage-seeking in desperation. Manipulation, whether in the form of rewards or punishments, may succeed in getting the child to comply temporarily, but we cannot by this method make the desired behavior become part of anyone's intrinsic personality. Whether it is to say thank-you or sorry, to share with another, to create a gift or card, to clean up a room, to be appreciative, to do homework, or to practice piano, the more the behavior has been coerced, the less likely it is to occur voluntarily. And the less the behavior occurs spontaneously, the more inclined parents and teachers are to contrive some leverage. Thus begins a spiraling cycle of force and counterwill that necessitates the use of more and more leverage. The true power base for parenting is eroded.

... and, not even on purpose, I found myself tuning out. What I thought of was Conchita and me as freshmen, if teaching her to ride a bike behind the infirmary. How long ago that seemed, how far I felt from her now; I couldn't remember talking to her even once during our senior year. And, with graduation, we were about to cut loose from each other completely--the distance between us would be physical and definitive, and perhaps we'd never speak again. It seemed an impossible thought--so often find we all come together at Ault that I had begun to believe life contained reckonings rather than just fade-outs--and yet I also saw then that as more and more years passed, the time Conchita and I had known each other, the time I had known any of my classmates, would feel decreasingly significant; eventually, it would be only a backdrop to our real lives. At some cocktail party years into the future, in an incarnation of myself I could not yet fathom, I woukd, while rummaging for an anecdote, come up with one about a girl I'd known at boarding school whose mother took us out for lunch one day while the family bodyguard sat at the next table. In the telling, I would feel no pinch of longing or regret; I would feel nothing true, nothing at all, in fact, except the wish that my companions find me amusing.

For each object, just as for each painting in an art gallery, there is an optimal distance from which it asks to be seen--an orientation through which it presents more of itself--beneath or beyond which we merely have a confused perspective due to excess or lack. Hence, we tend toward the maximum of visibility and we seek, just as when using a microscope, a better focus point, which is obtained through a certain equilibrium between the interior and the exterior horizons...The distance between me and the object is not a size that increases or decreases, but rather a tension that oscillates around a norm. The oblique orientation of the object in relation to me is not measured by the angle that it forms with the plane of my face, but rather experienced as a disequilibrium, as an unequal distribution of its influences upon me...If I bring the object closer to me, or if I turn it around in my fingers in order to 'see it better,' this is because every attitude of my body is immediately for me a power for a certain spectacle, because each spectacle is for me what it is within a certain kinesthetic situation, and because, in other words, my body is permanently stationed in front of things in order to perceive them and, inversely, appearances are always enveloped for me within a certain bodily attitude...not through a law or from a formula, but rather insofar as I have a body and insofar as I am, through this body, geared into a world. And just as perceptual attitudes are not known by me individually, but rather implicitly given as stages in the gesture that lead to the optimal attitude, correlatively the perspectives that correspond to them are not thematized before me one after the other and are only presented as pathways toward the thing itself with its size and its form...The system of experience is not spread out before me as if I were God, it is lived by me from a certain point of view; I am not the spectator of it, I am a part of it, and it is my inherence in a point of view that at once makes possible the finitude of my perception and its opening to the total world as the horizon of all perception...In other words, perceptual experiences are linked together, motivate each other, and are involved in each other...The world is an open and indefinite unity in which I am situated.

The government implemented the blood quantums. ... the 'government of the White man' would be able to take away tribal land as the tribe's population decreased. And sure enough, with generations of blood mixing, a large population became 'White as can be,' unable to meet the blood quantum. The U.S. government eventually acquired more and more of their land. That was why the Keetoowahs prided themselves on being full-blooded: it preserved their people, their culture, their language, their land.

When I go back to work, will be sick When I go back to work will be fireworks I wanna serve people like there is no tomorrow If someone says Thanks I will kiss her or him (Even though, old folks have no real teeth) With no teeth, there is more room for heart With all my love, I hope me and the elderly never part All this will be consummated when I go back to work… My hope and dreams are so unlimited… When I think about going back to work. It will be like that moment when Proust sipped his tea And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent The disaster became innocuous, the brevity, illusory. Ah, when I go back to work… This sensation has an effect on me Which love has of filling me with a precious essence. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? Did Joan of Arc feel it when she kept strong in front of the executioners? Did John the Baptist have this feeling when he says, the time arrived that I must decrease and He must increase. And he was right about it… Did Nicki Minaj feel it when the barbz looked away from Cardi B’s beckons of violence? Did Shawn Mendes keep strong when Justin Beiber feigned ignorance to his existence? We must stay strong in these times, and prove perseverance. For there will be a day that I ought to go back to work And it will be all of me.

