Easier To Walk Away Quotes

Women fall in love quicker than men. Easier and more often. But when guys fall? We go down harder. And when things go bad? When it's not us who ends it? We don't get to walk away. We crawl.

Question: I am interested in so many things, and I have a terrible fear because my mother keeps telling me that I'm just going to be exploring the rest of my life and never get anything done. But I find it really hard to set my ways and say, "Well, do I want to do this, or should I try to exploit that, or should I escape and completely do one thing?" Anaïs Nin: One word I would banish from the dictionary is 'escape.' Just banish that and you'll be fine. Because that word has been misused regarding anybody who wanted to move away from a certain spot and wanted to grow. He was an escapist. You know if you forget that word you will have a much easier time. Also you're in the prime, the beginning of your life; you should experiment with everything, try everything.... We are taught all these dichotomies, and I only learned later that they could work in harmony. We have created false dichotomies; we create false ambivalences, and very painful one's sometimes -the feeling that we have to choose. But I think at one point we finally realize, sometimes subconsciously, whether or not we are really fitted for what we try and if it's what we want to do. You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now.

It’s so much easier to walk away than it is to have to explain to someone that you never want to see them again.

None of us really has anything to lose. That makes it easier to give away.

Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense. To make this all go away. And disappear. I know that's wrong, because it's my responsibilty, and I know things have to get worse before they get better. I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why their here. If they like their jobs. Or us. I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day. And how they cope with having three quizes and a book report. On top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why. Especially since I know that if they went to another school, the person who had their heart broken would have had their heart broken by somebody else, so why does it have to be personal? It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especiall me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and than make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.

It’s always easier to walk away.

I hate confrontations. It's so much easier to walk away than it is to explain to someone that you never want to see them again.

I turned to him and he reached for my hand. It would have been easier to walk away. But the wind still blew around us and the house still stood.

Walking away from you with a broken heart is easier to handle than selling my soul to make love with you. I'm sorry, Adrian. I might be lonely, and naive, and all the things you think about me. But I'm also true to myself, and I won't denigrate my feelings for you. They're much too precious in a world that offers so little love.

I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to have an old shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High Street. I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village was very peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to show me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave and sob I broke into tears. We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.

Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier just to leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box.

Healthy people know not to gorge on anger. At the end of the day, they walk away. They choose to end it. And it’s an easier choice the next time.

In the end, it was such a simple, small thing. He had felt flashes of it before in his life, the absolute certainty. But the truth was that he’d kept walking away from it. It was a far more terrifying idea to imagine how much control he really had over how his life turned out. Easier to believe that he was a gallant ship tossed by fate than to captain it himself.

Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. "Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?" "A thirty-eight." "I like a nine-millimeter myself." "A nine's good." "Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said. One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Christian, but at ten years old, when I was taken into Ragnar’s family, I discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs to a country so far away that I have met no one who has ever been there. Thor and Odin walked our hills, slept in our valleys, loved our women and drank from our streams, and that makes them seem like neighbours. The other thing I like about our gods is that they are not obsessed with us. They have their own squabbles and love affairs and seem to ignore us much of the time, but the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws. He strikes me as a very grumpy god, that one, even though his priests are forever claiming that he loves us. I have never been so stupid as to think that Thor or Odin or Hoder loved me, though I hope at times they have thought me worthy of them.

She forced herself to...turn and face him. It was easier with the width of the room between them. "I wanted to be able to take this relationship at face value, to enjoy it for what it was.... And I wanted to be sure I could walk away when it was over, completely unscathed. The problem is I can't. When you walked in this morning, all I could think was how much I'd wanted to see you, how much I'd missed you, how unhappy I'd because we were angry at each other." She stopped, straightened her shoulders. He was grinning at her, rocking back and forth on his heels. In a minute she was sure he'd be whistling. "I'd appreciate it if you'd take that smug look off your face. This isn't -" "I love you, Julia.

You’re thinking, maybe it would be easier to let it slip let it go say ”I give up” one last time and give him a sad smile. You’re thinking it shouldn’t be this hard, shouldn’t be this dark, thinking love could flow easily with no holding back and you’ve seen others find their match and build something great together, of each other, like two halves fitting perfectly and now they achieve great things one by one, always together, and it seems grand. But you love him. Love him like a black stone in your chest you couldn’t live without because it fits in there. Makes you who you are and the thought of him gone—no more—makes your chest tighten up and maybe this is your fairytale. Maybe this is your castle. You could get it all on a shiny piece of glass with wooden stools and a neverending blooming garden but that’s not yours. This is yours. The cracks and the faults, the ugly words in the winter walking home alone and angry but falling asleep thinking you love him. This is your fairy tale. The quiet in the hallway, wishing for him to turn around, tell you to stay, tell you to please don’t go I need you like you need me and maybe it’s not a Jane Austen novel but this is your novel and your castle and you can run from it your whole life but this is here in front of you. Maybe nurture it? Sweet girl, maybe close the world off and look at him for an hour or two. This is your fairy. It ain’t perfect and it ain’t honey sweet with roses on the bed. It’s real and raw and ugly at times. But this is your love. Don’t throw it away searching for someone else’s love. Don’t be greedy. Instead, shelter it. Protect it. Capture every second of easy, pull through every storm of hardship. And when you can, look at him, lying next to you, trusting you not to harm him. Trusting you not to go. Be someone’s someone for someone. Be that someone for him. That’s your fairy tale. This is your castle. Now move in. Build a home. Build a house. Build a safety around things you love. It’s yours if you make it so. Welcome home, sweet girl, it will be all be fine.

Everything gets easier when you walk away from the hubris of everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It’s only for those who signed up for the journey.

And we don't often get any wading birds in the River Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it's easier for them to walk on the surface.

The aloneness. The invisible walls. Always the outsider looking in. Different. Unusual. I despise their world and the superficiality of it all and yet still want to be a part of it. I wonder sometimes how much simpler a life of naïveté and unawareness would be. I have on occasion found people I could trust with who I really am, and when that happens, I walk away.... It’s safer that way-- for them, for me. It’s far easier to bear personal pain than the responsibility of someone else’s. I feel safe around people as tough as I am, but they don’t come along that often.

I think we all want to pretend we're the same people. But none of us are. It'd be easier for us all to walk away, instead of trying to stay together. We want things to always be the same. But they can't be, can they?

Fiyero: "Why is it that every time I see you, you're causing some sort of commotion?" Elphaba: "I don't cause commotions, I am one." Fiyero: "That's for sure." Elphaba: "Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?" Fiyero: "No, I'm ..." Elphaba: "Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Don't you know how much easier my life would be if I didn't?" Fiyero: "Do you ever let anyone else talk?" Elphaba: "Oh, sorry ... But can I just say one more thing? You could have just walked away back there." Fiyero: "So?" Elphaba: "So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you tend to be ..." Fiyero: "Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." Elphaba: "No you're not. Or you wouldn't be so unhappy.

It would’ve been easier, I often thought, to have been exactly that variety of half-hearted Muslim, one who could more easily walk away from faith in order to be accepted.

But morning casts a harsh light over things, and the stark reality is that some things are easier to walk away from than to lose forever. But that doesn’t mean that this doesn’t hurt.

Before your breaths pick up pace and our bodies are aching because everything we're feeling is just making us want more and more and more of each other...until I'm afraid I'll beg you not to ask me to slow down. So instead, I regrettably tear my mouth from yours and force myself away from your bed and you life up unto your elbows and look at me, disappointed, because you kind of wished I would have kept going, but at the same time you're relieved I didn't, because you know you would have given in. So instead of giving in, we just stare. We watch each other silently as my heart rate begins to slow down and your breaths are easier to catch and the insatiable need is still there, but our minds are clearer now that I'm not pressed against you anymore. I turn around and walk to your window and leave without even saying goodbye, because we both know if either of us speaks...it'll be the collective demise of our willpower and we'll cave. We'll cave so hard.

Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier.

Now he was the one who was incredulous. He drew his knife from its sheath, but he was too weak to step forward, and it spilled from his hand. His sword remained useless at his side. He looked back at me in disbelief and slid to the ground, his face twisted in pain. I walked closer and stood over him, kicking his knife away. “You were wrong, Komizar. It’s much easier to kill a man than a horse.

It is not an easy thing to do, walk away from what you’ve built and save yourself. Destroying Phoebe’s marriage felt like destroying herself. Walking out of the classroom felt like killing the twenty-two-year-old who tried to save her own life by applying to graduate school. It is so much easier to sit in things and wait for something to save us. For the past two years, Phoebe sat in the bad things the way she used to sit in the snow as a child. An hour would go by and it would be very hard for her to get back up. Eventually she looked down at her toes and became confused: Why are they frozen? It was her father who picked her up, said, It’s time to come inside. But now she has to learn when it’s time to come inside. She has to learn to check in with her toes when nobody else is looking. To care for them when no one else will.

Hypercritical, Shaming Parents Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations. -BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison. -BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high. -CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me. -HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul. -DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible. Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

You're so used to what you had before that this is scaring you. And it'd be easier to walk away. It would be easier to pretend this never happened. But the things we want in life will never be easy, and if you want it, if you really do, then you need to fight for it with everything you've got. It's only yours to lose, Paul. Only you can make it go away.

Women fall in love quicker than men. Easier and more often. But when guys fall? We go down harder. And when things go bad? When it’s not us who ends it? We don’t get to walk away. We crawl.

Bill Lazier’s advice means that you ought to do your homework before taking a job. Find out if you are about to enter a den of assholes, and if you are, don’t give in to the temptation to join them in the first place. Leonardo da Vinci said, “It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end,” which is sound social psychology. The more time and effort that people put into anything—no matter how useless, dysfunctional, or downright stupid it might be—the harder it is for them to walk away, be it a bad investment, a destructive relationship, an exploitive job, or a workplace filled with browbeaters, bullies, and bastards.

I wasn’t a misogynist when I started this,” Tyler replied. “But you get good and you start sleeping with all these women who have boyfriends, and you stop trusting women.” A side effect of sarging is that it can lowers one’s opinion of the oppo35D site sex. You see too much betrayal, lying, and infidelity. If a woman has been married three years or more, you come to learn that she’s usually easier to sleep with than a single woman. If a woman has a boyfriend, you learn that you have a better chance of fucking her the night you meet her than getting her to return a phone call later. Women, you eventually realize, are just as bad as men-they’re just better at hiding it. “I got hurt a lot when I first started picking up,” he continued. “I’d meet an amazing girl I really liked, and we’d talk all night. She’d say she loved me and was so lucky to have met me. But then I’d fail one shit test, and she’d walk away and wouldn’t even talk to me anymore. Everything we’d built up over the last eight hours would just go down the drain. So it hardened me.

