Especially Thinking Of You Today Quotes

Don't exist. Live. Get out, explore. Thrive. Challenge authority. Challenge yourself. Evolve. Change forever. Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don't stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn't know your name doesn't mean you dont matter. Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? What have you done today to matter? Did you exist or did you live? How did you thrive? Become a chameleon-fit in anywhere. Be a rockstar-stand out everywhere. Do nothing, do everything. Forget everything, remember everyone. Care, don't just pretend to. Listen to everyone. Love everyone and nothing at the same time. Its impossible to be everything,but you can't stop trying to do it all. All I know is that I have no idea where I am right now. I feel like I am in training for something, making progress with every step I take. I fear standing still. It is my greatest weakness. I talk big, but often don't follow through. That's my biggest problem. I don't even know what to think right now. It's about time I start to take a jump. Fuck starting to take. Just jump-over everything. Leap. It's time to be aggressive. You've started to speak your mind, now keep going with it, but not with the intention of sparking controversy or picking a germane fight. Get your gloves on, it's time for rebirth. There IS no room for the nice guys in the history books. THIS IS THE START OF A REVOLUTION. THE REVOLUTION IS YOUR LIFE. THE GOAL IS IMMORTALITY. LET'S LIVE, BABY. LET'S FEEL ALIVE AT ALL TIMES. TAKE NO PRISONERS. HOLD NO SOUL UNACCOUNTABLE, ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR OWN. IF SOMETHING DOESN'T HAPPEN, IT'S YOUR FAULT. Make this moment your reckoning. Your head has been held under water for too long and now it is time to rise up and take your first true breath. Do everything with exact calculation, nothing without meaning. Do not make careful your words, but make no excuses for what you say. Fuck em' all. Set a goal for everyday and never be tired.

London The Institute Year of Our Lord 1878 “Mother, Father, my chwaer fach, It’s my seventeenth birthday today. I know that to write to you is to break the law, I know that I will likely tear this letter into pieces when it is finished. As I have done on all my birthdays past since I was twelve. But I write anyway, to commemorate the occasion - the way some make yearly pilgrimages to a grave, to remember the death of a loved one. For are we not dead to each other? I wonder if when you woke this morning you remembered that today, seventeen years ago, you had a son? I wonder if you think of me and imagine my life here in the Institute in London? I doubt you could imagine it. It is so very different from our house surrounded by mountains, and the great clear blue sky and the endless green. Here, everything is black and gray and brown, and the sunsets are painted in smoke and blood. I wonder if you worry that I am lonely or, as Mother always used to, that I am cold, that I have gone out into the rain again without a hat? No one here worries about those details. There are so many things that could kill us at any moment; catching a chill hardly seems important. I wonder if you knew that I could hear you that day you came for me, when I was twelve. I crawled under the bed to block out the sound of you crying my name, but I heard you. I heard mother call for her fach, her little one. I bit my hands until they bled but I did not come down. And, eventually, Charlotte convinced you to go away. I thought you might come again but you never did. Herondales are stubborn like that. I remember the great sighs of relief you would both give each time the Council came to ask me if I wished to join the Nephilim and leave my family, and each time I said no and I send them away. I wonder if you knew I was tempted by the idea of a life of glory, of fighting, of killing to protect as a man should. It is in our blood - the call to the seraph and the stele, to marks and to monsters. I wonder why you left the Nephilim, Father? I wonder why Mother chose not to Ascend and to become a Shadowhunter? Is it because you found them cruel or cold? I have no fathom side. Charlotte, especially, is kind to me, little knowing how much I do not deserve it. Henry is mad as a brush, but a good man. He would have made Ella laugh. There is little good to be said about Jessamine, but she is harmless. As little as there is good to say about her, there is as much good to say about Jem: He is the brother Father always thought I should have. Blood of my blood - though we are no relation. Though I might have lost everything else, at least I have gained one thing in his friendship. And we have a new addition to our household too. Her name is Tessa. A pretty name, is it not? When the clouds used to roll over the mountains from the ocean? That gray is the color of her eyes. And now I will tell you a terrible truth, since I never intend to send this letter. I came here to the Institute because I had nowhere else to go. I did not expect it to ever be home, but in the time I have been here I have discovered that I am a true Shadowhunter. In some way my blood tells me that this is what I was born to do.If only I had known before and gone with the Clave the first time they asked me, perhaps I could have saved Ella’s life. Perhaps I could have saved my own. Your Son, Will

Like I said, magic comes from life, and especially from emotions. They're a source of the same intangible energy that everyone can feel when an autumn moon rises and fills you with a sudden sense of bone-deep excitement, or when the first warm breeze of spring rushes past your face, full of the scents of life, and drowns you in a sudden flood of unreasoning joy. The passion of mighty music that brings tears to your eyes, and the raw, bubbling, infectious laughter of small children at play, the bellowing power of a stadium full of football fans shouting "Hey!" in time to that damned song—they're all charged with magic. My magic comes from the same places. And maybe from darker places than that. Fear is an emotion, too. So is rage. So is lust. And madness. I'm not a particularly good person. I'm no Charles Manson or anything, but I'm not going to be up for canonization either. Though in the past, I think maybe I was a better person than I am today. In the past I hadn't seen so many people hurt and killed and terrorized by the same kind of power that damn well should have been making the world a nicer place, or at the least staying the hell away from it. I hadn't made so many mistakes back then, so many shortsighted decisions, some of which had cost people their lives. I had been sure of myself. I had been whole.

The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a very hardy individualist or social rebel -- or one desperate for another life -- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.

Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.

Whenever Percy stopped by to see her, she was so lost in thought that the conversation went something like this: Percy: “Hey, how’s it going?” Annabeth: “Uh, no thanks.” Percy: “Okay…have you eaten anything today?” Annabeth: “I think Leo is on duty. Ask him.” Percy: “So, my hair is on fire.” Annabeth: “Okay. In a while.” She got like this sometimes. It was one of the challenges of dating an Athena girl. Still, Percy wondered what he had to do to get her attention. He was worried about her after her encounter with the spiders at Fort Sumter, and he didn’t know how to help her, especially if she shut him out.

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday. But because of me, you were never able to. Well, I'm alone there now… In our ”“special place.” Waiting for you… Waiting for you to come to see me. But you never do. And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness. I know I've done a terrible thing to you. Something you'll never forgive me for. I wish I could change that, but I can't. I feel so pathetic and ugly lying here, waiting for you... Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling, and all I can think about is how unfair it all is... The doctor came today. He told me I could go home for a short stay. It's not that I'm getting better. It's just that this may be my last chance... I think you know what I mean... Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly. But I'm afraid James. I'm    afraid you don't really want me to come home. Whenever you come see me, I can tell how hard it is on you... I don't know if you hate me or pity me... Or maybe I just disgust you.... I'm sorry about that. When I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it. I was so angry all the time, and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That's why I understand if you do hate me. But I want you to know this, James. I'll always love you. Even though our life together had to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. We had some wonderful years together. Well, this letter has gone on too long, so I'll say goodbye. I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. That means that when you read this, I'll already be dead. I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me. These last few years since I became ill...I'm so sorry for what I did to you, did to us... You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing. That's why I want you to live for yourself now. Do what's best for you, James. James... You made me happy. “I love you, Mary.”  As the car began to slowly sink to the bottom of the lake, James pulled his wife close and gently held her. Their wish had finally come true. They would be together. And now they had an eternity to enjoy their happiness.

I detest love lyrics. I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics'. You're a young kid and you hear all those 'love lyrics', right? Your parents aren't telling you the truth about love, and you can't really learn about it in school. You're getting the bulk of your 'behaviour norms' mapped out for you in the lyrics to some dumb fucking love song. It's a subconscious training that creates desire for an imaginary situation which will never exist for you. People who buy into that mythology go through life feeling that they got cheated out of something. What I think is very cynical about some rock and roll songs -- especially today -- is the way they say: "Let's make love." What the fuck kind of wussy says shit like that in the real world? You ought to be able to say "Let's go fuck", or at least "Let's go fill-in-the-blank" -- but you gotta say "Let's make love" in order to get on the radio. This creates a semantic corruption, by changing the context in which the word 'love' is used in the song. When they get into drooling about love as a 'romantic concept' -- especially in the lyrics of sensitive singer/songwriter types -- that's another shove in the direction of bad mental health. Fortunately, lyrics over the last five or six years have gotten to be less and less important, with 'art rock groups' and new wavers specializing in 'nonjudgemental' or 'purposely inconsequential' lyrics. People have stopped listening to the lyrics -- they are now only 'pitched mouth noises'.

I can do anything I believe I can do! I’ve got it, and every day I get more of it. I have talent, skills, and ability. I set goals and I reach them. I know what I want out of life. I go after it and I get it. People like me, and I feel good about myself. I have a sense of pride in who I am, and I believe in myself. Nothing seems to stop me. I have a lot of determination. I turn problems into advantages. I find possibilities in things that other people never give a chance. I have a lot of energy—I am very alive! I enjoy life and I can tell it and so can others. I keep myself up, looking ahead, and liking it. I know that I can accomplish anything I choose, and I refuse to let anything negative hold me back or stand in my way. I am not afraid of anything or anyone. I have strength, power, conviction, and confidence! I like challenges and I meet them head on, face to face—today especially! I am on top of the world and I’m going for it. I have a clear picture in my mind of what I want. I can see it in front of me. I know what I want and I know how to get it. I know that it’s all up to me and I know I can do it. Roadblocks don’t bother me. They just mean that I am alive and running, and I’m not going to stand still for anything. I trust myself I’ve got what it takes—plenty of it—and I know how to use it. Today, more than ever. Today I am unstoppable! I’ve got myself together and I’m getting more together every day. And today—look out world, here I come! Limitations? I don’t even recognize them as limitations. There is no challenge I can’t conquer; there is no wall I can’t climb over. There is no problem I can’t defeat, or turn around and make it work for me. I stand tall! I am honest and sincere. I like to deal with people and they like me. I think well; I think clearly. I am organized; I am in control of myself, and everything about me. I call my shots, and no one has to call them for me. I never blame anyone else for the circumstances of my life. I accept my failings and move past them as easily as I accept the rewards for my victories. I never demand perfection of myself, but I expect the very best of what I have to give—and that’s what I get! I never give myself excuses. I get things done on time and in the right way. Today I have the inner strength to do more than ever. I am an exceptional human being. My goals and my incredible belief in myself turn my goals into reality. I have the power to live my dreams. I believe in them like I believe in myself. And that belief is so strong that there is nothing that diminishes my undefeatable spirit.

My Dearest, I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together. I can almost feel you beside me as I write this letter, and I can smell the scent of wildflowers that always reminds me of you. But at this moment, these things give me no pleasure. Your visits have been coming less often, and I feel sometimes as if the greatest part of who I am is slowly slipping away. I am trying, though. At night when I am alone, I call for you, and whenever my ache seems to be the greatest, you still seem to find a way to return to me. Last night, in my dreams, I saw you on the pier near Wrightsville Beach. The wind was blowing through your hair, and your eyes held the fading sunlight. I am struck as I see you leaning against the rail. You are beautiful, I think as I see you, a vision that I can never find in anyone else. I slowly begin to walk toward you, and when you finally turn to me, I notice that others have been watching you as well. “Do you know her?” they ask me in jealous whispers, and as you smile at me, I simply answer with the truth. “Better than my own heart.” I stop when I reach you and take you in my arms. I long for this moment more than any other. It is what I live for, and when you return my embrace, I give myself over to this moment, at peace once again. I raise my hand and gently touch your cheek and you tilt your head and close your eyes. My hands are hard and your skin is soft, and I wonder for a moment if you’ll pull back, but of course you don’t. You never have, and it is at times like this that I know what my purpose is in life. I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be. But then, as always, the mist starts to form as we stand close to one another. It is a distant fog that rises from the horizon, and I find that I grow fearful as it approaches. It slowly creeps in, enveloping the world around us, fencing us in as if to prevent escape. Like a rolling cloud, it blankets everything, closing, until there is nothing left but the two of us. I feel my throat begin to close and my eyes well up with tears because I know it is time for you to go. The look you give me at that moment haunts me. I feel your sadness and my own loneliness, and the ache in my heart that had been silent for only a short time grows stronger as you release me. And then you spread your arms and step back into the fog because it is your place and not mine. I long to go with you, but your only response is to shake your head because we both know that is impossible. And I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away. I find myself straining to remember everything about this moment, everything about you. But soon, always too soon, your image vanishes and the fog rolls back to its faraway place and I am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry.

I hadn't seen Reth since he had come to visit me in the hospital after I released the souls, and I never wanted to again.Him or any of the other creepy, manipulative, amoral, psychotic, insert-furhter-negative-adjectives-of-your-choice-here faeries. Especially after today, if the sylph was with them. I wasn't about to draw their attention to me by holding hands through the Faerie Paths. She smiled. "I understand. In fact, one of my first initiatives was weaning IPCA from faerie magic dependancy. I think you'll be pleased to find that we now use them a mere forty percent of the amount we used to." "Forty percent, huh? That's still about one hundred percent more than I'm happy with.

But my friend IS the sea, Mr. Diego. He has been my friend since I was very young, my only friend, and I can't bear to hear him crying. he's lonely. I came here to keep him company." "Boy, the sea is not your friend, especially not today." "Excuse me, Mr. Diego, but I think you are wrong. He is my friend, he says good morning to me every day.

So you make a deal with the gods. You do these dances and they'll send rain and good crops and the whole works? And nothing bad will ever happen. Right.'… "'No, it's not like that. It's not making a deal, bad things can still happen, but you want to try not to CAUSE them to happen. It has to do with keeping things in balance…. Really, it's like the spirits have made a deal with US…. We're on our own. The spirits have been good enough to let us live here and use the utilities, and we're saying: We know how nice you're being. We appreciate the rain, we appreciate the sun, we appreciate the deer we took. Sorry if we messed up anything. You've gone to a lot of trouble, and we'll try to be good guests.'… "'Like a note you'd send somebody after you stayed in their house?' "'Exactly like that. "Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. I took some beer out of the refrigerator, and I broke a coffee cup. Sorry, I hope it wasn't your favorite one."'… "It's a good idea,' I said. 'Especially since we're still here sleeping on God's couch. We're permanent houseguests.' "'Yep, we are. Better remember how to put everything back how we found it.' It was a new angle on religion, for me. I felt a little embarrassed for my blunt interrogation. And the more I thought about it, even more embarrassed for my bluntly utilitarian culture. 'The way they tell it to us Anglos, God put the earth here for us to use, westward-ho. Like a special little playground.' "Loyd said, 'Well, that explains a lot.'… "'But where do you go when you've pissed in every corner of your playground?'... "To people who think of themselves as God's houseguests, American enterprise must seem arrogant beyond belief. Or stupid. A nation of amnesiacs, proceeding as if there were no other day but today. Assuming the land could also forget what had been done to it.

