Don't Expose Yourself Quotes

Being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it—you need it. If you’re a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don’t hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them—like the sun. They give you life, sure, but they can also burn you and

Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there's no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.

Keep your innocence and ignorance aside, and expose yourself to dangerous situations, and understand the deeper secrets of life.

I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either. I understand why you don't speak, why you don't move, why you've created a part for yourself out of apathy. I understand. I admire. You should go on with this part until it is played out, until it loses interest for you. Then you can leave it, just as you've left your other parts one by one.

If you’re a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don’t hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them—like the sun.

If the ideas are not exposed to other people in the world, those ideas don’t do us any good.

Being alone is not the most awful thing in the world. You visit your museums and cultivate your interests and remind yourself how lucky you are not to be one of those spindly Sudanese children with flies beading their mouths. You make out To Do lists - reorganise linen cupboard, learn two sonnets. You dole out little treats to yourself - slices of ice-cream cake, concerts at Wigmore Hall. And then, every once in a while, you wake up and gaze out of the window at another bloody daybreak, and think, I cannot do this anymore. I cannot pull myself together again and spend the next fifteen hours of wakefulness fending off the fact of my own misery. People like Sheba think that they know what it's like to be lonely. They cast their minds back to the time they broke up with a boyfriend in 1975 and endured a whole month before meeting someone new. Or the week they spent in a Bavarian steel town when they were fifteen years old, visiting their greasy-haired German pen pal and discovering that her hand-writing was the best thing about her. But about the drip drip of long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. They don't know what it is to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the laundrette. Or to sit in a darkened flat on Halloween night, because you can't bear to expose your bleak evening to a crowd of jeering trick-or-treaters. Or to have the librarian smile pityingly and say, ‘Goodness, you're a quick reader!’ when you bring back seven books, read from cover to cover, a week after taking them out. They don't know what it is to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. I have sat on park benches and trains and schoolroom chairs, feeling the great store of unused, objectless love sitting in my belly like a stone until I was sure I would cry out and fall, flailing, to the ground. About all of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.

Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.

Get out there and expose yourself. Open yourself up and find what makes you happy. Yes, that will mean you’ll probably get hurt. But so what? The best things in life don’t come easily.

Keep away from people who always try to stop you from sharing your opinions with the entire world. Don't listen to people who mock you because you talked about who you want to be! Exposed yourself!

Do not expose yourself too much with the negative messages of the news media. Keep yourself informed but don't cultivate fear psychology.

I guess if you were really determined, you could find a way to get yourself killed by exposing the power connectors under the panels and shielding and, I don’t know, licking them or something, but this dead human clearly hadn’t.

Build your house on granite. By granite I mean your nature that you are torturing to death, the love in your child's body, your wife's dream of love, your own dream of life when you were sixteen. Exchange your illusions for a bit of truth. Throw out your politicians and diplomats! Take your destiny into your own hands and build your life on rock. Forget about your neighbor and look inside yourself! Your neighbor, too, will be grateful. Tell you're fellow workers all over the world that you're no longer willing to work for death but only for life. Instead of flocking to executions and shouting hurrah, hurrah, make a law for the protection of human life and its blessings. Such a law will be part of the granite foundation your house rests on. Protect your small children's love against the assaults of lascivious, frustrated men and women. Stop the mouth of the malignant old maid; expose her publicly or send her to a reform school instead of young people who are longing for love. Don;t try to outdo your exploiter in exploitation if you have a chance to become a boss. Throw away your swallowtails and top hat, and stop applying for a license to embrace your woman. Join forces with your kind in all countries; they are like you, for better or worse. Let your child grow up as nature (or 'God') intended. Don't try to improve on nature. Learn to understand it and protect it. Go to the library instead of the prize fight, go to foreign countries rather than to Coney Island. And first and foremost, think straight, trust the quiet inner voice inside you that tells you what to do. You hold your life in your hands, don't entrust it to anyone else, least of all to your chosen leaders. BE YOURSELF! Any number of great men have told you that.

Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.

The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you’ll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don’t like at all, things that shatter your self-image as a fair, kind, cool, attractive, in-control, funny, likable person. Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you’re having an actual life. Suddenly there’s a real choice to be made, not a fake consumer choice between a BlackBerry and an iPhone, but a question: Do I love this person? And, for the other person, does this person love me? There is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle of. This is why a world of liking is ultimately a lie. But there is such a thing as a person whose real self you love every particle of. And this is why love is such an existential threat to the techno-consumerist order: it exposes the lie.

Talking so much you horrify yourself and those around you; talking so little that you almost refuse your own existence: a demonstrates that speech is by no means a straightforward route to connection. If loneliness is to be defined as a desire for intimacy, then included within that is the need to express oneself and to be heard, to share thoughts, experiences and feelings. Intimacy can’t exist if the participants aren’t willing to make themselves known, to be revealed. But gauging the levels is tricky. Either you don’t communicate enough and remain concealed from other people, or you risk rejection by exposing too much altogether: the minor and major hurts, the tedious obsessions, the abscesses and cataracts of need and shame and longing.

Love can be a hell of a draw, the emotional holy grail. But love also exposes our flaws, can even draw out the worst in us. People want to perform heroic deeds, commit flagrantly dramatic acts for love. What they don't realize is that the daily grind is what is required. Instead of a single extraordinary act--slaying the dragon, throwing yourself in front of a bus--it is the repetition of small gestures over a course of years that makes love work.

There's a class of things to be afraid of: it's "those things that you should be afraid of". Those are the things that go bump in the night, right? You're always exposed to them when you go to horror movies, especially if they're not the gore type of horror movie. They're always hinting at something that's going on outside of your perceptual sphere, and they frighten you because you don't know what's out there. For that the Blair Witch Project was a really good example, because nothing ever happens in that movie but it's frightenting and not gory. It plays on the fact tht you do have a category of Those Things Of Which You Should Be Afraid. So it's a category, frightening things. And only things capable of abstraction can come up with something like the caregory of frightenting things. And so Kali is like an embodied representation of the category of frightening things. And then you might ask yourself, well once you come up with the concept of the category of frightening things, maybe you can come up with the concept of what to do in the face of frightening things. Which is not the same as "what do you do when you encounter a lion", or "what do you do when you encounter someone angry". It's a meta question, right? But then you could say, at a philosophical level: "You will encounter elements of the category of all those things which can frighten and undermine you during your life. Is there something that you can do *as a category* that would help you deal with that." And the answer is yeah, there is in fact. And that's what a lot of religious stories and symbolic stories are trying to propose to you, is the solution to that. One is, approach it voluntarily. Carefully, but voluntarily. Don't freeze and run away. Explore, instead. You expose yourself to risk but you gain knowledge. And you wouldn't have a cortex which, you know, is ridiculously disproportionate, if as a species we hadn't decided that exploration trumps escape or freezing. We explore. That can make you the master of a situation, so you can be the master of something like fire without being terrified of it. One of the things that the Hindus do in relationship to Kali, is offer sacrifices. So you can say, well why would you offer sacrifices to something you're afraid of. And it's because that is what you do, that's always what you do. You offer up sacrifices to the unknown in the hope that good things will happen to you. One example is that you're worried about your future. Maybe you're worried about your job, or who you're going to marry, or your family, there's a whole category of things to be worried about, so you're worried about your future. SO what're you doing in university? And the answer is you're sacrificing your free time in the present, to the cosmos so to speak, in the hope that if you offer up that sacrifice properly, the future will smile upon you. And that's one of the fundamental discoveries of the human race. And it's a big deal, that discovery: by changing what you cling to in the present, you can alter the future.

Where ya goin’?” Coleen asked. “I’m taking Lena to dinner, then we’re going dancing.” Coleen threw a hand on her hip. “You don’t smell the gumbo that’s been cooking all day? It’s your favorite. I stuffed every aquatic creature I could find into that pot. Claws and legs are hanging out all over the place.” “I’ll have some tomorrow,” Jorie said as she caught one of the screws that dropped from the blade. “I made pie, damn it. Pecan, just because I know you love it. Bring that woman here for dinner and save yourself a buck or two.” “Oh, no,” Jorie said with a laugh. “I really like her. It’s too soon to expose her to an Andolini dinner.

You become what you give your attention to…If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.

I struggle to stomach sincerity, or to express any authentic emotion, because everything feels insincere when you suspect that deep down, in the chasm of yourself, the most sentient part of you is a little ill-intentioned monster. I feel like a husk, like I am being gradually taken over, and that all my feelings and thoughts are tampered with. I am nervous when I interact with people like Edna. I don't want to expose her to Plankton. I think there have been times in the past where he took me over completely.

Don’t you think I understand? The hopeless dream of being. Not seeming, but being. Conscious at every moment. Vigilant. At the same time, the chasm between what you are to others and to yourself. The feeling of vertigo and the constant desire to at last be exposed — to be seen through, cut down, perhaps even annihilated. Every tone of voice is a lie, every gesture a falsehood, every smile a grimace. Commit suicide? Oh, no. That’s ugly. You don’t do that. But you can be immobile. You can fall silent. Then, at least, you don’t lie. You can close yourself in, shut yourself off. Then you don’t have to play roles, show any faces, or make false gestures. You think…but you see, reality is bloody-minded. Your hideout isn’t watertight. Life seeps in everything. You’re forced to react. No one asks if it’s real or unreal, if you’re true or false. It’s only in the theater the question carries weight — hardly even, there. I understand you, Elisabet. I understand your keeping silent, your immobility. That you’ve placed this lack of will into a fantastic system... I understand and I admire you. I think you should maintain this role until it’s played out, until it’s not longer interesting. Then you can leave it, just as you bit-by-bit leave all your roles.

Mario, I wrote, to give myself courage, had not taken away the world, he had taken away only himself. And you are not a woman of thirty years ago. You are of today, take hold of today, don't regress, don't lose yourself, keep a tight grip. Above all, don't give into distracted or malicious or angry monologues. Eliminate the exclamation points. He's gone, you're still here. You'll no longer enjoy the gleam of his eyes, of his words, but so what? Organize your defenses, preserve your wholeness, don't let yourself break like an ornament, you're not a knickknack, no woman is a knickknack. La femme rompue, ah, rompue, the destroyed woman, destroyed, shit. My job, I thought, is to demonstrate that one can remain healthy. Demonstrate it to myself, no one else. If I am exposed to lizards, I will fight the lizards. If I am exposed to ants, I will fight the ants. If I am exposed to thieves, I will fight the thieves. If I am exposed to myself, I will fight myself.