Hanging on to it a little, are you? … There’s a trick to letting it go, in case you’re interested… You can’t try. Trying is a struggle and doing is an act. You can’t witness the act of trying, but you can see the results of doing. Trying brings on stress because not only do you have the problem, but now you have all this frustration with it not going away just because you want it to. It’s kind of like being told not to think of pink elephants- impossible. What you have to do is stop. You say to yourself, this is over for now. I’m done for now. Take your mind to another place and concentrate on that peaceful place. Deep breaths. Go limp. Put your mind in another state. It takes practice, but it gets easier, over time… My gramma used to say, you can only feel one feeling at a time. For example, you can’t feel trust and fear together. If you want to trust but you’re afraid, fear is still in charge. If you trusted, there wouldn’t be fear. She also used to say you have to listen to what you feel- feeling fear could be warning, right? ... Don’t make love to your problems- they’ll never give you back the satisfaction you give them. And, your troubles aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, but that doesn’t mean writing them down won’t help you get a fix on ‘em. And, God respects you when you work, but he loves you when you dance… she also used to say, ‘if Jesus walked the earth today, he wouldn’t be hanging out with Billy Graham. He’d be found with the drug addicts and prostitutes and the like.

Monkeys and pedestals is a mental model that helps you quit sooner. Pedestals are the part of the problem you know you can already solve, like designing the perfect business card or logo. The hardest thing is training the monkey. When faced with a complex, ambitious goal, (a) identify the hard thing first; (b) try to solve for that as quickly as possible; and (c) beware of false progress. Building pedestals creates the illusion that you are making progress toward your goal, but doing the easy stuff is a waste of time if the hard stuff is actually impossible. Tackling the monkey first gets you to no faster, limiting the time, effort, and money you sink into a project, making it easier to walk away. When we butt up against a hard problem we can’t solve, we have a tendency to turn to pedestal-building rather than choosing to quit. Advance planning and precommitment contracts increase the chances you will quit sooner. When you enter into a course of action, create a set of kill criteria. This is a list of signals you might see in the future that would tell you it’s time to quit. Kill criteria will help inoculate you against bad decision-making when you’re “in it” by limiting the number of decisions you’ll have to make once you’re already in the gains or in the losses. In organizations, kill criteria allow people a different way to get rewarded beyond dogged and blind pursuit of a project until the bitter end.

Tania, why don’t you take off your shoes? You’ll be more comfortable.” “I’m fine,” she said. How did he know her feet were killing her? Was it that obvious? “Go on,” he prodded gently. “It will be easier for you to walk on the grass.” He was right. Breathing a sigh of relief, she bent, unstrapped the sandals, and slipped them off. Straightening up and raising her eyes to him, she said, “That is a little better.” Alexander was silent. “Now you’re really tiny,” he said at last. “I’m not tiny,” she returned. “You’re just outsized.” Blushing, she lowered her gaze. “How old are you, Tania?” “Older than you think,” Tatiana said, wanting to sound old and mature. The warm Leningrad breeze blew her blonde hair over her face. Holding her shoes with one hand, she attempted to sort out her hair with the other. She wished she had a rubber band for her ponytail. Standing in front of her, Alexander reached out and brushed the hair away. His eyes traveled from her hair to her eyes to her mouth where they stopped. Did she have ice cream all around her lips? Yes, that must be it. How awkward. She licked her lips, trying to clean the corners. “What?” she said. “Do I have ice cream—” “How do you know how old I think you are?” he asked. “Tell me, how old are you?” “I’m going to be seventeen soon,” she said. “When?” “Tomorrow.” “You’re not even seventeen,” Alexander echoed. “Seventeen tomorrow!” she repeated indignantly. “Seventeen, right. Very grown up.” His eyes were dancing. “How old are you?” “Twenty-two,” he said. “Twenty-two, just.” “Oh,” she said, and couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. “What? Is that very old?” Alexander asked, failing to keep the smile off his face. “Ancient,” Tatiana replied, failing to keep the smile off her face. Slowly they walked across the Field of Mars, Tatiana barefoot and carrying the red sandals in her slightly swinging hands.

friendship nostalgia i miss the days when my friends knew every mundane detail about my life and i knew every ordinary detail about theirs adulthood has starved me of that consistency​ ​that us those walks around the block those long conversations when we were too lost in the moment to care what time it was when we won-and celebrated when we failed and celebrated even harder when we were just kids now we have our very important jobs that fill up our very busy schedules we have to compare calendars just to plan coffee dates that one of us will eventually cancel because adulthood is being too exhausted to leave our apartments most days i miss belonging to a group of people bigger than myself it was that belonging that made life easier to live how come no one warned us about how we'd graduate and grow apart after everything we'd been through how come no one said one of life's biggest challenges would be trying to stay connected to the people that make us feel alive no one talks about the hole a friend can leave inside you when they go off to make their dreams come true in college we used to stay up till 4 in the morning dreaming of what we'd do the moment we started earning real paychecks now we finally have the money to cross everything off our bucket lists but those lists are collecting dust in some lost corridor of our minds sometimes when i get lonely ​i​ still search for them i'd give anything to go back and do the foolish things we used to do i feel the most present in your presence when we're laughing so hard the past slides off our shoulders and worries of the future slip away the truth is​ ​i couldn't survive without my friends they know exactly what i need before i even know that i need the way we hold each other is just different so forget grabbing coffee i don't want to have another dinner where we sit across from each other at a table reminiscing about old times when we have so much time left to make new memories with how about you go pack your bags and i'll pack mine you take a week off work i'll grab my keys and let's go for ride we've got years of catching up to do

Once upon a time," said the Kiritsugu, "there were people who dropped a U-235 fission bomb, on a place called Hiroshima. They killed perhaps seventy thousand people, and ended a war. And if the good and decent officer who pressed that button had needed to walk up to a man, a woman, a child, and slit their throats one at a time, he would have broken long before he killed seventy thousand people." Someone made a choking noise, as if trying to cough out something that had suddenly lodged deep in their throat. "But pressing a button is different," the Kiritsugu said. "You don't see the results, then. Stabbing someone with a knife has an impact on you. The first time, anyway. Shooting someone with a gun is easier. Being a few meters further away makes a surprising difference. Only needing to pull a trigger changes it a lot. As for pressing a button on a spaceship - that's the easiest of all. Then the part about 'fifteen billion' just gets flushed away. And more importantly - you think it was the right thing to do. The noble, the moral, the honorable thing to do. For the safety of your tribe. You're proud of it -

Fiyero: "Why is it that every time I see you, you're causing some sort of commotion?" Elphaba: "I don't cause commotions. I am one." Fiyero: "That's for sure." Elphaba: "Oh! So you think I should just keep my mouth shut! Is that what you're saying?" Fiyero: "No, I'm ..." Elphaba: "Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to care this much? Don't you know how much easier my life would be if I didn't?" Fiyero: "Do you ever let anyone else talk?" Elphaba: "Oh, sorry ... But can I just say one more thing? You could have just walked away back there." Fiyero: "So?" Elphaba: "So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be ..." Fiyero: "Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." Elphaba: "No, you're not. Or you wouldn't be so unhappy.

Did you ever think she was your mate?” Lucas asked unable to help himself. Clyde tensed, seemingly caught off-guard by the question. “I knew she wasn’t mine,” he said then exhaled. “Angels don’t mate, remember?” “Then why did you make it so hard for her?” “For her or for you?” “For her. I couldn’t care less how hard you made it for me.” “Because I love her,” Clyde responded simply. Lucas’ jaw clenched then he exhaled, acknowledging that hearing another man admit he loved Jenna would never get easier. “Not the way you do, but I love her. I wanted what was best for her. I thought you weren’t it,” Clyde added then turned to walk away. He paused and spun back around. “One more thing. If you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you.” Lucas let the fire in his heart fill his eyes. He would never hurt Jenna; they both knew it. “I know. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t killed you myself.

Even where a road has already been laid, they will still journey through the taiga. One often sees them, their families and their dogs, picking their way in Indian file across a quagmire right by the roadway. ... Even if the roads are convenient, it’s easier for the Gilyaks to keep away from the roads and walk through the forest. To walk on the roads, they would have to completely remake the way they walk. If they remade the way they walk, they would have to remake other things.

But I’m not so sure the way you lose someone you love makes the pain of losing them any easier or more difficult. It’s the emptiness they leave behind that hurts so badly, regardless of whether they deliberately walked away or were taken from us. But the heart is a wonderful, strong organ. It has the ability to heal and grow and love more than one person. The trickier part is finding someone who makes your heart want to love again. Someone who fills all those empty places and then some.

I pray that by faith you’ll have the courage to start a discipline that changes the direction of your story. I pray that by faith you will stop something that hinders your story from being what God wants it to be. I pray that by faith you will have the courage to stay the course and be faithful where you’ve been planted, even when it would be easier to throw in the towel and just walk away. And when the time is right and God calls you, I pray that you will find the faith to go, even when it would be easier to stay.