JUST FOR TODAY Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that ‘most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.’ Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals. Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them. Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse it nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways; I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don’t want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticise not at all, nor find fault with anything and not try to regulate nor improve anyone. Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime. Just for today I will have a program. I will write down what I expect to do every hour. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. It will eliminate two pests, hurrying and indecision. Just for today I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax. In this half-hour sometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective into my life. Just for today I will be unafraid, especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful, to love, and to believe that those I love, love me. If we want to develop a mental attitude that will bring us peace and happiness, here is Rule 1: Think and act cheerfully, and you will feel cheerful.

Think, let us say, of the times of Vespasian; and what do you see? Men and women busy marrying, bringing up children, sickening, dying, fighting, feasting, chaffering, farming, flattering, bragging, envying, scheming, calling down curses, grumbling at fate, loving, hoarding, coveting thrones and dignities. Of all that life, not a trace survives today. Or come forward to the days of Trajan; again, it is the same; that life, too, has perished. Take a similar look at the records of other past ages and peoples; mark how one and all, after their short-lived strivings, passed away and were resolved into the elements. More especially, recall some who, within your own knowledge, have followed after vanities instead of contenting themselves with a resolute performance of the duties for which they were created. In such cases it is essential to remind ourselves that the pursuit of any object depends for its value upon the worth of the object pursued. If, then, you would avoid discouragement, never become unduly absorbed in things that are not of the first importance.

When he wrote back, he pretended to be his old self, he lied his way into sanity. For fear of his psychiatrist who was also their censor, they could never be sensual, or even emotional. His was considered a modern, enlightened prison, despite its Victorian chill. He had been diagnosed, with clinical precision, as morbidly oversexed, and in need of help as well as correction. He was not to be stimulated. Some letters—both his and hers—were confiscated for some timid expression of affection. So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes. All those books, those happy or tragic couples they had never met to discuss! Tristan and Isolde the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Once, in despair, he referred to Prometheus, chained to a rock, his liver devoured daily by a vulture. Sometimes she was patient Griselde. Mention of “a quiet corner in a library” was a code for sexual ecstasy. They charted the daily round too, in boring, loving detail. He described the prison routine in every aspect, but he never told her of its stupidity. That was plain enough. He never told her that he feared he might go under. That too was clear. She never wrote that she loved him, though she would have if she thought it would get through. But he knew it. She told him she had cut herself off from her family. She would never speak to her parents, brother or sister again. He followed closely all her steps along the way toward her nurse’s qualification. When she wrote, “I went to the library today to get the anatomy book I told you about. I found a quiet corner and pretended to read,” he knew she was feeding on the same memories that consumed him “They sat down, looked at each other, smiled and looked away. Robbie and Cecilia had been making love for years—by post. In their coded exchanges they had drawn close, but how artificial that closeness seemed now as they embarked on their small talk, their helpless catechism of polite query and response. As the distance opened up between them, they understood how far they had run ahead of themselves in their letters. This moment had been imagined and desired for too long, and could not measure up. He had been out of the world, and lacked the confidence to step back and reach for the larger thought. I love you, and you saved my life. He asked about her lodgings. She told him. “And do you get along all right with your landlady?” He could think of nothing better, and feared the silence that might come down, and the awkwardness that would be a prelude to her telling him that it had been nice to meet up again. Now she must be getting back to work. Everything they had, rested on a few minutes in a library years ago. Was it too frail? She could easily slip back into being a kind of sister. Was she disappointed? He had lost weight. He had shrunk in every sense. Prison made him despise himself, while she looked as adorable as he remembered her, especially in a nurse’s uniform. But she was miserably nervous too, incapable of stepping around the inanities. Instead, she was trying to be lighthearted about her landlady’s temper. After a few more such exchanges, she really was looking at the little watch that hung above her left breast, and telling him that her lunch break would soon be over.

Here, Kells. I brought you something,” he said unassumingly and held out three mangos. “Thanks. Um, dare I ask where you got them?” “Monkeys.” I stopped in mid-brush. “Monkeys? What do you mean monkeys?” “Well, monkeys don’t like tigers because tigers eat monkeys. So, when a tiger comes around, they jump up in the trees and pummel the tiger with fruit or feces. Lucky for me today they threw fruit.” I gulped. “Have you ever…eaten a monkey?” Ren grinned at me. “Well, a tiger does have to eat.” I dug a rubber band out of the backpack so I could braid my hair. “Ugh, that’s disgusting.” He laughed. “I didn’t really eat a monkey, Kells. I’m just teasing you. Monkeys are repellant. They taste like meaty tennis balls and they smell like feet.” He paused. “Now a nice juicy deer, that is delectable.” He smacked his lips together in an exaggerated way. “I don’t think I really need to hear about your hunting.” “Really? I quite enjoy hunting.” Ren froze into place. Then, almost imperceptibly, he lowered his body slowly to a crouch and balanced on the balls of his feet. He placed a hand in the grass in front of him and began to creep closer to me. He was tracking me, hunting me. His eyes locked on mine and pinned me to the spot where I was standing. He was preparing to spring. His lips were pulled back in a wide grin, which showed his brilliant white teeth. He looked…feral. He spoke in a silky, mesmerizing voice. “When you’re stalking your prey, you must freeze in place and hide, remaining that way for a long time. If you fail, your prey eludes you.” He closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. Even though I’d been watching him closely, I was startled at how fast he could move. My pulse started thumping wildly at my throat, which was where his lips now hovered as if he were going for my jugular. He brushed my hair back and moved up to my ear, whispering, “And you will go…hungry.” His words were hushed. His warm breath tickled my ear and made goose bumps fan out over my body. I turned my head slightly to look at him. His eyes had changed. They were a brighter blue than normal and were studying my face. His hand was still in my hair, and his eyes drifted down to my mouth. I suddenly had the distinct impression that this was what it felt like to be a deer. Ren was making my nervous. I blinked and swallowed dryly. His eyes darted back up to mine again. He must have sensed my apprehension because his expression changed. He removed his hand from my hair and relaxed his posture. “I’m sorry if I frightened you, Kelsey. It won’t happen again.” When he took a step back, I started breathing again. I said shakily, “Well, I don’t want to hear any more about hunting. It freaks me out. The least you could do is not tell me about it. Especially when I have to spend time with you outdoors, okay?” He laughed. “kells, we all have some animalistic tendencies. I loved hunting, even when I was young.” I shuddered. “Fine. Just keep your animalistic tendencies to yourself.” He leaned toward me again and pulled on a strand of my hair. “Now, Kells, there are some of my animalistic tendencies that you seem to like.” He started making a rumbling sound in his chest, and I realized that he was purring. “Stop that!” I sputtered. He laughed, walked over to the backpack, and picked up the fruit. “So, do you want any of this mango or not? I’ll wash it for you.” “Well, considering you carried it in your mouth all that way just for me. And taking into account the source of said fruit. Not really.” His shoulders fell, and I hurried to add, “But I guess I could eat some of the inside.” He looked up at me and smiled. “It’s not freeze-dried.” “Okay. I’ll try some.

Ungh,” Ryan said. “That shit is so hot.” Everyone turned to stare at him. He was bright red. “I said that out loud, didn’t I? Dammit.” “What?” I squeaked. “When you do magic, it turns me on,” Ryan said, shaking his head frantically. “Ah gods. I can’t—stop. Just stop. Ahhh, I get erections when you cast spells. Oh shit.” “Sweet molasses,” I managed to say. “This… this is not what I thought was going to happen today,” Gary said. “What you think happen?” Tiggy asked. “I thought Ryan and Sam would continue to ignore how much they want to bone each other and we would all be suffering in silence because Sam won’t pull his head out of his ass to see that Ryan wants to eat said ass for dinner.” “I do,” Ryan said through gritted teeth. “For breakfast, even. And lunch. And a midnight snack. Especially when you do magic.” “You have a magic kink?” I said, because that was the only thing I could focus on. “Yes. But only for you. Your magic gets me hard,” he said, looking like he wished he could be anywhere but where he was. “When you do anything, I get hard, really. Even your ridiculous sex puns. You remember when you wrapped those Dark wizards in stone at the restaurant?” “Yeah,” I managed to say. “I wanted to tell you that you gave me an e-rock-tion.” He bent over and banged his forehead against the table. “Why, why, why did I say that out loud? Please. Someone. Anyone. Kill me.” “Sex puns,” I breathed. “Knight Delicious Face said a sex pun.” “There it is again!” he exclaimed. “Knight Delicious Face. What is that?” “You’re a knight,” I said. “And your face is delicious.” “You think I’m delicious?” he said, suddenly shy. “Oh my gods,” Gary moaned. “This is so awkward I can’t even stand it. I physically hurt from how awkward this is. I don’t even care that we’re apparently in mortal danger. I just don’t want to listen to you two flirt anymore. Eloise? Yoo-hoo, Eloise? If you’re going to kill us, can you please do it now? I can’t take this anymore.

Today, think about the character traits of Jesus that resonate most deeply with you (especially those that seem lacking in the world), and realize that these are what you are invited to birth into the world: compassion, forgiveness, courage, honesty. Let goodness form within you today, and find a way to release it into the world.

Miss me?" she asks with her usual wryness, tossing her backpack on the floor and dropping down on the bed beside me like she comes over all the time. "I feel like a rebel just knowing you. Everyone keeps asking me if you really lit Brooklyn on fire." I arch a brow. "On fire?" Catherine pumps up a pillow beneath her head. "The actual event has gotten a bit exaggerated." Her lips twitch. "Maybe I had something to do with that." "Nice. Thanks." "No problem." "So I guess I'm pretty much done for at school." For the first time, it matters to me. If I'm to stay here and make a go of it, it wouldn't hurt to have a few friends. To not be a social outcast. Especially since it seems pretty important for Tamra's success at school, too. "Are you kidding? You're a hero." Her lips twist with a smile. "I think you've got a shot at homecoming queen next fall." I give a short laugh, and then her words sink. Next fall. Might I be here then? With Will? It's almost too sweet to believe. "So," Catherine beings, picking at the loose paper edging my spiral. "Rutledge was absent today." "Yeah?" I try for nonchalance. "Yeah." She stretches the word, her blue-green eyes cutting meaningfully into mine. "And his cousins were around, so he's not off somewhere with them. I wonder..." She cocks her head, her long, choppy bangs, sliding low across her forehead. "Wherever could he have been?" I shrug and pick at the flaking tip of my pencil. She continues, "I know where Xander thinks he was." My gaze swings back to her face. "Xander talked to you?" "I know, right? Can my days as a pariah be coming to an end?" "Where does he think Will was?" "With you, of course.

I never leave home without my cayenne pepper. I either stash a bottle of the liquid extract in my pocket book or I stick it in the shopping cart I pull around with me all over Manhattan. When it comes to staying right side up in this world, a black woman needs at least three things. The first is a quiet spot of her own, a place away from the nonsense. The second is a stash of money, like the cash my mother kept hidden in the slit of her mattress. The last is several drops of cayenne pepper, always at the ready. Sprinkle that on your food before you eat it and it’ll kill any lurking bacteria. The powder does the trick as well, but I prefer the liquid because it hits the bloodstream quickly. Particularly when eating out, I won’t touch a morsel to my lips ‘til it’s speckled with with cayenne. That’s just one way I take care of my temple, aside from preparing my daily greens, certain other habits have carried me toward the century mark. First thing I do every morning is drink four glasses of water. People think this water business is a joke. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not. I’ve known two elderly people who died of dehydration, one of whom fell from his bed in the middle of the night and couldn’t stand up because he was so parched. Following my water, I drink 8 ounces of fresh celery blended in my Vita-mix. The juice cleanses the system and reduces inflammation. My biggest meal is my first one: oatmeal. I soak my oats overnight so that when I get up all I have to do is turn on the burner. Sometimes I enjoy them with warm almond milk, other times I add grated almonds and berries, put the mixture in my tumbler and shake it until it’s so smooth I can drink it. In any form, oats do the heart good. Throughout the day I eat sweet potatoes, which are filled with fiber, beets sprinkled with a little olive oil, and vegetables of every variety. I also still enjoy plenty of salad, though I stopped adding so many carrots – too much sugar. But I will do celery, cucumbers, seaweed grass and other greens. God’s fresh bounty doesn’t need a lot of dressing up, which is why I generally eat my salad plain. From time to time I do drizzle it with garlic oil. I love the taste. I also love lychee nuts. I put them in the freezer so that when I bite into them cold juice comes flooding out. As terrific as they are, I buy them only once in awhile. I recently bit into an especially sweet one, and then I stuck it right back in the freezer. “Not today, Suzie,” I said to myself, “full of glucose!” I try never to eat late, and certainly not after nine p.m. Our organs need a chance to rest. And before bed, of course, I have a final glass of water. I don’t mess around with my hydration.

You should fight like hell if you get attacked on the street, or in your home. The old thinking was, especially with women, submit, give in, maybe the guy will give you a break and not kill you. Now, maybe you will get raped, but least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you didn't just lie down and take it. You don't know how many home-invasion scenes we walk in on where the people are sitting there all tied up and all dead. There'll be four, five people, a family, mayb...more "You should fight like hell if you get attacked on the street, or in your home. The old thinking was, especially with women, submit, give in, maybe the guy will give you a break and not kill you. Now, maybe you will get raped, but least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you didn't just lie down and take it. You don't know how many home-invasion scenes we walk in on where the people are sitting there all tied up and all dead. There'll be four, five people, a family, maybe some guests: enough to put up a fight. And you know they let themselves get tied up. You just know the guys said, 'We just want to tie you up. We won't hurt you.' You'd think the people would realize — why do they want to tie us up if they don't want to hurt us? But they bought it. It always gives us a little chuckle.

Some of the social skill difficulties leave adults with ADD sometimes hesitant to participate in important situations at work and in their social life. These often lead to anxiety and withdrawal since you don’t know if today will be a good or bad brain day. You may not be able to think of a single thing to say during small talk or be able to answer a direct question. You may simply go blank, unable to retrieve information you know. You may not be able to tell a story in a linear way and people may start to stare at you several minutes into the story and you know they aren’t following you. You may find yourself interrupting, wanting to get to the bottom line, and finishing people’s sentences for them (because you know what they are going to say!). You may mentally wander off in conversations, not following what is being said, which is especially difficult in groups.

I BELIEVE THAT we know much more about God than we admit that we know, than perhaps we altogether know that we know. God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.