Francis once said, “I have been in all things unholy. If God can use me, God can use absolutely anyone.” 3 It is easy to assume that Francis had tons of faith, much more than you and me. Francis never saw himself this way, and there were many moments when he felt weak, uncertain, inadequate, and scared. His life teaches me that people who feel spiritually invulnerable and confident cannot repair God’s church. Grace flows to the world only through people who are weak and often uncertain and who cling to Jesus in their experience of decreasing and becoming less.

Because Christ is the only life in me, what I do in the flesh does not change my status with God. By my striving to do what God requires, and by God’s disciplining me, more of my old, dead “husk” identity is being stripped away and more of the living Christ in me is being revealed (the old me is decreasing that he might increase). Still, because Jesus loved me and gave himself for me that he might be my identity, God already loves me completely. That privileged status does not change, even though my progressive sanctification will not be complete until I am with him in glory.

And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself–do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!

1. I feel my competence declining 2. Those close to me begin to notice that I am not as sharp as I used to be 3. Other people receive the social and professional attention I used to receive 4. I have to decrease my workload and step back from daily activities I once completed with ease 5. I am no longer able to work 6. Many people I meet do not recognize me or know me for my previous work

Encountering this distressing collection of concerns—from the exhausting and addictive overuse of these tools, to their ability to reduce autonomy, decrease happiness, stoke darker instincts, and distract from more valuable activities—opened my eyes to the fraught relationship so many now maintain with the technologies that dominate our culture. It provided me, in other words, a much better understanding of what Andrew Sullivan meant when he lamented: “I used to be a human being.

It occurs to me as I write that this “white light,” usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with the oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. “Everything went white,” those whose blood pressure has dropped say of the instant before they faint. “All the color drained out,” those bleeding internally report of the moment when blood loss goes critical.

In closing”—he clears his throat—“I’m relieved that I’m no longer the only person on the receiving end of all your most annoying text messages. In fact, their occurrence has decreased dramatically since Cade came into your life. Or you blasted into his, and—let’s be honest—knowing you, that’s the more likely scenario. Which leads me to believe you’ve made him the target of all your unhinged harassment, and I couldn’t be happier for myself about that.” Chuckles ripple through the crowd. “Most of all, I’m happy my little sister found someone who loves getting those obnoxious messages as much as I do. And if seeing her this unbearably happy means a few less chances to mock her mercilessly via text, then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” Willa’s eyes roll, but I see tears well in the wake of that motion. “Because I’m selfless like that.” Ford tosses her a wink and a killer grin. She mouths you’re an idiot back to him.

The self-destruction of a group always follows the same patterns. You only need to introduce some viruses to the group and poof, it’s all gone. These viruses come in the form of very ignorant narcissists that nobody has the courage to kick off of the group. Quite often, the group even promotes itself as being against the personalities that are in front of their eyes every day, people they praise and even lead them. And well, that’s how you know a group is truly finished. Scientology is a very interesting example of this, because of how clear their books are. For example, they claim to love artists but end up insulting real artists. Scientologists are so obsessed with being perceived as artists, that they downgrade real art in the process. You have many scientologists, for example, that think splashing a random amount of ink into a white board is art. They all want to be artists, and that’s fine, but they are too lazy to see how real art is made, and so, they downgrade the value of art. And in doing this, they actually distort the meaning of art and decrease the value of the real artists. And so, a group that promotes itself as being uplifting and positive, ends up being offensive and destructive. They have all these books on moral codes and moral behavior, and dozens of courses on the same topic, and if you report a scientologist for criminal behavior, they ignore you and deem you an attacker of the group. And there goes the level of sanity of this group down the scale, while they themselves invert the scale and tell you the opposite story. It would be like looking at your mental health through someone suffering with poor mental health. They are as aware of what I am saying as any mentally ill person is aware of his mental illnesses. If anyone confronts them with the facts, they themselves get offended, and then proceed to attack, because that’s what they think their founder told them to do. Except that the founder was talking about attacking insanity and not people. In other words, they should use these facts to look further into their books and their own misinterpretations, and which they don’t. Those people that splash random colors into a white board, will then tell you, the one who has been using techniques, and winning awards, and creating something unique, that you don’t understand art. They remind me of the writers with one book that doesn't sell, trying to tell me how they are better than me, with more than 100 books in best selling charts. How delusional, arrogant and stupid has one to be to not see this? The level of awareness of such individual is comparable to a drunk person going to a Jujitsu dojo, asking the instructor to fight him because he is convinced he can beat anyone with all that alcohol in his head. That, however, is not the cherry on top of the cake. The cherry on top of the cake, is when a religious group listens to a psychopath talking against psychopaths. You can write many academic papers on this topic and never reach a conclusion, because it's really hard to make conclusions on stupidity. So what’s wrong with religion? Why are some religious groups persecuted and attacked? The answer to these questions isn’t as relevant as what we can observe people doing, when denying the most obvious writings, inverting them and distorting the meanings. Christians have already mastered this art.