In the end, it was such a simple, small thing. He had felt flashes of it before in his life, the absolute certainty. But the truth was that he'd kept walking away from it. It was a far more terrifying idea to imagine how much control he really had over how his life turned out. Easier to believe that he was a gallant ship tossed by fate than to captain it himself. He would steer it now, and if there were rocks near shore, so be it. "Tell me where Owen Glendower is," he said to the darkness. Crisp and sure, with the same power he had used to command Noah, to command the skeletons in the cave. "Show me where the Raven King is.

classic work like The Tale of Genji, as one recent translator has it, “The more intense the emotion, the more regular the meter.” As in the old-fashioned England in which I grew up—though more unforgivingly so—the individual’s job in public Japan is to keep his private concerns and feelings to himself and to present a surface that gives little away. That the relation of surface to depth is uncertain is part of the point; it offers a degree of protection and makes for absolute consistency. The fewer words spoken, the easier it is to believe you’re standing on common ground. One effect of this careful evenness—a maintenance of the larger harmony, whatever is happening within—is that to live in Japan, to walk through its complex nets of unstatedness, is to receive a rigorous training in attention. You learn to read the small print of life—to notice how the flowers placed in front of the tokonoma scroll have just been changed, in response to a shift in the season, or to register how your visitor is talking about everything except the husband who’s just run out on her. It’s what’s not expressed that sits at the heart of a haiku; a classic sumi-e brush-and-ink drawing leaves as much open space as possible at its center so that it becomes not a statement but a suggestion, an invitation to a collaboration. The reader or viewer is asked to complete a composition, and so the no-color surfaces make

"I put you and Simon in danger just by..." "By being here? And what's the alternative? Take off? Give up on finding your dad? Leave Simon behind?" He blinked. "No, I wouldn't leave...but I feel like..." "Feel like what?" He shook his head, looking away. I walked around in front of him. "Feel like what, Derek? Like you should leave? Like we'd be better off if you did?" He rolled his shoulders in a half shrug, then looked away again. I was right. He just didn't like hearing the thought voiced; it sounded too close to self-pity. "No one is better off if you leave," I said. "Yeah." He mumbled the word, unconvinced. "Simon needs you." I need you. I didn't say that, of course. How could I, without it sounding weird.? But I felt it, heart hammering against my ribs, and it wasn't some romantic I can't bear to be without you nonsense. It was something deeper, more desperate. When I thought of Derek leaving, the ground seemed to slide under my feet. I needed something to hold on to, something solid and real when everything around me was changing so fast. Even if there were times I thought it would be easier without Derek there, ready to tear a strip off me at my every misstep, in some ways I relied on that—someone to keep me thinking, keep me striving to do better, keep me from burying my head and praying it all worked out. When he turned away, he must have seen it on my face. As fast as I tried to cover it up, it wasn't fast enough, and when he looked at me, the way he looked at me...

She sat and watched the dockhand when it was sunny and she sat and watched him when it rained. Or when it was foggy, which is what it was nearly every morning at eight o’clock. This morning was none of the above. This morning was cold. The pier smelled of fresh water and of fish. The seagulls screeched overhead, a man’s voice shouted. Where is my brother to help me, my sister, my mother? Pasha, help me, hide in the woods where I know I can find you. Dasha, look what’s happened. Do you even see? Mama, Mama. I want my mother. Where is my family to ask things of me, to weigh on me, to intrude on me, to never let me be silent or alone, where are they to help me through this? Deda, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. This morning the dockhand did not go over to see his friend at the next pier for a smoke and a coffee. Instead, he walked across the road and sat next to her on the bench. This surprised her. But she said nothing, she just wrapped her white nurse’s coat tighter around herself, and fixed the kerchief covering her hair. In Swedish he said to her, “My name is Sven. What’s your name?” After a longish pause, she replied. “Tatiana. I don’t speak Swedish.” In English he said to her, “Do you want a cigarette?” “No,” she replied, also in English. She thought of telling him she spoke little English. She was sure he didn’t speak Russian. He asked her if he could get her a coffee, or something warm to throw over her shoulders. No and no. She did not look at him. Sven was silent a moment. “You want to get on my barge, don’t you?” he asked. “Come. I will take you.” He took her by her arm. Tatiana didn’t move. “I can see you have left something behind,” he said, pulling on her gently. “Go and retrieve it.” Tatiana did not move. “Take my cigarette, take my coffee, or get on my barge. I won’t even turn away. You don’t have to sneak past me. I would have let you on the first time you came. All you had to do was ask. You want to go to Helsinki? Fine. I know you’re not Finnish.” Sven paused. “But you are very pregnant. Two months ago it would have been easier for you. But you need to go back or go forward. How long do you plan to sit here and watch my back?” Tatiana stared into the Baltic Sea. “If I knew, would I be sitting here?” “Don’t sit here anymore. Come,” said the longshoreman. She shook her head. “Where is your husband? Where is the father of your baby?” “Dead in the Soviet Union,” Tatiana breathed out. “Ah, you’re from the Soviet Union.” He nodded. “You’ve escaped somehow? Well, you’re here, so stay. Stay in Sweden. Go to the consulate, get yourself refugee protection. We have hundreds of people getting through from Denmark. Go to the consulate.” Tatiana shook her head. “You’re going to have that baby soon,” Sven said. “Go back, or move forward.” Tatiana’s hands went around her belly. Her eyes glazed over. The dockhand patted her gently and stood up. “What will it be? You want to go back to the Soviet Union? Why?” Tatiana did not reply. How to tell him her soul had been left there? “If you go back, what happens to you?” “I die most likely,” she barely whispered. “If you go forward, what happens to you?” “I live most likely.” He clapped his hands. “What kind of a choice is that? You must go forward.” “Yes,” said Tatiana, “but how do I live like this? Look at me. You think, if I could, I wouldn’t?” “So you’re here in the Stockholm purgatory, watching me move my paper day in and day out, watching me smoke, watching me. What are you going to do? Sit with your baby on the bench? Is that what you want?” Tatiana was silent. The first time she laid eyes on him she was sitting on a bench, eating ice cream. “Go forward.” “I don’t have it in me.” He nodded. “You have it. It’s just covered up. For you it’s winter.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. Summer’s here. The ice will melt.” Tatiana struggled up from the bench. Walking away, she said in Russian, “It’s not the ice anymore, my seagoing philosopher. It’s the pyre.

Rich Purnell sipped coffee in the silent building. Only his cubicle illuminated the otherwise dark room. Continuing with his computations, he ran a final test on the software he'd written. It passed. With a relieved sigh, he sank back in his chair. Checking the clock on his computer, he shook his head. 3:42am. Being an astrodynamicist, Rich rarely had to work late. His job was the find the exact orbits and course corrections needed for any given mission. Usually, it was one of the first parts of a project; all the other steps being based on the orbit. But this time, things were reversed. Iris needed an orbital path, and nobody knew when it would launch. A non-Hoffman Mars-transfer isn't challenging, but it does require the exact locations of Earth and Mars. Planets move as time goes by. An orbit calculated for a specific launch date will work only for that date. Even a single day's difference would result in missing Mars entirely. So Rich had to calculate many orbits. He had a range of 25 days during which Iris might launch. He calculated one orbital path for each. He began an email to his boss. "Mike", he typed, "Attached are the orbital paths for Iris, in 1-day increments. We should start peer-review and vetting so they can be officially accepted. And you were right, I was here almost all night. It wasn't that bad. Nowhere near the pain of calculating orbits for Hermes. I know you get bored when I go in to the math, so I'll summarize: The small, constant thrust of Hermes's ion drives is much harder to deal with than the large point-thrusts of presupply probes. All 25 of the orbits take 349 days, and vary only slightly in thrust duration and angle. The fuel requirement is nearly identical for the orbits and is well within the capacity of EagleEye's booster. It's too bad. Earth and Mars are really badly positioned. Heck, it's almost easier to-" He stopped typing. Furrowing his brow, he stared in to the distance. "Hmm." he said. Grabbing his coffee cup, he went to the break room for a refill. ... "Rich", said Mike. Rich Purnell concentrated on his computer screen. His cubicle was a landfill of printouts, charts, and reference books. Empty coffee cups rested on every surface; take-out packaging littered the ground. "Rich", Mike said, more forcefully. Rich looked up. "Yeah?" "What the hell are you doing?" "Just a little side project. Something I wanted to check up on." "Well... that's fine, I guess", Mike said, "but you need to do your assigned work first. I asked for those satellite adjustments two weeks ago and you still haven't done them." "I need some supercomputer time." Rich said. "You need supercomputer time to calculate routine satellite adjustments?" "No, it's for this other thing I'm working on", Rich said. "Rich, seriously. You have to do your job." Rich thought for a moment. "Would now be a good time for a vacation?" He asked. Mike sighed. "You know what, Rich? I think now would be an ideal time for you to take a vacation." "Great!" Rich smiled. "I'll start right now." "Sure", Mike said. "Go on home. Get some rest." "Oh, I'm not going home", said Rich, returning to his calculations. Mike rubbed his eyes. "Ok, whatever. About those satellite orbits...?" "I'm on vacation", Rich said without looking up. Mike shrugged and walked away.

Partnered with Death itself,” he said, repeating a part of my horoscope. A harsh laugh escaped him. “I understand now.” The Raja moved away from his mirror wall, his eyes twinkling as he bowed low. The gesture was wrong. My cheeks flared with heat. “No,” I said, “please don’t do that.” Pressing my palms against the glass, I willed it away, and slowly, it became thinner and thinner until it disappeared. The Raja, still bent in a bow, looked up in surprise as I walked into his cell. I lifted him up by the shoulders, not letting myself flinch when my fingers brushed against the blood on his armor. “You do not need to bow to me, Father.” The Raja smiled. “Your forgiveness makes my hell easier to bear.” This conversation, this air of ease unshackled from courtly posturing, struck me. It was so natural. We might have even been close in another lifetime. “I do not know how you became a princess of Bharata,” he said. “Who knows how our last lives slip into the ones we live in now. I will never know those memories. And perhaps that is for the best.” A lump rose in my throat. I will never know those memories. The tree behind the chained door…it had so many memories. All of which, I was convinced, belonged to me. Nritti’s image flashed in my head, bright as a flame. I didn’t know her from this life, but I must have known her from before. My father must have seen a look cross over my face because he stepped away from me. “You do not belong here, daughter. Go. Be who you will be. Do not waste your life mourning the dead.” I nodded tightly, my throat thick with so many things left unsaid. “I will not forget you, Father.” He smiled. “That pleases me. A memory is a fine legacy to leave behind.

It didn't matter how much he liked being Neil Josten. He'd stayed here too long as it was. Neil should be used to this by now. He'd spent the last eight years on the run, spinning lie after lie to leave a twisted trail behind him. Twenty-two names stood between him and the truth, and he knew what would happen if anyone finally connected the dots. Signing with a college team meant more than standing still. It meant he'd be stepping into a spotlight. [...] The math was simple, but that didn't make this any easier. That contract was a one-way ticket to a future, something Neil could never have, and he wanted it so badly he ached. For a blinding moment he hated himself for ever trying out for Millport's team. He'd known better than to step on a court. [...] But what else was he supposed to do? [...] This was the only thing he had left that was real. Now that he'd had a taste of it again, he didn't know how to walk away from it.