When I was young I believed people should be told everything and that, as a pastor, I had a duty to share all my knowledge. Over the years I came to see that was a mistake. A person may know only what they are capable of assimilating. I have been thinking about this for half my life, and especially since I have been in Israel, but there are few people I can confide in. Really only you. You see, it is a terrible thing to disturb someone’s equilibrium. If a person has become accustomed to thinking in a particular way, even a slight digression from that can prove painful. Not everybody is open to new ideas, to making their understanding more precise and supplementing it, to change. I have to admit that I am changing. Today my views on many matters have diverged from those generally accepted in the Catholic world, and I am not the only person in that situation. “You see, the birth of the One whom

Psychologist and mindfulness expert David Richo, Ph.D., has focused on how these healthy connections are formed and what is needed to keep them alive. He describes the “5 A’s” as the qualities and gifts we all naturally seek out from the important people in our lives, including family, friends, and especially partners. What are these 5 A’s? • Attention—genuine interest in you, what you like and dislike, what inspires and motivates you without being overbearing or intrusive. You experience being heard and noticed. • Acceptance—genuinely embracing your interests, desires, activities, and preferences as they are without trying to alter or change them in any way. • Affection—physical comforting as well as compassion. • Appreciation—encouragement and gratitude for who you are, as you are. • Allowing—it is safe to be yourself and express all that you feel, even if it is not entirely polite or socially acceptable. What Richo is describing, in essence, are those genuine needs we have that form the basis of secure, healthy relationships. The 5 A’s are what we all should have received most of the time from our caregivers when we were growing up. They are also what we want in our adult relationships today. In his book How to Be an Adult in Relationships, Richo compares and contrasts the 5 A’s with what happens in unhealthy or unequal relationships.

think of climate change as slow, but it is unnervingly fast. We think of the technological change necessary to avert it as fast-arriving, but unfortunately it is deceptively slow—especially judged by just how soon we need it. This is what Bill McKibben means when he says that winning slowly is the same as losing: “If we don’t act quickly, and on a global scale, then the problem will literally become insoluble,” he writes. “The decisions we make in 2075 won’t matter.” Innovation, in many cases, is the easy part. This is what the novelist William Gibson meant when he said, “The future is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.” Gadgets like the iPhone, talismanic for technologists, give a false picture of the pace of adaptation. To a wealthy American or Swede or Japanese, the market penetration may seem total, but more than a decade after its introduction, the device is used by less than 10 percent of the world; for all smartphones, even the “cheap” ones, the number is somewhere between a quarter and a third. Define the technology in even more basic terms, as “cell phones” or “the internet,” and you get a timeline to global saturation of at least decades—of which we have two or three, in which to completely eliminate carbon emissions, planetwide. According to the IPCC, we have just twelve years to cut them in half. The longer we wait, the harder it will be. If we had started global decarbonization in 2000, when Al Gore narrowly lost election to the American presidency, we would have had to cut emissions by only about 3 percent per year to stay safely under two degrees of warming. If we start today, when global emissions are still growing, the necessary rate is 10 percent. If we delay another decade, it will require us to cut emissions by 30 percent each year. This is why U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres believes we have only one year to change course and get started. The scale of the technological transformation required dwarfs any achievement that has emerged from Silicon Valley—in fact dwarfs every technological revolution ever engineered in human history, including electricity and telecommunications and even the invention of agriculture ten thousand years ago. It dwarfs them by definition, because it contains all of them—every single one needs to be replaced at the root, since every single one breathes on carbon, like a ventilator.

Not so long ago a psychiatrist told me that one of the marks of an adult who has never properly grown up is an inability to wait, and a whole therapeutic movement has been built on that one insight alone. Because music takes or demands our time and depends on carefully timed relations between notes, it cannot be rushed. It schools us in the art of patience. Certainly we can play or sing a piece of music faster. But we can do this only to a very limited degree before the piece becomes incoherent. Given today’s technology we can cut and paste, we can hop from track to track on the MP3 player, flip from one song to another, and download highlights of a three-hour opera. But few would claim they hear a piece of music in its integrity that way. Music says to us: “There are things you will learn only by passing through this process, by being caught up in this series of relations and transformations.”34 Music requires my time, my flesh, and my blood for its performance and enjoyment, and this means going at its speed. Simone Weil described music as “time that one wants neither to arrest nor hasten.”35 In an interview, speaking of the tendency of our culture to think that music is there simply to “wash over” us, the composer James MacMillan remarked: “[Music] needs us to sacrifice something of ourselves to meet it, and it’s very difficult sometimes to do that, especially [in] the whole culture we’re in. Sacrifice and self-sacrifice—certainly sacrificing your time—is not valued any more.”36

[John Major] believed we need 'to condemn a little more, and understand a little less.' I remember thinking then, at the age of fourteen, that this was surely wrong - that it's always better to understand why people do things, even (perhaps especially) the most heinous acts. But today, this attitude — condemn more, understand less — has become the default response of almost everyone, from the right to the left, as we spend our lives dancing to the tune of algorithms that reward fury and penalize mercy.

Just as we did with used cars, take a moment to brainstorm every single reason (fear, worry, question, concern) as to why someone would not buy from your company. What would hold them back? What would keep them from clicking “buy,” swiping their credit card, or writing that big check? If you do this activity properly (especially if you do it with fellow employees), you should come up with ten to 20 reasons, if not more (sadly, a surprising number of businesses struggle with this one small task, all because they’ve lost touch with the most important part of their business: what the potential customer is thinking).

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

So, are you going to the lake today?” Jay asked, finally falling into step beside Violet as their pace slowed. They headed nowhere in particular when they hiked like this, exploring places they’d been more times than they could add up, both on, and off, the well-known paths. Violet shrugged. “Are you?” She already knew the answer; they both did. Today was the big end-of-summer party at Lake Tapps. Kind of a last blast before the sun disappeared for the year. Pretty much everyone they knew would be there. Jay shrugged too. “I was thinking about it.” Inwardly she smiled at the prospect of spending one of the few remaining lazy summer days with him at the lake. “Yeah?” she questioned, not needing him to actually ask her along. “Maybe I’ll go too.” He grinned, practically beaming at her, and an unfamiliar warmth that had nothing to do with the weather crept through her. “Cool. You can drive,” he suggested. She shook her head. If it had been anyone else, she’d probably feel like she was being used, but instead she loved the exhilarating feeling of having something he didn’t have, especially in light of the fact that he suddenly seemed to have everything that she wanted. “Fine, then you can buy me gas,” she added, raising her eyebrows and daring him to say no.

Charlie, I want to get married," she said. "Well, so do I, darling -" "No, you don't understand," she said. "I want to get married right now." Froggy knew from the desperate look in her eyes that Red was dead serious. "Sweetheart, are you sure now is a good time?" he said. "I'm positive," Red said. "If the last month has taught me anything, it's how unpredictable life can be - especially when you're friends with the Bailey twins. This could very well be the last chance we'll ever get! Let's do it now, in the Square of Time, before another magical being can tear us apart!" The idea made Froggy's heart fill with joy, but he wasn't convinced it was the right thing to do. "Are you sure this is the wedding you want?" he asked. "I don't mean to be crude, but the whole street is covered in a witch's remains." A large and self-assured smile grew on Red's face. "Charlie, I can't think of a better place to get married than on the ashes of your ex-girlfriend," she said. "Mother Goose, will you do the honors?" Besides being pinned to the ground by a three-ton lion statue, Mother Goose couldn't think of a reason why she couldn't perform the ceremony. "I suppose I'm available," she said. "Wonderful!" Red squealed. "And for all intents and purposes, we'll say the Fairy Council are our witness, Conner is the best man, and Alex is my maid of honor. Don't worry, Alex! This will only take a minute and we'll get right back to helping you!" Red and Froggy joined hands and stood in the middle of Times Square as Mother Goose officiated the impromptu wedding. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today - against our will - to unexpectedly watch this frog and woman join in questionable matrimony. Do you, Charlie Charming, take Red Riding Hood as your lovably high-maintenance wife?" "I do," Froggy declared. "And do you, Red Riding Hood, take Charlie Charming as your adorably webfooted husband?" "I do," Red said. "Then it is with the power mistrusted in me that I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the frog!" Red and Froggy shared their first kiss as a married couple, and their friends cheered. "Beautiful ceremony, my dear," Merlin said. "Believe it or not, this isn't the strangest wedding I've been to," Mother Goose said.

I have this special license burning a hole in my pocket, so I was thinking we might go find a vicar and use it. Pinter and Freddy can be witnesses.” He looked anxiously at her. “What do you think?” “Don’t you want your family present when we marry? I thought you lordly sorts had to have grand weddings.” “Is that what you want?” In truth, she’d never been one to dream of her wedding day as a brilliant spectacle. Clandestine weddings were always what captured her imagination, complete with a dangerous, brooding fellow and mysterious goings-on. In this instance, she had both. He said, “Let me put it this way: we can spend an untold number of days sneaking around just to steal a kiss, being chaperoned every minute while my sisters and Gran plan the wedding of the century. Or we can marry today and share a bed at the inn tonight like a respectable husband and wife. I’m not keep on waiting, but then, I never am when it comes to you. So what is your opinion in the matter?” She couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “I think you just want to punish your grandmother for her sly tactics by depriving her of the weddings.” He smiled. “Perhaps a little. And God knows my friends are never going to let me live this down. I’m not looking forward to hours of their torment at a wedding breakfast.” He stopped in a little copse where they would be hidden from the street. “But if you want a big wedding, I can endure it.” His expression was solemn as he took her hands in his. “I can endure anything, as long as you marry me. And keep loving me for the rest of your life.” Staring into his earnest face, she felt something flip over in her chest. She stretched up to brush his mouth with hers, and he pulled her in for a long, ardent kiss. “Well?” he said huskily when he was done. “If I had any sense of decency, I would give you a chance to consult with a lawyer about settlements and such, especially since you’ll be coming into some money. But-“ “-you have no sense of decency, I know,” she teased. She tapped her finger against her chin. “Or was that morals you claimed not to have? I can’t remember.” “Watch it, minx,” he warned with a lift of his brow. “If you intend to taunt me for every foolish statement I’ve made in my life, you’ll force me to play Rockton and lock you up in my dark, forbidding manor while I have my wicked way with you.” “That sounds perfectly awful,” she said, gazing at the man she loved. “How soon can we start?

In the longer term, by bringing together enough data and enough computing power, the data giants could hack the deepest secrets of life, and then use this knowledge not just to make choices for us or manipulate us but also to reengineer organic life and create inorganic life-forms. Selling advertisements may be necessary to sustain the giants in the short term, but tech companies often evaluate apps, products, and other companies according to the data they harvest rather than according to the money they generate. A popular app may lack a business model and may even lose money in the short term, but as long as it sucks data, it could be worth billions.4 Even if you don’t know how to cash in on the data today, it is worth having it because it might hold the key to controlling and shaping life in the future. I don’t know for certain that the data giants explicitly think about this in such terms, but their actions indicate that they value the accumulation of data in terms beyond those of mere dollars and cents. Ordinary humans will find it very difficult to resist this process. At present, people are happy to give away their most valuable asset—their personal data—in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. It’s a bit like African and Native American tribes who unwittingly sold entire countries to European imperialists in exchange for colorful beads and cheap trinkets. If, later on, ordinary people decide to try to block the flow of data, they might find it increasingly difficult, especially as they might come to rely on the network for all their decisions, and even for their healthcare and physical survival.

You’ve been good for him, you know. For all of us, really, but especially for the master.” Nicole’s pulse sped at the thought even as her mind discounted the comment as illogical. “I don’t see how you could think that. I’ve been here less than a week, and before today he avoided my company as much as possible.” A knowing grin curved the housekeeper’s lips. “You’re young, dearie. You don’t have the experience to see what I can. Believe me, I’ve noticed a change in him since your arrival. That burden he’s been carrying for the last year and a half has been grinding him down with its weight month after month, draining his life like an insatiable leech. Then you came, and it was as if the load lightened.” As Nicole opened her mouth to respond, Mrs. Wellborn hurried to add, “And not just because you’re helping him transcribe all those notebooks of his.” She winked at Nicole over her teacup, and Nicole immediately raised her own cup to her lips, desperate for an excuse to drop her gaze. “You give him something to think about besides those horrible boilers. Something much more uplifting, if you ask me.

God speaks to us, I would say, much more often than we realize or than we choose to realize. Before the sun sets every evening, he speaks to each of us in an intensely personal and unmistakable way. His message is not written out in starlight, which in the long run would make no difference; rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day; it is a message that in the long run might just make all the difference. Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery. But I believe that there are some things that by and large God is always saying to each of us. Each of us, for instance, carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself, especially no one of our age, which has been variously termed the age of anxiety, the lost generation, the beat generation, the lonely crowd. Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him. But he also speaks to us about ourselves, about what he wants us to do and what he wants us to become; and this is the area where I believe that we know so much more about him than we admit even to ourselves, where people hear God speak even if they do not believe in him. A face comes toward us down the street. Do we raise our eyes or do we keep them lowered, passing by in silence? Somebody says something about somebody else, and what he says happens to be not only cruel but also funny, and everybody laughs. Do we laugh too, or do we speak the truth? When a friend has hurt us, do we take pleasure in hating him, because hate has its pleasures as well as love, or do we try to build back some flimsy little bridge? Sometimes when we are alone, thoughts come swarming into our heads like bees—some of them destructive, ugly, self-defeating thoughts, some of them creative and glad. Which thoughts do we choose to think then, as much as we have the choice? Will we be brave today or a coward today? Not in some big way probably but in some little foolish way, yet brave still. Will we be honest today or a liar? Just some little pint-sized honesty, but honest still. Will we be a friend or cold as ice today? All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it all adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.

Mosseri’s answer to the important question was perfect by Facebook standards: “Technology isn’t good or bad—it just is,” he wrote. “Social media is a great amplifier. We need to do all we can responsibly to magnify the good and address the bad.” But nothing “just is,” especially Instagram. Instagram isn’t designed to be a neutral technology, like electricity or computer code. It’s an intentionally crafted experience, with an impact on its users that is not inevitable, but is the product of a series of choices by its makers about how to shape behavior. Instagram trained its users on likes and follows, but that wasn’t enough to create the emotional attachment users have to the product today. They also thought about their users as individuals, through the careful curation of an editorial strategy, and partnerships with top accounts. Instagram’s team is expert at amplifying “the good.” When it comes to addressing “the bad,” though, employees are concerned the app is thinking in terms of numbers, not people. Facebook’s top argument against a breakup is that its “family of apps” evolution will be better for users’ safety. “If you want to prevent interference in elections, if you want to reduce[…]

Have you seen the consolidation of feminism in your lifetime that has effectively challenged both patriarchy and white-privilege liberal feminism, if we can call it that? I think that movements, feminist movements, other movements are most powerful when they begin to affect the vision and perspective of those who do not necessarily associate themselves with those movements. So that the radical feminisms, or radical antiracist feminisms are important in the sense that they have affected the way especially young people think about social justice struggles today. That we cannot assume that it is possible to be victorious in any antiracist movement as long as we don’t consider how gender figures in, how gender and sexuality and class and nationality figure into those struggles. It used to be the case that the struggles for freedom were seen to be male struggles. Black, male freedom for Black people was equivalent to freedom for the Black man and if one looks at Malcolm X and many other figures, you see this constantly. But now this is no longer possible. And I think that feminism is not an approach that is or should be embraced simply by women but increasingly it has to be an approach embraced by people of all genders.