COUNTERFEIT CROSS Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). A misunderstanding of this call has led many to follow His life of self-denial, but to stop short of His life of power. For them the cross-walk involves trying to crucify their sin nature by embracing joyless brokenness as an evidence of the cross. But, we must follow Him all the way—to a lifestyle empowered by the resurrection! Most every religion has a copy of the cross-walk. Self-denial, self-abasement, and the like are all easily copied by the sects of this world. People admire those who have religious disciplines. They applaud fasting and respect those who embrace poverty or endure disease for the sake of personal spirituality. But show them a life filled with joy because of the transforming power of God, and they will not only applaud but will want to be like you. Religion is unable to mimic the life of resurrection with its victory over sin and hell. One who embraces an inferior cross is constantly filled with introspection and self-induced suffering. But the cross is not self-applied—Jesus did not nail Himself to the cross. Christians who are trapped by this counterfeit are constantly talking about their weaknesses. If the devil finds us uninterested in evil, then he’ll try to get us to focus on our unworthiness and inability. This is especially noticeable in prayer meetings where people try to project great brokenness before God, hoping to earn revival. They will often reconfess old sins searching for real humility. In my own pursuit of God, I often became preoccupied with ME! It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weaknesses was humility. It’s not! If I’m the main subject, talking incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride. Repeated phrases such as, “I’m so unworthy,” become a nauseating replacement for the declarations of the worthiness of God. By being sold on my own unrighteousness, the enemy has disengaged me from effective service. It’s a perversion of true holiness when introspection causes my spiritual self-esteem to increase, but my effectiveness in demonstrating the power of the gospel to decrease. True brokenness causes complete dependency on God, moving us to radical obedience that releases the power of the gospel to the world around

I’ll focus on two of these patents, both issued in 2018,” I said to Mark Russell’s audience. “The first is entitled, Craft Using an Inertial Mass Reduction Device. This one involves an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. A vehicle capable of flying just as well in space, air, or water without leaving a heat signature. “Sound familiar? If you’re thinking this patent has to have come from the reverse engineering of an alien craft, you aren’t alone.” I paused for effect as I put the title pages of both patents on the screen. “The how of it all is quite interesting, taking me back to my grad school days. The invention involves the creation of a quantum vacuum around a vehicle using a dense, spinning, electromagnetic energy field. Such a quantum vacuum would repel matter that would otherwise impede the craft, greatly reducing the ship’s inertia, decreasing resistance, and leading to extreme speeds.” I smiled. “Let me read you a sentence from the actual, issued patent. I’m a science fiction writer, and even I wouldn’t have been crazy enough to write a sentence this bold. Here it is: this invention would also enable us to ‘engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level.’ “That’s in the actual patent. Really! You can find the patent and read it for yourself. All you have to do is Google its official USPTA number, which is US10144532B2.

Adopting a “power pose” for one minute increases testosterone, decreases cortisol, and increases feelings of power and tolerance for risk—important biological determinants of confidence.A power pose is simply body language that is open and expansive, with chest out, shoulders back, and eyes looking straight ahead. Think Superman stance or William Wallace stepping out from the front line as if to say, “Come at me, bro.

I was working.” Nana laughs. “Right. We all like to work, darling. Some more than others. And preferably more than once a day.”  I choke on my coffee. “I thought libidos decrease with age.”  “I’ve got memories to last me a lifetime.”  Mom groans. “By all means, feel free to take them to your grave.