A small ginger cat arrives on my terrace every afternoon, to curl up in the sun and slumber peacefully for a couple of hours. When he awakes, he gets on his feet with minimum effort, arches his back and walks away as he had come. The same spot every day, the same posture, the same pace. There may be better spots—sunnier, quieter, frequented by birds that can be hunted when the cat is rested and restored. But there is no guarantee, and the search will be never-ending, and there may rarely be time to sleep after all that searching and finding. It occurs to me that perhaps the cat is a monk. By this I do not mean anything austere. I doubt anyone in single minded pursuit of enlightenment ever finds it. A good monk would be a mild sort of fellow, a bit of a sensualist, capable of compassion for the world, but also for himself. He would know that it is all right not to climb every mountain. A good monk would know that contentment is easier to attain than happiness, and that it is enough.

He was walking back through the cemetery to his car when he came upon a black man digging a grave with a shovel. The man was standing about two feet down in the unfinished grave and stopped shoveling and hurling the dirt out to the side as the visitor approached him. He wore dark coveralls and an old baseball cap, and from the gray in his mustache and the lines in his face he looked to be at least fifty. His frame, however, was still thick and strong. "I thought they did this with a machine," he said to the gravedigger. "In big cemeteries, where they do many graves, a lot of times they use a machine, that's right." He spoke like a Southerner, but very matter-of-factly, very precisely, more like a pedantic schoolteacher than a physical laborer. "I don't use a machine," the gravedigger continued, "because it can sink the other graves. THe soil can give and it can crush in on the box. And you have the gravestones you have to deal with. It's just easier in my case to do everything by hand. Much neater. Easier to take the dirt away without ruining anything else. I use a real small tractor that I can maneuver easily, and I dig by hand.

Maybe I've put too much high hopes and expectations on you, or started holding you to an unreachable standard." "That isn't fair," he says, his own breath coming quicker. He's starting to look less confused and more straight-up angry. Join the club, bud. "I probably should have told you before Geoffrey and Aiden, but I was excited, and you've been ignoring all my attempts to talk since UltiCon. And I really didn't think you would take the news this way. I thought it was a good thing and truthfully? I think you're overreacting." The little porcupine quills that I imagine live just beneath my skin, primed to shoot up and protect me at a moment's notice, are at the ready now. Except they feel more like Wolverine claws in this case, and Norberto Beneventi's about to feel their wrath. "Overreacting, huh? Love to hear that. Sorry I'm not over the moon, shooting rainbows out my eyeballs because I'm so delighted for you. Sorry I'm not a selfless little woman whose only goal in life is to see her man shine, that I have real feelings and ambitions for myself." "Reese, for the love of---" he shouts, throwing his hands up in the air and walking in a tight circle before returning to stand in front of me. He adjusts his cap with a long-suffering sigh. "You know what? I think you've been waiting for this. I think you figured out that there was more to say after our last conversation, and you know this is not that big of a deal, but you've been scared for so long, and angry, and the world's been unfair to you. And I bet whether you realize it or not, you've been waiting for the first excuse to get rid of me for good. You're used to being alone and it's easier than letting another person in, so all you needed was the smallest hint that something may not be perfect and boom---no more Benny. Am I right?" I scoff, moving to pass him for real this time and not stopping when his hand brushes my shoulder. "You just know me so well, don't you? Please, tell me more about how I'm feeling, why I do the things I do. But you'll have to send it in another message, because I don't have to stay here and listen to it." I hoist my bag farther onto my shoulder and stomp away from him, my own fury nearly blocking out his parting words. "Go on, then. Maybe you can move back across the country. See if running from your problems works the second time around.

Not knowing what to do, I started walking down St. Mark’s toward Tompkins Square. All Day All Night. You Must Be Twenty One To Enter. Downtown, away from the high-rise press, the wind cut more bitterly and yet the sky was more open too, it was easier to breathe. Muscle guys walking paired pit bulls, inked-up Bettie Page girls in wiggle dresses, stumblebums with drag-hemmed pants and Jack O’Lantern teeth and taped-up shoes. Outside the shops, racks of sunglasses and skull bracelets and multicolored transvestite wigs. There was a needle exchange somewhere, maybe more than one but I wasn’t sure where; Wall Street guys bought off the street all the time if you believed what people said but I wasn’t wise enough to know where to go or who to approach, and besides who was going to sell to me, a stranger with horn rimmed glasses and an uptown haircut, dressed for picking out wedding china with Kitsey? Unsettled heart. The fetishism of secrecy. These people understood—as I did—the back alleys of the soul, whispers and shadows, money slipping from hand to hand, the password, the code, the second self, all the hidden consolations that lifted life above the ordinary and made it worth living.

Here i sit all broken hearted Came to sleep that's when it started. Broken dreams from behind Fall beneath me so unkind. Sorrow swallows sucks and chews, All the dreams I had to lose. Thinking of all the lies i was told Makes me feel hollow and cold. Behind my smile I force on my face Is a broken man not having a place. I wonder aimless through the night Depression is the demon I fight. They all ask me how I'm doing Its hard to stop the pain pursuing. I choke pain down and grin so wide Only to kill the fear inside. Sleep deprived awake and tired this curse is a trap all ready wired. Just sleep more they all say I would if the past would go away. It's better now to be alone Than lied and cheated to the bone. I hate the life I've lived thus far And gladly wear this awful scar. It has gotten easier that is no lie, I no longer wish that I would die. I dream of days when I feel this pain and deal with it without strain. I do not know where I will go only god will ever know. I pray for all the promises forgotten, the empty chords that fell all rotten. I aim to search look and seek This life i want simple and meek. It makes the past so very grey The thoughts of future day The night will fade and dissolve I march on with no resolve Ahead i walk through pain and sorrow Only to seek a better tomorrow

He clipped the male again, this time in the shoulder, sending Einar flying backward. He was vaguely aware of Cyn racing to Leilani. He could hear her calling out his own name, but he tuned everything out, including her. Con couldn’t go to her yet. The threat needed to be eliminated. A red haze had descended across his vision as he body-slammed Einar, who was attempting to stand. That male wasn’t walking out of here. He knew he wasn’t acting rational, that the threat could be put down easier than this, but he couldn’t stop the rage that had overtaken him. Einar pumped a fist against Con’s ribcage as they tumbled to the ground. He barely felt it as he slammed a left hook across the male’s jaw. Didn’t feel anything as he jabbed him in the gut, the ribs, the face. Over and over. He felt a bloodlust overtake him as he pounded at Einar’s face. This male had wanted to hurt Leilani, to take her from Con. Strong arms wrapped around Con, tackling him to the ground and rolling him off his target. “Con!” Cyn held him tight, his eyes wild as he kept him pinned down. “It’s done. You’re scaring her.” Those words snapped him out of the dark fog of savagery that had overtaken him. Leilani stood a few feet away, her eyes wide as she stared at him. Fuck, he had scared her. “I’m fine,” he rasped to his brother. Cyn paused before loosening his grip. When he did, Con stood, terrified he’d screwed things up for good. He didn’t glance at Einar, who he was certain was dead. He’d never lost control like that, had never even come close. It pierced him that Leilani had seen him kill someone, that he literally had blood on his hands in front of her now. “Leilani—” She jumped at him, throwing her arms around his neck on a sob. “You came for me.” Unable to do anything about the blood, he wrapped his arms around her and held tight. Of course he’d come for her. There was nowhere she could go that he wouldn’t follow. That realization slammed into him as if someone had actually struck him. They’d known each other less than two weeks but she’d changed his world without even trying. He would give up his role of leader for her. The thought should have terrified him, but it didn’t. He buried his face against her neck, inhaled her sweet, arilod scent. “I’m not letting you go after the moon cycle.” She sniffled, her fingers gripping his shoulders tight. “Good because I’m not going anywhere,” she said as she pulled back. Her eyes were bright with tears as she looked at him. “I would move to the mainland for you.” She blinked once in surprise before her lips pulled up into a smile. “No. This is your home— my home now.” No, he realized, she was his home, but he simply nodded and crushed his mouth to hers.

He kisses me even though I try to raise my hand to stop him. And then I don’t stop him. His lips mold against mine like they’re perfectly shaped for each other. He tastes like mint and smells like himself. I want him to hold me forever. I want him to make everything better. And then I realize this is all wrong. Because the truth is, I’m not really mad at Jamie. I mean, I’m mad that he lied, but I’m not really mad at him. I’m mad because I need him. I need him to be perfect and strong and to protect me from everything in the world that’s terrifying. I need him to hold my hand as I walk through life because it’s so much easier than doing it alone. And needing him is a mistake. I don’t want to need anyone. I want to stand on my own two feet. I want control of my own life and my own emotions. I don’t want to be a branch in someone else’s life anymore—I want to be the tree on my own. I want all the strength to come from me. I don’t want to depend on anyone for anything ever again. I pull my face away from Jamie and it literally hurts so much I have to grip the desk to keep from falling over. I can’t hide from the truth anymore. I let Jamie become my crutch. I let him fill all the voids in my life—family, friendship, love—and it hurts so much to know what I need to do now. Panic is in his eyes. He senses what I’m going to say next. Because even when we’re hurt, we still know each other. We know each other without words.

You chose the dim hope of a traitor’s restoration,” she said, low and quiet, “over the life of a chancellor’s sister.” “If I had told Ryzek about the drug, we would have been trapped in that amphitheater with no leverage and no hope of escape, and he would have killed your sister anyway,” I said. “I chose the path that guaranteed our survival.” “Bullshit.” Isae leaned close to my face. “You chose Akos. Don’t pretend it’s any different than it is.” “Fine,” I said, just as quiet. “It was Akos or you. I chose him. And I don’t regret it.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was certainly true. If simple hatred was what she craved, I would make it easier for her. I was used to being hated, especially by the Thuvhesit. Isae nodded. “Isae…,” Cisi began, but Isae was already walking away. She disappeared into the galley, closing the door behind her. Cisi wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe this. Vas is dead, and Ryzek is alive,” Teka said. Vas was dead? I looked at Akos, but he was avoiding my eyes. “Give me a reason not to kill Ryzek right now, Noavek,” Teka said, turning to me. “And if that reason is something about Kereseth, I will hit you.” “If you kill him, you won’t have my cooperation in whatever plan the renegades concoct next,” I said dully, without looking at her. “If you help me keep him alive, I’ll help you conquer Shotet.” “Yeah? And what kind of help would you be, exactly?” “Oh, I don’t know, Teka,” I snapped, finally breaking my spell to glare at her. “Yesterday the renegades were just squatting in a safe house in Voa, clueless, and now, because of me, you’re standing over the unconscious body of Ryzek Noavek with Voa in utter chaos behind you. I think that suggests my capacity to help the renegade cause is considerable, don’t you?