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In some cases, those who express extreme views start believing the things they share even if their initial goal was only to increase their standing within a group. And then there are cases where the theories being shared are so outlandish or unlikely that we have to wonder: Do they really believe these things? If we were to sit the person down for a polygraph test and quiz them about whether they truly think the earth is flat, the grieving parents who lost their children to gun violence are just actors, or Hillary Clinton is a pedophile, what would we find? Would they (or the lie detector machine) reveal that perhaps their beliefs are not quite so literal? If so, why are they spreading such lies? Understanding the mechanics of social groups—especially those connected by shared beliefs, such as religious groups, sects, and cults—can help shed light on this question. As Jonathan Haidt suggested, the deliberate sharing of a lie can act as a shibboleth—a kind of linguistic password that identifies people within a group. “Many who study religion have noted that it’s the very impossibility of a claim that makes it a good signal of one’s commitment to the faith,” he wrote. “You don’t need faith to believe obvious things. Proclaiming that the election was stolen surely does play an identity-advertising role in today’s America.

Orwell usually wrote as an observer, but here he is a prescriber, laying down rules and offering advice. A careful writer, he instructs, should ask himself about every sentence a series of questions, such as what he is trying to say and what words will best express it. He should be especially careful about using stale, worn-out imagery that fails to really evoke an image in the reader’s mind. He summarizes his points succinctly, offering six “elementary” rules: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Any writer today would do well to post those rules on the wall of his or her work space. Less noted about the essay is that it isn’t simply against bad writing, it is suspicious of what motivates such prose. He argues that writing that is obscure, dull, and Latinate is made that way for a purpose—generally, in order to disguise what is really happening. “Political language . . . is designed to make its lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” So, he writes memorably, in one of his best passages anywhere: Defenceless villages are

Sunday, May 7, 1944 I should be deeply ashamed of myself, and I am. What's done can't be undone, but at least you can keep it from happening again...I'm not all that ugly, or that stupid, I have a sunny disposition, and I want to develop a good character! Monday, May 22, 1944 ...Could anyone, regardless of whether they're Jews or Christians, remain silent in the face of German pressure? Everyone knows it's practically impossible, so why do they ask the impossible of the Jews? Thursday, May 25, 1944 The world's been turned upside down. The most decent people are being sent to concentration camps, prisons and lonely cells, while the lowest of the low rule over young and old, rich and poor...Unless you're a Nazi, you don't know what's going to happen to you from one day to the next. ...We're going to be hungry, but nothing's worse than being caught. Friday, May 26, 1944 ...That gap, that enormous gap, is always there. One day we're laughing at the comical side of life in hiding, and the next day (there are many such days), we're frightened, and the fear, tension and despair can be read on our faces. ...But they also have their outings, their visits with friends, their everyday lives as ordinary people, so that the tension is sometimes relieved, if only for a short while, while ours never is, never has been, not once in the two years we've been here. How much longer will this increasingly oppressive, unbearable weight press down on us? ... ...What will we do if we're ever...no, I mustn't write that down. But the question won't let itself be pushed to the back of my mind today; on the contrary, all the fear I've ever felt is looming before me in all its horror. ... I've asked myself again and again whether it wouldn't have been better if we hadn't gone into hiding, if we were dead now and didn't have to go through this misery, especially so that the others could be spared the burden. But we all shrink from this thought. We still love life, we haven't yet forgotten the voice of nature, and we keep hoping, hoping for...everything. Let something happen soon, even an air raid. Nothing can be more crushing than this anxiety. Let the end come, however cruel; at least then we'll know whether we are to be victors or the vanquished. Tuesday, June 13, 1944 Is it because I haven't been outdoors for so long that I've become so smitten with nature? ... Many people think nature is beautiful, many people sleep from time to time under the starry sky, and many people in hospitals and prisons long for the day when they'll be free to enjoy what nature has to offer. But few are as isolated and cut off as we are from the joys of nature, which can be shared by rich and poor alike. It's not just my imagination - looking at the sky, the clouds, the moon and the stars really does make me feel calm and hopeful. It's much better medicine than Valerian or bromide. Nature makes me feel humble and ready to face every blow with courage! ...Nature is the one thing for which there is no substitute.

I started to think about why there is such a strong negative fixation on this matter and came to some interesting conclusions. Consider the general intelligence, concerns, and fears of an average person in ancient times. The Mystery schools, holy shrines, or temples were as financially dependant on the general populace then as they are now. If they were not dependant directly on the people, they were dependent on the rulers of the time. Because they were dependent on people, they were also sensitive to the concerns and fears of those people. People often fear things that they do not understand. When people were creating these theologies, they did not understand paranormal abilities. The reason that these ridiculous beliefs about paranormal abilities exist today is that people still do not understand what paranormal abilities are, how natural they are, and for that reason, people are still afraid. I can imagine the mobs with torches surrounding the temples now! The mystical masters knew this and understood that the common man did not have the intellect to comprehend what they were experiencing and seeking. They knew that appearances were everything and they needed a good public image. This was especially true if they wanted funding without crowds of fearful people, with aggressive ideas, at their doorstep. They created an image and doctrine they felt the general populace could accept. Then they created levels within the organization and kept some of those levels secret from the public.

When I Know I Must Speak Pleasant Words Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones. PROVERBS 16:24 WHAT ARE THE FIRST WORDS you speak to your spouse when you both get up in the morning? Are they pleasant and positive? Are they covered with the love and joy of the Lord? Or are they powered by yesterday’s resentments, disappointments, and unfulfilled expectations? It is of utmost importance that a wife sets the tone of the day for the entire family, but especially for her husband. It is easy for you as a wife to not be ahead of your emotions and thoughts before you talk to your husband in the morning, especially when you have a lot on your plate, too much to do, you don’t feel well, you’re upset at your husband, or you haven’t had enough time with the Lord to get your heart right. And if you have been up in the night, for whatever reason, and haven’t had enough sleep, your mind can be set on a negative track long before your husband wakes up. You may have already thought up many things you want to communicate to him that do not include pleasant words. If you dive in with these issues before he is ready to talk, it can set the day on the wrong course. The thing to do, right when you wake up in the morning, is ask God to give you pleasant words that bring “sweetness to the soul” of your husband when you first see him—even if you don’t think he deserves it at that moment. When God gives you the right attitude first thing in the morning, you’ll see what a difference it makes in your day and night. Your husband will respond differently than he would if your words were harsh. A soft word can turn away much suffering and bring great healing. It’s not worth it to start your day any other way. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would help me to pause every morning when I wake up to thank You for the day and ask You to fill me afresh with Your love and joy, so that the first words that come out of my mouth to my husband are pleasant. Help me to hesitate before I speak to him for the first time in order to plan how I can set a positive tone for the day. Make me to be a woman with a gentle and loving spirit so that uplifting words flow naturally from me. I pray that the next time I see or talk to my husband, my words will bring sweetness to his soul and health to his body. May they also bring sweetness and health to the very soul of our marriage. I know there are times when pleasant and sweet is not my first reaction. I realize I can sometimes worry and allow thoughts and words that are not glorifying to You. At those times I depend on You to transform me so that I can be a strong conduit for Your love to my husband and family. Help me to be a person he wants to be around. Break in me any bad habits of negative, faithless, or critical thinking. Help me to forgive anything he has done or said that is still in my mind. I release the past to You so I can do what is right today. Help me to always consider the state of my heart before I speak. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33 Freyd: I see what you're saying but people in psychology don't have a uniform agreement on this issue of the depth of -- I guess the term that was used at the conference was -- "robust repression." TAT: Well, Pamela, there's a whole lot of evidence that people dissociate traumatic things. What's interesting to me is how the concept of "dissociation" is side-stepped in favor of "repression." I don't think it's as much about repression as it is about traumatic amnesia and dissociation. That has been documented in a variety of trauma survivors. Army psychiatrists in the Second World War, for instance, documented that following battles, many soldiers had amnesia for the battles. Often, the memories wouldn't break through until much later when they were in psychotherapy. Freyd: But I think I mentioned Dr. Loren Pankratz. He is a psychologist who was studying veterans for post-traumatic stress in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Portland. They found some people who were admitted to Veteran's hospitals for postrraumatic stress in Vietnam who didn't serve in Vietnam. They found at least one patient who was being treated who wasn't even a veteran. Without external validation, we just can't know -- TAT: -- Well, we have external validation in some of our cases. Freyd: In this field you're going to find people who have all levels of belief, understanding, experience with the area of repression. As I said before it's not an area in which there's any kind of uniform agreement in the field. The full notion of repression has a meaning within a psychoanalytic framework and it's got a meaning to people in everyday use and everyday language. What there is evidence for is that any kind of memory is reconstructed and reinterpreted. It has not been shown to be anything else. Memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted from fragments. Some memories are true and some memories are confabulated and some are downright false. TAT: It is certainly possible for in offender to dissociate a memory. It's possible that some of the people who call you could have done or witnessed some of the things they've been accused of -- maybe in an alcoholic black-out or in a dissociative state -- and truly not remember. I think that's very possible. Freyd: I would say that virtually anything is possible. But when the stories include murdering babies and breeding babies and some of the rather bizarre things that come up, it's mighty puzzling. TAT: I've treated adults with dissociative disorders who were both victimized and victimizers. I've seen previously repressed memories of my clients' earlier sexual offenses coming back to them in therapy. You guys seem to be saying, be skeptical if the person claims to have forgotten previously, especially if it is about something horrible. Should we be equally skeptical if someone says "I'm remembering that I perpetrated and I didn't remember before. It's been repressed for years and now it's surfacing because of therapy." I ask you, should we have the same degree of skepticism for this type of delayed-memory that you have for the other kind? Freyd: Does that happen? TAT: Oh, yes. A lot.

Jim said she would go to prison for sure because of the amount she had stolen, and there was probably more. “I can bring over dinner if you want.” “I’m just going to pack and go to bed. I hate that early flight,” Tallie said, smiling back at her. And every time she did now, it felt false. She was used to getting up early to be on the set, so even that was a lie. Everything was now. Everything Tallie said to her felt wrong, and everything Brigitte had done had been worse. Brigitte gave her a hug as they left each other, and Tallie hugged her back, feeling her insides cringe when she did. “Give Max my love.” “Have fun in Mexico!” Tallie called out as she left. Brigitte had said she was going to Palmilla, but she hadn’t said with whom, and Tallie didn’t care. It made Tallie wonder, as she walked to her car, when and how she was going to fire her. She called Greg Thomas from the car. She wanted to discuss it with him, and she told him everything that had been happening, and that the FBI were going to make the arrest in the next week. “I’ve been waiting to fire her until they told me I could. The special agent in charge of the case called me today and told me. He’s coming by tonight. So what do I do about her?” “I’d like to notify her by letter and e-mail,” Greg said quietly. “I don’t want you doing it face-to-face. This could get nasty, or even dangerous for you. Do you think she could get violent?” He was worried about Tallie, especially since she was alone at the house now that Hunt was gone. “I don’t think so. I hope not.” Tallie hadn’t really thought about it. They had been so busy getting evidence

We’ve known his family forever. He doesn’t seem to care about the scandal in ours, and he’s an excellent shot-“ “That would certainly be at the top of my list of requirements for a husband,” Minerva broke in, eyes twinkling. “’Must be able to hit a bull’s-eye at fifty paces.’” “Fifty paces? Are you mad? It would have to be a hundred at least.” Her sister burst into laughter. “Forgive me for not knowing what constitutes sufficient marksmanship for your prospective mate.” Her gaze grew calculating. “I heart that Jackson is a very good shot. Gabe said he beat everyone today, even you.” “Don’t remind me,” Celia grumbled. “Gabe also said he won a kiss from you.” “Yes, and he gave me a peck on the forehead,” Celia said, still annoyed by that. “As if I were some…some little girl.” “Perhaps he was just trying to be polite.” Celia sighed. “Probably. I didn’t kiss you “properly” today because I was afraid if I did I might not stop. “The thing is…” Celia bit her lower lip and wondered just how much she should reveal to her sister. But she had to discuss this with someone, and she knew she could trust Minerva. Her sister had never betrayed a confidence. “That wasn’t the first time Jackson kissed me. Nor the last.” Minerva nearly choked on her chocolate. “Good Lord, Celia, don’t say such things when I’m drinking something hot!” Carefully she set her cup on the bedside table. “He kissed you?” She seized Celia’s free hand. “More than once?” Celia nodded. Her sister cast her eyes heavenward. “And yet you’re debating whether to enter into a marriage of convenience with Lyons.” Then she looked alarmed. “You did want the man to kiss you, right?” “Of course I wanted-“ She caught herself. “He didn’t force me, if that’s what you’re asking. But neither has Jackson…I mean, Mr. Pinter…offered me anything important.” “He hasn’t mentioned marriage?” “No.” Concern crossed Minerva’s face. “And love? What of that?” “That neither.” She set her own cup on the table, then dragged a blanket up to her chin. “He’s just kissed me. A lot.” Minerva left the bed to pace in front of the fireplace. “With men, that’s how it starts sometimes. They desire a woman first. Love comes later.” Unless they were drumming up desire for a woman for some other reason, the way Ned had. “Sometimes all they feel for a woman is desire,” Celia pointed out. “Sometimes love never enters into it. Like Papa with his females.” “Mr. Pinter doesn’t strike me as that sort.” “Well, he didn’t strike me as having an ounce of passion until he started kissing me.” Minerva shot her a sly glance. “How is his kissing?” Heat rose in her cheeks. “It’s very…er…inspiring.” Much better than Ned’s, to be sure. “That’s rather important in a husband,” Minerva said dryly. “And what of the duke? Has he kissed you?” “Once. It was…not so inspiring.” She leaned forward. “But he’s offering marriage, and Jackson hasn’t even hinted at it.” “You shouldn’t settle for a marriage of convenience. Especially if you prefer Jackson.” I don’t believe in marriages of convenience. Given your family’s history, I would think that you wouldn’t, either. Celia balled the blanket into a knot. That was easy for Jackson to say-he didn’t have a scheming grandmother breathing down his neck. For that matter, neither did Minerva.

