Differences Make Us Stronger Quotes

I don’t want to be Nephilim,” said Jace. “I want to be something else. Stronger, faster, better than human. But different. Not subservient to the Laws of an angel who couldn’t care less about us. Free.” He ran his hand through a curl of her hair. “I’m happy now, Clary. Doesn’t that make a difference?

Our emotions pull us in different directions. The stronger the emotion, the greater the pull. Feelings are not always practical, nor do they make any logical sense. That's just the way it goes.

If we can let ourselves, all of us, be united by the simple fact of having a difference, we will be bigger and stronger and more powerful than anyone who might otherwise make us feel small.

Your jaw makes you different, Ionikus Reaves, and more often than not, it is our differences that make us stronger.

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct.

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

Jonathan Safran Foer’s 10 Rules for Writing: 1.Tragedies make great literature; unfathomable catastrophes (the Holocaust, 9/11) are even better – try to construct your books around them for added gravitas but, since those big issues are such bummers, make sure you do it in a way that still focuses on a quirky central character that’s somewhat like Jonathan Safran Foer. 2. You can also name your character Jonathan Safran Foer. 3. If you’re writing a non-fiction book you should still make sure that it has a strong, deep, wise, and relatable central character – someone like Jonathan Safran Foer. 4. If you reach a point in your book where you’re not sure what to do, or how to approach a certain scene, or what the hell you’re doing, just throw in a picture, or a photo, or scribbles, or blank pages, or some illegible text, or maybe even a flipbook. Don’t worry if these things don’t mean anything, that’s what postmodernism is all about. If you’re not sure what to put in, you can’t go wrong with a nice photograph of Jonathan Safran Foer. 5. If you come up with a pun, metaphor, or phrase that you think is really clever and original, don’t just use it once and throw it away, sprinkle it liberally throughout the text. One particularly good phrase that comes to mind is “Jonathan Safran Foer.” 6. Don’t worry if you seem to be saying the same thing over and over again, repetition makes the work stronger, repetition is good, it drives the point home. The more you repeat a phrase or an idea, the better it gets. You should not be afraid of repeating ideas or phrases. One particularly good phrase that comes to mind is “Jonathan Safran Foer.” 7. Other writers are not your enemies, they are your friends, so you should feel free to borrow some of their ideas, words, techniques, and symbols, and use them completely out of context. They won’t mind, they’re your friends, just like my good friend Paul Auster, with whom I am very good friends. Just make sure you don’t steal anything from Jonathan Safran Foer, it wouldn’t be nice, he is your friend. 8. Make sure you have exactly three plots in your novel, any more and it gets confusing, any less and it’s not postmodern. At least one of those plots should be in a different timeline. It often helps if you name these three plots, I often use “Jonathan,” “Safran,” and “Foer.” 9. Don’t be afraid to make bold statements in you writing, there should always be a strong lesson to be learned, such as “don’t eat animals,” or “the Holocaust was bad,” or “9/11 was really really sad,” or “the world would be a better place if everyone was just a little bit more like Jonathan Safran Foer.” 10. In the end, don’t worry if you’re unsuccessful as a writer, it probably wasn’t meant to be. Not all of us are chosen to become writers. Not all of us can be Jonathan Safran Foer.

What fascinates me—and what serves as a central theme of this book—is why we make the choices we do. What separates us from the world we have and the kind of ethical universe envisioned by someone like Havel? What prompts one person to act boldly in a moment of crisis and a second to seek shelter in the crowd? Why do some people become stronger in the face of adversity while others quickly lose heart? What separates the bully from the protector? Is it education, spiritual belief, our parents, our friends, the circumstances of our birth, traumatic events, or more likely some combination that spells the difference? More succinctly, do our hopes for the future hinge on a desirable unfolding of external events or some mysterious process within?

Here’s the stark truth about the person who is right for you: They want the same lifestyle that you do. How do I know this? Because that is, by definition, what makes them right for you. To be with someone whose eyes light up when yours do, whose heart races when your blood also pounds, who is enticed and inspired by the same forces that drive you forward, is a gift many of us never truly get to experience. Because we settle. We settle for the person we love over the person who could push us – to be bigger, stronger, greater versions of ourselves. We tell ourselves that love is enough. That it conquers everything. But we forget that love shouldn’t be the thing that conquers our lives – we should be. And we should do it deliberately, triumphantly, by the side of somebody who shares all of our joys and successes. So how do we meet such a person? That’s simple – we do more of what we love. We give ourselves up to uncertainty, to searching, to pursuing what we want out of life without the certainty of having someone beside us while we do it. We throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the things that we love and we consequently attract the people who love what we love. Who value what we prioritize. Who appreciate all that we are. We throw ourselves into the heart of possibility instead of staying comfortably settled inside of certainty. Because we owe it to ourselves to do so. We owe it to ourselves to live the greatest life that we’re capable of living, even if that means that we have to be alone for a very long time. At the end of the day, love is wonderful but it isn’t enough to make up for an entire lifetime of compromising your core values. You don’t want to spend forever gazing into somebody’s eyes expecting to find all of the answers you need inside of them. Wait for the person who is gazing outward in the same direction as you are. It’s going to make all of the difference in the world

There were two things about this particular book (The Golden Book of Fairy Tales) that made it vital to the child I was. First, it contained a remarkable number of stories about courageous, active girls; and second, it portrayed the various evils they faced in unflinching terms. Just below their diamond surface, these were stories of great brutality and anguish, many of which had never been originally intended for children at all. (Although Ponsot included tales from the Brothers Grimm and Andersen, the majority of her selections were drawn from the French contes de fées tradition — stories created as part of the vogue for fairy tales in seventeenth century Paris, recounted in literary salons and published for adult readers.) I hungered for a narrative with which to make some sense of my life, but in schoolbooks and on television all I could find was the sugar water of Dick and Jane, Leave it to Beaver and the happy, wholesome Brady Bunch. Mine was not a Brady Bunch family; it was troubled, fractured, persistently violent, and I needed the stronger meat of wolves and witches, poisons and peril. In fairy tales, I had found a mirror held up to the world I knew — where adults were dangerous creatures, and Good and Evil were not abstract concepts. (…) There were in those days no shelves full of “self–help” books for people with pasts like mine. In retrospect, I’m glad it was myth and folklore I turned to instead. Too many books portray child abuse as though it’s an illness from which one must heal, like cancer . . .or malaria . . .or perhaps a broken leg. Eventually, this kind of book promises, the leg will be strong enough to use, despite a limp betraying deeper wounds that might never mend. Through fairy tales, however, I understood my past in different terms: not as an illness or weakness, but as a hero narrative. It was a story, my story, beginning with birth and ending only with death. Difficult challenges and trials, even those that come at a tender young age, can make us wiser, stronger, and braver; they can serve to transform us, rather than sending us limping into the future.

Then I spoke with proven shapers I knew—Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Reed Hastings, Muhammad Yunus, Geoffrey Canada, Jack Dorsey (of Twitter), David Kelley (of IDEO), and more. They had all visualized remarkable concepts and built organizations to actualize them, and done that repeatedly and over long periods of time. I asked them to take an hour’s worth of personality assessments to discover their values, abilities, and approaches. While not perfect, these assessments have been invaluable. (In fact, I have been adapting and refining them to help us in our recruiting and management.) The answers these shapers provided to the standardized questions gave me objective and statistically measurable evidence about their similarities and differences. It turns out they have a lot in common. They are all independent thinkers who do not let anything or anyone stand in the way of achieving their audacious goals. They have very strong mental maps of how things should be done, and at the same time a willingness to test those mental maps in the world of reality and change the ways they do things to make them work better. They are extremely resilient, because their need to achieve what they envision is stronger than the pain they experience as they struggle to achieve it. Perhaps most interesting, they have a wider range of vision than most people, either because they have that vision themselves or because they know how to get it from others who can see what they can’t. All are able to see both big pictures and granular details (and levels in between) and synthesize the perspectives they gain at those different levels, whereas most people see just one or the other. They are simultaneously creative, systematic, and practical. They are assertive and open-minded at the same time. Above all, they are passionate about what they are doing, intolerant of people who work for them who aren’t excellent at what they do, and want to have a big, beneficial impact on the world.

This is the true division between Silvers and Reds: the color of our blood. This simple difference somehow makes them stronger, smarter, better than us.

Although we share with many others a vision for greatness, we understand that our path toward it is very different from theirs. Following Sherman and Isocrates, we understand that ego is our enemy on that journey, so that when we do achieve our success, it will not sink us but make us stronger.

Optimists Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person—you already feel fortunate. An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything. If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality. Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders—not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge. They are probably optimistic by temperament; a survey of founders of small businesses concluded that entrepreneurs are more sanguine than midlevel managers about life in general. Their experiences of success have confirmed their faith in their judgment and in their ability to control events. Their self-confidence is reinforced by the admiration of others. This reasoning leads to a hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.

be proud of everything you have gone through, but mostly, what you’ve become. stop being so hard on yourself. everything will make sense to you one day. all the pain, hurt, and frustration will become worth it. you are perfect in every way, especially with your flaws. acknowledge the things making you different while embracing everything making you unique. even though you think you are broken, there is so much beauty in your pain. also, you’re really not as broken as you think you are. you are stronger than anything that has tried to tear you down. you are a survivor, not a victim. so try not to be so hard on yourself. create a meaningful life for yourself, one you can be proud of. promise me you will make the most of it all. never let anyone get in the way of your goals in life. more importantly, never give up on your passions and your dreams. do not waste your time on people who do not believe in you. only surround yourself with people who encourage and inspire you.

And an even stronger example of Mr. Wells's indifference to the human psychology can be found in his cosmopolitanism, the abolition in his Utopia of all patriotic boundaries. He says in his innocent way that Utopia must be a world-state, or else people might make war on it. It does not seem to occur to him that, for a good many of us, if it were a world-state we should still make war on it to the end of the world. For if we admit that there must be varieties in art or opinion what sense is there in thinking there will not be varieties in government? The fact is very simple. Unless you are going deliberately to prevent a thing being good, you cannot prevent it being worth fighting for. It is impossible to prevent a possible conflict of civilizations, because it is impossible to prevent a possible conflict between ideals. If there were no longer our modern strife between nations, there would only be a strife between Utopias. For the highest thing does not tend to union only; the highest thing, tends also to differentiation. You can often get men to fight for the union; but you can never prevent them from fighting also for the differentiation. This variety in the highest thing is the meaning of the fierce patriotism, the fierce nationalism of the great European civilization. It is also, incidentally, the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity.