Being loved means; are disagreements welcome in my relationships? If you cant disagree with someone then you live in a tyranny and if you live in a tyranny then you are only loved to the degree that you erase yourself and conform to the irrational expectations of bullies. That isn't love obviously. Now if somebody in you life demands that you not disagree with them and gets angry, "offended", or outraged should you disagree with them then, that person is not a good person. It's pretty narcissistic. It's somebody who does not have the maturity, wisdom, and ego strength to handle, and in fact welcome disagreements. When people disagree with me as a whole I think it's a great opportunity for learning. People don't want to expose topics that might cause disagreement because, if the disagreement is punished then the illusion of being loved by good people is shattered.

Faking depends on a measure of complicity between the perpetrator and the victim, who together conspire to believe what they don’t believe and to feel what they are incapable of feeling. There are fake beliefs, fake opinions, fake kinds of expertise. There is also fake emotion, which comes about when people debase the forms and the language in which true feeling can take root, so that they are no longer fully aware of the difference between the true and the false. Kitsch is one very important example of this. The kitsch work of art is not a response to the real world, but a fabrication designed to replace it. Yet both producer and consumer conspire to persuade each other that what they feel in and through the kitsch work of art is something deep, important and real. Anyone can lie. One need only have the requisite intention — in other words, to say something with the intention to deceive. Faking, by contrast, is an achievement. To fake things you have to take people in, yourself included. In an important sense, therefore, faking is not something that can be intended, even though it comes about through intentional actions. The liar can pretend to be shocked when his lies are exposed, but his pretence is merely a continuation of his lying strategy. The fake really is shocked when he is exposed, since he had created around himself a community of trust, of which he himself was a member. Understanding this phenomenon is, it seems to me, integral to understanding how a high culture works, and how it can become corrupted.

Empowered Women 101: Forgive yourself for having chosen to expose yourself to people who don't care about your feelings and help others to do the same. Enjoy life! It is as simple as changing your focus or perspective when you start thinking about people from the past who hurt your feelings. Eventually, you will forget about those types of people because your time and attention will be taken up by more positive things/people/events/activities etc. When you understand how much time is wasted trying to make people see you, understand you, respect you, value you, like you or agree with you...life becomes a pointless negative fight for validation that will drain your happiness. You are worth more than the indifference, inattention or crumbs people throw you. You are a queen that demands respect and God will bring the right person into your life to make you forget why you ever wasted your time on nothing important.

Being an introvert doesn't mean you're shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it - you need it. If you're a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don't hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them - like the sun. They give you life, sure, but they can also burn you and you will get that wrinkly Long Island cleavage you've always been afraid of...

It is better to write than not to write. Poetry is subversive because it exposes you, tears you apart. You dare to distrust yourself. You dare to disobey. That's the idea, to disobey everyone. Disobey yourself. I don't know if I like my poems, but I know that if I hadn't written them I'd be dumber, more useless, more individualistic. I publish them because they're alive. I don't know if they're good, but they deserve to live.

Being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it—you need it. If you’re a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don’t hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them—like the sun. They

Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you. It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.

Any person who can't love you for who you are, your already know is wrong; you're beautifully and wonderfully made, you don't need to wear a mask to belong; look at yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count to three, now open your eyes and take a look at yourself, who can love you, more than me...

Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you. It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.

My dear, I was talking about loving yourself. If you don’t do that first, you’re always going to push away those who try to love you.

Nick snorted. “Fine. Whatever. We’ve got to find him. If for no other reason, we don’t need him to do something that could out himself in public.” “Yeah,” Caleb said sarcastically. “They have laws against exposing yourself in public.

Leaders instill courage in the hearts of those who follow. This rarely happens through words alone. It generally requires action. It goes back to what we said earlier: Somebody has to go first. By going first, the leader furnishes confidence to those who follow. As a next generation leader, you will be called upon to go first. That will require courage. But in stepping out you will give the gift of courage to those who are watching. What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business? What has been done is safe. But to attempt a solution to a problem that plagues an entire industry - in my case, the local church - requires courage. Unsolved problems are gateways to the future. To those who have the courage to ask the question and the tenacity to hang on until they discover or create an answer belongs the future. Don’t allow the many good opportunities to divert your attention from the one opportunity that has the greatest potential. Learn to say no. There will always be more opportunities than there is time to pursue them. Leaders worth following are willing to face and embrace current reality regardless of how discouraging or embarrassing it might be. It is impossible to generate sustained growth or progress if your plan for the future is not rooted in reality. Be willing to face the truth regardless of how painful it might be. If fear causes you to retreat from your dreams, you will never give the world anything new. it is impossible to lead without a dream. When leaders are no longer willing to dream, it is only a short time before followers are unwilling to follow. Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity? Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away. Where there is no uncertainty, there is no longer the need for leadership. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the need for leadership. Your capacity as a leader will be determined by how well you learn to deal with uncertainty. My enemy is not uncertainty. It is not even my responsibility to remove the uncertainty. It is my responsibility to bring clarity into the midst of the uncertainty. As leaders we can afford to be uncertain, but we cannot afford to be unclear. People will follow you in spite of a few bad decisions. People will not follow you if you are unclear in your instruction. As a leader you must develop the elusive skill of leading confidently and purposefully onto uncertain terrain. Next generation leaders must fear a lack of clarity more than a lack of accuracy. The individual in your organization who communicates the clearest vision will often be perceived as the leader. Clarity is perceived as leadership. Uncertainty exposes a lack of knowledge. Pretending exposes a lack of character. Express your uncertainty with confidence. You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential. You need a leadership coach. Great leaders are great learners. God, in His wisdom, has placed men and women around us with the experience and discernment we often lack. Experience alone doesn’t make you better at anything. Evaluated experience is what enables you to improve your performance. As a leader, what you don’t know can hurt you. What you don’t know about yourself can put a lid on your leadership. You owe it to yourself and to those who have chosen to follow you to open the doors to evaluation. Engage a coach. Success doesn’t make anything of consequence easier. Success just raises the stakes. Success brings with it the unanticipated pressure of maintaining success. The more successful you are as a leader, the more difficult this becomes. There is far more pressure at the top of an organization than you might imagine.

Repetition takes time, but it builds behaviors with fewer side effects. If you expose yourself to something over and over, it can “grow on you.” You can get to like things that are good for you, even if you don’t like them instantly. But who wants to repeat something over and over if it doesn’t feel good? Usually, people don’t, which is why we tend to rely on the circuits built by accidents of experience. You will be shaped by accident unless you start repeating things by choice.

Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weakness. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.

Being an introvert doesn't mean you're shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it- you need it. If you're a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don't hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them- like the sun.

Look your fill ” the creature murmured his voice as sweet and rich as syllabub sauce. And his lusty grin when he said it was sinful—and pleasurable. Prue was certain her face flamed red at the barbarian’s insinuation. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean ” she replied tartly. He smiled and drained his goblet. His head was tilted back exposing the thick cords in his throat and Prue watched him eagerly drink down the entire contents in one swallow. Never had she seen such a vulgar display. Never had she been so engrossed in the workings of a man’s throat and the movement of his Adam’s apple. With a thunk he set the goblet down and shoved his chair back. His legs were spread and the black leather riding britches he wore were pulled snugly over his massive thighs…and other parts as well. Flushing Prudence glanced away. She could not look at him like that with his lace jabot untied and lying on either side of his opened shirt. A shirt that was unbuttoned and opened to his waist exposing a vast amount of dark male skin hairless and bronzed. “Shall you not look my lady ” he beckoned softly. “I like the feel of your eyes on me.” “Cover yourself sir ” she demanded. “It’s most unseemly.” “Ah the lady is Temperance indeed ” the brute murmured huskily.

Avoid Most Popular Entertainment Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there’s no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.

His voice grew more remote. She wondered if he was calling from his condominium, where he’d lost his best friend, or from Avalon, where he’d lost himself. “I like you, Billie. You’re a nice person. Good company. But tonight was a mistake.” She flung an arm over her eyes and swallowed the lump of tears that had lodged in her throat. “Oh? Which part? The part where you introduced me to your family and exposed yourself as coming from a perfectly average, wholesome background? Or the part where you touched me and turned me inside-out while swaying in a hammock in the rich, beautiful woods—one of the most searing sexual experiences of my life? Which part do you regret, Adrian?” “All of it. I can’t have those things with you. You know what I am.” “Yes, Adrian, I know what you are. A gentle man. A likable one. Smart. Cultured. Sexy. I know what you are.” “But the other part—” “What about the other part? You hide behind the other part.” She yanked the pillow out from beneath her head and winged it across the bedroom, furious suddenly. “Did you call to tell me I’m not going to see you anymore? Because if that’s the case, hurry up and say it. Then hang up and go back to work, and don’t worry one bit about me. I’ve been on my own a long time, and I’m tougher than you think. I won’t cling to any man who’d rather be a-a—” She stumbled, bit back the ugly words rushing to her lips. “A what?” he countered softly. “A whore? A gigolo? Go ahead and say it, Billie. If you’re going to waste your time caring about me, then you’d better get used to the idea, because I can’t change. I won’t. Not for you or anyone.” She bit back a sound of pure derision. “How about for you? Think you could walk the straight and narrow for yourself?” He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. Billie already knew the answer. “You’re afraid.” She sat up among the sheets as cold realization washed through her. “Afraid to live without women clambering to pay top dollar for you. All that money…it’s a measure of your value, right? It’s your self-esteem. What would happen if you were paid in love instead of cash? Would the world end? My God, Adrian. You’re running scared.” The half-whispered accusation seemed to permeate his impassivity. “I was fine before you.” His voice came low and furious. Finally, finally. True emotion. “Damn it, Billie. I want my life back.” “Then hang up and don’t call me again, because I’m not going to pay you for sex, Adrian. What I offer is a worthless currency in your world.

Shortly before death he was asked what his wishes were regarding funeral arrangements. "Don't trouble yourself, the stench will ensure that I get buried." "But", the other objected, "isn't it wrong that the body of a great man should be exposed as food for birds and dogs?" "On the contrary, " he said, "it's the part of a great man, even in death, to be of service to the living.