Ye told me ye had no’ seen the man in the clearing yesterday.” “I did not,” Annabel assured him, swiveling to look at him with a bit of excitement as she was recalled to the day’s events. “But I saw his plaid and the man today was wearing the same color plaid. He was big too. And, he was the same man as the one who startled me in England on our journey here, so I am beginning to think it was the same man all three times.” “Ye’re sure it was the same man as in England?” he asked, not happy at the thought. “Aye. I only caught a glimpse that first time, but he is hard to mistake,” she assured him. “He is very large and has a pretty face.” That brought a scowl to Ross’s lips. He didn’t at all like her finding someone else attractive, which was silly, he supposed. It wasn’t like she was going to run off with her attacker. According to Giorsal, she’d stabbed him. Besides, he himself wouldn’t have been flattered to be called pretty. “Ye mean handsome, do ye no’?” he suggested. “Nay. You are handsome, husband. He is pretty,” she said in a tone of voice that suggested that should clear the matter up. It didn’t. “Is there a difference?” Ross asked cautiously. “Aye,” Annabel said as if that should be obvious. “Handsome is rugged and manly and . . . well . . . handsome,” she finished helplessly, and then added, “Pretty is big eyes, sculpted jaw and hair that flops across the eyes.” She paused briefly before continuing with some consideration, “He would make a lovely girl were he not so muscular across the shoulders and chest.” “Ah,” Ross said, unable to repress a grin. Whether she realized it or not, his wife was saying she thought he was a sexy beast, while the pretty boy was . . . pretty, but not in a way she found especially attractive. He liked that. His

I must at this point reiterate my strong objection to being asked to fill in forms in which I have to tick a box labelling my 'race' or 'ethnicity', and voice my strong support for Lewontin's statement that racial classification can be actively destructive of social and human relations - especially when people use racial classification as a way of treating people differently, whether through negative or positive discrimination. To tie a racial label to somebody is informative in the sense that it tells you more than one thing about them. It might reduce your uncertainty about the colour of their hair, the colour of their skin, the straightness of their hair, the shape of their eye, the shape of their nose and how tall they are. But there is no reason to suppose that it tells you anything about how well-qualified they are for a job. And even in the unlikely event that it did reduce your statistical uncertainty about their likely suitability for some particular job, it would still be wicked to use racial labels as a basis for discrimination when hiring somebody. Choose on the basis of ability, and if, having done so, you end up with an all-black sprinting team, so be it. You have not practised racial discrimination in arriving at this conclusion... Discriminating against individuals purely on the basis of a group to which they belong is, I am inclined to think, always evil. There is near-universal agreement today that the apartheid laws of South Africa were evil. Positive discrimination in favour of 'minority' students on American campuses can fairly, in my opinion, be attacked on the same grounds as apartheid. Both treat people as representative of groups rather than as individuals in their own right. Positive discrimination is sometimes justified as redressing centuries of injustice. But how can it be just to pay back a single individual today for the wrongs done by long-dead members of a plural group to which he belongs?

Earlier today—at the loft,” he said, pulling back to meet my eyes. Unflinching. Open. “I didn’t mean to insult her.” “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” He lifted a dark brow. “Why in hell would you be? I insulted your sister; you defended her. You had every right to kick my ass for it.” “I didn’t mean to … undermine you.” Shadows flickered in his eyes. “Ah.” He twisted toward the Sidra, and I followed suit. The water meandered past, its dark surface rippling with golden faelights from the streetlamps and the bright jewels of the Rainbow. “That was why it was … strange between us this afternoon.” He cringed and faced me fully. “Mother above, Feyre.” My cheeks heated and I interrupted before he could continue. “I get why, though. A solid, unified front is important.” I scratched at the smooth wood of the rail with a finger. “Especially for us.” “Not amongst our family.” Warmth spread through me at the words—our family. He took my hand, interlacing our fingers. “We can make whatever rules we want. You have every right to question me, push me—both in private and in public.” A snort. “Of course, if you decide to truly kick my ass, I might request that it’s done behind closed doors so I don’t have to suffer centuries of teasing, but—” “I won’t undermine you in public. And you won’t undermine me.” He remained quiet, letting me think, speak. “We can question each other through the bond if we’re around people other than our friends,” I said. “But for now, for these initial years, I’d like to show the world a unified front … That is, if we survive.” “We’ll survive.” Uncompromising will in those words, that face. “But I want you to feel comfortable pushing me, calling me out—” “When have I ever not done that?” He smiled. But I added, “I want you to do the same—for me.” “Deal. But amongst our family … call me on my bullshit all you want. I insist, actually.” “Why?” “Because it’s fun.” I nudged him with an elbow. “Because you’re my equal,” he said. “And as much as that means having each other’s backs in public, it also means that we grant each other the gift of honesty. Of truth.

He fakes a smile and then turns to unlock the door. I follow him inside; he stops me at the kitchen island. “I found it right here.” He points to the countertop. “You found what right where?” I ask, feeling my face scrunch up in bewilderment. “The crossword puzzle from today.” He pulls it out of his pocket. “I found it here when I was making breakfast this morning.” “Wait, you didn’t get it in the mail?” “I’m sorry; I thought I mentioned that.” “No,” I say, holding back from whacking him in the head. “I think I would’ve remembered if someone had broken into your apartment. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, and then lets out a stress-filled sigh. “So, someone broke in here last night while you were asleep?” “I’m not sure. I was thinking that, too, but then . . . what if I just didn’t see it last night when I got home?” “Are you sure you didn’t set your mail down here, maybe even for a second, and then leave this piece behind?” “What difference does it makes?” “It makes a huge difference.” My voice gets louder. “The difference between someone breaking in or not.” I peer around the kitchen and living room, trying to see if anything looks off. “I don’t know.” He reaches for a box of cereal. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed getting another puzzle in the mail, especially since we’ve been talking so much about this stuff.” “Who has a key to your apartment?” “No one that I know of.” “None of your friends? Did you leave a spare under the doormat, maybe?” “No, and no.” “Then what?” I ask, completely frustrated. “Look,” he says, running his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. “I don’t have all the answers. That’s why it’s a puzzle.” “This isn’t funny,” I tell him. “Someone’s sending you threatening notes, writing twisted messages on your door, and possibly breaking into your apartment. Worrying isn’t an option. It’s an order.” “So what do you order me to do?” “Call the police.” “And tell them what? That someone’s sending me crossword puzzles? That I got an angry message on my door, but I didn’t even feel the need to save it? They’ll give me a Breathalyzer test and ask me what I’ve been drinking.

Change Your Look With These Top Notch Fashion Tips In fashion, there aren't any set rules. There is no one right way to be fashionable. Read a lot of different sources and then take what you've learned, pick it apart and use the tips that are best for you. Continue reading to learn great advice that you can tailor to your own wants and needs. If you like a shirt or skirt think about getting it in more than one color. Because clothes come in so many varying cuts and styles, you're likely find it difficult to find clothes that fit well for your body type. When you do just get more than one so that you can feel great more often. If you have thick or very curly hair, using a gel product will help you to create the style you desire. Work the product into towel-dried hair and then style it as you want. You can allow it to dry naturally, or use a hair drier. This is especially helpful in humid weather. In today's business world, it is imperative that men be well dressed. Therefore, it is essential to shop for top drawer clothing when buying clothes for your next interview. To begin your search, look through today's business magazines to ensure your wardrobe matches the top executives. Look for whether men are wearing cuffed pants or hemmed pants, ties with designs or solid ties as well as what type of shoe is currently in style. Skimpy tops are comfortable to wear in hot weather, but be careful if you are a big busted gal. Your figure needs good support, and you will feel more secure if you wear a sports bra under a lightweight top that has skinny straps and no shape of its own. Don't overstock your beauty kit with makeup. Just choose a few colors that match the season. Consider your needs for day and evening applications. Makeup can go bad if it's opened, just like other products. Bacteria can build on it, too. Have yourself professionally fitted for a bra. An ill-fitting brassiere is not only unflattering, but it affects how your clothing fits. Once you know your true size, buy a few bras in different styles and cuts. A plunge or demi-cup bra, a strapless bra, and a convertible bra give you versatile options. The thing about fashion is that it's a very easy topic once you get to know a little bit about it. Use the ideas you like and ignore the rest. It's okay not to follow every trend. Breaking away from the trends is better if you desire to be unique.

In Western culture today, you decide to get married because you feel an attraction to the other person. You think he or she is wonderful. But a year or two later—or, just as often, a month or two—three things usually happen. First, you begin to find out how selfish this wonderful person is. Second, you discover that the wonderful person has been going through a similar experience and he or she begins to tell you how selfish you are. And third, though you acknowledge it in part, you conclude that your spouse’s selfishness is more problematic than your own. This is especially true if you feel that you’ve had a hard life and have experienced a lot of hurt. You say silently, “OK, I shouldn’t do that—but you don’t understand me.” The woundedness makes us minimize our own selfishness. And that’s the point at which many married couples arrive after a relatively brief period of time. So what do you do then? There are at least two paths to take. First, you could decide that your woundedness is more fundamental than your self-centeredness and determine that unless your spouse sees the problems you have and takes care of you, it’s not going to work out. Of course, your spouse will probably not do this—especially if he or she is thinking almost the exact same thing about you! And so what follows is the development of emotional distance and, perhaps, a slowly negotiated kind of détente or ceasefire. There is an unspoken agreement not to talk about some things. There are some things your spouse does that you hate, but you stop talking about them as long as he or she stops bothering you about certain other things. No one changes for the other; there is only tit-for-tat bargaining. Couples who settle for this kind of relationship may look happily married after forty years, but when it’s time for the anniversary photo op, the kiss will be forced. The alternative to this truce-marriage is to determine to see your own selfishness as a fundamental problem and to treat it more seriously than you do your spouse’s. Why? Only you have complete access to your own selfishness, and only you have complete responsibility for it. So each spouse should take the Bible seriously, should make a commitment to “give yourself up.” You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin to root it out as it’s revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing. If two spouses each say, “I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,” you have the prospect of a truly great marriage. It Only Takes One to Begin

Unqualified Champions Consider these individuals from the Bible. Each person was aware of a personal shortcoming which should have rendered him disqualified for service. God, however, saw champion potential … Moses struggled with a speech impediment: “Then Moses said to the LORD, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’” (Exodus 4:10). Yet God served as Moses’ source of strength. God used him to deliver the Israelites from bondage. Jeremiah considered himself too young to deliver a prophetic message to an adult population: “Then I said, ‘Alas, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth’” (Jeremiah 1:6). God’s reply: “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,” (Jeremiah 1:8). Isaiah, whose encouragement I quoted earlier, had reservations of his own. Perhaps his vocabulary reflected my own—especially my vocabulary as a teenager: “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Despite Isaiah’s flaws, God saw him as a man He could use to provide guidance to the nation of Judah. Paul the Apostle had, in his past, persecuted the very people to whom God would send him later. To most of us, Paul’s track record would disqualify him for use. But God brought change to Paul’s heart and redemption to his fervency. Samson squandered his potential through poor life choices. As I read about him, I can’t help but think, “The guy acted like a spoiled brat.” But God had placed a call on his life. Though Samson sank to life’s darkest depths—captors blinded him and placed him in slavery—at the end of his life, he turned his heart toward God and asked to be used for God’s purposes. God used Samson to bring deliverance to the Israelites. Do you feel like the least qualified, the least important, the least regarded? Perhaps your reward is yet to come. God has high regard for those who are the least. Jesus said, “For the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great” (Luke 9:48) and “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first” (Matthew 19:30). If heaven includes strategic positioning among God’s people, which I believe it will, that positioning will be ego-free and based on a humble heart. Those of high position in God’s eyes don’t focus on position. They focus on hearts: their own hearts before God, and the hearts of others loved by God. When we get to heaven, I believe many people’s positions of responsibility will surprise us. What if, in heaven, the some of today’s most accomplished individuals end up reporting to someone who cried herself to sleep at night—yet kept her heart pure before God? According to Jesus in Matthew 6:5, some rewards are given in full before we reach heaven. When He spoke those words, He referred to hypocritical religious leaders as an example. Could we be in for a heavenly surprise? I believe many who are last today—the ultimate servants—will be first in heaven. God sees things differently than we do.

So,” I cleared my throat, unable to tolerate his moans of pleasure and praise any longer, “uh, what are your plans for the weekend?” “The weekend?” He sounded a bit dazed. “Yes. This weekend. What do you have planned? Planning on busting up any parties?” I asked lightly, not wanting him to know that I was unaccountably breathless. I moved to his other knee and discarded the towel. “Ha. No. Not unless those wankers down the hall give me a reason to.” Removing his arms from his face, Bryan’s voice was thick, gravelly as he responded, “I, uh, have some furniture to assemble.” “Really?” Surprised, I stilled and stared at the line of his jaw. The creases around his mouth—when he held perfectly still—made him look mature and distinguished. Actually, they made him even more classically handsome, if that was even possible. “Yes. Really. Two IKEA bookshelves.” I slid my hands lower, behind his ankle, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, I prompted, “That’s it?” “No.” He sighed, hesitated, then added, “I need to stop by the hardware store. The tap in my bathroom is leaking and one of the drawer handles in the kitchen is missing a screw. I just repainted the guest room, so I have to take the excess paint cans to the chemical disposal place; it’s only open on Saturdays before noon. And then I promised my mam I’d take her to dinner.” My mouth parted slightly because the oddest thing happened as he rattled off his list of chores. It turned me on. Even more so than running my palms over his luscious legs. That’s right. His list of adult tasks made my heart flutter. I rolled my lips between my teeth, not wanting to blurt that I also needed to go to the hardware store over the weekend. As a treat to myself, I was planning to organize Patrick’s closet and wanted to install shelves above the clothes rack. Truly, Sean’s penchant for buying my son designer suits and ties was completely out of hand. Without some reorganization, I would run out of space. That’s right. Organizing closets was something I loved to do. I couldn’t get enough of those home and garden shows, especially Tiny Houses, because I adored clever uses for small spaces. I was just freaky enough to admit my passion for storage and organization. But back to Bryan and his moans of pleasure, adult chores, and luscious legs. I would not think about Bryan Leech adulting. I would not think about him walking into the hardware store in his sensible shoes and plain gray T-shirt—that would of course pull tightly over his impressive pectoral muscles—and then peruse the aisles for . . . a screw. I. Would. Not. Ignoring the spark of kinship, I set to work on his knee, again counting to distract myself. It worked until he volunteered, “I’d like to install some shelves in my closet, but that’ll have to wait until next weekend. Honestly, I’ve been putting it off. I’d do just about anything to get someone to help me organize my closet.” He chuckled. I’d like to organize your closet. I fought a groan, biting my lip as I removed my hands, turned from his body, and rinsed them under the faucet. “We’re, uh, finished for today.

One of the positive side-effects of maintaining a very high degree of awareness of death is that it will prepare the individual to such an extent that, when the individual actually faces death, he or she will be in a better position to maintain his or her presence of mind. Especially in Tantric Buddhism, it is considered that the state of mind which one experiences at the point of death is extremely subtle and, because of the subtlety of the level of that consciousness, it also has a great power and impact upon one’s mental continuum. In Tantric practices we find a lot of emphasis placed on reflections upon the process of death, so that the individual at the time of death not only retains his or her presence of mind, but also is in a position to utilize that subtle state of consciousness effectively towards the realization of the path. From the Tantric perspective, the entire process of existence is explained in terms of the three stages known as ‘death’, the ‘intermediate state’ and ‘rebirth’. All of these three stages of existence are seen as states or manifestations of the consciousness and the energies that accompany or propel the consciousness, so that the intermediate state and rebirth are nothing other than various levels of the subtle consciousness and energy. An example of such fluctuating states can be found in our daily existence, when during the 24-hour day we go through a cycle of deep sleep, the waking period and the dream state. Our daily existence is in fact characterized by these three stages. As death becomes something familiar to you, as you have some knowledge of its processes and can recognize its external and internal indications, you are prepared for it. According to my own experience, I still have no confidence that at the moment of death I will really implement all these practices for which I have prepared. I have no guarantee! Sometimes when I think about death I get some kind of excitement. Instead of fear, I have a feeling of curiosity and this makes it much easier for me to accept death. Of course, my only burden if I die today is, ‘Oh, what will happen to Tibet? What about Tibetan culture? What about the six million Tibetan people’s rights?’ This is my main concern. Otherwise, I feel almost no fear of death. In my daily practice of prayer I visualize eight different deity yogas and eight different deaths. Perhaps when death comes all my preparation may fail. I hope not! I think these practices are mentally very helpful in dealing with death. Even if there is no next life, there is some benefit if they relieve fear. And because there is less fear, one can be more fully prepared. If you are fully prepared then, at the moment of death, you can retain your peace of mind. I think at the time of death a peaceful mind is essential no matter what you believe in, whether it is Buddhism or some other religion. At the moment of death, the individual should not seek to develop anger, hatred and so on. I think even non-believers see that it is better to pass away in a peaceful manner, it is much happier. Also, for those who believe in heaven or some other concept, it is also best to pass away peacefully with the thought of one’s own God or belief in higher forces. For Buddhists and also other ancient Indian traditions, which accept the rebirth or karma theory, naturally at the time of death a virtuous state of mind is beneficial.