What is extraordinary from our point of view is how well it turned out for us. If the universe had formed just a tiny bit differently—if gravity were fractionally stronger or weaker, if the expansion had proceeded just a little more slowly or swiftly—then there might never have been stable elements to make you and me and the ground we stand on.

Any critique of Islam is denounced as an expression of Western Islamophobia, Salman Rushdie is denounced for unnecessarily provoking Muslims and being (partially, at least) responsible for the fatwa condemning him to death, and so on. The result of such stances is what one should expect in such cases: the more the Western liberal Leftists probe into their guilt, the more they are accused by Muslim fundamentalists of being hypocrites who try to conceal their hatred of Islam. [T]his constellation perfectly reproduces the paradox of the superego: the more you obey what the Other demands of you, the guiltier you are. It is as if the more you tolerate Islam, the stronger its pressure on you will be. What this implies is that terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, are not really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term--what they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, the deep indifference towards the non-believers' way of life. If today's so-called fundamentalists really believe they have found their way to Truth, why should they feel threatened by non-believers, why should they envy them? When a Buddhist encounters a Western hedonist, he hardly condemns. He just benevolently notes that the hedonist's search for happiness is self-defeating. In contrast to true fundamentalists, the terrorist pseudo-fundamentalists are deeply bothered, intrigued and fascinated by the sinful life of the non-believers. One can feel that, in fighting the sinful other, they are fighting their own temptation. The passionate intensity of a fundamentalist mob bears witness to the lack of true conviction; deep in themselves, terrorist fundamentalists also lack true conviction--their violent outbursts are proof of it. How fragile the belief of a Muslim would be if he felt threatened by, say, a stupid caricature in a low-circulation Danish newspaper? Fundamentalist Islamic terror is not grounded in the terrorists' conviction of their superiority and in their desire to safeguard their cultural-religious identify from the onslaught of global consumerist civilization. The problem with fundamentalists is not that we consider them inferior to us, but, rather, that they themselves secretly consider themselves inferior. This is why our condescending politically correct assurances that we feel no superiority towards them only makes them more furious and feed their resentment. The problem is not cultural difference (their effort to preserve their identity), but the opposite: the fact that the fundamentalists are already like us, that, secretly, they have already internalized our standards and measure themselves by them.

So my words of positivity. Let me be blunt. It's gonna get really bad! I know what's coming and I wish I didn't. Why I have been advocating for people who just won't believe how bad it is gonna get. IT IS NOT POLITICAL! But I am here. YOU ARE TOO. I am looking at you in the eye. YOU WILL BE OKAY! Just STAY HOME! Put your affairs in order and ride this thing out. There IS a life after this for most of us. WE will all be a different person than we are today but that is okay! KNOW THAT! Experience changes us. Mold us. Make us who we are. YOU WILL BE FINE! WE are stronger together. What we need right now is LOVE. I'm that really liberal Cristian. I am ordained actually. ALL I say LOVE Thy Neighbor! Be kind after this and love and accept love back! Don't be proud. Accept help! There is a life after this!

The Story Of Your Life: The world and everyone you meet will not revolve around you. You're not always going to get what you want. You are going to make compromises every single day. You're going to get smacked down a time or two, or three, or fifty. Throwing tantrums, sitting in the corner pouting and crying over what you didn't get that you wanted isn't going to help you get it. Likewise, pissing and moaning to other people about it all being so unfair. We're all in the same boat, my friends. You can chose to sit in the corner and sulk your life away, crying about the unfairness of it all, bemoaning how everyone is making you miserable, or you can do just the opposite. You can stand up and BE GRATEFUL for everything you do have. You can look back and see how many obstacles you've already overcome, realizing that with each conquest you've become a stronger person. You can realize that your happiness is not and should never be dependent on other people. None of us is going to get out of this Story alive, dear reader. Make the best of the time you have. Make a positive difference. Make your own happily ever after.

As technology enables us to upgrade humans, overcome old age and find the key to happiness, won’t people care less about fictional gods, nations and corporations, and focus instead on deciphering the physical and biological reality? It might seem so, but in fact things are far more complicated. Modern science certainly changed the rules of the game, yet it did not simply replace myths with facts. Myths continue to dominate humankind, and science only makes these myths stronger. Instead of destroying the intersubjective reality, science will enable it to control the objective and subjective realities more completely than ever before. Thanks to computers and bioengineering, the difference between fiction and reality will blur, as people reshape reality to match their pet fictions.

I was scared. I wasn't scared of monsters, or super-villains. But REAL things. What if the system doesn't work? Everything I've fought for. What if it's broken and unfair and unfixable? I don't know what makes you scared. What makes you rage, but superhero's never fix those things for us. Not even Batman. He can't fix REAL things because he's NOT REAL. He's a cautionary tale. A ghost. He fights our nightmares to teach us to fight the real terrors by light of day. He believes in us. He believes we will save ourselves. He's the superhero who sees in us the heroes we can be. And through him we're reminded that we're stronger for our differences than not. We might hate each other, or fear each other; but we're Gotham where brave new things are made. Truth is, I forgot that for a while. But, like everyone else our there, I remember now.

Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford University, warned about the dangers of stress for a full decade before she realized that maybe it was her advice, rather than stress itself, that was sending people to their graves faster. “I’m converting a stimulus [stress] that could be strengthening people into a source of disease.” With a breakthrough in her thinking, and some powerful new research, McGonigal made a complete turnaround. Turns out, stress might just be our friend. Just as you put stress on a muscle to make it stronger (by lifting weights or running), emotional stress can make us physically and psychologically stronger too. McGonigal now highlights new research showing that when you change your mind about stress, you can literally change your body’s physical reaction to it. In an eight-year study, adults who experienced a “lot of stress” and who believed stress was harmful to their health had a 43% increase in their risk of dying. (That sure stressed me out.) However, people who experienced an equal amount of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die! McGonigal says that physical signs of stress (a pounding heart, faster breathing, breaking out in a sweat) aren’t necessarily physical evidence of anxiety or signs that we aren’t coping well with pressure. Instead, we can interpret them as indications that our body is energized and preparing us to meet the next challenge. The bottom line is, science has now proven that how you think about stress matters—the story you attach to stress. Telling yourself it’s good for you instead of harmful could mean the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at 50 or living well into your 90s.

You have something to say to me, Cassidy, say it. Or shut the fuck up.” “All right,” Jules said. “I will.” He took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Okay, see, I, well, I love you. Very, very much, and . . .” Where to go from here . . .? Except, his plain-spoken words earned him not just a glance but Max’s sudden full and complete attention. Which was a little alarming. But it was the genuine concern in Max’s eyes that truly caught Jules off-guard. Max actually thought . . . Jules laughed his surprise. “Oh! No, not like that. I meant it, you know, in a totally platonic, non-gay way.” Jules saw comprehension and relief on Max’s face. The man was tired if he was letting such basic emotions show. “Sorry.” Max even smiled. “I just . . .” He let out a burst of air. “I mean, talk about making things even more complicated . . .” It was amazing. Max hadn’t recoiled in horror at the idea. His concern had been for Jules, about potentially hurting his tender feelings. And even now, he wasn’t trying to turn it all into a bad joke. And he claimed they weren’t friends. Jules felt his throat tighten. “You can’t know,” he told his friend quietly, “how much I appreciate your acceptance and respect.” “My father was born in India,” Max told him, “in 1930. His mother was white—American. His father was not just Indian, but lower caste. The intolerance he experienced both there and later, even in America, made him a . . . very bitter, very hard, very, very unhappy man.” He glanced at Jules again. “I know personality plays into it, and maybe you’re just stronger than he was, but . . . People get knocked down all the time. They can either stay there, wallow in it, or . . . Do what you’ve done—what you do. So yeah. I respect you more than you know.” Holy shit. Weeping was probably a bad idea, so Jules grabbed onto the alternative. He made a joke. “I wasn’t aware that you even had a father. I mean, rumors going around the office have you arriving via flying saucer—” “I would prefer not to listen to aimless chatter all night long,” Max interrupted him. “So if you’ve made your point . . .?” Ouch. “Okay,” Jules said. “I’m so not going to wallow in that. Because I do have a point. See, I said what I said because I thought I’d take the talk-to-an-eight-year-old approach with you. You know, tell you how much I love you and how great you are in part one of the speech—” “Speech.” Max echoed. “Because part two is heavily loaded with the silent-but-implied ‘you are such a freaking idiot.’” “Ah, Christ,” Max muttered. “So, I love you,” Jules said again, “in a totally buddy-movie way, and I just want to say that I also really love working for you, and I hope to God you’ll come back so I can work for you again. See, I love the fact that you’re my leader not because you were appointed by some suit, but because you earned very square inch of that gorgeous corner office. I love you because you’re not just smart, you’re open-minded—you’re willing to talk to people who have a different point of view, and when they speak, you’re willing to listen. Like right now, for instance. You’re listening, right?” “No.” “Liar.” Jules kept going. “You know, the fact that so many people would sell their grandmother to become a part of your team is not an accident. Sir, you’re beyond special—and your little speech to me before just clinched it. You scare us to death because we’re afraid we won’t be able to live up to your high standards. But your back is strong, you always somehow manage to carry us with you even when we falter. “Some people don’t see that; they don’t really get you—all they know is they would charge into hell without hesitation if you gave the order to go. But see, what I know is that you’d be right there, out in front—they’d have to run to keep up with you. You never flinch. You never hesitate. You never rest.

I think that suffering is the way we test our love. Every act of suffering, no matter how small or agonisingly great, is a test of love in some way. Most of the time, suffering is also a test of our love for God... I think that there are two points about suffering that we should remember, and they have to do with pleasure and pain. The first is this: that pain and suffering are connected, but they are not the same thing. Pain can exist without suffering, and it is also possible to suffer without feeling pain... ...The difference between them is this, I think: that what we learn from pain--for example, that fire burns and is dangerous--is always individual, for ourselves alone, but what we learn from suffering is what unites us as one human people. If we do not suffer with our pain, then we have not learned about anything but ourselves. Pain without suffering is like victory without struggle. We do not learn from it what makes us stronger or better or closer to God. - Abdel Khader Khan

We often spend tons of time trying to get people to believe the things that we believe, because we think it will be better for them.  We try to convince others that our religious or political views have more validity than theirs do, for we think that we’re doing them a favor by steering them in the right direction.  But each of us has our own unique way of looking at this world of ours, and it’s important that we accept and respect the fact that someone who has a different brain than we have and a different background than we have just may see the world in different ways than we do.      One of the most beautiful results of this type of realization is seeing just how much we can learn from each other and grow together when we stop trying to make someone else believe our truths.  When all the time that we have spent trying to convince someone they’re wrong is spent instead on getting to know that person better and letting them get to know us better, we can truly develop a stronger and deeper relationship.