I somehow knew my loneliness would never decrease unless I took the risk to see if certain well chosen others would accept me in all aspects of my experience, not just the shiny ones.

Facebook Ads Checklist Does my copy look like news and demand attention? Are my Facebook ads selling the click? Is my tracking in place so I can determine which audiences and ads are generating sales? Is my focus on earnings per click (EPC) and sales volume? Is more money coming back to me than I’m putting into Facebook ads? Is my copy the perfect bait for my dream buyer? Are my conversions increasing? Is my cost per conversion decreasing?

Mom was released from jail on bond and prosecuted for a domestic violence misdemeanor. The case depended entirely on me. Yet during the hearing, when asked if Mom had ever threatened me, I said no. The reason was simple: My grandparents were paying a lot of money for the town’s highest-powered lawyer. They were furious with my mother, but they didn’t want their daughter in jail, either. The lawyer never explicitly encouraged dishonesty, but he did make it clear that what I said would either increase or decrease the odds that Mom spent additional time in prison. “You don’t want your mom to go to jail, do you?” he asked. So I lied, with the express understanding that even though Mom would have her liberty, I could live with my grandparents whenever I wished. Mom would officially retain custody, but from that day forward I lived in her house only when I chose to—and Mamaw told me that if Mom had a problem with the arrangement, she could talk to the barrel of Mamaw’s gun. This was hillbilly justice, and it didn’t fail me.

The DSM-5 defines depression as a person having multiple symptoms, which may include a depressed mood, loss of energy, diminished ability to concentrate, changes in appetite, and decreased interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities, for more than a two-week period. It also states that depression is disruptive, meaning that a person’s decreased mood is interfering with their ability to comfortably live their lives. A person with depression may have a lot of trouble getting out of bed in the morning, finishing basic tasks, or connecting with friends and family. One of my patients once described depression to me as what happens when life loses its color—and I think that’s a very illuminating description.

Peñalosa attributed an almost transcendent power to a certain kind of urbanity. “Most things that people buy in stores give them a lot of satisfaction the moment they buy them,” Peñalosa told me. “But after a few days, that satisfaction decreases, and months later, it completely melts away. But great public space is a kind of magical good. It never ceases to yield happiness. It’s almost happiness itself.” The humble sidewalk, the park, the bike path, and the bus were suddenly elevated to the psycho-spiritual realm.

I am not moved, my God, to love you By the heaven you have promised me. Neither does hell, so feared, move me To keep me from offending you. You move me, Lord, and I am moved seeing you Scoffed at and nailed on a cross. I am moved seeing your body so wounded. Your injuries and your death move me. It is your love that moves me, and in such a way that even though there were no heaven, I would love you, and even though there were no hell I would fear you. You do not have to give me anything so that I love you, For even if I didn’t hope for what I hope, As I love you now, so would I love you. —ANONYMOUS SPANISH POET, OFTEN ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN OF THE CROSS (1542

The Zero Effort Model is based on twelve universal principles:   1. I want to be happy and successful in my life.   2. I am aware that I do not need a thought to be happy and wise. I need a thought only to be successful in life. Happiness is a moment and success is a circumstance/event in my life.   3. I am convinced that it is much easier to first train myself to be happy and wise and then to go after success.   4. I will no longer worry about results. I will no longer worry about the actions that lead to results. I will no longer worry about the thoughts that give strength to my actions. I will work only on creating great impressions and forming noble intentions.   5. I will start my day by visiting feel-good areas.   6. I feel good about myself when I create great impressions and form noble intentions. This gives me the strength to discriminate between a thought, the feelings associated with the thought, and the present moment. I understand that this discrimination is vital for helping me lead a happy life without effort.   7. As my power of discrimination slowly increases my dependency on the mind decreases.   8. I notice that the gap between my two thoughts gradually widens when I become less dependent on my mind. When this happens, I become more alert.   9. I begin to spend more time in the present moment, which gives me terrific strength and makes me feel very good about myself. As I progress in this direction, my days are filled more with moments and less with thoughts.   10. I gradually allow the moments to direct the circumstances of my life.   11. Only when I have allowed the moments to direct the circumstances of my life will I finally command my mind to generate the thoughts that will help me achieve my goals.   12. I will be successful in every area of my life. I will work, but my work will be free from effort. I will think, but my thoughts will no longer have any affect on me. I will achieve all my goals, but the goals will no longer bring responsibility to me.   Through these twelve principles, you will learn the fine art of being happy, wise, and successful in your life with zero effort.