Any person who can't love you for who you are, your already know is wrong; you're beautifully and wonderfully made, you don't need to wear a mask to belong; look at yourself in the mirror, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and count to three, now open your eyes and take a look at yourself, who can love you, more than me..." #quote from Exposed Poetry Memoirs, 'Self Talk,' by Pre.Kaya' Gilkey

Expose your Self to life! Listen, I get it, I know how vulnerable and scary it can be. Trust your Self enough to sense your own resonance, to know what experiences you want to have and—as important—what experiences you don’t want. Trust yourself to make decisions that serve you. No one else can understand what it means to be you or live your life. It’s an intimate knowing that only you are privy to.

the best salespeople are very insecure. They passionately want success because they think it’ll make them a different person. Then they achieve success and it dawns on them they haven’t changed at all. What drives salespeople is a need for celebrity. They think that once they’re successful, everyone’s opinion of them will change, and if they can change everyone’s opinion of them, they’ll change themselves. Then they succeed, and realize they haven’t changed at all.” For both the successes and failures, there is the endless rejection, the long line of people saying in so many words “I don’t want you, I don’t want what you have, I don’t want you in my life.” If nothing else, selling is an endless confrontation with truth, the truth about yourself and about others. It is raw and uncomfortable and personally exposing

I don't understand how you can live with an open heart. Everyone hurts you. Why don't you protect yourself better? Put up walls? "What if the thing your heart needs most is right on the side of that wall? I know it's dangerous to expose yourself to everything the world wants to throw at it, to everyone who wants to take something for themselves. But I still leave it open, just in case something beautiful comes in.

Dammit." Kate folded her arms. "I don't understand why she has to flaunt her sexuality. It's a private thing. She should keep it that way. Be discreet, like her sister. I don't see you out there exposing yourself to the world." Not because I wouldn't, I wanted to say. And it wasn't about sexuality. Not entirely. It was about identify. Love. Kate added, "She's just asking for trouble." I thought she was asking for acceptance.

Age confers this simple wisdom: Don’t expose yourself to malarial mosquitoes. Don’t expose yourself to assholes. As it turns out, throwing away photos of assholes does not remove them from consciousness. Memory, in fact, gives you no choice over which moments you can erase, and it is annoyingly persistent in retaining the most painful ones. It is extraordinarily faithful in recording the most hideous details, and it will recall them for you in the future with moments that are even only vaguely similar.

I'm talking about your lovely long arms and your perfectly shaped legs... I find I am quite jealous of those stockings for knowing the feel of you, the warmth of you." She shifted, unable to keep still beneath the onslaught of his words. "I'm talking about that corset that hugs you where you are lovely and soft... is it uncomfortable?" She hesitated. "Not usually." "And now?" She heard the knowledge in the question. She nodded once. "It's rather- constricting." He tutted once, and she opened her eyes, instantly meeting his, hot and focused on her. "Poor Pippa. Tell me, with your knowledge of the human body, why do you think that is?" She swallowed, tried for a deep breath. Failed. "It's because my heart is threatening to beat out of my chest." The smile again. "Have you overexerted yourself?" She shook her head. "No." "What, then?" She was not a fool. He was pushing her. Attempting to see how far she would go. She told the truth. "I think it is you." He closed his eyes then, hands fisting again, and pressed his head back against the side of the desk, exposing the long column of his neck and his tightly clenched jaw. Her mouth went dry at the movement, at the way the tendons there bunched and rippled, and she was quite desperate to touch him. When he returned his gaze to hers, there was something wild in those pewter depths... something she was at once consumed and terrified by. "You shouldn't be so quick with the truth," he said. "Why?" "It gives me too much control." "I trust you." "You shouldn't." He leaned forward, bracing his arm against his raised knee. "You are not safe with me." She had never once felt unsafe with him. "I don't think that's correct." He laughed, low and dark, and the sound rippled through her, a wave of pleasure and temptation. "You have no idea what I could do to you, Philippa Marbury. The ways I could touch you. The wonders I could show you. I could ruin you without thought, sink with you into the depths of sin and not once regret it. I could lead you right into temptation and never ever look back." The words stole her breath. She wanted it. Every bit of it.

I felt arrows of rage rising in me, fraught images spreading like bloodstains. There’s no point, I told myself. I reached for the ordinary decoys. It won’t get you anywhere. Think of the outcome you want and make sure you are moving towards it. Got to be practical. That’s what I always told the girls at school. There is so much in life that doesn’t matter, so many things that hold you back, hem you in and throw you off the scent of what’s important. Don’t get too bogged down in things that don’t count or things you cannot influence, and specifically don’t worry too much about making sure others know you’re in the right, because it so easily gets in the way of what you want and need. Become an expert at shrugging most of life off and free yourself for what really interests you. Hone your focus. Don’t bother with cleaning or tidiness beyond basic hygiene. Don’t make your appearance your primary concern. It will zap all your creativity. Be as self-sufficient as you dare. Sometimes you hold more strength when people don’t know what you think or feel, so be very careful whom you confide in. People can run with your difficulties when you least expect it, distort them, relish them even, and before you know it they’re not yours any more. Respect your privacy. And earn you own money or you’ll lack power. Take good care of your friendships, nurture them and they’ll strengthen you. Don’t turn frowning at the defects of other people into a hobby, delicious though it may be; it poisons you. Read every day—it is a practice that dignifies humans. Become a great reader of books and it will help you with reality, you’ll more easily grasp the truth of things and that will set you up for life. And don’t expose your brain to low-quality art forms because there will be a certain measure of pollution.

Don’t Lose Track I don’t live in your heart or in your mind, so I cannot judge your intentions or your beliefs. Although your actions may give me a good impression of who you really are as a person, and although I may learn some lessons from your mistakes, I have no right to openly judge you because my purpose in life is not to criticize other people’s lives but to be respectful and considerate of them along my own path to reach my end vision in life. My path may cross with yours, and I may believe that you are on the wrong track, but if I lose track of my path because I’m too busy judging yours, I will waste my time and yours. Who I am and what I believe in are mine to keep, and who you are and what you believe in are yours to keep. They are yours to strengthen, change, or even keep the same. As long as we can be true to ourselves, stay away from hypocrisy, and be respectful toward one another, we will be happy along our paths to reach our dreams. One day, you will realize that there is no one more worthy of your attention or your criticism than yourself. Imagine putting all of the effort and energy you spend criticizing others and exposing their mistakes toward bettering yourself. Wouldn’t you be much more content and happy?

He looks so goddamn savage, and I think my ovaries are exploding. He’s going to get me pregnant just from this image alone. “You sure you want to go there?” he asks, his voice dripping with sin. “It’s what I want,” I say softly, albeit shakily. He lifts up and the material slides down his arms. Then, I gather his button-up shirt until his abs are exposed, along with the dark tattoos inked into his flesh. Flattening my hands on his hard stomach, blood smearing across his skin, I push it farther up, but he stops me. “Don’t push yourself too hard. This wasn’t about me.” When he goes to lean forward, I plant my hand on his chest and push him back firmly. His mismatched eyes round at the edges in surprise. “Let me try, Zade. I’m not going to fuck you yet. I just want to touch

He looks so goddamn savage, and I think my ovaries are exploding. He’s going to get me pregnant just from this image alone. “You sure you want to go there?” he asks, his voice dripping with sin. “It’s what I want,” I say softly, albeit shakily. He lifts up and the material slides down his arms. Then, I gather his button-up shirt until his abs are exposed, along with the dark tattoos inked into his flesh. Flattening my hands on his hard stomach, blood smearing across his skin, I push it farther up, but he stops me. “Don’t push yourself too hard. This wasn’t about me.” When he goes to lean forward, I plant my hand on his chest and push him back firmly. His mismatched eyes round at the edges in surprise. “Let me try, Zade. I’m not going to fuck you yet. I just want to touch you.

Mario, I wrote, to give myself courage, had not taken away the world, he had taken away only himself. And you are not a woman of thirty years ago. You are of today, take hold of today, don't regress, don't lose yourself, keep a tight grip. Above all, don't give in to distracted or malicious or angry monologues. Eliminate the exclamation points. He's gone, you're still here. You'll no longer enjoy the gleam of his eyes, of his words, but so what? Organize your defenses, preserve your wholeness, don't let yourself break like an ornament, you're not a knickknack, no woman is a knickknack. La femme rompue, ah, rompue, the destroyed woman, destroyed, shit. My job, I thought, is to demonstrate that one can remain healthy. Demonstrate it to myself, no one else. If I am exposed to lizards, I will fight the lizards. If I am exposed to ants, I will fight the ants. If I am exposed to thieves, I will fight the thieves. If I am exposed to myself, I will fight myself.

Plants and animals don't fight the winter; they don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that's where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but it's crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on sparse beauty. It's a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing those deeply unfashionable things - slowing down, letting your spare time expand, resting, is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you'll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you'll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don't then that skin will harden around you. It's one of the most important choices you'll ever make.

Ronan was waiting for her beyond the estate’s guarded gate. From the looks of things, he had been waiting for some time. His horse was nosing brown grass as Ronan sat on a nearby boulder, throwing pebbles at the general’s stone wall. When he saw Kestrel ride through the gate on Javelin, he flung his handful of rocks to the path. He remained sitting, elbows propped on his bended knees as he stared at her, his face pinched and white. He said, “I have half a mind to tear you down from your horse.” “You got my message, then.” “And rode instantly here, where guards told me that the lady of the house gave strict orders not to let anyone--even me--inside.” His eyes raked over her, taking in the black fighting clothes. “I didn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it. After you vanished last night, everyone at the party was talking about the challenge, yet I was sure it was just a rumor started by Irex because of whatever has caused that ill will between you. Kestrel, how could you expose yourself like this?” Her hands tightened around the reins. She thought about how, when she let go, her palms would smell like leather and sweat. She concentrated on imagining that scent. This was easier than paying heed to the sick feeling swimming inside her. She knew what Ronan was going to say. She tried to deflect it. She tried to talk about the duel itself, which seemed straightforward next to her reasons for it. Lightly, she said, “No one seems to believe that I might win.” Ronan vaulted off the rock and strode toward her horse. He seized the saddle’s pommel. “You’ll get what you want. But what do you want? Whom do you want?” “Ronan.” Kestrel swallowed. “Think about what you are saying.” “Only what everyone has been saying. That Lady Kestrel has a lover.” “That’s not true.” “He is her shadow, skulking behind her, listening, watching.” “He isn’t,” Kestrel tried to say, and was horrified to hear her voice falter. She felt a stinging in her eyes. “He has a girl.” “Why do you even know that? So what if he does? It doesn’t matter. Not in the eyes of society.” Kestrel’s feelings were like banners in a storm, snapping at their ties. They tangled and wound around her. She focused, and when she spoke, she made her words disdainful. “He is a slave.” “He is a man, as I am.” Kestrel slipped from her saddle, stood face-to-face with Ronan, and lied. “He is nothing to me.