Listen to me, Raven.” He brushed a kiss on the top of her silky head. “I know I do not deserve you. You think you are somehow less than what I am, but in truth, you are so far above me, I have no right even to reach for you.” When she stirred as if to protest, Mikhail held her tighter. “No, little one, I know this is true. I see you clearly, whereas you do not have access to my thoughts and memories. I cannot give you up. I wish I was a stronger, better man so that I could do so, but I cannot. I can only promise you that I will do everything in my power to make you happy, to provide for you everything I can possibly give you. I ask for time to learn your ways, for room to make mistakes. If you need to hear words of love”--his mouth skimmed down the side of her face to find the corner of her mouth--“then I can say them to you in all honesty. I never believed I would have a woman of my own, a true lifemate. I have never wanted a woman for my own.” His kiss was infinitely tender, a searing, smoky flame tasting of love and longing. “You are in my heart to stay, Raven. I know better than you the differences between us. I ask only for a chance.

His hand cupped her face, his thumb caressing the delicate line of her jaw. “Listen to me, Raven.” He brushed a kiss on the top of her silky head. “I know I do not deserve you. You think you are somehow less than what I am, but in truth, you are so far above me, I have no right even to reach for you.” When she stirred as if to protest, Mikhail held her tighter. “No, little one, I know this is true. I see you clearly, whereas you do not have access to my thoughts and memories. I cannot give you up. I wish I was a stronger, better man so that I could do so, but I cannot. I can only promise you that I will do everything in my power to make you happy, to provide for you everything I can possibly give you. I ask for time to learn your ways, for room to make mistakes. If you need to hear words of love”— his mouth skimmed down the side of her face to find the corner of her mouth—“ then I can say them to you in all honesty. I never believed I would have a woman of my own, a true lifemate. I have never wanted a woman for my own.” His kiss was infinitely tender, a searing, smoky flame tasting of love and longing. “You are in my heart to stay, Raven. I know better than you the differences between us. I ask only for a chance.

Sgt. Jack was a hard-ass teacher, but kids need hard-ass teachers sometimes. I know that might hurt your ears because things are different now. We are warned of the lasting effects of stress on children, and to compensate, parents strategize about how to make their children’s lives comfortable and easy. But is the real world always comfortable? Is it easy? Life is not G-rated. We must prepare kids for the world as it is. Our generation is training kids to become full-fledged members of Entitlement Nation, which ultimately makes them easy prey for the lions among us. Our ever-softening society doesn’t just affect children. Adults fall into the same trap. Even those of us who have achieved great things. Every single one of us is just another frog in the soon-to-be-boiling water that is our soft-ass culture. We take unforeseen obstacles personally. We are ready to be outraged at all times by the evil bullshit of the world. Believe me, I know all about evil and have dealt with more bullshit than most, but if you catalog your scars to use them as excuses or a bargaining chip to make life easier for yourself, you’ve missed an opportunity to become better and grow stronger. Sgt. Jack knew what awaited me as an adult. He was preparing me for the grip of life. Whether he knew it or not, the man was training me to be a savage.

I wasn't afraid of being alone, but I was afraid of what people would think about my solitary state. People, even well-intentioned people, were always trying to take away our quiet little successes and joys and replace them with big, overarching fears. At this school, the worst thing was trying to rise above the limits set for you by the minds of others. Each girl was an island of her own dreams and insecurities, thoughts that made us different in a deeper way than the differences of musical taste, clothes or even culture. Thoughts about the best way to be stoic, how to live with very little control in life, how to make the most of a miserable time doing something that you were supposed to love. And if people thought that fifteen-year-old girls never thought about these sorts of things, it was only because we didn't have the words to express them. We talked all the time, but we hadn't yet learned the words to link thoughts and ideas with any depth of feeling, because we didn't really talk to adults. We talked only to each other. And within this little world, we imprisoned one another. You could be anyone you wanted, Linh– until you were judged and held captive by everyone else's thoughts. Nothing has a stronger hold over a girl than the fear of the thoughts of her peers– thoughts that change five times in a day. No wonder things are so complicated with teenagers.

1. ‘ I hate people who collect things and classify things and give them names and then forget all about them. That’s what people are always doing in art.They call a painter an impressionist or a cubist or something and then they put him in a drawer and don’t see him as a living individual painter any more. But I can see they’re beautiful arranged.’ 2. ’ Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?... Why do you keep on using these stupid words-nasty, nice, proper, right? Why are you so worried about what’s proper?...why do you take all the life out of life? Why do you kill all the beauty?’ 3. ‘ Because I can’t marry a man to whom I don’t feel I belong in all ways. My mind must be his, my heart must be his, my body must be his. Just as I must feel he belongs to me. ‘ 4.’ The only thing that really matters is feeling and living what you believe-so long as it’s something more than belief in your own comfort.’ 5. 'It’s weird. Uncanny. But there is a sort of relationship between us. I make fun of him, I attack him all the time, but he senses when I’m ‘soft’. When he can dig back and not make me angry. So we slip into teasing states that are almost friendly. It’s partly because I’m so lonely, it’s partly deliberate (I want make him relax, both for his own good and so that one dat he may make a mistake), so it’s part weakness, and part cunning, and part charity. But there’s a mysterious fourth part I can’t define. It can’t be friendship, I loathe him. Perhaps it’s just knowledge. Just knowing a lot about him. And knowing someone automatically makes you feel close to him. Even when you wish he was on another planet.’ 6.’ You must MAKE, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you’re going to paint. The most terrible form. If you feel something deeply, you’re not ashamed to show your feeling.’ 7. ‘ The women I’ve loved have always told me I’m selfish. It’s what makes them love me. And then be disgusted with me...But what they can’t stand is that I hate them when they don’t behave in their own way. ‘ 8. ‘ I love honesty and freedom and giving. I love making , I love doing, I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart. ‘ 9. ‘ I don’t know what love is...love is something that comes in different clothes, with a different way and different face, and perhaps it takes a long time for you to accept it, to be able to call it love.’ 10. ‘ All this business, it’s bound up with my bossy attitude to life. I’ve always known where I’m going, how I want things to happen. And they have happened as I have wanted, and I have taken it for granted that they have because I know where I’m going. But I have been lucky in all sorts of things. I’ve always tried to happen to life; but it’s time I let life happen to me. ‘ 11. ‘I said, what you love is your own love. It’s not love, it’s selfishness. It’s not me you think of, but what you feel about me.’ 12. ‘ The power of women! I’ve never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke. We’re so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we’re stronger then they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can’t stand ours.

posttraumatic growth. Many people who suffer shattering experiences are scarred for life, with little hope of recovery. But for others, shattering experiences prompt them to face their fears, transcend the horrors of the past, and become resilient. PTSD is not a life sentence. POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH While PTSD grabs the headlines, news stories about posttraumatic growth are rare. Up to two thirds of those who experience traumatic events do not develop PTSD. This estimate is based on studies of the mental health of people who have undergone similar experiences. Studies of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan show this two-thirds to one-third split. What’s the difference between the two groups? Research reveals a correlation between negative childhood events and the development of adult PTSD. Yet some people emerge from miserable childhoods stronger and more resilient than their peers. Adversity can sometimes make us even stronger than we might have been had we not suffered it. Research shows that people who experience a traumatic event but are then able to process and integrate the experience are more resilient than those who don’t experience such an event. Such people are even better prepared for future adversity. When you’re exposed to a stressor and successfully regulate your brain’s fight-or-flight response, you increase the neural connections associated with handling trauma, as we saw in Chapter 6. Neural plasticity works in your favor. You increase the size of the signaling pathways in your nervous system that handle recovery from stress. These larger and improved signaling pathways equip you to handle future stress better, making you more resilient in the face of life’s upsets and problems.

Thanks to our discussion in the last chapter, we can also agree that character is a product of perseverance: “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3–4). I don’t know how that idea strikes you, but it sounds a little backward to me. I would expect that a person with character would find it easier to persevere through difficult circumstances. That makes sense. But how does perseverance produce character? When I look at the world around me, it seems to me that most things actually decay over time rather than grow stronger. The longer we live in our home, the more I see spots that need a paint touch-up. The longer I drive my car, the more I find I need to take it in for tune-ups and repairs. And the longer I live, the more I realize my body isn’t what it used to be! But maybe this process of perseverance leading to character works differently. Surely God is the X-factor. When you add God to the equation, persistence over time builds up character and strength instead of taking it away. Consider, if you will, the snowball. Left by itself, it doesn’t amount to much. It’s just a little round chunk of white frozen water. Yet place that snowball at the top of a steep hill on a snowy day, and things begin to change. If you invest some time rolling that snowball across the ground so it picks up snow and grows into a larger ball, you begin to create something big and heavy. If you invest even more time and energy (this is where perseverance comes in), you might get that ball rolling down the hill. And the longer it rolls, the faster it goes, the bigger it gets. Now you’ve got something powerful. This is a force to be reckoned with. This is when people start running for cover. Your little snowball suddenly becomes a runaway freight train! I believe that equation of suffering, which produces perseverance, which produces character, works in a similar fashion. Our willingness to trust and rely on the Lord in a time of trouble invites His power to work in our lives. The more we trust and depend on Him, the easier it becomes. As the Lord says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30). Pretty soon our perseverance enables the Lord to add character to our “snowball”—and the more we persevere, the stronger we grow. We find ourselves rolling downhill toward a godly life. It still might be a bumpy ride, but the size and momentum of our snowball just about guarantees that as long as we are pursuing God’s will for our lives, nothing will stop us.