We killed them all when we came here. The people came and burned their land The forests where they used to feed We burned the trees that gave them shade And burned to bush, to scrub, to heath We made it easier to hunt. We changed the land, and they were gone. Today our beasts and dreams are small As species fall to time and us But back before the black folk came Before the white folk’s fleet arrived Before we built our cities here Before the casual genocide, This was the land where nightmares loped And hopped and ran and crawled and slid. And then we did the things we did, And thus we died the things we died. We have not seen Diprotodon A wombat bigger than a room Or run from Dromornithidae Gigantic demon ducks of doom All motor legs and ripping beaks A flock of geese from hell’s dark maw We’ve lost carnivorous kangaroo A bouncy furrier T Rex And Thylacoleo Carnifex the rat-king-devil-lion-thing the dropbear fantasy made flesh. Quinkana, the land crocodile Five metres long and fast as fright Wonambi, the enormous snake Who waited by the water-holes and took the ones who came to drink who were not watchful, clever, bright. Our Thylacines were tiger-wolves until we drove them off the map Then Megalania: seven meters of venomous enormous lizard... and more, and more. The ones whose bones we’ve never seen. The megafauna haunt our dreams. This was their land before mankind Just fifty thousand years ago. Time is a beast that eats and eats gives nothing back but ash and bones And one day someone else will come to excavate a heap of stones And wonder, What were people like? Their teeth weren’t sharp. Their feet were slow. They walked Australia long ago before Time took them into tales We’re transients. The land remains. Until its outlines wash away. While night falls down like dropbears don’t to swallow up Australia Day.

I'm sorry.' I blinked. 'What do you possibly have to be sorry for?' 'His hands were shaking- as if in the aftermath of that fury at what Keir had called me, what he'd threatened. Perhaps he'd brought me here before heading home in order to have some privacy before his friends could interrupt. 'I shouldn't have let you go. Let you see that part of us. Of me.' I'd never seen him so raw, so... stumbling. 'I'm fine.' I didn't know what to make of what had been done. Both between us and to Keir. But it had been my choice. To play that role, to wear those clothes. To let him touch me. But... I said slowly, 'We knew what tonight would require of us. Please- please don't start protecting me. Not like that.' He knew what I meant. He'd protected me Under the Mountain, but that primal, male rage he'd just shown Keir... A shattered study splattered in paint flashed through my memory. Rhys rasped. 'I will never- never lock you up, force you to stay behind. But when he threatened you tonight, when he called you...' Whore. That's what they'd called him. For fifty years, they'd hissed it. I'd listened to Lucien spit the words in his face. Rhys released a jagged breath. 'It's hard to shut down my instincts.' Instincts. Just like... like someone else had instincts to protect, to hide me away. 'Then you should have prepared yourself better,' I snapped. 'You seemed to be going along just fine with it, until Keir said-' 'I will kill anyone who harms you,' Rhys snarled. 'I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it.' He panted. 'Go ahead. Hate me- despise me for it.' 'You are my friend,' I said, and my voice broke on the word. I hated the tears that slipped down my face. I didn't even know why I was crying. Perhaps for the fact that it had felt real on that throne with him, even for a moment, and... and it likely hadn't been. Not for him. 'You're my friend- and I understand that you're High Lord. I understand that you will defend your true court, and punish threats against it. But I can't... I don't want you to stop telling me things, inviting me to do things, because of the threats against me.' Darkness rippled, and wings tore from his back. 'I am not him,' Rhys breathed. 'I will never be him, act like him. He locked you up and let you wither, and die.' 'He tried-' 'Stop comparing. Stop comparing me to him.' The words cut me short. I blinked. 'You think I don't know how stories get written- how this story will be written?' Rhys put his hands on his chest, his face more open, more anguished than I'd seen it. 'I am the dark lord, who stole away the bride of spring. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince- the hero who will get to keep you as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance.' The things I love have a tendency to be taken from me. He'd admitted that to me Under the Mountain. But his words were kindling to my temper, to whatever pit of fear was yawning open inside of me. 'And what about my story?' I hissed. 'What about my reward? What about what I want?' 'What is it that you want, Feyre?' I had no answer. I didn't know. Not anymore. 'What is it that you want, Feyre?' I stayed silent. His laugh was bitter, soft. 'I thought so. Perhaps you should take some time to figure that out one of these days.' 'Perhaps I don't know what I want, but at least I don't hide what I am behind a mask,' I seethed. 'At least I let them see who I am, broken bits and all. Yes- it's to save your people. But what about the other masks, Rhys? What about letting your friends see your real face? But maybe it's easier not to. Because what if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything, and still walked away? Who could blame them- who would want to bother with that sort of mess?' He flinched. The most powerful High Lord in history flinched. And I knew I'd hit hard- and deep. Too hard. Too deep. 'Rhys,' I said.

Liberty is poorly served by men whose good intent is quelled from one failure or two failures or any number of failures, or from the casual indifference or ingratitude of the people, or from the sharp show of the tushes of power, or the bringing to bear soldiers and cannon or any penal statutes. Liberty relies upon itself, invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, and knows no discouragement. The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance and retreat…the enemy triumphs…the prison, the handcuffs, the iron necklace and anklet, the scaffold, garrote and leadballs do their work…the cause is asleep…the strong throats are choked with their own blood…the young men drop their eyelashes toward the ground when they pass each other…and is liberty gone out of that place? No never. When liberty goes it is not the first to go nor the second or third to go…it waits for all the rest to go…it is the last…When the memories of the old martyrs are faded utterly away…when the large names of patriots are laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators…when the boys are no more christened after the same but christened after tyrants and traitors instead…when the laws of the free are grudgingly permitted and laws for informers and bloodmoney are sweet to the taste of the people…when I and you walk abroad upon the earth stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering our equal friendship and calling no man master—and when we are elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves…when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night and surveys its experience and has much extasy over the word and deed that put back a helpless innocent person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel inferiority…when those in all parts of these states who could easier realize the true American character but do not yet—when the swarms of cringers, suckers, dough-faces, lice of politics, planners of sly involutions for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures or the judiciary or congress or the presidency, obtain a response of love and natural deference from the people whether they get the offices or no…when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer with his hat unmoved from his head and firm eyes and a candid and generous heart…and when servility by town or state or the federal government or any oppression on a large scale or small scale can be tried on without its own punishment following duly after in exact proportion against the smallest chance of escape…or rather when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth—then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth.

Then he made the mistake of looking into her eyes and froze. Her expression was so open, so full of tenderness and longing as well as heat that he almost balked. This was supposed to be about closure, about having the goodbye they’d never gotten last time. How was he supposed to leave after if she gave herself to him this completely? Her hand came up to cradle the side of his face, her thumb stroking back and forth across his jaw, her touch gentle and loving. “Need you,” she murmured, It was good. Even better than he remembered. Liam buried his face in the side of her neck and sucked in a breath, struggling to hang on. Being cradled in Honor’s arms, buried to the hilt inside her while she opened her body and heart to him was the most incredible thing in the world. How the f*&^ was he going to walk away later? Without warning his eyes began to sting. As though she sensed how close he was to coming unglued, Honor murmured to him and pressed kisses to the side of his face, her hand urging his head to turn toward her. Liam shook his head, unable to bear that final level of intimacy when he knew this was their last time. Keeping his face in her neck he fought back the swell of emotion and began to move, a slow, shallow rocking motion that was more profound than words could ever be. He loved her. Would always love her, but it wasn’t enough because some things couldn’t be undone and he just couldn’t let her in the way he had before. All they had left was this bittersweet farewell, and he was going to make it memorable. .... A lump settled in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut, torn between the excruciating pleasure swelling inside him and the need to see her face as he took her this last time. In the end, his heart won out. Powerless to stop himself, he lifted his head and looked down at her. Anguish sliced through his chest when he saw the tears glistening in her beautiful eyes. Don’t. Don’t cry. Shit, he didn’t want either of them to hurt anymore. He was sick of hurting. That’s why he was ending it all tonight. With a low sound of regret he covered her mouth with his, his tongue sliding against hers as he took her. Honor kissed him back deep and slow... Cupping her cheek with his free hand he gave her everything he had left to give, allowing his emotional shields to drop for these final moments. She ran her fingertips up and down his back in a soothing motion, her body limp and pliant beneath his, legs still wrapped around him. And all of a sudden he felt like crying. He felt too much, was in too deep again. He didn’t know what to say to make this any easier. After what they’d just shared he was more conflicted than ever about what to do. “I’ll miss you,” she murmured, and he caught the slight catch in her voice. Ah, fu&%. He gritted his teeth. It would be so much easier if they could just hate each other. For a moment he considered saying something to make her do exactly that, but couldn’t. Even he wasn’t enough of an a**hole to end things that way. And that look on her face… Against his better judgment, Liam sat back down on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his arms. Honor went willingly into his embrace, pressing her face to his chest as she hugged him tight in return. “I’ll miss you too.” Dammit, he should never have come here tonight. “I wish it could be different, but I just… I can’t do this anymore.” I’ll always love you but I can’t afford to let you back in again. “I’m sorry.