Everywhere you look with this young lady, there’s a purity of motivation,” Shultz told him. “I mean she really is trying to make the world better, and this is her way of doing it.” Mattis went out of his way to praise her integrity. “She has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics—personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated,” the retired general gushed. Parloff didn’t end up using those quotes in his article, but the ringing endorsements he heard in interview after interview from the luminaries on Theranos’s board gave him confidence that Elizabeth was the real deal. He also liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character. After all, he’d dealt with his share of dishonest people over the years, having worked in a prison during law school and later writing at length about such fraudsters as the carpet-cleaning entrepreneur Barry Minkow and the lawyer Marc Dreier, both of whom went to prison for masterminding Ponzi schemes. Sure, Elizabeth had a secretive streak when it came to discussing certain specifics about her company, but he found her for the most part to be genuine and sincere. Since his angle was no longer the patent case, he didn’t bother to reach out to the Fuiszes. — WHEN PARLOFF’S COVER STORY was published in the June 12, 2014, issue of Fortune, it vaulted Elizabeth to instant stardom. Her Journal interview had gotten some notice and there had also been a piece in Wired, but there was nothing like a magazine cover to grab people’s attention. Especially when that cover featured an attractive young woman wearing a black turtleneck, dark mascara around her piercing blue eyes, and bright red lipstick next to the catchy headline “THIS CEO IS OUT FOR BLOOD.” The story disclosed Theranos’s valuation for the first time as well as the fact that Elizabeth owned more than half of the company. There was also the now-familiar comparison to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. This time it came not from George Shultz but from her old Stanford professor Channing Robertson. (Had Parloff read Robertson’s testimony in the Fuisz trial, he would have learned that Theranos was paying him $500,000 a year, ostensibly as a consultant.) Parloff also included a passage about Elizabeth’s phobia of needles—a detail that would be repeated over and over in the ensuing flurry of coverage his story unleashed and become central to her myth. When the editors at Forbes saw the Fortune article, they immediately assigned reporters to confirm the company’s valuation and the size of Elizabeth’s ownership stake and ran a story about her in their next issue. Under the headline “Bloody Amazing,” the article pronounced her “the youngest woman to become a self-made billionaire.” Two months later, she graced one of the covers of the magazine’s annual Forbes 400 issue on the richest people in America. More fawning stories followed in USA Today, Inc., Fast Company, and Glamour, along with segments on NPR, Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, and CBS News. With the explosion of media coverage came invitations to numerous conferences and a cascade of accolades. Elizabeth became the youngest person to win the Horatio Alger Award. Time magazine named her one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. President Obama appointed her a U.S. ambassador for global entrepreneurship, and Harvard Medical School invited her to join its prestigious board of fellows.

It’s not always so easy, it turns out, to identify your core personal projects. And it can be especially tough for introverts, who have spent so much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms that by the time they choose a career, or a calling, it feels perfectly normal to ignore their own preferences. They may be uncomfortable in law school or nursing school or in the marketing department, but no more so than they were back in middle school or summer camp. I, too, was once in this position. I enjoyed practicing corporate law, and for a while I convinced myself that I was an attorney at heart. I badly wanted to believe it, since I had already invested years in law school and on-the-job training, and much about Wall Street law was alluring. My colleagues were intellectual, kind, and considerate (mostly). I made a good living. I had an office on the forty-second floor of a skyscraper with views of the Statue of Liberty. I enjoyed the idea that I could flourish in such a high-powered environment. And I was pretty good at asking the “but” and “what if” questions that are central to the thought processes of most lawyers. It took me almost a decade to understand that the law was never my personal project, not even close. Today I can tell you unhesitatingly what is: my husband and sons; writing; promoting the values of this book. Once I realized this, I had to make a change. I look back on my years as a Wall Street lawyer as time spent in a foreign country. It was absorbing, it was exciting, and I got to meet a lot of interesting people whom I never would have known otherwise. But I was always an expatriate. Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

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SUCCESSFUL MUSCLE BUILDING: 7 TIPS FOR MORE MUSCLE MASS How does successful muscle building work? Today I have 7 tips for more muscle mass for you. In addition to the training itself, there are many other factors that determine success in building muscle. The more of the following points you take into account, the faster and more successfully you will be able to build muscle. THE RIGHT TRAINING PLAN No training plan is suitable for everyone. Find or create a training plan that matches your level and goals. For beginners, I recommend a full-body plan . The whole body is trained every time in 2-3 units per week. If you have been training longer and have some experience, I would recommend a 2 or 3 split. Every muscle group can be trained up to 2 times a week. I would fundamentally advise against a 4 or 5 split, but of course, there are also professionals for whom such a plan can make sense. CONTINUALLY GROW STRONGER The increase in strength is a very good indicator of successful muscle building. Try to train so that you slowly but surely get stronger. That doesn't mean that you have to move heavy weights every time you exercise. You can also improve your technique or do one more repetition here and there. It is only important that you make progress. PROPER NUTRITION You could easily write your own contribution to the muscle building diet. The most important thing is that you consume enough calories. Your body needs a slight excess of calories, i.e. more calories than it consumes. This is the only way you can gain weight and therefore also muscle mass. It is also important that you consume enough protein: approx. 2g protein per kilo of body weight. For example, if you weigh 80 KG, you should eat around 160g of protein a day. The remaining calories can then be consumed divided into fats and carbohydrates. The higher the quality of the food, the more strength you will have in training. ADEQUATE SLEEP FOR REGENERATION Your muscles grow in the resting phases and not during training. It is all the more important for the body that it receives sufficient regeneration and sleep. JUST FOCUS ON YOURSELF Everyone does it every now and then and compares himself with the other members in the gym. Especially when it comes to strength and muscle mass, it quickly becomes a competition who is stronger or wider. However, this way of thinking is dangerous because it leads you to overexert yourself. In these situations in particular, high spirits or even a little inattentiveness can quickly lead to an injury. Apart from injuries, you are not doing yourself a favor, because everyone is different and has different requirements. Do not try to compare yourself with other members, but concentrate on yourself and try to become better than before. DRINK ENOUGH Your body needs enough fluid and, above all, water to function properly. It is best to drink 1 liter per 20kg bodyweight . So if you weigh 80kg, you should drink about 4 liters a day. In addition to water, you can always drink unsweetened tea. This has a pleasant taste and you can drink it both warm and cold. Thus, your body is ideally supplied with liquid, which supports many important processes in your body. TAKE THE CREATINE SUPPLEMENT Creatine (or creatine written) can give you additional strength and volume in your muscles. Many studies have proven the effective effects of creatine. When you take creatine, the cellular energy level of your muscles improves, which increases your short-term performance, so you can train harder, increase your maximum strength and reduce cell damage during long endurance sessions. I recommend taking 5g a day. Either in a shake before or after training or immediately after getting up with a large glass of water. If you take these tips to heart, successful muscle building is almost guaranteed

Especially today; there is not much focus on inner values in education. Then, instead of inner values, we become self-centered—always thinking: I, I, I. A self-centered attitude brings a sense of insecurity and fear. Distrust. Too much fear brings frustration. Too much frustration brings anger. So that’s the psychology, the system of mind, of emotion, which creates a chain reaction. With a self-centered attitude, you become distanced from others, then distrust, then feel insecure, then fear, then anxiety, then frustration, then anger, then violence.

Then, in his quiet way that always disarmed me, he said, “I missed you today.” I sighed again, this time because his sweet words chased the breath out of me. I grinned like a content cat—which didn’t make any sense, because no other animals but humans smile in order to demonstrate pleasure. I pressed my lips together to keep from relating this as a fact. Quinn’s gaze narrowed on mine. He must’ve perceived that I was suppressing a tangent, because he said, “Say it.” “What?” He lifted his eyebrows, dipped his chin, and issued me a very effective glare that said, You know what. I shook my head. “It’s nothing.” “Tell me.” “It’s completely unnecessary information.” “I want to know.” He dropped his voice nearly an octave and held me against him as though to emphasize his point. This only served to make me more deliciously agitated. “Quinn...” I whispered. I didn’t know why I whispered. “Janie, everything you say is fascinating.” He whispered too. “No, it’s not. And the fact that you think I’ll believe that you believe that I’ll believe a statement so patently false is somewhat concerning to me.” He took a moment to sort through the tangled web of my words before he responded. “I’m not really sure what that means. However, the fact that you think I’d say something patently false to you is very concerning to me.” We held each other’s eyes, a showdown of manufactured guilt. He won. “Fine. You want to know? I was just thinking that I was smiling like a contented cat, which troubled me as an analogy because no animals other than humans smile as a demonstration of pleasure. Some people think animals do, especially cats and dogs, but those people are mistaken. The mouth curve is incidental. Cats purr to demonstrate pleasure, and dogs wag their tails.

The most important question for us humans is, "What is human?" "What is life?" "What is life?" If you can't answer this question, you can't live your life seriously. So Tolstoy, Russia's main gate, for a long time of 15 years I wrote my last book at the end of my career. What is life?It's 입니다. In this book, Tolstoy defines life like this. "Life is holding onto a thin arrowroot vine in a desperate situation where it doesn't know when it's going to break off." What do you think life is? Someone said that life is about luck. What is "WOON 7G3"? It means that luck is 70% and opportunity is 30%. Life is luck. Do you really think life is luck? Then you're lucky to live well, Is it bad luck not to be able to buy it? Being healthy is good luck, Is it bad luck to be sick? That's not true. Life is not luck. Victor Wigor thinks about what life is and then expresses it in one word. It's a voyage. Life is a voyage in which a boat floating on the sea plumped and sailed through a port. Ships floating in the sea of the world have calmness, rough waves, and scary typhoons. Life is not easy. So Job says life like this. "Isn't there hard labor in life on this land?" (Job 7:1) There is a theory of life in today's text. Section 13 of the body. "Those who say they will profit by doing business" (approximately 4:13) What is business and profit? Business is selling things to make money. What are the benefits? It's money from the business. Jews thought it was important to make money. So Jewish tactics are world-famous. The Jews were the geniuses of the tactics. In the old days, money was all coins. Our country also made money into a not. This is called Yupjeon. Heavy coins were very uncomfortable for traders. So the Jews made bills instead of coins, they made checks, they made bills. And the Jews thought about how to sell things without discounting them I made a department store in America. The Jews also taught their children this way. "The whole world is a business. Even white clouds become rain when squeezed." These people are Jewish. Trade was the best way to make money in the days of the First Church. Especially in the early church era, it was the best environment to make money from trade. In this era, it was Pax Romana.

where a = accumulated future value, p = principal or present value, r = rate of return in percentage terms, and n = number of compounding periods. All too often, management teams focus on the r variable in this equation. They seek instant gratification, with high profit margins and high growth in reported earnings per share (EPS) in the near term, as opposed to initiatives that would lead to a much more valuable business many years down the line. This causes many management teams to pass on investments that would create long-term value but would cause “accounting numbers” to look bad in the short term. Pressure from analysts can inadvertently incentivize companies to make as much money as possible off their present customers to report good quarterly numbers, instead of offering a fair price that creates enduring goodwill and a long-term win–win relationship for all stakeholders. The businesses that buy commodities and sell brands and have strong pricing power (typically depicted by high gross margins) should always remember that possessing pricing power is like having access to a large amount of credit. You may have it in abundance, but you must use it sparingly. Having pricing power doesn’t mean you exercise it right away. Consumer surplus is a great strategy, especially for subscription-based business models in which management should primarily focus on habit formation and making renewals a no-brainer. Most businesses fail to appreciate this delicate trade-off between high short-term profitability and the longevity accorded to the business through disciplined pricing and offering great customer value. The few businesses that do understand this trade-off always display “pain today, gain tomorrow” thinking in their daily decisions.

(Five stars) A CHARMING, MODERN DAY FAIRY TALE By Tim Janson...with this book you really get an old-fashioned fairy tale told with today's tribulations. It's a light, fun read, filled with humor, wit and charm. While any kids in the 7 - 14 age range would enjoy the story, I think it especially speaks to young girls who can relate more keenly to the problems endured by the main characters. The book is beautifully illustrated by Andy Park and features a number of full-page illustrations that perfectly complement the story written By Debbie Bishop. The pair have created a story with lively characters that come to life before your eyes. Highly recommended! FIVE STARS! The Fairies of Bladderwhack Pond is a great story for kids and teens alike! This wonderful fairytale has modern references to kids as they live today. It’s like Harry Potter for kid’s today! Debbie has created a really fun book that will be cherished! --amazon reader

About Kindness, This is just so much for my Soul, and to each one of you, beautiful Flickers of Light and Love. On this Amazing Day of Christmas, I want to send you all a bunch of Happiness and a heartful of My Prayers but above all a Truth that I feel I had the privilege of knowing long back, when I fell in love with God Almighty. The truth is Simple, Kindness is all that Matters. And by Kindness I don't mean the Kindness that looks differently on another but the One that comes with Empathy, the One that flows through Compassion, the One that roots in Love. We just have to understand that everyone is a beautiful person at heart, and no matter how a person behaves or how someone treats you, we just have to stay Kind and know that Somewhere out there Everything we do, has ripples, so let us create ripples in Kindness, in Grace, in Forgiveness, above all in Love. It is very very difficult to forgive a person who hurts us, but when you embody Kindness and practice Grace as an everyday habit, you soon understand how easy it becomes to forgive, because then you look at the Soul who hurt you as a Soul who is trapped in a blockchain of Karma, you understand that you need to release that Soul from your Karmic Cycle by forgiving and leaving it to God, and actually praying for the well-being of that Soul. Every Single Time, you cross path with a Stranger, wear a Smile, it doesn't matter if it is reciprocated or not, just know maybe you just infected a Soul with your Smile, after all like Pain, Happiness is Contagious. Let your Energy be that of Happiness, of Sunshine, you never know who needs your Soul's Rainbow in a drought of rain. Every time you find some way to do good, don't even think about it, just do it. Especially when you know that it cannot benefit you, because then you know in your Heart you did something just for Him. And that Feeling is beyond any achievement or success, because honestly nothing on Earth is as beautiful as the feeling of Kindness, of knowing that Every Single Day you wake up in this Earth to wear Kindness, that you have a reason to Exist, and that reason is to sprinkle Grace all around, to let every Soul you cross path with feel how Special they are, to Let the World know that Love is alive, that Kindness is the most beautiful prayer of God, the most amazing privilege granted to us. And so I pray to God, today and always, May the Spirit of Christmas be always the most Alive in the Act of Kindness, in the Very breath that we take, for Kindness is about Love and Love is the Root of this Universe in All Ways, Always. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

Non-Round Numbers Are Better at Anchoring Choosing a round number will send the message—especially to experienced negotiators—that you have no specific rationale for that price. And, if you have no rationale for a price, it’s reasonable to assume that you aren’t committed to that price. For example, if a house is listed at $250,000, and you offer $200,000, a smart seller will realize that it’s unlikely that $200,000 number has any specific meaning to you, and that you’re likely just fishing to see if the seller will budge on their price. On the other hand, if you were to offer, $204,200 on that same house, the seller will assume there was thought put into that offer, and will likely believe that the number has some specific meaning. You could reinforce this belief by communicating additional information to the seller when making the offer. For example, before offering $204,200, you might say to the seller: Investor: “I’m glad I met you today… this is actually perfect timing. I just left a closing this morning where I sold a previous property, and I have some cash available to make another purchase.” You haven’t said that the amount of cash you have available is $204,200, but given that your offer is so specific, the seller will likely assume a connection. The seller is now anchored to your $204,200 number, subconsciously thinking that this number is important to your side of the negotiation, perhaps even a requirement for you. Later in the negotiation, you can reinforce this anchor by saying something to the effect of: Investor: “I only have a specific amount of cash available to invest right now. I may be able to increase my offer a little bit, but not much.” Without saying it, you have reinforced the belief that $204,200 is the specific amount you have available to purchase the property, though you’re willing to reluctantly try to find a few more nickels under the sofa cushion.