Dear Dex, We’ve been meaning to write you this letter for months, and I’m sorry it took us so long. We could never quite figure out the right words to say to you, because words are simply not enough to express to you just how grateful we are to you. Not many people are lucky enough to experience the kind of friendship that you and Teddy had. You were only little kids when you met, but the bond you formed was something special. From then on, it was you and Teddy against the world. The greatest kind of friends are the ones who bring out the best in one another, and that’s what you and Teddy did every day. You made each other stronger, wiser and braver, and you learned from each other. Most importantly, you stood by each other, right until the very end. We are eternally grateful to you for being there by his side in his final moments. For holding his hand and letting him know that he wasn’t alone and that, even in death, someone he loved was there with him. We take comfort in knowing that he didn’t leave this world alone. There’s no doubt in our minds that you did everything you could to try and save him, Dex. We know that there’s nothing you could have done differently, and we can only hope that you know it too. Not everyone can be saved – sometimes God has a greater purpose for the ones we love, and we must fight through the pain and learn to accept that they are somewhere far better than here. We know that you miss him, and we miss him too… every single day. But with each day that passes, it becomes a little bit easier. Some days are harder than others, but our frowns no longer outweigh our smiles. We no longer cry when we see his pictures around the house, and memories of him no longer bring pain to our hearts, but instead put a smile on our faces as we remember who he was. We all must honor his memory by focusing on what we gained by having him in our lives, rather than on what we lost when he passed. It’s what he would have wanted for all of us. Teddy loved life. He reveled in the simple things, and he saw a positive light in even the worst situations. He would never want his death to bring you sadness or to rob you of the joys of life. He would want you to remember the good times and focus on the memories of him that make you smile – because he is someone who could make anyone smile! You have such a big heart, Dex, and because of that you’ve always felt things a little bit stronger and more deeply than everyone else. Don’t let your grief weigh you down. Don’t carry the burden of your loss with you forever. Our scars become a part of us, but you cannot let them define you. We will carry him with us in our hearts forever, and moving on does not mean that we’re forgetting him or leaving him behind. It means choosing to live. Thank you for being a part of our son’s life. Of our lives. You brought so much joy and laughter to his time here on this earth, and we will forever cherish those moments. Take solace in your memories of him, do not let them bring you pain. Teddy loved you so much, and he always will. So will we.

At this point, the cautious reader might wish to read over the whole argument again, as presented above, just to make sure that I have not indulged in any 'sleight of hand'! Admittedly there is an air of the conjuring trick about the argument, but it is perfectly legitimate, and it only gains in strength the more minutely it is examined. We have found a computation Ck(k) that we know does not stop; yet the given computational procedure A is not powerful enough to ascertain that facet. This is the Godel(-Turing) theorem in the form that I require. It applies to any computational procedure A whatever for ascertaining that computations do not stop, so long as we know it to be sound. We deduce that no knowably sound set of computational rules (such as A) can ever suffice for ascertaining that computations do not stop, since there are some non-stopping computations (such as Ck(k)) that must elude these rules. Moreover, since from the knowledge of A and of its soundness, we can actually construct a computation Ck(k) that we can see does not ever stop, we deduce that A cannot be a formalization of the procedures available to mathematicians for ascertaining that computations do not stop, no matter what A is. Hence: (G) Human mathematicians are not using a knowably sound algorithm in order to ascertain mathematical truth. It seems to me that this conclusion is inescapable. However, many people have tried to argue against it-bringing in objections like those summarized in the queries Q1-Q20 of 2.6 and 2.10 below-and certainly many would argue against the stronger deduction that there must be something fundamentally non-computational in our thought processes. The reader may indeed wonder what on earth mathematical reasoning like this, concerning the abstract nature of computations, can have to say about the workings of the human mind. What, after all, does any of this have to do with the issue of conscious awareness? The answer is that the argument indeed says something very significant about the mental quality of understanding-in relation to the general issue of computation-and, as was argued in 1.12, the quality of understanding is something dependent upon conscious awareness. It is true that, for the most part, the foregoing reasoning has been presented as just a piece of mathematics, but there is the essential point that the algorithm A enters the argument at two quite different levels. At the one level, it is being treated as just some algorithm that has certain properties, but at the other, we attempt to regard A as being actually 'the algorithm that we ourselves use' in coming to believe that a computation will not stop. The argument is not simply about computations. It is also about how we use our conscious understanding in order to infer the validity of some mathematical claim-here the non-stopping character of Ck(k). It is the interplay between the two different levels at which the algorithm A is being considered-as a putative instance of conscious activity and as a computation itself-that allows us to arrive at a conclusion expressing a fundamental conflict between such conscious activity and mere computation.

To see how we separate, we first have to examine how we get together. Friendships begin with interest. We talk to someone. They say something interesting and we have a conversation about it. However, common interests don’t create lasting bonds. Otherwise, we would become friends with everyone with whom we had a good conversation. Similar interests as a basis for friendship doesn’t explain why we become friends with people who have completely different interests than we do. In time, we discover common values and ideals. However, friendship through common values and ideals doesn’t explain why atheists and those devout in their faith become friends. Vegans wouldn’t have non-vegan friends. In the real world, we see examples of friendships between people with diametrically opposed views. At the same time, we see cliques form in churches and small organizations dedicated to a particular cause, and it’s not uncommon to have cliques inside a particular belief system dislike each other. So how do people bond if common interests and common values don’t seem to be the catalyst for lasting friendships? I find that people build lasting connections through common problems and people grow apart when their problems no longer coincide. This is why couples especially those with children tend to lose their single friends. Their primary problems have become vastly different. The married person’s problems revolve around family and children. The single person’s problem revolves around relationships with others and themselves. When the single person talks about their latest dating disaster, the married person is thinking I’ve already solved this problem. When the married person talks about finding good daycare, the single person is thinking how boring the problems of married life can be. Eventually marrieds and singles lose their connection because they don’t have common problems. I look back at friends I had in junior high and high school. We didn’t become friends because of long nights playing D&D. That came later. We were all loners and outcasts in our own way. We had one shared problem that bound us together: how to make friends and relate to others while feeling so “different”. That was the problem that made us friends. Over the years as we found our own answers and went to different problems, we grew apart. Stick two people with completely different values and belief systems on a deserted island where they have to cooperate to survive. Then stick two people with the same values and interests together at a party. Which pair do you think will form the stronger bond? When I was 20, I was living on my own. I didn’t have many friends who were in college because I couldn’t relate to them. I was worrying about how to pay rent and trying to stretch my last few dollars for food at the end of the month. They were worried about term papers. In my life now, the people I spend the most time with have kids, have careers, are thinking about retirement and are figuring out their changing roles and values as they get older. These are problems that I relate to. We solve them in different ways because our values though compatible aren’t similar. I feel connected hearing about how they’ve chosen to solve those issues in a way that works for them.

In Romans 12:4-8, Paul writes about gifts: “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.” Recognize that the gifts inside you are not only for you; just as the gifts inside other people around you are not only for them. We are meant to help each other. God designed us this way on purpose! All being members of one body, our successes are shared — there is no need to be threatened by another person’s gift. Use your gifts, and encourage the people in your life to use their gifts as well. You will be blessed as a result! Unfortunately, one thing that keeps us from asking for help or taking advantage of the talents in people around us is pride. Never allow pride to keep you from asking for counsel when it is needed! 1 Corinthians 12:20 is another passage about gifts: “now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ ” We need each other, and joining our gifts together will result in a much stronger body. If you have time, read 1 Corinthians 12:4-20. Reflect on how there can be unity in the diversity of gifts if we use our different gifts properly. Determine that you will not be threatened by anyone else’s gifts! Esther was not afraid of the gifts in the people around her. Let’s see how she responds to the wisdom of others today. And every day Mordecai paced in front of the court of the women’s quarters, to learn of Esther’s welfare and what was happening to her. Esther 2:11 Every day, Mordecai goes to the palace gates to inquire after Esther and learn of what was happening to her. He goes to the palace gates with purpose. He paces in front of the women’s court until he has learns the day’s news about Esther. Even though she is no longer under his roof, he stills feels a strong responsibility toward her, and acts accordingly. He is a faithful man, and has set a great example before Esther. The news that he hears concerning Esther daily must be good: her inward beauty and submission to authority are two of the many wonderful traits that God placed in her so that she will be effective in Persia. Even though Esther is in an unfamiliar place and experiencing “firsts” every day in the palace, God is making sure she has what she needs. Esther did not need to feel nervous! She needed wise counsel; it has been provided for her in Mordecai and Hegai. She needs a pleasant and patient personality; that has been being developed in her by the Lord for many years. In your own life, you are constantly undergoing change and growth as you are submitting to the Lord. Whether or not you can see it, God is continually preparing you for what lies ahead so that you will have what you need when you need it. The God who loves you so much knows your future, and He is preparing you today for what you will experience tomorrow. Esther is receiving what she needs as well. She is in the palace undergoing her beauty preparations — a twelve month process! Even through this extended period of time, Mordecai is still at the palace gates every day (the Bible does not say that he stopped his concern for her at any point). It is an entire

God-Centered Joy We’ve already covered a lot of ground in this book. We’ve talked about choosing the broken road that leads to God and greater strength. We’ve also explored some forks in the trail that offer more choices. When we choose well, the paths of surrender, relationship, acceptance, and trust lead us even closer to Him and His power. Now we’re standing in front of another fork. This time, we’re seeking a path that will deliver us to something we’re all looking for: joy. What’s interesting, however, is that the trail to joy is unmarked, full of rocks and overgrown weeds, and rarely traveled. As a result, whenever we arrive at this fork, we almost always choose the wrong path—and end up wondering why we’re lost. To put it in plain terms, we often think possessions and things will make us happy. Food. Sex. Money. A new dress, couch, car, home, job, or spouse. We think that if we rearrange the circumstances, everything will get better. Eventually, some of us figure out, at least some of the time, that this isn’t how it works. The external possessions and things are enticing and may offer temporary pleasure, but ultimately, they don’t make a difference. They are the wrong path. Joy springs from an internal choice—a decision of the heart about the heart. It has nothing to do with circumstances and everything to do with God and where we are going with Him. It also—and this is the part that trips us up—has little to do with what we, in all our “wisdom,” want and believe we need. The path that leads to joy is based entirely on what God desires for us. Once we begin to walk in the direction He’s pointing out to us, we discover true delight. Said another way, joy results when we focus more on God and less—as I failed to do that day in Jakarta—on ourselves.

Life is a theatrical folly, a play of the great players and big dreamers set out on the biggest stage. Where improvisation dictates the mood. The contest for the lead is unabating when the cast is made up of those aiming high. Fortunately we don't all want the lead, for the dream of some is not to be the hero and face the challenges that accompany it, to maintain their prowess every day, to be ready to see off every pretender to their throne. We don't all want to be revolutionaries, we don't all want to be alone in the spotlight and have the eyes of the critical audience on us for a single minute, not feeling owed their fifteen minutes of fame. Some don't want to take to that vast stage alone and perform a monologue of Shakespearean proportions. Some recognise maybe that within leading roles, the most memorable characters, there is vulnerability and often the part is a tragic one. It is a stronger mind that recognises their part in the play of life, someone who knows that the lead part is not for them. Someone who supports the lead, wishes to journey with them and knows they will need a supporting cast. Someone who aims for contentment and lives a humble yet happy existence. The risk is for those who sets their standards too high and will never reach them. The reality is, we won't all achieve the same greatness in our lives, because our view of greatness differs between us. So on a personal level you must decide what role you wish to have, make it your own. Be the best you can by your standards, not anyone else's.