I will never decrease my fire that everyone tries to put out. They are just afraid the light inside me might destroy them.

We continued our drive, not making any permanent decisions that day about where we’d live. We’d been engaged less than twenty-four hours, after all; there was no huge rush. When we finally returned to his house, we curled up on his couch and watched a movie. Gone With the Wind, of all things. He was a fan. And as I lay there that afternoon and watched the South crumble around Scarlett O’Hara’s knees for what had to have been the 304th time in my life, I touched the arms that held me so sweetly and securely…and I sighed contentedly, wondering how on earth I’d ever found this person. When he walked me to my car late that afternoon, minutes after Scarlett had declared that tomorrow is another day, Marlboro Man rested his hands lightly on my waist. He caressed my rib cage up and down, touching his forehead to mine and closing his eyes--as if he were recording the moment in his memory. And it tickled like crazy, his fingertips on my ribs, but I didn’t care; I was engaged to this man, I told myself, and there’ll likely be much rib caressing in the future. I needed to toughen up, to be able to withstand such displays of romance without my knees buckling beneath me and without my forgetting my mother’s maiden name and who my first grade teacher had been. Otherwise I had lots of years of trouble--and decreased productivity--ahead. So I stood there and took it, closing my eyes as well and trying with all my might to will away the ticklish sensations. They had no place here. Begone, Satan! Ree, hold strong. My mind won, and we stood there and continued to thumb our nose at the reality that we were two separate bodies…and the western sun behind us changed from yellow to orange to pink to a brilliant, impossible red--the same color as the ever-burning fire between us. On the drive home, my whole torso felt warm. Like when you’ve awakened from the most glorious dream you’ve ever had, and you’re still half-in, half-out, and you still feel the dream and it’s still real. I forced myself to think, to look around me, to take it all in. One day, I told myself as I drove down that rural country road, I’m going to be driving down a road like this to run to the grocery store in town…or pick up the mail on the highway…or take my kids to cell lessons.

(I say to my leadership, if you give me credit for the increase, you will give me blame for the decrease, so how about we just credit God?) Pastor,

Lifestyle design is based on massive action—output. Increased output necessitates decreased input. Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn’t at least two of the four.

Love loves and in loving always looks beyond what it has in hand and possesses. The driving impulse [*Triebimpuls*] which arouses may tire out; love itself does not tire. This *sursum corda* which is the essence of love may take on fundamentally different forms at different elevations in the various regions of value. The sensualist is struck by the way the pleasure he gets from the objects of his enjoyment gives him less and less satisfaction while his driving impulse stays the same or itself increases as he flies more and more rapidly from one object to the next. For this water makes one thirstier, the more one drinks. Conversely, the satisfaction of one who loves spiritual objects, whether things or persons, is always holding out new promise of satisfaction, so to speak. This satisfaction by nature increases more rapidly and is more deeply fulfilling, while the driving impulse which originally directed him to these objects or persons holds constant or decreases. The satisfaction always lets the ray of the movement of love peer out a little further beyond what is presently given. In the highest case, that of love for a person, this movement develops the beloved person in the direction of ideality and perfection appropriate to him and does so, in principle, beyond all limits. However, in both the satisfaction of pleasure and the highest personal love, the same *essentially infinite process* appears and prevents both from achieving a definitive character, although for opposite reasons: in the first case, because satisfaction diminishes; in the latter, because it increases. No reproach can give such pain and act so much as a spur on the person to progress in the direction of an aimed-at perfection as the beloved's consciousness of not satisfying, or only partially satisfying, the ideal image of love which the lover brings before her―an image he took from her in the first place. Immediately a powerful jolt is felt in the core of the soul; the soul desires to grow to fit this image. "So let me seem, until I become so." Although in sensual pleasure it is the *increased variety* of the objects that expresses this essential infinity of the process, here it is the *increased depth of absorption* in the growing fullness of one object. In the sensual case, the infinity makes itself felt as a self-propagating unrest, restlessness, haste, and torment: in other words, a mode of striving in which every time something repels us this something becomes the source of a new attraction we are powerless to resist. In personal love, the felicitous advance from value to value in the object is accompanied by a growing sense of repose and fulfillment, and issues in that positive form of striving in which each new attraction of a suspected value results in the continual abandonment of one already given. New hope and presentiment are always accompanying it. Thus, there is a positively valued and a negatively valued *unlimitedness of love*, experienced by us as a potentiality; consequently, the striving which is built upon the act of love is unlimited as well. As for striving, there is a vast difference between Schopenhauer's precipitate "willing" born of torment and the happy, God-directed "eternal striving" in Leibniz, Goethe's Faust, and J. G. Fichte." ―from_Ordo Amoris_