So you were bored and decided to come looking for me?” He trailed a finger over the exposed part of her upper chest. “Something like that.” Blushing prettily, she brushed his hand away, but not before giving his fingers a squeeze. “Well, I’m busy, so unless you want to help Heather and me in our endeavors, you will have to find some way to amuse yourself.” Grey sighed. “All right, I’ll go, but only because I’m likely to ruin whatever beautification potions you two lovely witches are brewing.” Behind Rose, the maid Heather giggled. Grey grinned at Rose’s wide-eyed disbelief as she looked at first her maid and then him. “Have you always charmed women so easily?” Grey’s humor faded. “I’m afraid so.” And then softly, “It if offends you…” She shoved her palm into his shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot. Flirt with my maid all you want. But I don’t want to hear anything from you when I smile at the footmen.” God she was amazing. He slipped his arms around her, no caring that the maid could see, even though she made a great pretense of not looking. “Are you going out tonight?” Rose pushed against his chest. “Grey, I’m all sweat and grime.” “I don’t care. Answer me, are you going out?” She arched a brow. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” “No.” He held her gaze as he lowered his head, but he didn’t kiss her. He simply let the words drift across her sweet lips. “I’d keep you here every night if I could.” She shivered delicately. Christ, he could kiss her. He could make love to her right there. “All you have to do is ask.” “I won’t have you give up your society for me.” Something flickered in her dark eyes. “It wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice.” Because of the gossip? How long before she began to resent him for it? He could just push her away and be done with it-tell her to go out and find herself a lover, but he would rather carve up the rest of his face than do that. Instead, he took the coward’s route. He didn’t ask for an explanation. He didn’t want to know what she’d heart about him or what they’d said about her. He simply smiled and decided to take advantage of what time he had left. Because he loved having her with him, and spending what had always been lonely hours in company better than any he might have deserved or ever wished for. “You are sweaty and grimy,” he murmured in his most seductive tones. “And now I find I am as well. Shall we meet in the bath in, say, twenty minutes? I’ll scrub your back if you’ll scrub mine.” Of course, when she joined him later, and their naked bodies came together in the hot, soapy water, all thoughts of scrubbing disappeared. And so did-for a brief while-all of Grey’s misgivings. But he knew they’d be back.

CHOOSE CREATIVITY: To be more creative, the first step is to decide you want to make it happen. 2. THINK LIKE A TRAVELER: Like a visitor to a foreign land, try turning fresh eyes on your surroundings, no matter how mundane or familiar. Don’t wait around for a spark to magically appear. Expose yourself to new ideas and experiences. 3. ENGAGE RELAXED ATTENTION: Flashes of insight often come when your mind is relaxed and not focused on completing a specific task, allowing the mind to make new connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. 4. EMPATHIZE WITH YOUR END USER: You come up with more innovative ideas when you better understand the needs and context of the people you are creating solutions for. 5. DO OBSERVATIONS IN THE FIELD: If you observe others with the skills of an anthropologist, you might discover new opportunities hidden in plain sight. 6. ASK QUESTIONS, STARTING WITH “WHY?”: A series of “why?” questions can brush past surface details and get to the heart of the matter. For example, if you ask someone why they are still using a fading technology (think landline phones), the answers might have more to do with psychology than practicality. 7. REFRAME CHALLENGES: Sometimes, the first step toward a great solution is to reframe the question. Starting from a different point of view can help you get to the essence of a problem. 8. BUILD A CREATIVE SUPPORT NETWORK: Creativity can flow more easily and be more fun when you have others to collaborate with and bounce ideas off.

How to Apologize Ellen Bass Cook a large fish—choose one with many bones, a skeleton you will need skill to expose, maybe the flying silver carp that's invaded the Great Lakes, tumbling the others into oblivion. If you don't live near a lake, you'll have to travel. Walking is best and shows you mean it, but you could take a train and let yourself be soothed by the rocking on the rails. It's permitted to receive solace for whatever you did or didn't do, pitiful, beautiful human. When my mother was in the hospital, my daughter and I had to clear out the home she wouldn't return to. Then she recovered and asked, incredulous, How could you have thrown out all my shoes? So you'll need a boat. You could rent or buy, but, for the sake of repairing the world, build your own. Thin strips of Western red cedar are perfect, but don't cut a tree. There'll be a demolished barn or downed trunk if you venture further. And someone will have a mill. And someone will loan you tools. The perfume of sawdust and the curls that fall from your plane will sweeten the hours. Each night we dream thirty-six billion dreams. In one night we could dream back everything lost. So grill the pale flesh. Unharness yourself from your weary stories. Then carry the oily, succulent fish to the one you hurt. There is much to fear as a creature caught in time, but this is safe. You need no defense. This is just another way to know you are alive. “How to Apologize” originally appeared in The New Yorker (March 15, 2021).

When we go to the doctor, he or she will not begin to treat us without taking our history—and not just our history but that of our parents and grandparents before us. The doctor will not see us until we have filled out many pages on a clipboard that is handed to us upon arrival. The doctor will not hazard a diagnosis until he or she knows the history going back generations. As we fill out the pages of our medical past and our current complaints, what our bodies have been exposed to and what they have survived, it does us no good to pretend that certain ailments have not beset us, to deny the full truths of what brought us to this moment. Few problems have ever been solved by ignoring them. Looking beneath the history of one’s country is like learning that alcoholism or depression runs in one’s family or that suicide has occurred more often than might be usual or, with the advances in medical genetics, discovering that one has inherited the markers of a BRCA mutation for breast cancer. You don’t ball up in a corner with guilt or shame at these discoveries. You don’t, if you are wise, forbid any mention of them. In fact, you do the opposite. You educate yourself. You talk to people who have been through it and to specialists who have researched it. You learn the consequences and obstacles, the options and treatment. You may pray over it and meditate over it. Then you take precautions to protect yourself and succeeding generations and work to ensure that these things, whatever they are, don’t happen again.

Depression: What depressed person doesn’t think of himself or herself as a miserable, unredeemable failure? Anger: As in “STAY AWAY or you will see me, and what you see won’t be pretty.” Look for the paradoxical combination of self-loathing and arrogant judgment. Men are specialists at this.       Anorexia: The deep logic of anorexia is that you are unworthy and deserve nothing, so you give yourself nothing. If you give yourself nothing, perhaps you will disappear, or at least less of you will be seen.       Fear and withdrawal: You might as well avoid other people since you feel like you don’t belong with them. You don’t want to be seen.       Exhibitionism: The person who is the life of the party acts shameless in the hope that such a thing is possible.      Addiction: This will both cause shame and cure it, at least temporarily.       Cutting: This seems like the perfect treatment. It punishes you for being “bad,” and the blood makes you feel punished and therefore cleansed. Of course cutting silences shame for only an hour or so, but at least that’s something.       Fears of being exposed: Among the socially or financially successful can lurk a persistent sense that they are only one misstep from being found out and humiliated.       Suicide: Sadly, some people who expect to be exposed and humiliated feel as if they have no alternative but suicide. Many others who live with shame wish they could take their lives, but they are too afraid of what death might bring.       Doubts that God could ever love you: Who could love something so gross?       “I can’t forgive myself”: You might be saying, “I believe God has forgiven me, but something is still wrong. I still feel dirty.”       “I’m just a failure”: Who hasn’t thought that? Of course, families remain the hotbed for shame.

Sometimes our need clouds our ability to develop perspective. Being needy is kind of like losing your keys. You become desperate and search everywhere. You search in places you know damn well what you are looking for could never be. The more frantic you become in trying to find them the less rational you are in your search. The less rational you become the more likely you'll be searching in a way that actually makes finding what you want more difficult. You go back again and again to where you want them to be, knowing that there is no way in hell that they are there. There is a lot of wasted effort. You lose perspective of your real goal, let's say it's go to the grocery store, and instead of getting what you need -nourishment, you frantically chase your tail growing more and more confused and angry and desperate. You are mad at your keys, you are mad at your coat pockets for not doing their job. You are irrational. You could just grab the spare set, run to the grocery store and get what you need, have a sandwich, calm down and search at your leisure. But you don't. Where ARE your keys?! Your desperation is skewing your judgement. But you need to face it, YOUR keys are not in HIS pocket. You know your keys are not there. You have checked several times. They are not there. He is not responsible for your keys. You are. He doesn't want to be responsible for your keys. Here's the secret: YOU don't want to be responsible for your keys. If you did you would be searching for them in places they actually have a chance of being. Straight boys don't have your keys. You have tried this before. They may have acted like they did because they wanted you to get them somewhere or you may have hoped they did because you didn't want to go alone but straight boys don't have your keys. Straight boys will never have your keys. Where do you really want to go? It sounds like not far. If going somewhere was of importance you would have hung your keys on the nail by the door. Sometimes it's pretty comfortable at home. Lonely but familiar. Messy enough to lose your keys in but not messy enough to actually bother to clean house and let things go. Not so messy that you can't forget about really going somewhere and sit down awhile and think about taking a trip with that cute guy from work. Just a little while longer, you tell yourself. His girlfriend can sit in the backseat as long as she stays quiet. It will be fun. Just what you need. And really isn't it much safer to sit there and think about taking a trip than accepting all the responsibility of planning one and servicing the car so that it's ready and capable? Having a relationship consists of exposing yourself to someone else over and over, doing the work and sometimes failing. It entails being wrong in front of someone else and being right for someone too. Even if you do find a relationship that other guy doesn't want to be your chauffeur. He wants to take turns riding together. He may occasionally drive but you'll have to do some too. You will have to do some solo driving to keep up your end of the relationship. Boyfriends aren't meant to take you where you want to go. Sometimes they want to take a left when you want to go right. Being in a relationship is embarking on an uncertain adventure. It's not a commitment to a destination it is just a commitment to going together. Maybe it's time to stop telling yourself that you are a starcrossed traveler and admit you're an armchair adventurer. You don't really want to go anywhere or you would venture out. If you really wanted to know where your keys were you'd search in the most likely spot, down underneath the cushion of that chair you've gotten so comfortable in.

Step 6. Ensure That Your Environment Supports Your Goals Some people subscribe to the philosophy that if the cure doesn’t hurt, it can’t be working. When it comes to permanent changes in diet and lifestyle, the opposite philosophy is the best: The less painful the program, the more likely it is to succeed. Take steps to make your new life easier. Modify your daily behavior so that your surroundings work for you, not against you. Have the right pots, pans, and utensils to cook with; have the right spices, herbs, and seasonings to make your meals delicious; have your cookbooks handy and review them often to make your dishes lively and appealing. Make sure you give yourself the time to shop for food and cook your meals. Change your life to support your health. Don’t sacrifice your health for worthless conveniences. Avoid temptation. Very few people could quit smoking without ridding their house of cigarettes. Alcoholics avoid bars to stop drinking. Protect yourself by protecting your environment. Decrease the time when you are exposed to rich foods to avoid testing your “willpower.” One of the best ways to do this is to throw all the rich foods out of the house. Just as important is to replace harmful foods with those used in the McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss. If many of your meals are eaten away from home, make the situations meet your needs. Go to restaurants that offer at least one delicious, nutritious item. Ask the waiter to remove the butter and olive oil from the table. Accept invitations to dinner from friends who eat and live healthfully. Bring healthful foods with you whenever possible. Keep those people close who support your efforts and do not try to sabotage you. Ask family and friends to stop giving you boxes of candy and cakes as gifts. Instead suggest flowers, a card, or a fruit basket. Tell your mother that if she really loves you she’ll feed you properly, forgoing her traditional beef stroganoff.