Each of us develops a moral compass (some stronger than others, to be sure) as we make our way through the world. This is for the most part a wonderful thing. Who wants to live in a world where people run around with no regard for the difference between right and wrong?

Until proven as your friends, the next tribe have to be some sort of enemy and to make yourself feel stronger than them and safe from them, you diminish them. It still happens, with the same fearfulness and fury and based in the same ignorance, in our sophisticated, intellectually complex and progressive twenty-first century when we know, for instance, that the range of the human gene pool all over the planet is astonishingly, even dangerously narrow; that all of us came from probably no more than several hundred survivors way back in Africa; and that, literally under the skin, we are precisely the same. It does not stop us using superficial differences to claim profound superiority;

You can be tough on civilians, on people who “don’t understand” what you’ve been through. But the battlefield isn’t the only place where people suffer. Hardship hits in a million places. And lots of people, including your neighbors, have suffered more than any soldier, and they’ve done so with none of your training, with no unit around them, with no hospital to care for them, and sometimes with no community to support them. And when those people reflect on their suffering, they often uncover a similar truth: that struggle helped them to build deep reservoirs of strength. Not all growth happens this way. But a great deal of our growth does come when we put our shoulder into what’s painful. We choose to, or have to, step beyond the margins of our past experience and do something hard and new.   Of course fear does not automatically lead to courage. Injury does not necessarily lead to insight. Hardship will not automatically make us better. Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.

Sighing, I scooted down in the booth and pulled away my hand. “You can’t control everything. It’s like you’re a finished product and I’m a brand new idea. You’re making all the decisions about who I can be and what I can do, but I can’t make any decisions about who you are.” “Well, for one thing, I’m not eighteen. For another, you have control over how I feel and that’s still power. Finally, maybe you grew up with a boot on the back of your neck so you need all of this independence to feel like you’ve accomplished shit, but you need to get over that. I take care of the people I love. My money can make your life easier and that makes my life easier. I’m not molding you and I don’t think you need molding anyway. The only difference between us is that I know I’m a finished product and you think you still need to change. You don’t and working this weekend so you can buy new clothes you don’t need won’t make you better. It won’t make you stronger or smarter. It’ll wear you down and give you a false sense of accomplishment. In the long run, your grades will suffer and you’ll hate your job and school and, God forbid, me.” “I’ve dreamed of this life for a long time and I want it to be like my dream.” “Dream bigger, baby.” “You mean dream of you.” “A dream with me in it, yes, but I know you want to be a teacher. I see on your face what that means to you. I’m not saying give up everything for me and be my bitch. I’m saying live your dream along with being my bitch.” “Fuck you,” I hissed, grinning. Cooper shared my smile. “I have to protect you. I have to feel like I’m doing right by you because my heart hurts when you aren’t happy. The last day sucked worse than any time in my life. I just couldn’t give two shits about anything because I’d lost you.” “I don’t know. I still feel like I should work this weekend.” Cooper sighed for nearly a minute then shook his head. “Healthy relationships are about compromise. Don’t work this weekend and go to the fair with me and I’ll buy you new clothes. See, compromise?” “You get everything you want. How is that compromise?” “I’m buying you new clothes that I don’t think you need,” he said, grinning. “I’m wasting money on your delusion. You’re welcome.” Laughing, I finished my soda then stood up. “I’ll think about it.” “And say yes when I take you home later.

FOR MY SPIRITUAL LIFE... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to help others... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my relationship with God... ? FOR MY PHYSICAL HEALTH... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to achieve my diet goals... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure that I exercise... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to relieve my stress... ? FOR MY PERSONAL LIFE... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my skill at ________... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to find time for myself... ? FOR MY KEY RELATIONSHIPS... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my relationship with my spouse/partner... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my children’s school performance... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to show my appreciation to my parents... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make my family stronger... ? FOR MY JOB... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure that I hit my goals... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my skills... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to help my team succeed... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to further my career... ? FOR MY BUSINESS... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make us more competitive... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make our product the best... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make us more profitable... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve our customer experience... ? FOR MY FINANCES... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to increase my net worth... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my investment cash flow... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to eliminate my credit card debt... ? BIG IDEAS So how do you make The ONE Thing part of your daily routine? How do you make it strong enough to get extraordinary results at work and in the other areas of your life? Here’s a starter list drawn from our experience and our work with others. Understand and believe it. The first step is to understand the concept of the ONE Thing, then to believe that it can make a difference in your life. If you don’t understand and believe, you won’t take action. Use it. Ask yourself the Focusing Question. Start each day by asking, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do today for [whatever you want] such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?” When you do this, your direction will become clear. Your work will be more productive and your personal life more rewarding. Make it a habit. When you make asking the Focusing Question a habit, you fully engage its power to get the extraordinary results you want. It’s a difference maker. Research says this will take about 66 days. Whether it takes you a few weeks or a few months, stick with it until it becomes your routine. If you’re not serious about learning the Success Habit, you’re not serious about getting extraordinary results. Leverage reminders. Set up ways to remind yourself to use the Focusing Question. One of the best ways to do this is to put up a sign at work that says, “Until my ONE Thing is done—everything else is a distraction.” We designed the back cover of this book to be a trigger —set it on the corner of your desk so that it’s the first thing you see when you get to work. Use notes, screen savers, and calendar cues to keep making the connection between the Success Habit and the results you seek. Put up reminders like, “The ONE Thing = Extraordinary Results” or “The Success Habit Will Get Me to My Goal.” Recruit support. Research shows that those around you can influence you tremendously. Starting a success support group with some of your work colleagues can help inspire all of you to practice the Success Habit every day. Get your family involved. Share your ONE Thing. Get them on board. Use the Focusing Question around them to show them how the Success Habit can make a difference in their school work, their personal achievements, or any other part of their lives.

You would think that would have helped. That a gift and clasped hands would make things right between us. But the silence was back now, stronger than before. Thick enough that you could spread it on your bread and eat it. There are some silences that even words cannot drive away. And while Denna was touching my hand, she wasn’t holding it. There is a world of difference.

And then it actually becomes the most interesting thing in the world. A single word is embossed in fancy calligraphy letters. A single word that makes it feel like the whole room is spinning. Harksbury. What in God’s name? “What is this?” I point at it and shout in Mindy’s ear. She scrunches her eyebrows. “A coaster?” I groan. “No, I mean, the name. Harksbury.” “Oh. It’s the name of the club. I don’t know what it means, though.” I do. It’s the name of a dukedom. I wonder if that means some relative of Alex’s invested in this place or something. Or if someone borrowed their name. Or what. But it has to mean Harksbury is real, that it existed. I stare down at the word again. If the shoes weren’t enough…It has to be real. And seeing it like this reminds me of how I felt there. How it felt to be Rebecca. I tuck the coaster into my back pocket and try to ignore the stare Angela is giving me. She probably thinks I’m totally nuts, stealing a paper coaster. But it’s the closest I’ll get to a souvenir of my time-bending trip. And having it on me makes me feel stronger, somehow, like I can always be that girl at the ball. I look up when the boys file in and sit down on a bright orange couch shaped like a slug. “Ladies. This is Grant, Tim, and Alex,” door-boy says. He doesn’t even introduce himself. I guess I’m supposed to know who he is. I smile at Grant and nod at Tim, but when I get to Alex, I only stare. Alex. The Alex. No, no it can’t be. His hair is shorter, his skin smooth and shaven. He’s got on a green button-up, left open at the collar, which brings out the intense emerald shade of his eyes. There’s something different. The contour of his lips, the line of his nose. It’s almost him, but not quite. And he’s staring back at me. Does he know who I am? No, that’s silly. It’s not really him. Not Alex Thorton-Hawke, the Duke of Harksbury. Just Alex, the twenty-first-century guy standing in front of me. In a nightclub. In real life. Mindy jabs me with her elbow. “This is--” “Callie,” I say, standing and reaching my hand out. “My name is Callie.” It feels so good to say that. To be me. I grin involuntarily at the realization. He smiles and shakes it. “Hey.” For a second neither of us says anything else. We just keep shaking hands and staring at each other. My heart hammers out of control. I feel sweaty already. But it’s adrenaline. Excitement. I’m not terrified anymore. Not of Angela, not of Alex. I can do this. “Do you want to dance?” I ask. Did I really just say that out loud? That couldn’t have been me. That was someone else. “Huh?” He can’t hear me over the music. “Do you want to dance?” I say, louder this time, with a little more conviction. For emphasis, I nod my head toward the floor. I’m really doing this. “Yeah.” I’m not sure I’ve heard him correctly, but then he grabs my hand and leads me away, and I risk a glance back at the group. They’re just staring. For once in my life, I’ve upstaged them. I grin back and then turn my attention to Alex. I’ve thought about getting close to him for a month. I’m about to get my chance.

Getting a good deal may push us toward making a risky bet, but saving our reputation from destruction is a much stronger motivation.

Over the past thirty years the orthodox view that the maximisation of shareholder value would lead to the strongest economic performance has come to dominate business theory and practice, in the US and UK in particular.42 But for most of capitalism’s history, and in many other countries, firms have not been organised primarily as vehicles for the short-term profit maximisation of footloose shareholders and the remuneration of their senior executives. Companies in Germany, Scandinavia and Japan, for example, are structured both in company law and corporate culture as institutions accountable to a wider set of stakeholders, including their employees, with long-term production and profitability their primary mission. They are equally capitalist, but their behaviour is different. Firms with this kind of model typically invest more in innovation than their counterparts focused on short-term shareholder value maximisation; their executives are paid smaller multiples of their average employees’ salaries; they tend to retain for investment a greater share of earnings relative to the payment of dividends; and their shares are held on average for longer by their owners. And the evidence suggests that while their short-term profitability may (in some cases) be lower, over the long term they tend to generate stronger growth.43 For public policy, this makes attention to corporate ownership, governance and managerial incentive structures a crucial field for the improvement of economic performance. In short, markets are not idealised abstractions, but concrete and differentiated outcomes arising from different circumstances.

We women…we’re a tough breed and don’t let anyone tell you differently. We know what it takes to survive, and we’ll do anything to keep from falling apart. Even if we don’t like it. Even when we know it makes us look weak. We do it because we hope one day, it will make us stronger. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it just breaks us more.