Jesus, allow me to grieve the sinfulness of sin—the sinfulness of my sins. Now that I’m no longer guilty or condemned, let me fearlessly see my sins, ruthlessly hate my sins, and relentlessly repent of my sins. Increase my love for holiness and decrease my self-contempt. Only the gospel can bring me such freedom. Only by seeing more of you, Jesus, will I delight in this journey.

The increasing number of people, both men and women, that obsessively stare at others wherever they go, and even while walking outside, shows me that the value of humanity is decreasing, for a human being that is busy in improving his own life doesn't have time or interest in trying to copy or judge the life of others. You have to be truly empty within yourself to relate your fears with what others are doing, dressing or busy in being. If you're anxious about the being of others you're not being anything.

When I seek him, root my values and desires in him, when I found my relationships and sense of self on him, my capacity for joy increases. The more I "have" Jesus, the deeper my enjoyment of him. He increases my desire for those things that are good, adds value to that which is benign, and diminishes the strength of the negative (the evil) that threatens to throttle me. My dependence on material values and experiences as the means by which I define or please myself decreases.

It occurs to me as I write that this "white light," usually presented dippily (evidence of afterlife, higher power), is in fact precisely consistent with the oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. "Everything went white," those whose blood pressure has dropped say of the instant before they faint.

You are a low-class streetwalker past her prime.” Azriel spoke dispassionately, as if he were observing her as a scientist might. And he wasn’t done. “Your soul is black, your prospects non-existent because you’ve killed them all, and your life expectancy continues to decrease with every john you manage to con to make free use of your body. I am also willing to bet you carry more than one nasty surprise for any fool dumb enough to suck you. You repulse me.

how each relates to all the others and to our health. I was reading Dancing Skeletons, a book by nutritional anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler about her time working in Africa, when I found a section about kwashiorkor. Kwashiorkor is a severe form of malnutrition common in young children throughout the tropics. The hallmark diet of this disease is high in calories (from sweet potatoes or other starches) but low in protein. In this case, the low protein is not the problem—other children who eat equally low amounts of protein but fewer total calories are not likely to develop the disease. It’s the ratio of the nutrients that contributes to the development of kwashiorkor. KEGEL EXERCISE A contraction of the pelvic floor often prescribed to prevent the leakage of urine when coughing or running. This section of Dettwyler’s book resonated with me because I recognize that the outcomes of an exercise program depend largely on the ratio of all the movements to each other. Exercise (a repetitive intake of an isolated muscle contraction to fill a hole of missing strength) is often prescribed like vitamins (a capsule ingested to decrease a nutritional void). One of the arguments I am most known for professionally is that the way the Kegel exercise is prescribed can actually be harmful and not helpful at all. A Kegel is like a starch in the case of kwashiorkor: when done excessively and in the absence of other movement vitamins, it can create a negative outcome—too much pelvic-floor tension. The Kegel (as I’ll expand upon in Chapter 10) is not inherently more “bad” than a sweet potato, but neither is a sweet potato (or Kegel) health-making when consumed in isolation.

He turns around and resumes his pace, saying over his shoulder, “Tell me. All those projects that Jimmy your CISO is pushing. Do they increase the flow of project work through the IT organization?” “No,” I quickly answer, rushing to catch up again. “Do they increase operational stability or decrease the time required to detect and recover from outages or security breaches?” I think a bit longer. “Probably not. A lot of it is just more busywork, and in most cases, the work they’re asking for is risky and actually could cause outages.” “Do these projects increase Brent’s capacity?” I laugh humorlessly. “No, the opposite. The audit issues alone could tie up Brent for the next year.” “And what would doing all of Jimmy’s projects do to WIP levels?” he asks, opening the door

I wondered often how my nest buddies, who came from financially established families, would prefer to stay and live on a Kibbutz, according to the movement's values which centered around equality. I thought such a decision would cause a decrease in their accustomed standard of living. Reality proved me wrong. These members, who came from financially established homes and apparently did not miss anything at their homes, showed eagerness about living in the Kibbutz lifestyle.