Why?” He knew what I meant. “Mor gets spooked. And what Az did today scared the shit out of her.” “The violence?” “The violence as a result of what he feels, lingering guilt over the deal with Eris—and what neither of them will face.” “Don’t you think it’s been long enough? And that taking Helion to bed is likely the worst possible thing to do?” But I had no doubt Helion needed a distraction as much as Mor did. From thinking too long about the people they loved—who they could not have. “Mor and Azriel have both taken lovers throughout the centuries,” he said, wings shifting slightly. “The only difference here is the close proximity.” “You sound remarkably fine with this.” Rhys glanced over a shoulder to where I lingered by the foot of the massive ivory bed, its carved headboard fashioned after overlapping waterlilies. “It’s their life—their relationship. They have both had plenty of opportunities to confess what they feel. Yet they have not. Mor especially. For private reasons of her own, I’m sure. My meddling isn’t going to make it any better.” “But—but he loves her. How can he sit idly by?” “He thinks she’s happier without him.” His eyes shone with the memory—of his own choice to sit back. “He thinks he’s unworthy of her.” “It seems like an Illyrian trait.

Common Pitfalls and Success Tips Pitfall 1: You don’t take the power of vision seriously. Some people, especially type-A people, think that vision is fluff. Those who think about vision this way tend to leap past the question of purpose and dive into action. The problem is that when the going gets difficult, it is harder to stay committed to the work in the long run because there is no compelling reason, no persuasive why. The behaviors associated with this pitfall are not keeping your vision in front of you, not aligning your plans with it, and not remembering what is in it. Pitfall 2: The vision isn’t meaningful to you. Sometimes we are superficial in crafting our vision. We capture what we think we want—what we think we are supposed to want—rather than capturing what is meaningful to us. Visioning takes time. Keep working on it until you have something that connects emotionally. Pitfall 3: Your vision is too small. A small vision doesn’t call on our best efforts. We don’t have to reach and we don’t sacrifice our comfort. A small vision might be achievable, but we leave our best undelivered. To be most effective, your vision should make you feel uncomfortable and challenge you to do things differently—and do different things. Pitfall 4: You don’t connect your vision to your daily actions. Each day is an opportunity to either make progress on your vision or tread water. If you work from a plan that is aligned with your vision, you can be sure that you are acting on the most important things every day. You’ve crafted your vision and checked to avoid making those common mistakes. Now, here are three important action steps to take to make your vision even more powerful for you: Success Tip 1: Share it with others. Sharing your vision increases your commitment to it. When you tell someone else what you want in life, you feel more responsibility to act. Success Tip 2: Stay in touch with your vision. Print it out and keep it with you. Review it each morning and update it every time that you discover ways to make it more vivid and meaningful to you. Success Tip 3: Live with intention. At the end of each day, take a few minutes to reflect on the progress that you made today. Did it move you forward, or was it filled with activity that wasn’t related to your vision? Resolve to be intentional in your actions to make progress on your vision. What action will you take tomorrow?

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday. But because of me, you were never able to. Well, I'm alone there now… In our ”“special place.” Waiting for you… Waiting for you to come to see me. But you never do. And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness. I know I've done a terrible thing to you. Something you'll never forgive me for. I wish I could change that, but I can't. I feel so pathetic and ugly lying here, waiting for you... Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling, and all I can think about is how unfair it all is... The doctor came today. He told me I could go home for a short stay. It's not that I'm getting better. It's just that this may be my last chance... I think you know what I mean... Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly. But I'm afraid James. I'm afraid you don't really want me to come home. Whenever you come see me, I can tell how hard it is on you... I don't know if you hate me or pity me... Or maybe I just disgust you.... I'm sorry about that. When I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it. I was so angry all the time, and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That's why I understand if you do hate me. But I want you to know this, James. I'll always love you. Even though our life together had to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. We had some wonderful years together. Well, this letter has gone on too long, so I'll say goodbye. I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. That means that when you read this, I'll already be dead. I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me. These last few years since I became ill...I'm so sorry for what I did to you, did to us... You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing. That's why I want you to live for yourself now. Do what's best for you, James. James... You made me happy. “I love you, Mary.” As the car began to slowly sink to the bottom of the lake, James pulled his wife close and gently held her. Their wish had finally come true. They would be together. And now they had an eternity to enjoy their happiness.

Boundaries Once upon a time, there were two youngsters, a boy and a girl. Their families hated each other. But the boy snuck into a party hosted by the girl’s family because he was kind of a dick. The girl sees the boy, and angels sing so sweetly to her lady-parts that she instantly falls in love with him. Just like that. And so he sneaks into her garden and they decide to get married the next freaking day, because, you know, that’s totally practical, especially when your parents want to murder each other. Jump ahead a few days. Their families find out about the marriage and throw a shit-fit. Mercutio dies. The girl is so upset that she drinks a potion that will put her to sleep for two days. But, unfortunately, the young couple hasn’t learned the ins and outs of good marital communication yet, and the young girl totally forgets to mention something about it to her new husband. The young man therefore mistakes his new wife’s self-induced coma for suicide. He then totally loses his marbles and he commits suicide, thinking he’s going to be with her in the afterlife or some shit. But then she wakes up from her two-day coma, only to learn that her new husband has committed suicide, so she has the exact same idea and kills herself too. The end. Romeo and Juliet is synonymous with “romance” in our culture today. It is seen as the love story in English-speaking culture, an emotional ideal to live up to. Yet when you really get down to what happens in the story, these kids are absolutely out of their fucking minds. And they just killed themselves to prove it!

This is especially poignant when one thinks about social fragmentation. So-called “interracial” adoption is a lovely thing in basic human terms. Yet not long ago, Ibram Kendi tweeted this amid media coverage of Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s adoption of “black” children (two from Haiti): Some White colonizers “adopted” Black children. They “civilized” these “savage” children in the “superior” ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.19 Kendi then argued that adopting such children in no way makes someone “not a racist”: And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist.20 A writer for Christianity Today, Sitara Roden, spoke of her own adoptive background in a positive way, but also agreed with Kendi’s perspective on bias: This is a conversation I’ve had with my own white family. Just because I am not white and a part of their family does not mean their implicit biases are any less real. How you view the nonwhite person in your family, that you might have raised, is bound to be a different valuation than

Our dysfunctional culture sends mixed signals about manhood. The world of sports tells me that authentic masculinity is linked to athleticism, physical strength, and winning the game. In short, muscles make the man. The world of finance suggests that my worth is directly tied to the size of my bank account, the square-footage of my house, the brand of watch I wear, and the make and model of car I drive. In other words, money makes the man. Then Hollywood tells me that real manhood is measured by how long I can last in bed and how many women I’ve had sex with. The clear message is: a penis makes a man. To add to that chorus, popular music today tells young urban men that their masculine value is boosted if they act tough, beat up women, use profanity, abuse drugs, outsmart the police, and drink as much alcohol as possible. If they do all these things, someone on the street will reward them by saying, “You da man!” So these guys grow up thinking that bad behavior makes a man, especially if it involves impregnating as many women as possible—and leaving those women with black eyes, bruises, and broken hearts in the process.

Pay attention to what’s in front of you—the principle, the task, or what’s being portrayed.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.22 It’s fun to think about the future. It’s easy to ruminate on the past. It’s harder to put that energy into what’s in front of us right at this moment—especially if it’s something we don’t want to do. We think: This is just a job; it isn’t who I am. It doesn’t matter. But it does matter. Who knows—it might be the last thing you ever do. Here lies Dave, buried alive under a mountain of unfinished business. There is an old saying: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” It’s true. How you handle today is how you’ll handle every day. How you handle this minute is how you’ll handle every minute.

Now Where Do You Find Customers? When novice entrepreneurs search for opportunities, they too often look beyond their Zone of Influence. They think the action is happening somewhere else, in some other location or industry. But seasoned entrepreneurs almost always find and create opportunities within the context of who they are, what they know, and especially who they know. In each of the examples above, the business validation process begins with potential customers in the entrepreneur’s orbit. Actual people with names. Tribes you belong to or are interested in, most of whom are already self-organized online. People you know how to reach, today. Though it’s rarely a part of their official origin stories, the biggest companies in the world—even the viral apps now worth billions—started through personal networks and real human connections. Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in a weekend by emailing friends to use it. Version 1 did well, validating it. And Microsoft started with Bill Gates building software for a guy in Albuquerque. He had a CUSTOMER FIRST. In the beginning, founders should reach out to their friends, their former colleagues, their communities. You may think your business is unique, but trust me, it’s not. Every successful business can start this way. For example, Anahita loves her dogs and wanted healthier snacks for them. She started taking her homemade organic dog treats to her local dog park. She would sell out every time. A year later she now has a store called the Barkery, a dog bakery. Before you even think about picking a business idea, make sure you have easy access to the people you want to help. An easy way to do this is to think about where you have easy access to a targeted group of people whom you really want to help—like, say, new moms in Austin, cyclists, freelance writers, and taco obsessives (like me!). CHALLENGE Top three groups. Let’s write out your top three groups to target. Who do you have easy access to that you’d be EXCITED to help? This can be your neighbors, colleagues, religious friends, golf buddies, cooking friends, etc. The better you understand your target group, the better you can speak to them. The more specifically you can speak to their problems, the better and easier you can sell (or test products). Note how this process prioritizes communication with people, through starting (taking the first iteration of your solution straight to customers) and asking (engaging them in a conversation to determine how your solution can best fix their problem). Business creation should always be a conversation! Nearly every impulse we have is to be tight with our ideas by doing more research, going off alone to build the perfect product—anything and everything to avoid the discomfort of asking for money. This is the validation shortcut. You have to learn to fight through this impulse. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.

So can we arrive at a general principle as to why e-books have flopped in developed markets while audio and video streaming have triumphed? The technology commentator and best-selling author Edward Tenner argues that there are several reasons people are sometimes reluctant to abandon an old technology in favor of a new one. The first involves the potential vulnerabilities of the new thing. For instance, the fax machine is now a museum piece, but for a while people continued to prefer it over emailing scanned documents out of security concerns. Another potential reason involves aesthetics and nostalgia. Although dwarfed by music CDs and streaming, vinyl record sales continue to grow within the niche market of music aficionados. And despite improvements in automatic transmissions, certain car lovers prefer stick shifts. Perhaps the key to understanding format resilience is that technologies rise and fall as part of ecosystems, rarely on their own or by themselves. Those ecosystems need to evolve quickly, through open innovation, in order to appeal to new generations of users, transforming the landscape in the process. E-book platforms have remained fundamentally closed to external innovators, especially on the software side. As a result, the functionality of e-books remains limited. Moreover, research indicates that reading a physical book enables the reader to absorb information more efficiently than reading the same book on an e-reader or a tablet. “The implicit feel of where you are in a physical book turns out to be more important than we realized,” argues Abigail Sellen, a scientist and engineer at Microsoft Research Cambridge in England. “Only when you get an e-book do you start to miss it. I don’t think e-book manufacturers have thought enough about how you might visualize where you are in a book.

Therefore ask yourself some basic questions before you start. For example: “In what capacity am I going to address the reader?” (Reporter? Provider of information? Average man or woman?) “What pronoun and tense am I going to use?” “What style?” (Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual?) “What attitude am I going to take toward the material?” (Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused?) “How much do I want to cover?” “What one point do I want to make?” The last two questions are especially important. Most nonfiction writers have a definitiveness complex. They feel that they are under some obligation—to the subject, to their honor, to the gods of writing—to make their article the last word. It’s a commendable impulse, but there is no last word. What you think is definitive today will turn undefinitive by tonight, and writers who doggedly pursue every last fact will find themselves pursuing the rainbow and never settling down to write.