The horrible mismanagement of the AIDS crisis makes me want to grab [disease minimizers] by the shoulders and shake them and say, “Why haven’t you read about what worked or did not work every time a plague cropped up before this one? Why aren’t you paying attention? Do not do the same stupid stuff people did before! We know what works and what doesn’t! Be smarter, please, please, be smarter, be kinder, be kinder and smarter, I am begging you.” I find the forgetfulness of people, especially in true matters of life and death, so frustrating. Sometimes I look at these histories and think, People are just going to keep making the same dumb mistakes every single time. And one day those mistakes will doom us all. And I feel sad and furious and frightened for what will happen next. But then I think about how polio is almost eradicated. Or that penicillin exists. And I remember that we are progressing, always, even if that progress is sometimes slower and more uneven than we might wish. I remind myself, too, of all the ways people have persevered and survived in conditions that are surely as bad as anything that is to come. Whenever I am most disillusioned, I look to one of my favorite quotes from The World of Yesterday (1942) by Stefan Zweig. When Zweig was fleeing from the Nazis and living in exile he wrote: “Even from the abyss of horror in which we try to find our way today, half-blind, our hearts distraught and shattered, I look up again to the ancient constellations of my childhood, comforting myself that, some day, this relapse will appear only an interval in the eternal rhythm of progress onward and upward.” I have to believe that the missteps are only intermittent relapses as we grow stronger and smarter and better. We do get better. At everything. Combatting diseases fits somewhere among “everything.” I believe there will be a day when we will see diseases as what they are—an enemy of all of humanity. Not of perceived sinners, not of people who are poor or have a different sexual orientation, not of those who we somehow decided “have it coming” because they’re “not like us.” Diseases are at war with all of us. Diseases don’t care about any of the labels, so it makes no sense for us to. I believe we will become more compassionate. I believe we will fight smarter. I believe that in the deepest place of our souls, we are not cowardly or hateful or cruel to our neighbors. I believe we are kind and smart and brave. I believe that as long as we follow those instincts and do not give in to terror and blame, we can triumph over diseases and the stigmas attached to them. When we fight plagues, not each other, we will not only defeat diseases but preserve our humanity in the process. Onward and upward.

3D printers are already producing parts that are lighter than traditionally built parts, are much stronger in design, and are more readily produced on demand for machines as sophisticated as NASA rockets and Air Force fighters. But for mission-critical products like these, there’s also a risk, one that’s put into context by James Regenor, director of the additive manufacturing and innovation unit at precision parts manufacturer Moog, Inc.: “How can the maintenance crew on a U.S. aircraft carrier have absolute confidence that the software file they downloaded to 3D-print a new part for a fighter jet hasn’t been hacked by a foreign adversary?” To tackle this problem, Regenor’s team at Moog has launched a service it calls Veripart, which uses blockchain technology to, among other things, verify the software design and upgrading work performed by different providers of 3D-printed products along a supply chain. It plans to incorporate a host of features that, among other things, will protect intellectual property and make it more flexible and dynamic as an asset.

She palpated the edges of the wound. “So, I’m like you…werewolf—no, lycan? Am I some sort of science experiment?” He became utterly still, giving her a chance to see he wasn’t lying when he said this. “You’re not human. You have to remember this. I don’t know how one of us could ever believe otherwise, even if we lost our memory. Maybe if someone hypnotized you into believing yourself human, I could buy you not remembering. Knowing what you are is as basic as knowing how to walk. We are lycanthropes. Lycans.” No one said anything for several long moments of silence. Even Flynn seemed to have stopped breathing from wherever he stood behind them. Flynn was probably looking at her again. Why did that make him want to punch his brother, whom he trusted with his life? Skepticism laced her tone. “Can I change into a dog or something?” “No. That’s a human urban myth. We do change to become stronger when necessary, like I did in the hangar. In our feral form, we can do many superhuman things, but it’s not an ugly creature covered in hair like in the movies. You almost did the shift at the club. It’s why I distracted you both times. You can’t do that in public.” “You’re lycan, too, Flynn?” she asked. “Does that mean you both got bitten at the same time?” “What?” Flynn shot a shocked glance at Roman. “Bitten? What the actual hell?” “Chill. She’s got no clue,” Roman said in a calm tone. “Of course I’m lycan.” At her skeptical eyebrow raise, Flynn groaned theatrically and rolled his eyes. “It’s genetic, not something like in the movies where a bite will turn you. I was born this way. My parents were 100 percent lycan, as were theirs. And yours. It’s a different species than humans.” She asked, “Why do I believe so strongly I’m a person, that I’m human?” Roman shrugged
“Superspeed healing?” She touched her side.
“The older we get, the more rapidly we heal. That speed means you must be at least fifty, maybe older.” “How old are you?” “A lot older.” “You think I’m fifty? I look maybe early twenties.” She nibbled her lower lip. “How long do you…we live?” Roman shrugged. “Centuries. I don’t know any that died of natural causes.” “What about that spooky guy named Antonio? Is he like us?” Both Roman and Flynn exchanged glances. “You didn’t know what he was?” Flynn asked. Roman said, “He’s a vampire, not exactly a friend of our species.” They had yet to pin down if Antonio was involved with the dealer who peddled black magic artifacts like the vial. But every time they found something deadly like it, he lurked about. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t like him. Probably good I didn’t act on one of the five ways I envisioned he could die.” He was staring at her.
“Yeah, probably smart,” he muttered.

THE END OF THE YEAR PRAYER This is the month of December, the last month of the year 2021 and I can’t be grateful enough to my Heavenly Father for His priceless mercy and grace throughout the twists and turns of the entire year in the name of Jesus. Father God thank you for being my unshakable pillar and the father that I could crawl to when I am drowning in the pool of trails and tribulations. Thank you Lord Jesus for your faithfulness and your unfailing love. Hold us with your gentle hand and walk us through the last lap of the year 2021, fill us with peace, joy and strength as we are plodding slowly towards the coming new year and help us to make the right decisions and help us to serve you like never before in the mighty name of Jesus. King of glory, remember those who are lying in the sickbeds and heal them with your blood in the mighty name of Jesus. Remember those who are feeling alone, scared, discouraged, abandoned, tortured, and disappointed. I ask you the God of hope to fill them with all joy and peace, again and again(Romans 15:13) in Jesus name. Heavenly Father remember those who are feeling misjudged, mistreated and labelled by others. I ask you Lord to bless them with love, peace, joy and favour in the name of Jesus. King Jesus, remember those who have no place to live, cushion them under your wings of protection. Remember those who have nothing to eat and those who have no clothes to wear. I ask you Jehovah Jireh to make a way where it seems to be no way and provide for every need. Put smiles on their faces and help them to keep their faith in you Jehovah. Remember those who have lost their loved ones and give them comfort, strength and joy. Thank you Lord for your mercies, your mercies are new every morning. Father God, we ask you to take control of our lives and help us to overcome this ugly monster(corona virus) which keeps raising its head up in different forms of evilness. Heal and deliver every single individual who is infected or affected by it in the mighty name of Jesus. You are our only hope and our lives depend on you Jehovah and our future is in your hands, help us to talk the talk and walk the walk and help us to finish this year stronger than ever before and help us to enter the year 2022 with clear minds and wise decision making. I thank you in advance King of glory and I will be forever grateful in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Awakening humanity one person at a time seems like a tall order. Balancing your masculine and feminine aspects is one specific guidance for how to do this. First, you acknowledge that you have both a feminine and masculine aspect, regardless of your gender or gender identity. We are all both. You just wear different outfits. Until you as individuals have the balance within you to love and honor and cherish each part of you, you will not reach the love and peace that humanity needs to achieve. Then, you can do a practice to balance your masculine and feminine energies. I experienced this reconciliation process for myself before hearing that message. It was an incredible process that left me in a state of profound peace and bliss. You can explore balancing your masculine and feminine aspects if it is right for you with this channeled practice. Practice knowing yourself through meditation if you wish. Sit quietly and ask for the masculine and feminine parts of you to come forth. They will come forth. Let them introduce themselves to you. Become familiar with the male part of you and the female part of you. Make peace with both parts because through time with your own experience, one is stronger than the other, or the human part of you fears one or the other. Practice becoming aware of those parts. And if you bring those parts forth, let them talk to each other while you observe. Journal about your experience with this exercise. The synthesis of different parts of us is not a new concept. Robert Assagioli created a process to integrate various aspects of ourselves, called psychosynthesis.38 This work aims to integrate the different aspects of ourselves into a purposeful personality, connect to our higher self, and realize the spiritual self, moving from self-identity to a transpersonal understanding of oneself (Hastings 1991, 89). Because this is the most common channeled content category, you will likely receive specific or general guidance and personal messages for living your life through your own channeling or from others. Awakening humanity, our true nature not being limited by our physical bodies, and balancing our masculine and feminine aspects are just a few topics in this channeled content category.

We became friends, close friends, closer friends. We shared secrets. My heart felt more whole when I was with him. When we were apart, I thought about him. I was in love. Doomsday was upon us. And then, to my surprise, doomsday never came. As our relationship grew stronger and deeper, it became more life-giving. I loved him (in a messy, don’t-try-this-at-home-kids kind of way), and he loved me (though rather differently, I assumed), and it was strange and wonderful and at the same time perfectly ordinary. The fact that I was drawn to him in too many ways—that I had to struggle not to make him the object of my fantasies—that made things even more complicated. But it was worth the struggle to love and be loved deeply.

Fear is about knowing all the bad things that can happen to you and still move forward to achieve your goals. The greatest fears are related to humiliation, shame and death. Three thousand years ago, shame, humiliation and death, was about dying in a war and then have the head put in a stick for everyone else to see. One thousand years after, it was about being naked in a cross and left there to die in front of everyone. One thousand and five hundred years after, it was related to burning in a pole after being accused of witchcraft. But, in recent times, it’s just related to losing a job, the family and friends. Humiliation is often related to shame and most people don’t change their life because they fear being ridiculed and despised, even though they don’t face death as much as their ancestors once did. Great leaders make the difference among the majority, by refusing to stop themselves when seeing such reaction in those around them. For example, there was once a kid in Austria that wished to become an artist but was humiliated by his father and mother, ridiculed by his classmates and later on sentenced to jail by his government. However, years later, that person became someone we still tremble when hearing the name - Hitler. There was another one that was persecuted all his life, humiliated even in the day he died and became the most well-known and popular person in the world – Jesus Christ. Accepting defeat in life and even losing life itself, or facing ridicule from those that are most important to us, and still follow our heart, is part of the path to ultimate victory. Whatever we choose for our fate, challenges can make us stronger and the inner war against fear also.

Prof. Richard Dawkins once said “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further99”. It is a casual remark to think about theistic beliefs. We also believe in no more than one Prof. Richard Dawkins and it still proves that Prof. Richard Dawkins exist. Anthony Kenny gives response to such naïve assertion as follows: “Many different definitions may be offered of the word 'God'. Given this fact, atheism makes a much stronger claim than theism does. The atheist says that no matter what definition you choose, 'God exists' is always false. The theist only claims that there is some definition which will make 'God exists' true.