them.” “Well, since we’re waiting on a fresh warlock, you have time then, right?” “I mean, yeah, I guess so, but—” “That’s alright, I won’t force you to go. I know you have a lot on your mind, but just consider it, okay?” I nodded. “Yes, sir.” We cleaned up the field some more. After a while, I asked, “Hey, where’s Lukester and Cindy? I don’t see them anywhere.” “If they are not here, then they must be at the hospital helping the wounded,” said Adrian. “Okay, I think I’ll head over there, then.” “Sure, Steve. Adrian and I will continue cleaning up here,” said the mayor. Adrian turned to look at the mayor. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he held his tongue. “Alright, see you guys later.” I turned and walked away. Adrian and the mayor waved at me, then they continued picking up weapons. As I walked away, I suddenly remembered that I wanted to ask the mayor something about the mining operation. So, I busted a U-turn and walked toward the mayor. Adrian and the mayor were both busily working and had their backs facing me. “I don’t want him spiraling into depression over the Bob and horse thing, so make sure you keep him busy,” I overheard the mayor say. “Yes, sir,” replied Adrian. “There was a time when he fell into depression and he just lay in bed for days. I don’t want the same thing happening again.” Adrian nodded. “I’ll have plenty for him to do in the coming days, and with the party coming up, I plan to have all sorts of activities to distract him.” “Yes, sir.” “Good, please help me clean up for another five minutes, then go join Steve.” “As you wish.” They were clearly talking about me, and I didn’t want to interrupt them. So, I quietly spun 180 degrees and made my way to the hospital. As I walked, I thought, Wow… the mayor is really concerned about my state of mind. I had no idea… I reached the hospital and found a bunch of patient-filled beds outside. The place was completely packed, so packed that they had to treat patients outdoors. Cindy caught my eye as she frantically ran about from patient to patient. “Cindy!” I yelled. She gasped and turned around. “Steve, shhh…” she whispered. “Some of the patients are sleeping. “Oh, sorry…” She walked over to me. “How are you? Feeling good? Any injuries?” “Hm… now that you mentioned it, I’m surprised that I don’t have any injuries.”  Cindy beamed a huge smile. “I had a splash potion of regeneration in my personal chest at home. I used it on you while you slept.” “You did? No wonder.” “That was my last one. I was saving it for a special situation, and I guess saving a friend from pain is a pretty good reason to use it.” “Aw… thank you so much, Cindy.” “You’re welcome, Steve. So, are you here to help today?” “Help?” “Yeah, help with the wounded?” “Uh, um, sure. Yeah, I can help, but actually, I wanted to speak with you about something.” “Oh? What’s up?” “Well…” I explained to Cindy about what happened. “Oh, no… so she wouldn’t change Paul right away?” asked the potioneer. I shook my head. “I begged her, but she absolutely refused.” “Aw…” “So, I was wondering if you could give it a try?” “You want me to ask her to change Paul into a warlock?” “Yeah, could you do that for me? As a favor?” “Well, of course I’d be willing to, but what about Paul? Is he okay with this plan?” Cindy asked. “I think Paul will be way easier to convince once Wanda is on board.” Cindy nodded. “You’re right. Okay, my shift here doesn’t end for another few hours. I’ll head over to Wanda’s afterward.” “Yass!

FOLLOW ME ONE STEP AT A TIME. That is all I require of you. In fact, that is the only way to move through this space/time world. You see huge mountains looming, and you start wondering how you’re going to scale those heights. Meanwhile, because you’re not looking where you’re going, you stumble on the easy path where I am leading you now. As I help you get back on your feet, you tell Me how worried you are about the cliffs up ahead. But you don’t know what will happen today, much less tomorrow. Our path may take an abrupt turn, leading you away from those mountains. There may be an easier way up the mountains than is visible from this distance. If I do lead you up the cliffs, I will equip you thoroughly for that strenuous climb. I will even give My angels charge over you, to preserve you in all your ways. Keep your mind on the present journey, enjoying My Presence. Walk by faith, not by sight, trusting Me to open up the way before you.

FOLLOW ME ONE STEP AT A TIME. That is all I require of you. In fact, that is the only way to move through this space/time world. You see huge mountains looming, and you start wondering how you’re going to scale those heights. Meanwhile, because you’re not looking where you’re going, you stumble on the easy path where I am leading you now. As I help you get back on your feet, you tell Me how worried you are about the cliffs up ahead. But you don’t know what will happen today, much less tomorrow. Our path may take an abrupt turn, leading you away from those mountains. There may be an easier way up the mountains than is visible from this distance. If I do lead you up the cliffs, I will equip you thoroughly for that strenuous climb. I will even give My angels charge over you, to preserve you in all your ways. Keep your mind on the present journey, enjoying My Presence. Walk by faith, not by sight, trusting Me to open up the way before you. PSALM 18:29; PSALM 91:11–12 AMP; 2 CORINTHIANS 5:7 NKJV

I know the pain you’re feeling. It won’t ever go away. But one day it won’t hurt so bad.” I take his hand in mine. “It won’t be so hard to breathe. It won’t feel like the world is crushing you. One day that will come and it just gets a little easier each day.” I give him the small amount of hope I have. “I know right now that seems like a lie, but I’ve walked in your shoes.

FOLLOW ME ONE STEP AT A TIME. That is all I require of you. In fact, that is the only way to move through this space/time world. You see huge mountains looming, and you start wondering how you’re going to scale those heights. Meanwhile, because you’re not looking where you’re going, you stumble on the easy path where I am leading you now. As I help you get back on your feet, you tell Me how worried you are about the cliffs up ahead. But you don’t know what will happen today, much less tomorrow. Our path may take an abrupt turn, leading you away from those mountains. There may be an easier way up the mountains than is visible from this distance. If I do lead you up the cliffs, I will equip you thoroughly for that strenuous climb. I will even give My angels charge over you, to preserve you in all your ways. Keep your mind on the present journey, enjoying My Presence. Walk by faith, not by sight, trusting Me to open up the way before you. For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]. They shall bear you up on their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. PSALM 91:11–12 (AMP) For we walk by faith, not by sight. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:7 (NKJV) FOR REFLECTION: PSALM 18:29

forgiveness. It’s also easier when we ask ourselves these questions. Why would we want to hold a grudge against someone who is struggling as much as we are? Why would we want to hold unforgiveness against someone who is weak like we are? Why would be want to regard as an enemy someone who is not, indeed, our enemy? When we apply this logic, choosing the good becomes not only simpler, but wise. Chapter 6: Walking Away from Unforgiveness Despite the truths of God’s Word, there may be times when we are tempted to take in hurt and woundedness. There may be times when we are so incensed by what someone has done to us that, despite these truths, we cannot stomach his or her presence in our lives. God gives us tools for such a situation. In these cases, we are exhorted to pray. “But

Before she could leave, Michael stepped in front of her. “I will come see you tonight,” he said. “Watch for me outside your window and meet me when you can. Your father need not know of my presence.” She bit her lip. If Michael was going to leave Colden, it would be easier to walk away now, where it would be impossible to break down and beg or cry in front of so many witnesses. She could not be certain she would be so stoic otherwise. She pushed toward the door, but Michael blocked her exit. “Promise me you will meet me tonight,” he said with a low note of urgency. “I love you and can’t let this come between us. Not now, when we are about to be separated.

19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee. 20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction [even though you go through some trying times], yet shall not thy teachers [thy teacher, the Lord] be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: 21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left [you will be surrounded with guidance and truth]. 22 Ye shall defile [cease to worship] also the covering of thy graven images of silver [your graven images covered with silver], and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth [they will be totally repulsive to you]; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence [you will shudder at the thought of idol worship]. 23 Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal [you will prosper]; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures [things will go well when Israel repents and is gathered]. 24 The oxen likewise and the young asses that ear the ground [work the ground in agriculture] shall eat clean provender [hay], which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. 25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall [when your enemies have been destroyed]. 26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days [everything will be better than you can imagine], in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound [Christ heals when people repent].

Red Eyes Come and see Where are we This everything On my knees To beat it down To get to my soul I guessed my way Anyone can tell it's you coming But baby, don't mind Leave it on a lie Leave it your own way Come and ride away It's easier to stick to the earth Surrounded by the night Surrounded by the night And you don't go home But you abuse my faith Losing every time but I don't know where You're on my side again So ride the key wherever it goes I'll be the one, I can't, whoo! You're all I've got to wait You're running in the dark When I come to my soul Try and see it through the dark It's coming my way Well we won't get lost inside again babe Am I right? no one sees you, anyone, around here waiting They don't mind, they don't hear; I hear For the best way-oh, you're mine, against it I would keep you here, but I can't Oh, I am trying to see the right, right way, And I don't see it anywhere I go, yeah... woo! She's on my side again The easy way I come to my soul Walking in the downtown Talk to my soul They won't get lost inside again On my way I can see it the darkness coming my way Well we're here Don't get lost inside Yeah you won't get lost inside at all You're on my way Woo!

He kisses me even though I try to raise my hand to stop him. And then I don’t stop him. His lips mold against mine like they’re perfectly shaped for each other. He tastes like mint and smells like himself. I want him to hold me forever. I want him to make everything better. And then I realize this is all wrong. Because the truth is, I’m not really mad at Jamie. I mean, I’m mad that he lied, but I’m not really mad at him. I’m mad because I need him. I need him to be perfect and strong and to protect me from everything in the world that’s terrifying. I need him to hold my hand as I walk through life because it’s so much easier than doing it alone. And needing him is a mistake. I don’t want to need anyone. I want to stand on my own two feet. I want control of my own life and my own emotions. I don’t want to be a branch in someone else’s life anymore—I want to be the tree on my own. I want all the strength to come from me. I don’t want to depend on anyone for anything ever again. I pull my face away from Jamie and it literally hurts so much I have to grip the desk to keep from falling over. I can’t hide from the truth anymore. I let Jamie become my crutch. I let him fill all the voids in my life—family, friendship, love—and it hurts so much to know what I need to do now. Panic is in his eyes. He senses what I’m going to say next. Because even when we’re hurt, we still know each other. We know each other without words.

Being willing to walk away from a power struggle (or worse) is one of the most peaceful actions we can ever take. Doing it without the help of God is difficult for most of us, but seeing it as an opportunity to get closer to God makes it more appealing and far easier.

pulled her hand away, halting in front of the palace’s exit. “Gentlemen first.” He walked out of the palace and down the stairs, heading to the elevator that would lead them to the landing pad. “We should just blow up the starbase from the inside, and then we can be through with this. It would have been more efficient and easier. We could train our new military pilots elsewhere and not use them up on useless missions like taking out Star Guild and Starbase Matrona.” He pointed to his chest. “I get blamed, and here these pilots were, not doing their job and not taking out that starbase.” He stopped and looked up at Sabra. “What do you think?” He gave a sideways smile like his plan was the ace of all plans. Sabra lifted a brow. “We’ve already attempted such. Each weapon’s transport carrying explosives to the starbase has been intercepted and neutralized.” Zim stood straighter, his back arching. “By who?” “The Space Templars.” Zim grimaced. He knew the Templars would be an issue. Sabra’s lips sneered over a toothy smile. “By the way,” she added, “that Admiral Shae Lutz of yours?” “Yeah?” “He didn’t die today. In fact, he escaped the brig.” Zim bared his teeth. “What?