But Glass, in her research, discovered that if you dig a little deeper into people's infidelities, you can almost always see how the affair started long before the first stolen kiss. Most affairs begin, Glass wrote, when a husband or wife makes a new friend, and an apparently harmless intimacy is born. You don't sense the danger as it's happening, because what's wrong with friendship? Why can't we have friends of the opposite sex--or of the same sex, for that matter--even if we are married? The answer, as Dr. Glass explained, is that nothing is wrong with a married person launching a friendship outside of matrimony--so long as the "walls and windows" of the relationship remain in the correct places. It was Glass's theory that every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world--that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimate secrets of your marriage. What often happens, though, during so-called harmless friendships, is that you begin sharing intimacies with your new friend that belong hidden within your marriage. You reveal secrets about yourself--your deepest yearnings and frustrations--and it feels good to be so exposed. You throw open a window where there really ought to be a solid, weight-bearing wall, and soon you find yourself spilling your secret heart with this new person. Not wanting your spouse to feel jealous, you keep the details of your new friendship hidden. In so doing, you have now created a problem: You have just built a wall between you and your spouse where there really ought to be free circulation of air and light. The entire architecture of your matrimonial intimacy has therefore been rearranged. Every old wall is now a giant picture window; every old window is now boarded up like a crack house. You have just established the perfect blueprint for infidelity without even noticing.

You see, Lady Celia?" he said in his harsh rasp. "A man can do anything he wants if he has a woman alone." Her pleasure died instantly. Had this just been about teaching her a lesson? Anger roared up in her. How dare he? Remembering the pistol, she shoved it up under his chin and cocked the hammer. "And if he does, the woman has a right to defend herself. Don't you agree?" The surprise on his face was immensely gratifying, but it didn't last long. Eyes narrowing, he leaned closer to hiss, "Go ahead then. Fire." She swallowed. Though there was no ball, the powder alone would do serious damage. She could never... While she hesitated, he removed the pistol from her numb fingers. His glittering gaze bore into her. "Never brandish a gun unless you're prepared to use it." She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling suddenly exposed. "Most men would be cowed by the very sight of a pistol," she muttered. "I wasn't." "You're not most men," she said tightly. He acknowledged that with a curt nod. Then he walked over to one of the pots, aimed down at the dirt, and fired. When the smoke cleared from the muzzle flash, he noted the lack of a hole in the dirt and faced her. "Powder." He glared at her. "Did it occur to you that unless you fired at point-blank range, you might merely anger the man you're aiming for?" "I only need it for men who get close to me," she bit out. "All the same, the next time you need to protect yourself, forget the pistol and bring your knee up between the man's legs as hard as you can. It'll make your point just as effectively and give you plenty of time to escape." Color flooded her cheeks. Since she had brothers, she knew what he meant, but it wasn't something she would ever have thought to do. A pity, for it would have served her well with Ned. "Why are you telling me this?" "I want you to know how to defend yourself if someone's taking liberties." "Even if the someone is you?" A strange light glinted in his eyes as he pocketed her pistol. "Especially if it's me." What did he mean by that? "Mr. Pinter, about our kiss..." "I was making a point," he said tersely. "Nothing more. Complain to your brothers about it and get me dismissed if you must, but don't worry-regardless of what you do, it won't happen again.

In the middle of the night, Alexander—with the moist towel still on his face—was startled out of sleep by the cheerful drunken whisper of Ouspensky, who was shaking him awake, while taking his hand and placing into it something soft and warm. It took Alexander a moment to recognize the softness and warmness as a large human breast, a breast still attached to a human female, albeit a not entirely sober human female, who breathed fire on him, kneeled near his bed and said something in Polish that sounded like, “Wake up, cowboy, paradise is here.” “Lieutenant,” said Alexander in Russian, “you’re going on the rack tomorrow.” “You will pray to me as if I’m your god tomorrow. She is bought and paid for. Have a good one.” Ouspensky lowered the flaps on the tent and disappeared. Sitting up and turning on his kerosene lamp, Alexander was faced with a young, boozy, not unattractive Polish face. For a minute as he sat up, they watched each other, he with weariness, she with drunken friendliness. “I speak Russian,” she said in Russian. “I’m going to get into trouble being here?” “Yes,” said Alexander. “You better go back.” “Oh, but your friend…” “He is not my friend. He is my sworn enemy. He has brought you here to poison you. You need to go back quickly.” He helped her sit up. Her swinging breasts were exposed through her open dress. Alexander was naked except for his BVDs. He watched her appraise him. “Captain,” she said, “you’re not telling me you are poison? You don’t look like poison.” She reached out for him. “You don’t feel like poison.” She paused, whispering, “At ease, soldier.” Moving away from her slightly—only slightly—Alexander started to put on his trousers. She stopped him by rubbing him. He sighed, moving her hand away. “You left a sweetheart behind? I can tell. You’re missing her. I see many men like you.” “I bet you do.” “They always feel better after they’re with me. So relieved. Come on. What’s the worst that can happen? You will enjoy yourself?” “Yes,” said Alexander. “That’s the worst that can happen.” She stuck out her hand holding a French letter. “Come on. Nothing to be afraid of.” “I’m not afraid,” said Alexander. “Oh, come on.” He buckled his belt. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you back.” “You have some chocolate?” she said, smiling. “I’ll suck you off for some chocolate.” Alexander wavered, lingering on her bare breasts. “As it turns out, I do have some chocolate,” he said, throbbing everywhere, including his heart. “You can have it all.” He paused. “And you don’t even have to suck me off.” The Polish girl’s eyes cleared for a moment. “Really?” “Really.” He reached into his bag and handed her some small pieces of chocolate wrapped in foil. Hungrily she shoved the bars into her mouth and swallowed them whole. Alexander raised his eyebrows. “Better the chocolate than me,” he said. The girl laughed. “Will you really walk me back?” she said. “Because the streets are not safe for a girl like me.” Alexander took his machine gun. “Let’s go.

Dear, What’s the Point of it All? What is the point of being nice? When you do not know what you are going to get from it? Knowing eventually sooner rather than later someone and maybe that person you are being nice to will turn their back on you. I always have to stay grounded and focused. When I am there for people, I feel like I am always punished for it. I am always treated as if I committed a crime. I was there for my mom; however, she was killing me slowly but surely. Like my mom, I noticed that when people get themselves in some shit, they get stuck in their own mess. They are confident that they do not have to deal with the consequences—because they know the ‘kind’ person will bail them out. What’s the point of being kind? Like my mom and the officer, there are so many people in the world who are judgmental and tainted because of their selfish needs. What’s the point of my life? Here I am in a library filled with many books. I can read them and go anywhere I want to in my mind, but after I close the book, I will have to snap out of my fantasy world and welcome the cruel cold world, which is reality. If I was a book, I would be better off left on the shelf. There is no excitement in my life—only struggles. What’s the point of living and loving life when the only thing I do is read between the lines and tread carefully? Come to think about it, I am a book that nobody can understand or read. They think they know what is best for me, but if they only take the time to listen, I would be so happy to tell them about me and my needs and wants. My actions scream for attention, but time after time, I am ignored. Sadly, without a care, they were quick to rip out the pages. Yet, once again, nobody noticed me. What’s the point of it all when I never had an opportunity to make a mistake? If I did one thing wrong, they would give up on me and send me to one home after another. I’ve always been fully exposed and had to walk in a line filled with sharp curves from disappointment to disappointment. Sorrow is my aura, and sadness hugs me tightly. It is hard to cry when my eyes are closed shut by the barbed wire fence of my eyelashes as they prohibit tears from falling. What’s the point of complicating my life? I am always back to where I started, and then ... I relive the same patterns, but on a more difficult journey. I believe when you put yourself in your own mess that you should clean it up and start over. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. However, when someone else puts you in their mess, you do not know how to clean up the mess they’ve made. You do not know how to start over because you do not know where to begin. I look at it this way; it is like telling a dead person he/she can start over. How so, when that person’s life no longer exists? I know my life isn’t over. However, I am lost in a maze my mom set up for herself—and she too is lost in her own maze. When a person gets lost in their own maze, they are really fucked up. However, this maze shouldn’t be left for me to figure out. Unfortunately, I am in it, and I have to find my way out one way or another. What’s the point of taking Kace from me? He was safe and in good hands. Now he is worse off with people who are abusing him. He didn’t ask for this—I didn’t either. He deserves so much better. Again, what is the point of it all? What’s the point of making me suffer? Do you get a kick out of it? What are you trying to accomplish? I am trying to understand; what is the point of it all? What is the point? I don’t know why I am here.