So I would stand in that cupboard and see how the stores were decreasing. I knew we had weeks to go before all of it was gone but I knew also that it was depleting and that various staples would be finished soon, leaving us with those items of which we had a surplus, like dried mushrooms, which would far outlast anything else. I wondered if my father would simply refuse to address this. If he would make meals or have me make them with fewer and fewer ingredients so our diets would continue a while as they were but grow daily and weekly more thin, more flavorless, until for the months until the last jar ran completely out we would be dining on mushrooms, mushrooms for breakfast, soaked in water and salt, mushrooms crushed for lunch, fried in oil until the oil ran out and then simply seared and blackened in a pan over the fire for our suppers, or gnawed raw, until even they went and we would die, one after the other, the taste of mushrooms in our mouths. I couldn’t decide whether I, being smaller and eating less, would die more quickly than he in this mushroomless state or more slowly. I couldn’t decide which would be better or worse.

Jesus,” he muttered then he rolled until I was on my back, his weight was on me, his hips between my legs then he said, “you’re not real fast, are you?” If he’d said this in an angry or sarcastic way, rather than a resigned and a tad bit amused way, I would have lost my mind. Instead, I said honestly, “I’m not usually this clueless. But when my brother is murdered; I’m waiting for the next crazy gift to be delivered to my door which might cause my head to explode; I fall in love with a man and he moves in; and I have a future that includes another kid and I need to figure out how I’m gonna tell my daughters they might have a brother or sister sometime in the future, I get a little out of it. In my defense, most women would.” “What?” Joe asked when I stopped talking and I realized his body had gone tense again, so tense it felt like even his cells had stopped moving he had that tight a rein. I put a hand to his face and answered, “I thought you said you wanted a kid.” “Before that.” I thought for a second and asked, “My head exploding?” His body moved but only to press mine deeper into the bed. “After that, Vi,” he growled and I was getting confused again because he was sounding impatient again, very impatient, close to losing it impatient. “I’m in love with you?” I asked quietly. “Yeah, baby, that.” “What about it?” “What about it?” he repeated. “Yeah, um… do you… uh…” Shit! He wasn’t ready for that. Now what did I say? “Is that too much for you? Should I have –?” He cut me off by roaring with laughter. Roaring. So loud I was pretty sure he’d wake the girls (and Mooch). “What’s funny?” I asked him and he shoved his face in my neck but his hands started roaming. “You think maybe you might have wanted to tell me that?” “Tell you what?” His head came up. “Honey, keep up with me because this is pretty fuckin’ important.” I felt my temperature increase as my anger elevated and I did my best to lock it down. “I’m not following you, Joe. Maybe you could explain?” His mouth came to mine and he whispered, “You’re in love with me.” “Well, yeah.” “Didn’t you think maybe you should share that with me?” “Um… I thought I did.” He kissed me lightly then his mouth went away but not far away when he said, “Woulda remembered that, buddy.” “But, I gave up Mike and you’re moved in.” “Yeah. So?” “With me and the girls.” He didn’t say, “Yeah. So?” again, he let his silence say it. “Doesn’t that say it all?” I asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t let just any guy move in with me and the girls. I’m not like that. He’d have to mean something to me, like you do.” I felt his body relax into mine before he asked quietly, “When did you know?” “What?” “That you loved me, when did you know?” I felt my temperature decrease and my hand slid up his back and into his hair. “I don’t know. I just knew,” I answered softly. “Vi –” he said my name on a gentle warning. Quickly, to get it out because, being Joe he wasn’t going to let it go and when I said it, it was going to make me sound stupid, I told him. “When you said, ‘Baby, you aren’t wearing any shoes’ that second night we were together at your house.” Immediately, he replied, “I knew you were the one when you were standin’ in my living room, wearing those stupid-ass boots, your nightie and that ratty robe.” “That was the night we first met.” “Yep.” I was the one for Joe and he knew it the first night we met. He knew I was the one. The one. The one. And he knew it the first night we met.