If you really stop and think about it, even Jesus prayed a prayer in Gethsemane that wasn't answered the way He wanted it to be. Did He not believe enough in the Father? Did he not pray long enough, or hard enough, or with enough faith? Of course not! The mere thought is ridiculous. And so I wonder if maybe we need to shift our focus away from rosy platitudes that are, quite honestly, easier to say than the alternative---the hard work of keeping our hearts open in the pain. Recognizing that God is with us, whether or not He calms the waves." Aunt Charlotte patted Alice's hand once more. "And that's not to say fear is what God wants for us, because I don't believe that's true. But it is to say you aren't alone in it, Alice. Not hardly. God has never left you, and I haven't either." "You're right..." Alice's voice trailed off as she cozied deeper into the sofa. "I've never thought about it like that before, but even Jesus prayed there'd be some other way than the suffering He endured, and He was the Son of God. And even Lazarus died eventually. Death always comes before resurrection. All this time, I've been so focused on praying my mom back to health that I've missed out on the big picture. It's not about whether I pray fervently enough to unlock some blessing through the right combination of words. It's about God walking with us in our brokenness---a brokenness the Bible warns that in this world, we will all endure. Maybe instead of trying to sidestep the pain, I need to fill it instead, and ask God to help me find a way through.

This project may be preceeded or followed by the clothing organization steps found in the next section of this book. ORGANIZE CLOTHING examples of storage bedroom closet (walk-in or standard) dresser armoire underbed storage boxes trunk or storage ottoman nightstand supplies needed trash bags/recycling bin, donation box, relocation box, fix-it box spray cleaner and cleaning cloth broom and dust pan and/or vacuum storage containers label maker and/or tags to hang from containers/baskets time commitment 4–10 hours quick assessment questions What are the main categories of clothing? What items could be placed in off-season storage? What types of things need quick and instant access? potential goals for this space make getting ready in the morning a snap make it easier to put away clothing in the evening and on laundry day get rid of clothing that no longer fits create a new wardrobe make the closet visually appealing quick-toss list any clothing that is stained or ripped shoes that are past their prime clothing left over from the high school years (unless, of course, you’re still in high school) souvenir t-shirts broken jewelry socks without mates underwear that has lost its elasticity dry-cleaner hangers and plastic bags storage containers bins/boxes/baskets that are open-top bins/boxes/baskets with lids

Part of her wished she could push the bars out of her way and walk out into the storm and get absolutely soaked to the bone and walk for miles in the nothing until the rain overtook her. She wanted to walk into the flood and let it sweep her away. She'd forgotten what it was like for everything to be muffled and distant and hazy despite the fact she'd spent so much of her life that way. It had been easier.

BERNARDINE QUINN: We’re calling marriage equality ‘equality’ as if the day that there’s a bill stamped saying lesbian and gay people can get married that we’ll have full equality. Yet in Meath, there isn’t one single support service for a young lesbian or gay person to attend; there isn’t one qualified full-time youth worker to work with young LGBT people; there is absolutely zero trans services, where the trans services in Dublin are mediocre at best. There’s something about ‘marriage equality’ – that we’ll all be equal when marriage comes in, when a kid in west Kerry doesn’t even have a telephone number of a helpline that he can ring for support. This was raised by our young people to Mairead McGuinness and to Mary Lou McDonald when they were here, just to say, thinking that your work around marriage equality – that that’s not all. The allocation of finances to LGBT work in this country is tiny compared to what is given to most other services. There’s something about calling it ‘equality’. It’s another step on the ladder and it’s a hugely important step … But it isn’t all. There’s another battle after that, and that is to get services to west Donegal, to Mayo, into the Midlands, to get real, solid support in these areas so that a young LGBT person has something in every county, trained qualified people to talk to. In some areas where those services aren’t available, where there isn’t training for schools, where there’s nobody that a kid can talk to, to say that they think they’re transgender – I don’t want to sound negative – I think marriage equality is going to be fantastic for a lot of lesbian and gay people. I think if you were 14 and coming out today, your story is going to be so much more different than when I was 14. The prospects of you considering yourself what every other young person considers themselves of 14 when you think about your future and what you’re going to do: you’re going to meet the person that you love, you’re going to get married, going to have kids, going to have the house and the picket fence. That will be an option for a kid. When I came out, those dreams were put very firmly away. I was never going to get married, I was never going to have children, I was never going to make my family proud, my dad was never going to walk me up the aisle. All of those kinds of things were not even an option when I came out. As a matter of fact, there was a better chance that I was going to have to go to London, I was going to bring huge shame on my family, I probably would end up not speaking to half my siblings and my parents, having to go away and fend for myself. That was my option. I think that option has dramatically changed. People can live in their home towns easier now … Anything that makes a young person’s life easier, and gives them more opportunities, is fantastic. I think that a young person, 14, 15, only starting to discover themselves, they’ve got a whole other suite of options. They can talk about, ‘I’ll eventually marry my partner.’ I think I’m only after saying that for the first time in my life, that there will be an option to marry my partner.

Monkeys and pedestals is a mental model that helps you quit sooner. Pedestals are the part of the problem you know you can already solve, like designing the perfect business card or logo. The hardest thing is training the monkey. When faced with a complex, ambitious goal, (a) identify the hard thing first; (b) try to solve for that as quickly as possible; and (c) beware of false progress. Building pedestals creates the illusion that you are making progress toward your goal, but doing the easy stuff is a waste of time if the hard stuff is actually impossible. Tackling the monkey first gets you to no faster, limiting the time, effort, and money you sink into a project, making it easier to walk away. When we butt up against a hard problem we can’t solve, we have a tendency to turn to pedestal-building rather than choosing to quit. Advance planning and precommitment contracts increase the chances you will quit sooner. When you enter into a course of action, create a set of kill criteria. This is a list of signals you might see in the future that would tell you it’s time to quit. Kill criteria will help inoculate you against bad decision-making when you’re “in it” by limiting the number of decisions you’ll have to make once you’re already in the gains or in the losses. In organizations, kill criteria allow people a different way to get rewarded beyond dogged and blind pursuit of a project until the bitter end. A common, simple way to develop kill criteria is with “states and dates:” “If by (date), I have/haven’t (reached a particular state), I’ll quit.

Most of the Gen X and Gen Z rebel and question their parents for everything. and most of them live with their parent, and that's why they vote for democrats! But I bet you when you will find out that Democrats support tax on wealth, that mean they want sum of the money that your grandparents, parents, or loved once left behind to you! And also when you start paying you own bills. You will realize that everytime you voted for liberals you been shooting yourself on the foot! I'm pretty sure you will #WalkAway from the liberals like I did after 25 yrs of being Democrat, and voted for conservatives. Being born and raised in a communist I can tell you life it's much easier under a capitalist system than under communist system, because when it come to work you can't say no to communist dictator, and if you do they will send you in a labour camp. And under the capitalist/Market system you can chose to work for them or not, you can work for yourself work as much or as less you want

Not being financially strapped was empowering. It’s a lot easier to ask for something if you’re in a position to walk away if they say no.

don’t get carried away, though, I’m talking about a distance of a few blocks that are not at a big angle. We got to the bottom of the mountain just in time. As the sun went down, the sky turned different shades of red and purple. Jerry walked up to a tall tree, an oak I think. It must have been ten or fifteen blocks high. Jerry started punching the base of it with his bare hands. The wooden block started splintering into small brown particles. After a few seconds we heard a popping sound and the tree block disappeared and reappeared as a smaller block, spinning on the ground. Jerry turned to me after picking the small block. “Look. You smash the tree and get the block. You then pick it up from your inventory and turn it into wooden planks.” “Okay, I’ll give it a go,” I told him. I did exactly as I saw him do it. It seemed that it took forever to destroy the wooden block. “Don’t worry, Mike. Chopping down trees will get much easier once we craft the proper tools, you’ll see,” Jerry assured me. Finally, I managed to chop down the tree. Gosh, it took quite some time. I collected the block and turned it into some wooden planks.

Yep. They get up every single morning and mae a conscious decision to stay with teh person they're with. On the good days, that choice is easier. On the bad days, they really have to fight the feeling in them to make the opposite choice. To leave. To find someone else. To walk away.

THE YOUTH IN MY LAND Citizens, brethrens, go to school on a daily, a number of them on a muddy road, bare footed on a scorching sunshine with an undying hope of a better tomorrow.. Every one well convinced by the education system that there is a wage for the daily walk, Self torture is the process one has to go through in my homeland.. The only key to success is education they all say.. They used to say, They say.. For the few that fend their way out come up with the deep developed thirst for the dreamt life.. Only to be asked later on what's your name?.. Who sent you? These questions become the last password to the highly dreamt world.. It takes great courage for one to get the answers for the seemingly little questions. Millions of the youth shy away in desperation back to their roots.. The dreamt life becomes the dreaded one.. They were taught that one day they Will walk on to the streets of the world as kings... Adorable kings.. They have to.. They have to find a life on the streets... They can't go back to the same life they despised.. They are now so full with hope.. They meet a number of alikes.. All seated wondering what next, how to sleep like kings they were trained to be.. Of course in the deserted ends of the town.. They are in hiding.. Hiding from the expectant world.. Not in pride but shame To live in shame is soaring and they need comfort.. They pass time by taking a puff... Not a mere puff but of the unknown substance... To find homage.. They are in numbers remember so frightened.. As times go on... Hope is gone.. But each day on its own They are the youth of my country I suppose I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon desperacy, who are frightened of life, who are desperate to reach out to their dreams . But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really... This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to realize it's going to be along process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time... Just keep the hopes alive, time matters.. BY DERRICK BARARA

In many ways, this transition into travel can be compared to childhood: Everything you see is new and emotionally affecting, basic tasks like eating and sleeping take on a heightened significance, and entertainment can be found in the simplest curiosities and novelties. “Suddenly you are five years old again,” Bill Bryson observed in Neither Here nor There. “You can’t read anything, you only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” In a certain sense, walking through new places with the instincts of a five-year-old is liberating. No longer are you bound to your past. In living so far away from your home, you’ll suddenly find yourself holding a clean slate. There’s no better opportunity to break old habits, face latent fears, and test out repressed facets of your personality. Socially, you’ll find it easier to be gregarious and open-minded. Mentally, you’ll feel engaged and optimistic, newly ready to listen and learn. And, as much as anything, you’ll find yourself abuzz with the peculiar feeling that you can choose to go in any direction (literally and figuratively) at any given moment. When

In many ways, this transition into travel can be compared to childhood: Everything you see is new and emotionally affecting, basic tasks like eating and sleeping take on a heightened significance, and entertainment can be found in the simplest curiosities and novelties. “Suddenly you are five years old again,” Bill Bryson observed in Neither Here nor There. “You can’t read anything, you only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” In a certain sense, walking through new places with the instincts of a five-year-old is liberating. No longer are you bound to your past. In living so far away from your home, you’ll suddenly find yourself holding a clean slate. There’s no better opportunity to break old habits, face latent fears, and test out repressed facets of your personality. Socially, you’ll find it easier to be gregarious and open-minded. Mentally, you’ll feel engaged and optimistic, newly ready to listen and learn. And, as much as anything, you’ll find yourself abuzz with the peculiar feeling that you can choose to go in any direction (literally and figuratively) at any given moment.