You’re all I want, Jane.” As he stroked her, he used his other hand to brush hers away so he could unfasten his own trouser buttons. “The only woman I ever cared about.” “You’re the only man Iever cared about.” She undulated against his fingers, begging for him with her body. “Why do you think…I waited for you so long?” “Not long enough, apparently,” he muttered, “or you wouldn’t have gotten yourself engaged to Blakeborough.” He tugged at her nipple with his teeth, then relished her cry of pleasure. “I only…did it because I was…tired of waiting.” She arched against his mouth. “Because you clearly weren’t…coming back for me.” “I was sure you hated me.” At last he got his trousers open. “You acted like you hated me still.” “I did.” Her breath was unsteady. “But only because…you tore us apart.” He shifted her to sit astride him. “And now?” Flashing him a provocative smile he would never have dreamed she had in her repertoire, she unbuttoned his drawers. “Do I look like I hate you?” His cock, so hard he thought it might erupt right there and embarrass him, sprang free. “You look like…like…” He paused to take in her lovely face with its flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes, and lush lips. Then he swept his gaze down to her breasts with their brazen tips, displayed so enticingly above the boned corset and her undone shift. He then dropped his eyes to the smooth thighs emerging from beneath her bunched-up skirts. Shoving the fabric higher, he exposed her dewy thatch of curls, and a shudder of anticipation shook him. “You look like an angel.” She uttered a breathy laugh. “A wanton, more like.” Taking his cock in her hand, she stroked it so wonderfully that he groaned. “Would an angel do this?” His cock was a rod of iron. “Jane…” He covered her hand to stay it, but she ignored his attempt. “I love it when you can’t control yourself,” she whispered. “I love having you at my mercy. You have no idea…how much I enjoy seeing Dom the Almighty brought low.” He barely registered her words. What she was doing felt so good. So bloody damned good. If she stroked him much more… “I want to be inside you.” He gripped her wrist. “Please, Jane…” Her sensuous smile faltered. “You’ve never said ‘please’ to me before. Not in your whole life.” “Really?” Had he only ever issued orders? If so, no wonder she’d refused him last night. Perhaps it was time to show her she didn’t have to seduce him to gain control. That he could give up his control freely…to her, at least. “Then let me say it now. Please, Jane, make love to me. If you don’t mind.” She stared at him. “I…I don’t know what you mean.” He nodded to his cock, which looked downright ecstatic over the idea. “Get up on your knees and fit me inside you.” Realizing he’d just issued yet another order, he added, “Please. If you want.” Jane got that sultry look on her face again. Like the little seductress she was rapidly showing herself to be, she rose up and then came down on him. By degrees. Very slow degrees. He had trouble breathing. “Am I hurting you?” Her smile broadened as she shimmied down another inch. “Not really.” Stifling a curse, he clutched her arms. “You just…enjoy torturing me.” “Absolutely,” she said and moved his hands to cover her breasts. He was more than happy to oblige her unspoken request, happy to thumb her nipples and watch as her lovely mouth fell open and a moan of pure pleasure escaped her. His cock swelled, and he thrust up involuntarily. “Please…” he said hoarsely. “Please, Jane…” With a choked laugh, she sheathed herself on him. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh, that feels amazing.” “It would feel more amazing if you…would move,” he rasped, though the mere sensation of being buried inside her was making him insane. When she arched an eyebrow, he added, “Please.” “I could get to like this,” she said teasingly. “The begging.

Your mom asked me to come and see if I could help you with-” “Why did you say no to Darius?” he blurted, his brow lowering as he gazed at the black rings in my eyes. “I know he was an asshole to you and he did a lot of things that he shouldn’t have but that was all about power, the throne, the fucking crown. And I didn’t think you cared that much about any of that.” “I don’t. Or I guess, I didn’t. Being Fae kind of goes hand in hand with claiming power though, doesn’t it?” I asked, tightening my jaw as I refused to balk at the subject. “Fine. Whatever. I get that side of it. But what I don’t understand is how you could have said no to loving him. Because when I saw the two of you together I could see how much you liked each other. Even when you were denying it or fighting or whatever, it was still there. And I just don’t get how you could stand there beneath the stars, look him in the eyes and say no. Why would you curse him like that? Why would you curse yourself?” I wanted to shrug off his question, but the accusation in his dark eyes demanded an answer and I blew out a breath as I gave it to him. “Because all I’ve ever wanted is to be loved like that but I was afraid that if I let myself love him, he’d use it to hurt me. Too much has happened between us and…I just don’t trust him.” I raised my chin as the two of them looked at me like my words caused them physical pain. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about Darius. I came here for you.” ... “What are you doing?” Catalina gasped. “Do you trust me, Xavier?” I asked. “Why?” he countered suspiciously “Because I’m going to set you free. Come here.” I beckoned and he got up, walking towards me cautiously as I pulled my Atlas from my pocket and set it recording. “This is Xavier Acrux and he’s got something fucking amazing to show you,” I said, smirking at him as I raised my other hand. “Do I?” he asked in confusion. “Fuck yes. His Order just Emerged and he’s something way cooler than a big old lizard – no offence to Dragons, I’m sure your scaly balls are great and all but it’s just not as badass as being a fucking Pegasus.” Xavier’s eyes widened in horror as I flicked my fingers at him and threw him straight out of the tower window with a gust of wind. We were on the ninth floor so he had plenty of time for fear to shock his Order form from his flesh and spread his wings way before he could hit the ground, but I was ready to catch him with my magic if he didn’t manage it for any reason. Xavier cried out as he fell but his screams suddenly became whinnies as the huge, lilac Pegasus burst from his skin, shredding through his clothes as his wings unfurled and caught on an updraft. I caught it all on camera, laughing excitedly as he levelled out then beat his wings and started flying up and up and up towards the clouds which were lined with silver as the moon shone through them. Catalina rushed forward like she meant to rip my Atlas from my hands, but as her gaze fell on her son out of the window, her lips parted and a beautiful smile graced her mouth. Xavier shot into the clouds and out of sight and I finally ended the recording. I typed out a FaeBook post with the video attached and glanced up at Catalina with my thumb hovering over the post button. I had over a million followers on there now, and if I hit that button, the word would be well and truly out. “The only reason Lionel maintains his hold over him is because it’s a secret. Pegasuses are one of the most common Order forms there are. Unless Lionel wants to alienate all of them, he’ll have to come out in support of his son. The only power he holds here is in keeping it a secret. Once it’s out, it’s out.” “He’ll kill you for exposing this,” she breathed, her eyes wide with fear. (Tory POV)

Tell me about the conversations you and your brother escaped? The ones that drove you to the caverns. Tell me why you refuse to take the throne even when you know your brother won't be fit to do it when you free him,' I demanded. 'Tell me why you thought it was okay in the first fucking place to kidnap me and use me as random before you even knew me!' Frustration crowded my throat. 'Tell me why it never occurred to you to mention the Joining. Tell me about Gianna, Casteel. Does she care for you? Does she want this engagement? Do you care for her? He exhaled roughly, shaking his head, but I wasn't done. 'Tell me why you never told me the truth about Spessa's End until I was here? Was it because you didn't trust me with that information? Tell me about her. The one you loved and lost because of the Ascended. Tell me what happened to her. Will you even say her name?' My chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, and my anger overwhelmed my senses, blocking out his emotions completely. 'Tell me how you can stand to be near me when I represent the people who took so much from you. Tell me why you really came to my room tonight. Tell me something that matters. That is real.' Casteel's chest rose with a heavy breath. 'You want something real?' 'Yes.' 'I came to your room tonight to learn if what you said at dinner was true. That I was the first person to ever seen you. That I was the first thing you ever chose for yourself. That you chose me when you knew me as Hawke, and even after you learned the truth, you still chose me,' he growled, his eyes luminous. 'I came here tonight to learn if you really felt like you were betraying Vikter and Rylan, all the others and yourself. I came here to see if that'd changed. Was all of that real, or were you just pretending?' I took a step back, entirely too exposed, and it had nothing to do with the ridiculous nightgown. I hadn't expected him to go there. I wasn't sure why, but I hadn't. He shook his head as he barked out a short, humourless laugh. 'Yeah. Silence. As usual. That's why there was never a reason to tell you any of those things you've demanded from me.' I stared up at him, hands and arms trembling. 'I don't know what you want from me.' 'Everything,' he bit out between clenched teeth. 'I want everything.

Expose yourself to Bible-saturated people, both the living and the dead. Their lives and their words are a great help to our joy.

I call it a villain because it’s sneaky and up to no good. It hides in the back of your mind, and you don’t even realize it exists. And the worst part about this inner villain is that, in most cases, external factors in your life that seemed innocuous created this villain. We’ll address these factors soon. You may not realize it, but this villain has created a glass ceiling—an artificial limit on what you can achieve and who you can be. And what’s even worse, once that villain is inside you, it is anchored down by multiple internal factors that prevent its escape. You may sometimes find yourself wondering why you’re working faster, your life is going by quicker, and you’re ultimately working harder than ever before, but you haven’t found that next level of life. And the simple explanation is: You have a villain working against you and you don’t even know it. The good news: We’re going to expose it once and for all.

IT IS LIKE YOU DON'T WANT TO BE EXPOSING YOUR BLIND SPOTS TO YOURSELF; YOU WANT TO BE IN DELUSION, LIKE HOW THE INDIAN HINDUS ARE THINKING THAT THEY ARE MAJORITY AND SANATANA HINDU DHARMA IS NEVER GOING TO BE DESTROYED.

Toxic is toxic, and you don’t have to keep exposing yourself to radioactive waste because you share a bloodline with it.

Kitchen people understood that food didn't have to be gourmet to taste good, and that sometimes gourmet food didn't taste good at all. "Kiwis are a soulless fruit," my mother once said when she saw them in a fruit tart on the Ritz's dessert tray. "Don't ever use sun-dried tomatoes," my father told his staff. "They'll take your magic powers." Even junk food could be better. Once, for Jake's birthday, the staff laid out his favorite foods--- frozen meatballs and Twinkies--- on brass serving plates in the dining room. When they sliced the Twinkies horizontally to expose the cream, even my mother admitted they made an attractive dessert. At staff Christmas parties we served junk food, too: sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, chicken wings, and hot dogs, and for dessert more Twinkies. The rest of the year I never ate food like that, and by the holidays Cotswold tarts and melon wrapped in prosciutto bored me. In my black velvet dresses, I gnawed on fried drumsticks, with a napkin stuffed into my lace collars to catch the crumbs. "I'm not whipping up any foie gras for you tonight, kiddo," said Carla, who, in her olive-green T-shirt and holding a beer, looked the same as she did behind the line. "Fend for yourself.

This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you. It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.

Honeybees fly and land wherever they need to, and it is an instinctive need, so don't expose yourself everywhere to risk your instinct.

It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you. It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.

Roll around in the world, examine what you like and what you don’t, study what comes naturally to you and what doesn’t. Follow your bad feelings to their origin. Lift up the rock of your envy of that girl who makes textiles/writes graphic novels/builds buildings/takes pictures. Expose yourself. Get to a place where you are vulnerable and open. In this journey of exploration, there may come a moment when what you want to do will slap you in the face, when doing this thing and imagining yourself doing this thing will feel so special as to almost be illicit, and when thinking about getting paid just for doing this thing will nearly kill you with happiness. When someone else is doing what you want to do, you will blaze with jealousy. It will burn and burn and burn inside you. Actually doing what you want to do will make you feel so afraid your body will shake, and you will want to throw up. Whether your career dream is specific or broad, creative or medical or political or technical, gaining access to this dream will feel exhilarating. This is how you know you’ve found it.