Coffee If you don’t drink coffee, you should think about two to four cups a day. It can make you more alert, happier, and more productive. It might even make you live longer. Coffee can also make you more likely to exercise, and it contains beneficial antioxidants and other substances associated with decreased risk of stroke (especially in women), Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Coffee is also associated with decreased risk of abnormal heart rhythms, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.12, 13 Any one of those benefits of coffee would be persuasive, but cumulatively they’re a no-brainer. An hour ago I considered doing some writing for this book, but I didn’t have the necessary energy or focus to sit down and start working. I did, however, have enough energy to fix myself a cup of coffee. A few sips into it, I was happier to be working than I would have been doing whatever lazy thing was my alternative. Coffee literally makes me enjoy work. No willpower needed. Coffee also allows you to manage your energy levels so you have the most when you need it. My experience is that coffee drinkers have higher highs and lower lows, energywise, than non–coffee drinkers, but that trade-off works. I can guarantee that my best thinking goes into my job, while saving my dull-brain hours for household chores and other simple tasks. The biggest downside of coffee is that once you get addicted to caffeine, you can get a “coffee headache” if you go too long without a cup. Luckily, coffee is one of the most abundant beverages on earth, so you rarely have to worry about being without it. Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t developed the habit. Pleasure

Here is a report by a parent who usually had good timing, so most drowsy cues were absent: Drowsy in this context doesn’t mean about to fall asleep (half closed eyes, barely able to keep open). When my son was a baby he would become very still about 10 minutes before he fell asleep—he is a wiggle worm, so it was noticeable. He would also gaze for long periods of time at something. This was the window when he needed to be put down for his nap. If I waited until it passed and he was really tired, he would fight sleep. So when “the stare” appeared, I would check his diaper, swaddle him, and put him down. He would gaze at his mobile for a while and then fall asleep. The baby should be awake when you put her down for her nap. You aren’t trying to ease her down and then sneak out—you want her to be able to fall asleep on her own, without rocking, patting, and so on. Try to catch her in that drowsy pre-sleep period—for many babies it is right around one to two hours after waking for the day. Start watching for signs at around thirty to ninety minutes, and I bet you will soon be able to tell when she is ready to go down. Good luck! DROWSY SIGNS Drowsy Cues or Sleepy Signs as He Becomes Drowsy: Moving into the Sleep Zone Decreased activity, less animated, becomes quieter Eyes less focused on surroundings, appears glazed over Eyelids drooping Pulling ears Slower motions, less social, less vocal Less interested in toys or people Sucking is weaker or slower Yawning Past Drowsy: Short on Sleep (SOS) Distress Signs Begin to Appear Fatigue Signs: Entering Overtired Zone. Becoming Overtired Mild fussiness, irritability, cranky Crying upon awakening Rubbing eyes Think of these symptoms of overtiredness as signaling the distress of being short on sleep (SOS): “Help me, I need sleep!

USING TESTS TO ASSESS ADRENAL HEALTH When a patient presents with symptoms or blood test results of hypothyroidism, I always order an Adrenal Salivary Index (ASI) test through DiagnosTechs Lab. To support the thyroid, it’s important for me to get a clear picture of my patient’s adrenal status using this test. Symptoms alone do not provide an accurate diagnosis, as symptoms can be the same for both over active and under active adrenal function. I also do not use urinary adrenal tests, for with hypothyroidism, the excretion of several adrenal hormones is decreased so that results can be inaccurate. The salivary panel provides the most useful, accurate, and comprehensive information. The most important thing to know about the ASI test is that one ASI test is worthless. I repeat, one ASI test is worthless. It is the second and third test that tells me whether we’re on the right track with a protocol. Adrenal health should improve on the protocol I give my patient.

First, never stop finding creative ways to integrate your kids into more elements of your normal daily life. The underlying assumption of Deuteronomy 6 is that your kids are with you a lot. Anytime I go anywhere, my base assumption is I should take one of my kids with me. That could be a walk to the convenience store or on an international business trip. This is not always possible but I work really hard to be with my kids as much as I possibly can. I’m highly introverted so this can be costly in terms of my energy but it’s really worth it and is a critical part of their education. Our culture has developed this strange dichotomy between quality time and quantity time—maybe to make us feel better about the decreasing amount of time we spend with our kids—but there’s no substitute for quantity time. The most basic secret to increasing quality time is to increase quantity time.