Hairshirt" I am not the type of dog That could keep you waiting For no good reason Run a carbon-black test on my jaw And you will find it's all been said before I can swing my megaphone And long arm the rest It's easier and better To just beat it from the chest Of desire I could walk into this room And the waves of conversation are enough To knock you down in the undertow So alone, so alone in my life Feed me banks of light And hang your hairshirt on the lowest rung It's a beautiful life And I can hang my hairshirt Away up high in the attic of The wrong dog's life chest Or bury it at sea All my life I've searched for this Here I am, here I am In your life It's a beautiful life My life It's a beautiful life Your life Green (1988)

all of it perfect. Not for someone else, maybe, but for me. “I move back to New York,” he says. “I get another editing job, or maybe take up agenting, or try writing again. You work your way up at Loggia, and we’re both busy all the time, and down in Sunshine Falls, Libby runs the local business she saved, and my parents spoil your nieces like the grandkids they so desperately want, and Brendan probably doesn’t get much better at fishing, but he gets to relax and even take paid vacations with your sister and their kids. And you and I—we go out to dinner. “Wherever you want, whenever you want. We have a lot of fun being city people, and we’re happy. You let me love you as much as I know I can, for as long as I know I can, and you have it fucking all. That’s it. That’s the best I could come up with, and I really fucking hope you say—” I kiss him then, like there isn’t someone reading one of the Bridgerton novels five feet away, like we’ve just found each other on a deserted island after months apart. My hands in his hair, my tongue catching on his teeth, his palms sliding around behind me and squeezing me to him in the most thoroughly public groping we’ve managed yet. “I love you, Nora,” he says when we pull apart a few inches to breathe. “I think I love everything about you.” “Even my Peloton?” I ask. “Great piece of equipment,” he says. “The fact that I check my email after work hours?” “Just makes it easier to share Bigfoot erotica without having to walk across the room,” he says. “Sometimes I wear very impractical shoes,” I add. “Nothing impractical about looking hot,” he says. “And what about my bloodlust?” His eyes go heavy as he smiles. “That,” he says, “might be my favorite thing. Be my shark, Stephens.” “Already was,” I say. “Always have been.” “I love you,” he says again. “I love you too.” I don’t have to force it past a knot or through the vise of a tight throat. It’s simply the truth, and it breathes out of me, a wisp of smoke, a sigh, another floating blossom on a current carrying billions of them. “I know,” he says. “I can read you like a book.” EPILOGUE SIX MONTHS LATER THERE ARE BALLOONS in the window, a chalkboard sign out front.

In the early 2000s, social media and streaming services changed the game not only for the world but for the global Church. With just one click, anyone with a computer could now find a church, pastor, worship leader, song, chord chart, sermon, or podcast. During this time, digital intellectual material came at us at lightning speed and the larger, well-known churches began representing and dominating a small fraction of the global Church, setting a standard that many other churches simply could not meet when it came to production. The smaller churches lacked the technology, volunteers, or staff to launch and maintain the programming as well as the finances to keep up with the ever-changing times. The traditionalists, baby boomers, and Gen X, who had done most of their ministry hidden and with little resources, were suddenly seeing everything they had been missing. We were no longer satisfied with our own church homes. A friend and fellow worship leader calls this “worship pornography.” The more content we view online, the less satisfied we are with the Bride entrusted to us. Rather than stay where we are and invest into that body of believers, it has become much easier to go online and look for something sexier, younger, more relevant. We break covenant with the people God had asked us to love and serve by leaving them for something more polished and most likely photoshopped.

Instead of staying overnight on that trip as planned, many of her friends went home, because it was easier to do the work themselves—finding the snacks, getting the gift, managing soccer—than to walk their husbands through doing it, or to deal with anxious calls or snarky texts. She came back from her trip and started to make a spreadsheet of all the tasks that were her responsibility in her marriage—all the things on her plate, big and small. It ended up growing into a massive spreadsheet, which she emailed to her husband as a way of opening up a conversation about the division of labor in their home. I can’t do that. It’s too late to do anything about the inequity in my now-kaput marriage. But I made the list of tasks anyway. I wanted to see in black and white what I’d been doing in the marriage. Reader, I was going to show you the list, but I decided against it. You don’t need the list. Looking at it, I thought, No wonder so many divorced men get remarried right away and so many divorced women stay on their own. I saw something I’m still trying to process: My life looked surprisingly like my mother’s. My mother didn’t go to college, married at twenty, and had me at twenty-four. I went to college and graduate school, published my first book and got married at twenty-eight (at which age she already had three children), and had my children in my thirties. Still, still, my life looked a lot like hers.

A Tidy and Organized Home… Makes you feel calm. You can relax and unwind in a tidy home. There is space to do things, and you know where everything is. When you walk into a hotel room, you immediately feel a sense of peace because the environment is tidy and organized. Makes you feel healthy. Dust and mold accumulate in messes. Are you always coughing and sneezing? Do you suffer from allergies? It’s probably because you are breathing in all the dirt in your home. Give your home a spring clean and your health issues will improve. Makes you feel in control. How does it feel when you know where everything is? Clutter prevents positive energy from flowing through your home. Remember, energy attaches itself to objects, and negative energy is attracted to mess, which creates exhaustion, stagnation, and exasperation. What does it feel like when negative energy is stuck in your body? You want to lie in bed and shut the world away because everything becomes more difficult and you can’t explain why. Here is how decluttering your house will unlock blocked streams of positive energy: You will become more vibrant. Once you create harmony and order in your home, you will feel more radiant and present. Like acupuncture, which removes imbalances and blockages from the body to create more wellness and dynamism, clearing clutter removes imbalances and blockages from your personal space. When you venture through spaces that have been set ablaze with fresh energy, you are captured by inspiration, and the most attractive parts of your personality come to life. You will get rid of bad habits and introduce good ones. All bad habits have triggers. Do you lie on your bed to watch TV instead of sitting on the couch because you can’t be bothered to fold the laundry that has piled up over the past six months? Or because the bed represents sleep, and when you come home from work and get into bed, you are going to fall asleep instead of doing those important tasks on your to-do list. Once you tidy the couch, coming home from work will allow you to sit on it to watch your favorite TV program but get up once it’s finished and do what you need to do. You will improve your problem-solving skills. When your home has been opened up with a clear space, it’s easier to focus, which provides you with a fresh perspective on your problems. You will sleep better. Are you always tired no matter how much sleep you get? That’s because negative energy is stuck under your bed amongst all that junk you’ve stuffed under there. Once you tidy up your bedroom, you will find that positive energy can flow freely around your room making it easier for you to have a deep and restful sleep. You will have more time. Mess delays you. An untidy house means you are always losing things. You can’t find a shoe, a sock, or your keys, so you waste time searching for them, which makes you late for work or social gatherings. When you declutter your home, you could save about an hour a day because you will no longer need to dig through a stack of items to find things. Your intuition will be stronger. A clear space creates a sense of certainty and clarity. You know where everything is, so you have peace of mind. When you have peace of mind, you can focus on being in the present moment. When you need to make important decisions, you will find it easier to do so. It might take some time to give your home a deep clean, but you won’t be sorry for it once it’s done. Chapter 5: How To Become an Assertive Empath The word assertive means “having or showing a confident and forceful personality.

World Peace There’s a place in all hearts where sunshine meets the day hatred isn’t part of you but you follow anyway. Lay down your arms hug your fellow man God has said “we’re brothers” in your heart you understand. Trembling hearts of anger crushes your very soul part of you wants to walk away you just don’t want no more. World Peace waits for all of us like the thousand stars above open arms, and a breath away so much easier to Love.

World Peace There’s a place in all hearts where sunshine meets the day hatred isn’t part of you but you follow anyway. Lay down your arms hug your fellow man God has said “we’re brothers” in your heart you understand. Trembling hearts of anger crushes your very soul part of you wants to walk away you just don’t want no more. World Peace waits for us all like the thousand star above open arms, and a breath away so much easier to Love.

World Peace There’s a place in all hearts where sunshine meets the day yearning for a world of peace, peace that’s here to stay. Let’s lay down all arms hug our fellow man God has said “we’re brothers” open hearts will understand. Trembling hearts of anger can crush the very soul walking quietly into the sunset we just don’t want no more. World Peace waits for us all like the thousand stars above open arms, and a breath away, so much easier to Love.

All relationships have moments where it feels easier to walk away than stay and work on it. Sure, you can find a new one, but there will still be problems.

That’s right,” Stebbins said jovially. “None of us really has anything to lose. That makes it easier to give away.

I will try to figure out what's the right thing for me to do - and then do it. The consequences will work themselves out and I will deal with them. Easier to live with that then the twinge of remembering over and over when I chose to ignore, deny or walk away. Honestly, I've done some of both and when I can, I've gone back and made amends. It's always nice when you can skip the need for the apology, though.

What about letting your friends see your real face? But maybe it’s easier not to. Because what if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything, and still walked away? Who could blame them—who would want to bother with that sort of mess?

You deserve everything good in your life. It's funny, isn’t it? A lifetime of people walking away and never looking back left me scrambling for validation, for connection. Left me desperately chasing a version of me I’d never be able to attain. It took nearly sixteen years to realize the reason I’d never been able to be better was because there was nothing wrong with who I was in the first place. I’m still working on it, struggling every day to accept that I truly am deserving of all the good things in my life, a struggle that gets easier every day with my family by my side. And a handful of carefully selected words, spilled out like the tears cascading down their faces and mine, wipes the slate clean with a single sweep of the hand. Because life is too short to hold grudges, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that hurt people are desperate enough that they’ll do whatever they think they need to do to ease the pain, that we’re all just out here doing the best that we can, wherever we are in life.

His phone rings this time, and he turns and walks away before answering. I drop back down to my seat, wondering how planning out a brutal murder is easier than dating. The world is entirely too fucked up.