When I was born,” she said, careful not to look at him. “I was deemed unworthy to live. My father saved me from being exposed, but that only proved something about him. It didn’t say anything about me. All the time I was growing up, I could look around and see people who didn’t think I’d deserved to live.” Including her mother. She wouldn’t mention that to him. It sounded self-pitying, even to herself. And it had nothing to do with what she was saying. Did it? “I worked alongside my father. I gathered just like he did. I did all the work that was expected of me. But it still wasn’t enough to prove that I deserved to live. It was just what was expected of me. What would have been expected of any Rain Wild daughter.” She did look at him then. “Proving I could be ordinary, despite how I looked, wasn’t enough for any of them.” His hands, tanned brown, worked like separate little animals, stripping the fruit and loading it into his pack. She’d always liked his hands. “Why wasn’t it enough for you?” he asked her. There was the rub. She wasn’t sure. “It just wasn’t,” she said gruffly. “I wanted to make them admit that I was just as good as any of them and better than some.” “And then what would happen?” She was quiet for a time, thinking. She stopped her gathering to eat one of the yellow fruit. Her father had a name for them, but she couldn’t remember it. They didn’t commonly grow near Trehaug. These were fat and sweet. They’d have fetched a good price at the market. She got down to the fuzzy seed and scraped the last of the pulp off with her teeth before she tossed it away. “It would probably make them hate me more than they already did,” she admitted. She nodded to herself and smiled, saying, “But at least then they’d have a good reason for it.” Tat’s backpack was full. He pulled the drawstring tight. She’d never seen that pack before; probably ship’s gear. He picked another fruit, took a bite of it, and then asked, “So, for you, it wasn’t about proving yourself and then being able to break their rules? Get married, have babies.” She thought about it. “No. Not really. Just making them admit that I deserved to live might have been enough for me.” She turned her head and added, “I don’t think I really focused on the ‘get married, have babies’ part of it. The rules about us were just the rules about us.” “Not for Greft,” he said, shaking his head. “He’d finished the fruit. He put the whole seed in his mouth, chewed on it for a moment, and then spat it out. “Greft and his new rules,” she muttered to herself. “You never wanted to live without the rules they put on you? Just do what you wanted to do?” “The rules are different for me than for him,” she said slowly. “How?” “Well, he’s male. Women like me… just as often as we give birth to children who can’t or shouldn’t survive, we don’t survive ourselves. The rules about not having husbands or having children, my father said was there to protect me as much as anything else.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Greft changes the rules, it’s no risk for him, is it? He’s not the one who’s going to go into labor out here with no midwife. He’s not the one who’ll have to deal with a baby who can’t survive. I don’t think he’s ever wondered what he’s going to do with that baby if Jerd dies and the baby lives.” “How can you think of such things?” Tats was aghast. “How can you not think of them?” she retorted.

Other people might look at you and think you are exposed. You are not exposed, you are safe. Others who don't understand might think you have no control. You have complete control. You have presented yourself to me, allowed this, like the most beautiful of gifts and you can take it back whenever you wish." Jack's breath hitched for a second. "So much strength and beauty in this. Others don't see it. I don't think you always see it, but I will show you. I will show you your own strength.

If you see yourself as a relatively good, moral, conscientious, church-going person, or one who’s constantly being affirmed by others, you might wonder how you can possibly think of yourself as a lost sinner. But it should be obvious. When we step into the light of Christ’s perfect righteousness, our utter depravity is exposed. Our righteousness is shown to be nothing more than filthy rags. Our supposed goodness is nowhere to be found. If you don’t readily understand and humbly admit this, then genuinely ask God to open the eyes of your heart and expose your true depravity in light of his holiness.

If your needs are not attainable through safe instruments, the solution is not to increase the rate of return by upping the level of risk. Instead, goals may be revised, savings increased, or income boosted through added years of work. . . . Somebody has to care about the consequences if uncertainty is to be understood as risk. . . . As we’ve seen, the chances of loss do decline over time, but this hardly means that the odds are zero, or negligible, just because the horizon is long. . . . In fact, even though the odds of loss do fall over long periods, the size of potential losses gets larger, not smaller, over time. . . . The message to emerge from all this hype has been inescapable: In the long run, the stock market can only go up. Its ascent is inexorable and predictable. Long-term stock returns are seen as near certain while risks appear minimal, and only temporary. And the messaging has been effective: The familiar market propositions come across as bedrock fact. For the most part, the public views them as scientific truth, although this is hardly the case. It may surprise you, but all this confidence is rather new. Prevailing attitudes and behavior before the early 1980s were different. Fewer people owned stocks then, and the general popular attitude to buying stocks was wariness, not ebullience or complacency. . . . Unfortunately, the American public’s embrace of stocks is not at all related to the spread of sound knowledge. It’s useful to consider how the transition actually evolved—because the real story resists a triumphalist interpretation. . . . Excessive optimism helps explain the popularity of the stocks-for-the-long-run doctrine. The pseudo-factual statement that stocks always succeed in the long run provides an overconfident investor with more grist for the optimistic mill. . . . Speaking with the editors of Forbes.com in 2002, Kahneman explained: “When you are making a decision whether or not to go for something,” he said, “my guess is that knowing the odds won’t hurt you, if you’re brave. But when you are executing, not to be asking yourself at every moment in time whether you will succeed or not is certainly a good thing. . . . In many cases, what looks like risk-taking is not courage at all, it’s just unrealistic optimism. Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don’t know the odds. It’s a big difference.” Optimism can be a great motivator. It helps especially when it comes to implementing plans. Although optimism is healthy, however, it’s not always appropriate. You would not want rose-colored glasses in a financial advisor, for instance. . . . Over the long haul, the more you are exposed to danger, the more likely it is to catch up with you. The odds don’t exactly add, but they do accumulate. . . . Yet, overriding this instinctive understanding, the prevailing investment dogma has argued just the reverse. The creed that stocks grow steadily safer over time has managed to trump our common-sense assumption by appealing to a different set of homespun precepts. Chief among these is a flawed surmise that, with the passage of time, downward fluctuations are balanced out by compensatory upward swings. Many people believe that each step backward will be offset by more than one step forward. The assumption is that you can own all the upside and none of the downside just by sticking around. . . . If you find yourself rejecting safe investments because they are not profitable enough, you are asking the wrong questions. If you spurn insurance simply because the premiums put a crimp in your returns, you may be destined for disappointment—and possibly loss.

Your dad says you have a boyfriend,” she says and smiles. I nod. “Matthew,” I tell her. She doesn’t deserve the details. “The one with the tattoos,” she says. “He’s very handsome.” “He’s good and kind,” I correct. Then I smile, because thinking of him brings it out in me. “And handsome.” “Do you love him?” she asks. I nod my head. “As much as I know about love,” I say. “If I have to say yes or no, I say yes. But I’m not completely sure what that means.” “I’m sorry we made you doubt yourself so much. You’re worth so much more.” She swipes a hand beneath her nose. “We were terrible examples.” “I don’t trust him with my heart,” I admit. “I’m terrified to love him.” “Afraid he’ll turn on you?” she asks. “Or that he’ll walk away?” “Or that he’ll love me till the end of time,” I say. That’s just as scary, because I don’t know what to do with it. “You should look into some Al-Anon meetings,” she says. “They’re for families of addicts.” “Okay,” I say. She taps my leg. “For you,” she says. “Not for me.” She lights a new cigarette. I raise my brow at her. She laughs. “I’ve never felt quite so exposed. It’s a new and scary feeling. So, forgive me my vices. I’ll quit when I get through this.” “Okay.” I understand. I think. “Don’t be afraid to let him love you, Sky,” she says quietly. “I was afraid to let your dad love me. I didn’t think I deserved it, after the things I did when I was drinking. So I shut him out. Let Matthew in. Let him love you. Take it all in and let it seep into your bones. Don’t let it go. If he breaks your heart, at least you’ll know you still have one. Don’t die inside, like me. Let love in. Let it surround you and keep you on your feet when you can’t go anymore. Let. Love. In.

This is also where breakthroughs happen. Take it from fitness expert, Tony Horton: Failure and success are siamese twins; they don’t exist without each other. There’s no way around it. The problem with the word “failure” is that it connotes that you’re a loser—and losers don’t succeed or get the girl (or guy or pie or pot of gold or whatever it is you wanna get). As a result, many people would rather play it safe, not take chances, not explore, and never, ever stick their neck out and actually try. Most people don’t realize that failure is the key to joy, happiness, and growth. If you’re afraid to fail, then you’ll never expose yourself to opportunities for success. On the other hand, if you view failure as awesome, then you’ll be open to trying things—and falling on your face, screwing up, making mistakes, and blowing it once in a while. Sucking at something every once in a while is how you achieve greatness in the long run.[27]

People think they know what you're feeling. What you must be feeling. And because it's easier not to expose yourself, what you're truly feeling, you don't disabuse them. You go through the motions for them.

The Bridges of Marin County harbor views back east never so panoramic but here driving the folds of mt tamalpais the whole picture smooth blue of the bay set like a table for dinner guests who seat themselves in berkeley oakland and san jose pass around delicate dishes of angel island ferry boats and alcatraz i'll save a spot for you in san francisco spread with your favorite dishes don't leave me hanging in marin dinner at eight and everyone else on time you said you'd bring the wine we waited as long as we could the food went cold witnesses said that you stood nearly an hour i imagine you crossing back and forth leaning tower to tower finally choosing the southern your wish to rest nearer the city than the driveway how long had you been letting your two selves push each other over the edge stuffing your pockets with secrets and shame weighing yourself down with cement shoes a gangster assuring your own silence i pay the toll daily wondering as the dark shroud of the bay smoothed over you that night who did you think your quiet splash was saving were you keeping yourself from the pleasures you found in the city boys in dark bars handsome men who loved you did they love you too did you wrestle with vertigo lose your sense of balance imagine yourself icarus dizzied by your own precarious perch glorious ride on flawed wings was it so impossible to live and love on both sides of the bay did you think i couldn't feel your love when it was there for me your distraction when desires divided history like the water smoothes over with half-truth story of good job and grieving widow but each time i cross this span i wonder about the men with whom i share the loss of you invisibly i sit unseen in a castro cafe wondering which men gave you what kinds of comfort delight satisfaction these men of leather metal tattoos did you know them how did you get their attention how did they get yours did you walk hand-in-hand with a man who looked like you the marlboro man double exposed did you bury a love of bondage dominance submission in the bay did you find friendship too would you and i have found the same men handsome where are you in this cafe crowd i want to love what you wouldn't show me dance with more than a slice of truth hold your halves together in my arms and rock the till i have mourned and honored the whole of you was it so impossible to cross that divide to live and love on both sides of the bay hey isn't that what bridges are for

those doing intense physical activity, 10 hours is not too much. •The best way to figure out the right amount of sleep for you is to spend 10 to 14 days going to sleep when you are tired and waking up without an alarm clock. Take the average sleep time. That’s what you need. •For a better night’s sleep, follow these tips, consolidated from the world’s leading researchers: Ensure you expose yourself to natural (i.e., non-electric) light throughout the day. This will help you maintain a healthy circadian rhythm. Exercise. Vigorous physical activity makes us tired. When we are tired, we sleep. But don’t exercise too close to bedtime. Limit caffeine intake, and phase it out completely 5 to 6 hours prior to your bedtime. Only use your bed for sleep and sex. Not for eating, watching television, working on your laptop, or anything else. The one exception is reading a paper book prior to bed. Don’t drink alcohol close to bedtime. Although alcohol can hasten the onset of sleep, it often