As crazy as all of this may sound to you, I know that our brains are able to control so many things depending on how we think about something. About twenty years ago, a business partner and I taught real estate investing seminars. One of the most significant factors that affects someone’s success in real estate, or any other endeavor, is belief. I’ve heard it said that if you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, either way, you’re right. Suppose you really honestly believe that you’ll succeed in real estate or any other endeavor. In that case, you’re about 1,000 times more likely to put in the effort and stick with it. If you don’t believe you’re going to succeed, then most people put in next to no effort to basically prove themselves right when nothing happens. At our seminars, we would demonstrate this by teaching the concept of “Spots.” We explained that according to an ancient methodology, we all have a weak spot and a strong spot. Speaking in a strong, confident voice, we’d say, “Here’s your strong spot right here,” and demonstrate this by touching the center of our forehead. “You also have a weak spot” (speaking in a softer, weaker voice). “It’s located in the soft fleshly spot right here behind your ear.” We again demonstrated and encouraged them to follow along. Then to give it a little emphasis, we added, “Careful, don’t push it too much, or you’ll get really weak!” Then we said, “We’ll show you how this actually works,” and invited one of the stronger-looking participants up onto the stage. We’d touch the person in their “strong” spot and ask them to hold their arm straight out to the side. “Now I’m going to push down on your arm, and I want you to resist me as much as you can.” We’d push down with a decent amount of effort, and our client’s arm would not budge down at all. “Now I’m going to touch your weak spot” (touching the person behind their ear). “And watch as I’m now able to push their arm completely down.” The crazy thing is that no matter how hard the subject tries to hold their arm up, after touching their “weak” spot, it drops right down with much less effort than during the first attempt. Then we said, “Now I want you to prove this to yourself. Pair up with the person next to you to test this out for yourself.” The room would buzz with the sounds of people talking as they discovered that the strong and weak spots really did, for the most part, work. Then we would switch the spots. “Isn’t it crazy that just because we told you to push on the strong spot behind your ear, that made you really strong? And when we told you to push on the weak spot in the middle of your forehead, that made you really weak?” we’d say. “No, no, you’ve got them backward!” the crowd would shout at us. At which point, we’d demonstrate that the spots worked just as well if you switched them, finally telling them, “We actually made all this up—but it works anyway!” What you tell yourself and what you believe really does make a difference. I don’t know if this helps to explain why I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. I was passionately committed to the belief that if I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, then my foot and leg were going to have to be better. Each day that I hiked, with every mile further north that I went, heck, with every single step I took, I was reclaiming my life. I know that anything is possible. My adventure on the trail proved this to me each and every day. 14 May—Finding a Buddy You Can’t Avoid Pain, But You Can Choose to Overcome it. —Paulo Coelho Two and a half hours after leaving Shenandoah National Park, I arrived home.

Let us examine first the psychological and legal position of the criminal. We see that in spite of the difficulty of finding other food, the accused, or, as we may say, my client, has often during his peculiar life exhibited signs of repentance, and of wishing to give up this clerical diet. Incontrovertible facts prove this assertion. He has eaten five or six children, a relatively insignificant number, no doubt, but remarkable enough from another point of view. It is manifest that, pricked by remorse—for my client is religious, in his way, and has a conscience, as I shall prove later—and desiring to extenuate his sin as far as possible, he has tried six times at least to substitute lay nourishment for clerical. That this was merely an experiment we can hardly doubt: for if it had been only a question of gastronomic variety, six would have been too few; why only six? Why not thirty? But if we regard it as an experiment, inspired by the fear of committing new sacrilege, then this number six becomes intelligible. Six attempts to calm his remorse, and the pricking of his conscience, would amply suffice, for these attempts could scarcely have been happy ones. In my humble opinion, a child is too small; I should say, not sufficient; which would result in four or five times more lay children than monks being required in a given time. The sin, lessened on the one hand, would therefore be increased on the other, in quantity, not in quality. Please understand, gentlemen, that in reasoning thus, I am taking the point of view which might have been taken by a criminal of the middle ages. As for myself, a man of the late nineteenth century, I, of course, should reason differently; I say so plainly, and therefore you need not jeer at me nor mock me, gentlemen. As for you, general, it is still more unbecoming on your part. In the second place, and giving my own personal opinion, a child’s flesh is not a satisfying diet; it is too insipid, too sweet; and the criminal, in making these experiments, could have satisfied neither his conscience nor his appetite. I am about to conclude, gentlemen; and my conclusion contains a reply to one of the most important questions of that day and of our own! This criminal ended at last by denouncing himself to the clergy, and giving himself up to justice. We cannot but ask, remembering the penal system of that day, and the tortures that awaited him—the wheel, the stake, the fire!—we cannot but ask, I repeat, what induced him to accuse himself of this crime? Why did he not simply stop short at the number sixty, and keep his secret until his last breath? Why could he not simply leave the monks alone, and go into the desert to repent? Or why not become a monk himself? That is where the puzzle comes in! There must have been something stronger than the stake or the fire, or even than the habits of twenty years! There must have been an idea more powerful than all the calamities and sorrows of this world, famine or torture, leprosy or plague—an idea which entered into the heart, directed and enlarged the springs of life, and made even that hell supportable to humanity! Show me a force, a power like that, in this our century of vices and railways!

Why do humans kill the Fae Marked?” I asked, a hush falling over the woods with my words. It was as if Caelum forgot to breathe for a moment, the tension claiming his body bleeding through to me. “What difference does it make to them if we’re dead or taken? Why isn’t that our choice to make?” He sighed, tilting his head down as we walked, and I felt his chin touch the top of my head. “Being mated makes the Fae even stronger. That’s what the Viniculum is—why it protects us. Somewhere, there’s a mate looking for us, seeking to claim us as theirs. The establishment of a mate bond increases a Fae’s power. If you can keep a Fae from their mate, you can keep them stagnant. Unable to increase their power, and if you do successfully manage to kill the mate, some Fae don’t survive.” I’d heard that mates strengthened their Fae, in whispers, but I’d thought them the dramatic whispers meant to cause fear. “They die with us?” I asked, staring up at him as he pulled his chin away from my head. “When it’s the final death? Sometimes,” he answered. “Sometimes they’re lost to madness. Sometimes they seem to go mad before they ever find their mate.” “Are mates ever other Fae? Or is it always humans?” I asked, peppering him with questions and not even caring that it implied I was more interested than I should have let on. All the rules of my past were null and void, now that being Marked was my reality. Knowledge was my only power.

Ivo Andric, Bosnian chronicle (Quote about nostalgia, free translation from Bosnian lenguage) More than three hundred years ago, brought us from our homeland, a unique Andalusia, a terrible, foolish, fratricidal whirlwind, which we can not understand even today, and who has not understood it to this day, scattered us all over the world and made us beggars to which gold does not help. Now, threw us on the East, and life on the East is not easy for us or blessed, and the as much man goes further and gets closer to the sun's birth, it is worse, because the land is younger and more raw and people are from the land. And our trouble is that we could not fully love this country, to which we owe becouse it has received us, accept us and provided us with shelter, nor could we hate the one who has unjustly took us away and expelled us as an unworthly sons. We do not know is it more difficult that we are here or that we are not there. Wherever we were outside of Spain, we would suffer because we would have two homelands, I know, but here life is too much pressed us and humiliated us. I know that we have been changed for a long time,we do not remember anymore how we were, but surely we remember that we were different. We left and road up long time ago and we traveled hard and we unluckily fell down and stopped at this place, and that is why we are no longer even a shadow of what we were. As a powder on a fruit that goes hand-to-hand, from man first fall of what is finest on him. That's why we are like this. But you know us, us and our life, if we can call this life. We live between "occupiers" and commonalty, miserable commonalty and terrible Turkish. Cutted away completely from our loved ones, we are careful to look after and keep everything Spanish, songs and meals and customs, but we feel that everything changes in us, spoils and forgets. We remember the language of our land, the lenguage we did take and carried three centuries ago, the lenguage which even do not speak there anymore, and we ridiculously speak with stumbling the language of the comonalty with which we suffer and the Turkish who rules over us. So it may not be a long day when we will be purely and humanly able to express ourselves only in prayer, and which actually does not need any words. This so lonely and few, we marry between us and see that our blood is paling and fainting. We bend and shred in front of everyone, we mourn, suffer and contrive, as people said: on the ice we make campfire, we work, we gain, we save, not only for ourselves and for our children, but for all those who are stronger and more insolent, impudent than us and strike on our life , on the dignity, and on the wealth. So we preserved the faith for which we had to leave our beautiful country, but lost almost everything else. Luckily, and to our sorrow, we did not lose from our memory reminiscence of our dear country, as it was, before she drive away us like stepmother; just as it will never extinguish in us the desire for a better world, the world of order and humanity in which you goes stright, watches calmly and speaks openly. We can not free ourselves from that feeling, nor feeling that, in addition to everything, we belong to such a world, though, we are expelled and unhappy, otherwise we live. That's what we would like to know there. That our name does not die in that brighter and higher world that is constantly darkening and destroying, iconstantly moves and changes, but never collapses, and always for somebody exists, that that world knows that we are carrying him in our soul, that even here we serve him on our way, and we feel one with him, even though we are forever and hopelessly separated from him.

Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.

On the first day of the meeting that would become known as the United States Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph of Virginia kicked off the proceedings. Addressing his great fellow Virginian General George Washington, victorious hero of the War of Independence, who sat in the chair, Randolph hoped to convince delegates sent by seven, so far, of the thirteen states, with more on the way, to abandon the confederation formed by the states that had sent them—the union that had declared American independence from England and won the war—and to replace it with another form of government. “Our chief danger,” Randolph announced, “arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions.” This was in May of 1787, in Philadelphia, in the same ground-floor room of the Pennsylvania State House, borrowed from the Pennsylvania assembly, where in 1776 the Continental Congress had declared independence. Others in the room already agreed with Randolph: James Madison, also of Virginia; Robert Morris of Pennsylvania; Gouverneur Morris of New York and Pennsylvania; Alexander Hamilton of New York; Washington. They wanted the convention to institute a national government. As we know, their effort was a success. We often say the confederation was a weak government, the national government stronger. But the more important difference has to do with whom those governments acted on. The confederation acted on thirteen state legislatures. The nation would act on all American citizens, throughout all the states. That would be a mighty change. To persuade his fellow delegates to make it, Randolph was reeling off a list of what he said were potentially fatal problems, urgently in need, he said, of immediate repair. He reiterated what he called the chief threat to the country. “None of the constitutions”—he meant those of the states’ governments—“have provided sufficient checks against the democracy.” The term “democracy” could mean different things, sometimes even contradictory things, in 1787. People used it to mean “the mob,” which historians today would call “the crowd,” a movement of people denied other access to power, involving protest, riot, what recently has been called occupation, and often violence against people and property. But sometimes “democracy” just meant assertive lawmaking by a legislative body staffed by gentlemen highly sensitive to the desires of their genteel constituents. Men who condemned the working-class mob as a democracy sometimes prided themselves on being “democratical” in their own representative bodies. What Randolph meant that morning by “democracy” is clear. When he said “our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions,” and “none of the constitutions have provided sufficient checks against the democracy,” he was speaking in a context of social and economic turmoil, pervading all thirteen states, which the other delegates were not only aware of but also had good reason to be urgently worried about. So familiar was the problem that Randolph would barely have had to explain it, and he didn’t explain it in detail. Yet he did say things whose context everyone there would already have understood.

In order to prime your body to get to the gasp point earlier (and thus build a stronger wedge and activate the sympathetic nervous system), start with the basic breathing method for approximately 30 quick, deep breaths. Keep your eyes closed and breathe hard enough that you begin to feel light-headed. Now, instead of taking in a deep breath and holding it, let most of the air out of your lungs like you would at the end of a normal breath (by which I mean, don’t force it) and hold your breath with mostly empty lungs. Your body will quickly deplete the oxygen stores available in the lungs and have to rely solely on what is available in the bloodstream. When you get close to needing to gasp, you can extend your limits in two ways. The first is the same as with basic breathing, slowly letting out what is left of the air in your lungs. The second method will become critical later for controlling vasoconstriction. It consists of a rolling set of muscle contractions that you start at your feet and sequentially tighten until you reach up to your head. The process is as follows: Relax your body and clench the muscles in your feet. Then clench your calves, then thighs. Work the contractions up your body until every part of you is tight from the bottom to the top. Clench your stomach, your chest, fingers, biceps, and jaw. Tighten the muscles behind your ears and imagine all of this pressure that you’ve built up going out the top of your head like you were rolling out pizza dough. Whenever I do this I end up making all sorts of grunting noises and squint my face into awkward contortions. It feels like I’m going to pop. But I never have. Once you finally have to breathe, take in a half lungful of air and hold it for about 10 to 15 seconds. This is the recovery breath, and it feels awesome. Now start over from the beginning. Since your lungs start near empty, it won’t be possible to hold your breath as long as with the basic breathing technique. Aim to increase the amount that you hold your breath with each repetition. When I do it I start with a 1-minute hold, then 2 minutes, then 3. Even though everyone’s physiology is different, Hof says that at 3 minutes you’ve cracked into your sympathetic nervous system.

In a culture that seeks only to anesthetize, escape, and ignore hurt, I believe we are called to experience, acknowledge, and feel the pain of life so that redemption can be achieved. Because only when we have walked through the dark can we appreciate and crave the light. Pain can be the muscle that tears to make us stronger and the surgery that cuts to make us whole. So instead of running from the hurt, we must embrace it, own it, live with it, and trust in God's ability to use what feels like death as the catalyst for finding life.

Because she couldn’t read or write, the Spaniards labeled her uncivilized. But her ability to make and read petroglyphs is the same skill exercised in a different way. The markings on her pot had as much meaning for her as the words in a book do for us. The lines and angles didn’t make her pots stronger or improve their capacity to store seeds. They are there because the potter was answering Whitman’s question, “What good amid these, O me, O life?” The powerful play does indeed go on, and she contributed a verse. The

What makes you different us what makes you stronger. You are a masterpiece uniquely designed by God. You can have tremendous victories, love, and abundance.

Thanksgiving has become the first day of what in now thought of as the “Holy or Holiday Season.” The “holidays” as they are generally known, are an annually recurring period of time from late November to early January. These days are also recognized by many other countries as well, with the “Christmas Tree” and all the trimmings, generally being considered secular. This period of time incorporates the shopping days, which comprises a peak season for the retail market. Regardless of religious affiliation, children and adults alike enjoy the many window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies. To a great extent it really doesn’t matter that there are still some people believing that the commercialism of these holidays is blasphemy and that they should be reserved strictly for worship. There are virtually, no valid reasons why we can’t all enjoy these days in our own way. Children of all faiths and ages should be able to understand the true meaning and still be able to enjoy the music, surprises and magic of the season… This year we are again faced with a severely, politically divided country; with a great number of people fearing for their future. It might be too much to hope for, that politicians will be able to put aside their differences. Unfortunately many of them still believe that their hypocritical concept of Christianity is greater than that of their opposition. Regardless, they should however understand that we are all equal in the eyes of God as well as the law, and that America was built by a diverse people. Let us not slip back into a newer form of “Small Minded Bigotry,” but rather forge ahead in a unified way making our country stronger. The time has come to energize our nation by rebuilding our bridges and highways. Rebuilding our airports, investing in high-speed trains, and making education affordable is the way to a more productive future. If we head down this ambitious path of development, we will create jobs and put more people to work. It will help the middle class to regain their footing and it will strengthen our slowly growing economy. When our citizens earn more, the economy will lift us all out of the recession that so many.

In all these conflicts, individuals from both sides can read similar history books and even have the same facts taught to them, yet it is very unusual to find individuals who would agree about who started the conflict, who is to blame, who should make the next concession, etc. In such matters, our investment in our beliefs is much stronger than any affiliation to sport teams, and so we hold on to these beliefs tenaciously. Thus the likelihood of agreement about “the facts” becomes smaller and smaller as personal investment in the problem grows. This is clearly disturbing. We like to think that sitting at the same table together will help us hammer out our differences and that concessions will soon follow. But history has shown us that this is an unlikely outcome; and now we know the reason for this catastrophic failure.

When we’re thrown into this world we all start out as prey. If you’re lucky someone protects you, if you’re not then your parents or family become your first experience with predators. If you survive all this, as you grow you become stronger. Some stay prey their whole lives, scared of every leering face, every raised voice, every clenched fist. Some fight back, find they can hurt as well as get hurt. They discover they like it. They become predators. They think they are the strong ones. But they aren’t. The real strong ones are a different breed than the other two altogether. They also fight back, but they get no thrill from the victory. From an early age, they feel a pull to escape not only the predator prey cycle, but the entire society that spawned it, they would rather forge through the wilderness and hack out a place of their own without wasting one moment regretting their rejection of a dying, cannibalistic culture. These wild ones, they’re the ones to watch. If they ever find each other, they could change everything. Not through politics, which is the illusion of change while making sure nothing does, and not through revolution. They could change things by creating something so much better, so much more appealing that people will abandon the old world cycle of abuser and abused in droves till there is nothing left but a handful of elites screaming, “Come back, come back, we have tv, we have cool cars and fidget spinners, don’t miss out on your fidget spinners.” So, if you’re one of those wild ones and you cut yourself out a little piece in the wilderness, burn a big, bright fire at night so the rest of us can find you.

30. Storms Make You Stronger A lot of the advice in this book is about how to cope when things don’t go well. You see, life is unpredictable, and as sure as eggs is eggs, it won’t always swing your way. But when those storms come I have a clear and simple mantra: The time to shine is when it is darkest. In other words: when it is all going wrong, step up to the plate, give it your all, heave hardest on that rope, and show that you are bigger than the obstacle. Nature has a way of rewarding that sort of attitude. Sometimes life tests us a little. Things we had banked on coming in just don’t work out. People let you down, one disaster follows another. You know the phrase: it never rains but it pours. When those times come we have a choice: do we cower and get beaten or do we stand tall and face it? I liken it to the school bully. When you stand up to them, they often stand down. They are testing you to see what you are made of. Man or mouse? So use those tough times as an opportunity to show the world and yourself what you are made of. Regardless of how you feel, how you see yourself, I have learnt one key lesson from mountains and the wild: that underneath it all, we humans are made strong. We all behave and act a little differently, depending on how we have been brought up and what has been thrown at us in our lives - but the underlying truth is that the real core of each of us is strong. I have seen incredible heroics from unlikely people on mountains. But it took exceptional circumstances for that bravery to emerge. You see, we are all a bit like grapes: when you squeeze us, you see what we are made of. And I believe that most people are far stronger than they ever imagine. It is refined within us from thousands of years of having to survive as a species. It might be dusty and hidden away, but it is there somewhere inside you: the heart of a survivor. Courage. Tenacity. Strength. So don’t shy away from hard times, they are your chance to shine. Write this on your bathroom mirror: Struggle develops strength and storms make you stronger.

38. No One Cares How Much You Know Until They Know How Much You Care My SAS patrol sergeant Chris Carter was the living embodiment of this advice, and if you are ever in a position of leading a team or managing people, following his selfless example will help you become a better leader and enable your team to achieve more. Can you imagine how I felt after Chris had let me drink his last drops of water? Gratitude doesn’t come close. One of the regiment’s toughest, most hardened of soldiers was showing that he was looking out for me way beyond the call of duty. And once I had been shown how much he cared, I knew that, in return, I would never let him, or the regiment, down. That simple act of kindness, of caring, is always at the heart of great brotherhoods. Call it what you will: camaraderie, shared purpose. The end product was that here was a man I would work my guts out for. And that made us all stronger. Ditto, on a mountain: the most important bit of kit or resource on any expedition is always the human asset. When valued and empowered, humans have proved they can truly overcome the impossible and scale the unconquerable. But first we have to be valued and empowered. The real value of a team is never in the flash hi-tech equipment or branded sponsors. It’s the people and the relationships between them. As a leader, in whatever field, it is one thing for your team to see how much you know, but that knowledge isn’t what will make your team great. What makes the critical difference is how you use that knowledge. Do you use it to empower and support those around you? Do you value others above yourself? Is your ego small enough, and your backbone strong enough, to raise others up high on your shoulders? If you let people know, through your words and actions, that they really matter, that their work matters, that their wellbeing matters to you, then they will go to the ends of the Earth for you. Why? Because they know they can trust you to use all your knowledge, skills and power to support and encourage them. You see, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

I love that I’ve been lucky enough to travel to every Australian city and work with some of the best, most forward-thinking individuals, and coach many to extraordinary feats. I love the friendships that have been culturally safe and supported me to reach my childhood goals and taught me that our differences make us stronger not weaker.

The card also reminds us to always look for the silver lining in the cloud of our differences. We may come from different backgrounds and have different ideologies about how certain situations should be handled, but our differences only make us stronger. We must therefore endeavor not to just loom past our differences, but to harness our diversity to foster synergy and build a team that’s stronger than the sum of its parts.