The purpose of life is to live. To live is to express. To express is to be what you want to be and to do what you want to do and to have what you want to have. There is an abundance of everything you could desire in the universe. There are laws or rules of making available all the things you desire. So all you need to do is to learn the laws and decide what you desire, and then do something about it. It is your privilege to either say to yourself, "I don't believe all this" or to say. "I am open-minded and will assume that it is true until I prove it either true or untrue, inasmuch as it is good. If it proves untrue, fine, at least I exposed myself to the possibility of discovering that it was true. If it proves to be true, then I will always know how you feel happy, healthy and prosperous." The indescribable abundance of the universe will be yours as you choose to express it, because now you know the truth about it. Now you know who you are. You know that you are an important individual. You know that you have a special job to do in life. Now, you must neutralize all those false concepts of yourself; the idea that you were not as good as someone else; the idea that you were not as pretty as someone else, etc. The way that you do that is to assume the new premise that you are an exclusive, important individual and feel the new concept so strongly that your new concept becomes a deeper habit pattern in your subconscious than the old ones. Then you will automatically feel confident. Confidence or faith is based upon knowledge of self. Your knowledge of self now does not justify feeling inferior. It justifies a feeling of real importance. You now know who you are and your relationship to your creator and your fellow men.

Being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it—you need it. If you’re a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don’t hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them—like the sun. They give you life, sure, but they can also burn you and you will get that wrinkly Long Island cleavage I’ve always been afraid of getting and that I know I now have. For me, meditation and headphones on the subway have been my sunscreen, protecting me from the hell that is other people. There’s a National Geographic photo I love of a young brown bear.

I picked up the earthen cup and went to take a sip. “Not like that,” Miyamoto said. “Let it cool a little. Give yourself a moment to appreciate the aroma, the feel of the bowl in your hands.” I was a little surprised and didn’t respond, though nor did I drink any tea. Miyamoto flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is why my children prefer to avoid me. Only…it seems a shame, not to pause to appreciate the small things. So often they’re more important than what we think are the big ones.” Somehow, being corrected by Miyamoto didn’t sting. “It’s fine,” I said. “Do you know a lot about tea?” He shook his head quickly as though embarrassed. “Very little.” I sensed he was being modest. “You’ve done sadō, I think,” I said, referring to the Japanese tea ceremony—literally, “the way of tea.” “Perhaps I was exposed to it somewhat, when I was younger. But still it’s really not right for me to suggest to others how they should comport themselves.” “No, I don’t mind,” I said, setting my bowl down. “Show me the way you would do it.” He beamed. “All right, since you ask. What’s important is not much more than what I said. The purpose is to appreciate, to pay careful attention…to be mindful. Not to overlook what seems small but that is in fact significant. The rest is commentary, no?” The word he used for “mindful” was nen, which typically means “sense” or “feeling.” If he hadn’t offered the additional context, I wouldn’t have quite understood his meaning. I nodded and followed his lead, holding the bowl, appreciating the aroma, savoring the taste. At first I was just being polite, but after a few moments, I started to wonder if he might have a point. I knew there were tradecraft things I’d been missing. Why wouldn’t there be everyday things, as well? What would it cost to become more heedful of those things…and would the practice of becoming more heedful of one naturally cause me to become more heedful of the other? I thought this nen was an attitude worth cultivating. Not just to appreciate the things that make life worth living. But to be attuned to the things that can keep you alive.

hurt your feelings, and then observe how they react (this naturally assumes that you yourself are treating them respectfully). If it's a psychopath, don't expect a lot of understanding. At best they may say “that's nothing to get hung up about!”, which means that they take no responsibility and don't feel bad about it at all. But they may also get angry and say much worse things to you—but then at least you know what kind of person they are. If they on the other hand apologize, and you feel genuine understanding, love, compassion and empathy, that's a good sign! The most important thing however, is how they act from then on. Are they more considerate? Did they change for the better? Or was it no more than a false excuse to end your “nagging” for the moment?

Don’t be afraid. The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.” We do not know why this Gentile widow should have believed this, but she did. “She went away and did as Elijah had told her.” This part of the Elijah story is important because it not only continues to demonstrate patience in disappointment but also shows how faith is sometimes spelled R-I-S-K. Risk means “to accept or expose yourself to possible harm or loss.” So the question becomes, Who took the greater risk, Elijah or the widow? Elijah risked being extremely impertinent and putting her off entirely. The widow risked depleting her last bit of food. Going Outside Your Comfort Zone Behind this part of the story is a principle of faith: To experience the extraordinary you must go outside your comfort zone. Do you want to see God work in a powerful way—as in the

I believe that if markets were hidden deep in obscured places, it would definitely be impossible for some people to get there to make transactions! If you secluded yourself out of sight, your dreams cannot go that far!

To design, to code, to write is to embrace danger, to plunge ahead into the unknown, making new things out of constantly changing materials, exposing yourself to criticism and failure every single day. It’s like being a sand painter in a windstorm, except Buddhist monks probably don’t have to figure out how to fit IAB ad units into their mandalas.

WOLVES IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING—I’VE MET THEM, AND SO HAVE YOU Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. Matthew 7:15 Alaska has its wolves. You can’t miss them. They’re ferocious and deadly. But at least they’re obvious. Washington, D.C., has wolves, too, though they dress in sheep’s clothing—at least at election time. Still, if you watch long enough, and closely enough, you’ll catch them stripping off their disguising, flea-ridden wool and exposing their wolfish fangs. The media obviously push certain politicians to the forefront, and more often than not it’s the most liberal of the bunch. In other words, they’re pushing false prophets who want to sell you a bill of goods while they “fundamentally transform” our country. So do your own homework on candidates and issues, and investigate what’s beneath the sheep’s clothing. The voting record—and business record—of a politician will tell you a lot of what you need to know. We have a responsibility to elect leaders who will bear good fruit. That means we need to be wise in the voting booth. It means that if you vote for a liberal Democrat, don’t be surprised if he appoints an activist judge who overturns the will of the people, or if he hires left-leaning bureaucrats who regulate you out of basic constitutional rights. (And by the way, keep an eye on Republicans too: most of them need to get serious about out-of-control spending.) When you vote for politicians, think about the fullness of what they can do, how they will make decisions, how they will vote or lead. It’s a heavy responsibility—but it’s ours. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Before any election, don’t listen to the mainstream media insisting you vote for their chosen one. Look out for false prophets, for wolves in sheep’s clothing. Inform yourself and make your decision—and remember that you are morally accountable for your vote.

Most people don’t realize that failure is the key to joy, happiness, and growth. If you’re afraid to fail, then you’ll never expose yourself to opportunities for success.

Final checklist To significantly increase the quantity and quality of ideas that you generate, reading this book isn’t enough. You need to make principles from this book a part of your own habits. Below you will find the 7 most fundamental principles of creating successful business ideas. Write them down on a sheet of paper and hang it near the desk where you work or near your bed. Over the next 3 weeks, think for at least 15-30 minutes per day about ideas using these principles. These can be ideas that will help you improve your business, achieve your dreams or make your life more interesting. I promise you that by the end of these 3 weeks you will notice a significant jump in your creative performance. 1. Collect raw materials. Ideas are combinations or modifications of other ideas. The more you know the ideas of other people and the more life experiences you expose yourself to, the more creative raw materials you have. The more creative raw materials you have, the more combinations your subconscious mind will be able to make and the more likely you are to create new valuable and interesting ideas. 2. Set the task for the subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is a powerful thinking mechanism, but it remains idle if you haven’t given it a task. Once you begin giving your subconscious questions to think about regularly, you will notice how the quantity and quality of your ideas will skyrocket. 3. Separate analyzing and generating ideas. When you are analyzing ideas, your analytical brain blocks your superfast creative brain from thinking. To let the creative brain do its work, separate the processes of analyzing and generating ideas. 4. Think and rest. The most effective thinking algorithm is the following: think about a problem for an extensive period of time, forget about the problem and rest, occasionally think about the problem for few minutes and forget about it again. The incubation period when you don’t think about the problem is essential for your subconscious mind to process millions of thoughts and combinations of ideas, however to give it a task you need to think for some time about the problem consciously. 5. Generate many ideas. In creative thinking, quantity equals quality. You can’t generate one great idea. However, you can generate many ideas and select one or several great ideas out of them. 6. Have fun. Your subconscious mind thinks most effectively when you have fun. When you are serious, you are very unlikely to create really creative and valuable ideas. 7. Believe and desire. Believe that you will generate great ideas and have a burning desire to generate them. If you do, great ideas will come to you in abundance and sooner or later the problem will be solved. Once you have made these 7 principles a part of your own creative habits, glance through the book again and practice other principles and techniques. In a year’s time of practicing generating ideas regularly, you will become a world-class creative thinker. The skill of creating ideas will make your business successful and your life an adventure. I wish you good luck in creating successful ideas and in achieving all your dreams in business.

Palmer reminds us of what happens when we don’t allow ourselves to be revealed: Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the integrity that comes from being what you are.

We expose our most sensitive personal information any time we Pick up a phone, respond to a text, click on a link, or carelessly provide personal information to someone we don’t know; Fail to properly secure computers or devices; Create easy-to-crack passwords; Discard, rather than shred, documents that contain PII; Respond to an email that directs us to call a number we can’t independently confirm, or complete an attachment that asks for our PII in an insecure environment; Save our user ID or password on a website or in an app as a shortcut for future logins; Use the same user ID or password throughout our financial, social networking, and email universes; Take [online] quizzes that subtly ask for information we’ve provided as the answers to security questions on various websites. Snap pictures with our smartphone or digital camera without disabling the geotagging function; Use our email address as a user name/ID, if we have the option to change it; Use PINS like 1234 or a birthday; Go twenty-four hours without reviewing our bank and credit card accounts to make absolutely sure that every transaction we see is familiar; Fail to enroll in free transactional monitoring programs offered by banks, credit unions, and credit card providers that notify us every time there is any activity in our accounts; Use a free Wi-Fi network [i.e. cafés or even airports] without confirming it is correctly identified and secure, to check email or access financial services websites that contain our sensitive data.