Kit listened to your parting sermon this morning. He was a very good boy today.” She lay on her back, her head turned to watch the baby. “And he’s thriving in your care. Sophie. You aren’t really going to give him up, are you? If Their Graces were tolerant of the tweenie’s situation, they might make allowances for you.” He regretted the words, because they opened the door for him to wonder again what exactly her position in the household was. He told himself it didn’t matter—it still didn’t matter—because again, he’d be leaving in the morning. She curled over on her side, pillowing her cheek on her hand as she gazed at the fire. “Their Graces would indulge me, did I ask it of them, but Kit needs a real family, brothers and sisters, a mama, a papa. I would spoil him shamelessly, and there’s much I do not know about raising a child.” He gave in to the temptation to touch her, reaching over and smoothing the side of his thumb along her hairline. “You’re a quick study. Every mother and aunt and granny in Town would be happy to help you.” Women were like that. They rallied around babies despite differences in age, class, standing, and even nationality. She did not react to his caress, not that he could see. “I think the country is a better place to grow up, especially for boys.” It occurred to him to offer her a place at Sidling. His aunt and uncle were forever grousing about their aging staff, but they refused to pension off the duffers and dodderers on their payroll. But then he’d never see her, for Sidling was one place he would not frequent if he could help it. Still, the idea was not without merit. It would be better than losing touch with her entirely. “He’s

How many drinks have you had today, Livia?” She shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. This is not about me being a tiny, miniscule amount of tipsy.” Her normally precise voice stumbles over the word miniscule. “This is about you lying about your super sperm!” Well. Everyone is certainly staring at us now. I take Liv’s elbow and guide her into a corner of the room, deciding that sober Liv probably wouldn’t want to rant about sperm in front of a room of strangers. Once we get into the corner, Liv yanks her elbow out of my grasp with the unflappable dignity of the drunk. “You said you had super sperm,” she continues in a whispered hiss. “And you don’t. You have the opposite of super sperm! You have unsuper sperm, you have microsperm, you have…” Her eyes glance around as she tries to think of something especially cutting. They land on my arm, where my tattoo peeks out from under my sleeve. “You have Hydra sperm. Captain America would hate your sperm.” Whoa. “Now, let’s not say things we’re going to regret in the heat of the moment.” She growls again. “And baby, you barely know my body at all if you think my sperm is unsuper, micro, Hydra sperm.” “I do know your body, and I know about your giant, awesome cock—” “Okay, well maybe you know my body a little bit—” “—and you were supposed to get me pregnant and you didn’t.” Her eyes get glossy and her chin has the faintest tremble in it. And for some reason, seeing her chin quiver is like being punched in the chest. I can’t stand it. I’m already pulling her into my arms when she manages in a teary whisper, “I got my period this morning. I’m not pregnant.

no more stolen moments, let alone hours, in which to discover each other . . . from now on, they were formally betrothed, and that betrothal had its own rules. Maddening, perhaps intentionally so. Luci filched another stuffed date from the tray a sleepy maidservant was carrying back to the kitchen, and followed her father into the library. Her uncle and grandfather, already relaxed in chairs by the fireplace, looked up as she came in. "Luci, you should be in bed." "Papa, I'm not sleepy." He raised his eyebrows at her, but she didn't move. "Papa, I had a message cube from Esmay today." Her uncle Casimir sighed. "Esmay . . . now there's another problem. Berthold, did you get anywhere in the Landsmen's Guild?" "Nowhere. Oh, Vicarios won't oppose us, but that's because of Luci, and his support is half-hearted. It would be different if she hadn't left so young, I think. They don't really remember her, and even though they awarded her the Starmount, and consider her a hero, they do not want a Landbride—any Landbride but especially our Landbride—connected to an outlander family. Cosca told me frankly that even if she moved here, and also her husband, he would oppose it. Nothing good ever came from the stars, he insisted." "And the votes?" "Enough for a challenge, Casi, I'm sure of it. No, the only way out of this is for Esmaya to come and talk to them herself." "Or resign." "Or resign, but—will she?" Luci spoke up. "She mentioned that in her cube." "What—resigning? Why?" "Her precious Fleet seems to think about us the way the Landsmen's Guild thinks about them. She says they have some kind of regulation forbidding officers to marry Landbrides." Her father snorted. "Do they have one forbidding officers to be Landbrides? How ridiculous!" "Are you serious?" Casimir asked. "They have something specific about Landbrides? How would they know?" "I don't know," Luci said. "That's just what she said. And she said why didn't we take in all those women brought back from Our Texas—she was sure they'd fit in." A stunned silence, satisfying by its depth and length. "She what?" Casimir said finally. "Aren't those women—" "Free-birthers and religious cultists," Luci said, with satisfaction. "Exactly." "But—but the priests will object," Berthold said. "Not as badly as the Landsmen's Guild, if they hear of it. Dear God, I thought she had more sense than that!" "She is in love," Luci pointed out, willing now to be magnanimous. "Apparently Fleet is taking Barin's salary to pay for their upkeep—at least some of it—and Esmay's trying to help him out. Nineteen of them, after all, and all those children." "At our expense." Casimir shook his head. "Well, that settles it. She'll have to resign, as soon as I can get word to her. The Trustees will certainly not approve this, if I were willing to let it be known." He gave Luci a hard look. "You didn't tell Philip, I hope." "Of course not." Luci glared at her uncle. Esmay might not have any sense, but she knew what the family honor required. "I hope she does name you Landbride, Luci," Casimir said. "You'll be a good one." Luci had a sudden spasm of doubt. Was she being fair to Esmay, who after all had had so many bad things happen to her? But underneath the doubt, the same exultation she had felt when Esmay gave her the brown mare . . . mine, it's mine, I can take care of it, nobody can hurt it . . . "I wonder if we could place an ansible call," Casimir said. "Surely it's not that urgent,

wanted to hit the bitch for her smug, sanctimonious condemnation. Thanks for proving me right, princess … Most of all he was angry at himself for believing her when she’d lied to him. When was he ever going to learn? He wanted her blood, especially since Nykyrian had almost died while protecting her crybaby ass. “Tell me exactly how many assassins were there today?” “I don’t know. Fifteen. Twenty maybe.” He gave her a snide glare. “Twenty trained assassins against one guy who had his guts lasered last night … Lady, I think they had more than a fair shot at surviving and we’re damn lucky you and Kip are alive right now. Instead of being upset with him, you should be grateful.

I think I have to take issue with you on that,” the Archbishop responded. “The people who go around becoming bullies are people who have a massive sense of insecurity, who want to prove that they are somebody, often because they did not get enough love.” “I think, yes, circumstances, environment, education all matter,” the Dalai Lama replied. “Especially today; there is not much focus on inner values in education. Then, instead of inner values, we become self-centered—always thinking: I, I, I. A self-centered attitude brings a sense of insecurity and fear. Distrust. Too much fear brings frustration. Too much frustration brings anger. So that’s the psychology, the system of mind, of emotion, which creates a chain reaction. With a self-centered attitude, you become distanced from others, then distrust, then feel insecure, then fear, then anxiety, then frustration, then anger, then violence.” It was fascinating to hear the Dalai Lama describe the process of mind that leads to fear, alienation, and ultimately to violence. I pointed out that so often our parenting in the West is too focused on our children, and their needs alone, rather than helping them to learn to care for others. The Dalai Lama responded, “Yes, there is too much self-centeredness also among parents—‘my children, my children.’ That’s biased love. We need unbiased love toward entire humanity, entire sentient beings, irrespective of what their attitude is toward us. So your enemies are still human brothers and sisters, so they also deserve our love, our respect, our affection. That’s unbiased love. You might have to resist your enemies’ actions, but you can love them as brothers and sisters. Only we human beings can do this with our human intelligence. Other animals cannot do this.

You can be all and none of the above all at once. Don’t feel obliged to check off little boxes for the sake of doing so, especially when they do not allow for realization of the beauty of the human spectrum.

It’s easy to get negative and say things such as: “I don’t understand why my child got off course. Why did I come down with this sickness? Why did these people do me wrong?” Instead, do as Daniel did. Get up every morning in the midst of the battle, look up and say, “Lord, thank You for another great day. I know you are well able, bigger than my problem, greater than this sickness, and more powerful than my enemy. Thank You that today things will change in my favor.” Especially in difficult times, make sure you put on that fresh new attitude. Set your mind for victory and keep it set. When negative thoughts come, dismiss them and make a declaration like Daniel’s: “My God is well able. He’s done it for me in the past and I know He’ll do it for me again in the future.” My challenge today is for you to keep your mind going in the right direction. When you’re positive, you are in the jet stream of God. Learn to think thoughts on purpose: “This will be a great day. Something good is going to happen to me.” Start off your day in faith. If you develop this positive mind-set you’ll not only be happier, healthier, and stronger, but also, I believe and declare, you will accomplish more than you ever imagined. You will overcome obstacles that looked impossible, and you will become everything God has created you to be. You can, you will!

I happened to meet one of your friends today, when I chanced upon her during a walk.” “Who?” “Miss Hathaway.” “Beatrix?” Audrey looked at him attentively. “I hope you were polite to her.” “Not especially,” he admitted. “What did you say to her?” He scowled into his teacup. “I insulted her hedgehog,” he muttered. Audrey looked exasperated. “Oh, good God.” She began to stir her tea so vigorously that the spoon threatened to crack the porcelain cup. “And to think you were once renowned for your silver tongue. What perverse instinct drives you to repeatedly offend one of the nicest women I’ve ever known?” “I haven’t repeatedly offended her, I just did it today.” Her mouth twisted in derision. “How conveniently short your memory is. All of Stony Cross knows that you once said she belonged in the stables.” “I would never have said that to a woman, no matter how damned eccentric she was. Is.” “Beatrix overheard you telling it to one of your friends, at the harvest dance held at Stony Cross Manor.” “And she told everyone?” “No, she made the mistake of confiding in Prudence, who told everyone. Prudence is an incurable gossip.” “Obviously you have no liking for Prudence,” he began, “but if you--” “I’ve tried my best to like her. I thought if one peeled away the layers of artifice, one would find the real Prudence beneath. But there’s nothing beneath. And I doubt there ever will be.

I knew before today that I would have to leave,” she said, keeping her back to Zachary. “Now, after this, I certainly can't live beneath the same roof with you.” “I don't want you to leave.” “My feelings for you don't change what I must do. I've already explained why.” He was silent for a full minute, grasping the full significance of her words. “You're still planning to marry Ravenhill,” he said tonelessly. “Even now.” “No, it's not that.” Holly felt very cold, all the pulsing warmth of their encounter finally draining away. She tried to examine her choices, but all of them left her feeling empty and strangely fearful. It was all too natural to retreat back into the habits of a lifetime, to follow the paths that had been chosen for her long ago, first by her father and then by George. “I don't know what will happen with Ravenill. I don't even know if he'll still have me.” “Oh, he'll have you.” Zachary spun her around to face him. He was huge and dark, staring at her with a sort of resigned fury. “I've had to fight for everything I've ever gotten. But I won't fight for you. You'll come to me because you want me. I'll be damned if I'll bully or beg you to have me. I suppose in the ton's view, a Ravenhill is worth about a hundred Bronsons. No one will blame you for marrying him, especially when it comes out that George wanted the match. And you might even be happy for a while. But someday you'll realize it was a mistake, when it's too late for either of us to do a damned thing about it.” Holly turned white, but managed to reply calmly. “Our agreement… I'll return the money…” “Keep the money for Rose. There's no reason for her trust to be cut in half simply because her mother is a coward.” She lowered her watery gaze to the level of his third shirt button. “You're being cruel now,” she whispered. “I think I could be a gentleman about almost anything, except for losing you. Don't expect me to take it with good grace, Holly.

Italians stand up a lot at bars,” I comment, taking the glass of water Luca’s pushing toward me. It’s fizzy, with ice and lime in it, and I drink it very gratefully. He smiles. I notice that one corner of his mouth lifts higher than the other when he does so, in a little quirk that sets off his handsomeness precisely because of its irregularity. “Italians like to show off their clothes,” he says. “They like clothes that are signed.” He hits his brow theatrically with one hand. “Firmati,” he says. “That is how we say ‘designer.’ They like designer clothes. If you stand up, people see them better.” Ha! I bet every single piece of clothing Elisa was wearing today is designer. “But your style, it’s very English,” Luca observes, and he reaches across the table to snag his index finger under the big strands of fake pearls around my neck, lifting them for a moment, then letting them fall back to my collarbone again. For a split second, his finger touches my skin, and he might as well have brushed me with a lit match. “Very…” He snaps his fingers, searching for the word. “Eccentrica,” he says finally. “Oh God!” My face drops. “It’s that bad?” “Cosa?” He looks confused. “Bad?” “In English, ‘eccentric’ is sort of like ‘mad,’” I explain. “If you’re really posh, especially. You could be a raving loony who eats bats for breakfast, and as long as you have a title, they’d call you eccentric and think it was charming.” Luca, clearly, hasn’t understood all of this. But he’s thrown his head back and is laughing so hard that I see people beyond us turning to look in curiosity. He looks absolutely gorgeous when he laughs, his mouth curving up, tiny lines creasing around his eyes; his usual cool demeanor is wiped away, and he looks younger, sweeter, much more approachable.

When I look back on history, and think about the ‘great depression’- when men, women and children starved- I’ve often wondered why people fell back to Government and money. That was the issue (after-all). Perhaps people believed that they were powerless... People had skills, to continue doing things like farming, building.. helping each other- coming together. But I think that they didn’t see that they had power, because they had been told that they didn’t. When you think about the power that people have (especially today), you can see that if something (like the collapse of banks) were to happen, we would all be perfectly okay. We still have inventors, builders, farmers, gardeners, entertainers, doctors, barristas, sports people, writers, etc. They don’t disappear. We could simply just go on, do what we love, and not worry about income from those pursuits. And everyone would be okay. Probably better, in-fact. No worry about paying bills, or affording things we want (or need).  Too bad that people (during the depression) never thought to do that. But then again.  What’s that saying? ‘Hindsight is 20/20’...." From the third book in the "I Am... Subject to change without notice" series, by Cheri Bauer

Jesus, the gospel should be all the motivation I need for living as a compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient man—especially when I consider this is how you relate to me 24/7, in full view of my ill-deserving ways. I’ll never experience you as insensitive, unkind, proud, harsh, or impatient. Indeed, through the gospel, I’ve become a member of God’s chosen, holy, dearly loved people. Yet it does take more: sometimes it takes pain. Today is just such a day. As I pray, I’m hurting big-time. Today it will be easier for me to clothe myself with compassion than with cotton. Yesterday afternoon I forgot that exercising at the gym doesn’t qualify me to be a refrigerator mover. But as I hurt, I’m moved to pray today for chronic sufferers—those who cry, “How long, O Lord?” for better reasons and with more tears than I have. Jesus, I pray for people with unrelenting pain in their bodies—those who no longer get any relief from physical therapy or medication. I pray for people with emotional and mental diseases, who live in the cruel world of delusional thinking and sabotaging emotions. I pray for their families and caregivers. I pray for the unconscionable number of children in the world who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and for their parents who feel both shame and helplessness. Lord, these and many more stories of great suffering I bring before you. I also pray for the worst chronic suffering of all: for those who are “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12 NIV). Come, Holy Spirit, come, and apply the saving benefits of Jesus to the religious and the nonreligious alike—to those who may be in the church or in the culture but who are not in Christ. Jesus, I anticipate getting over this back pain pretty soon, but I don’t want to get over compassionate praying and compassionate living. I pray in your kind and caring name. Amen.

Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner. —Exodus 17:15 (NAS) When a younger friend wanted to have a mentoring Bible study with me, we selected a book on the names of God revealed throughout Scripture. Together, we discovered how God has made Himself known in names: Creator, God Who Sees, God Most High, All-Sufficient One, the Lord Will Provide, the Lord Is Peace, and many more. The one I especially like is the Lord Is My Banner—Jehovah-nissi. We learned that a banner in the days of the Israelite exodus from Egypt was not the flag we think of today, but a bare pole topped with a shiny ornament that glittered in the desert sun. Early in their journey the Israelites refused to enter the land God had promised when scouts reported the inhabitants were “too strong” and “men of great size” (Numbers 13). But after Moses informed them that their lack of trust was going to cost them forty years of desert wandering, they rethought it. The problem was, they decided on a course of action that did not include God. Jehovah-nissi was not out in front leading the way. The incident was disastrous for them, and they endured forty years of wilderness for failure to follow God. There is a place where God shows His banner. If I am hesitant to follow—or off chasing something else—I could likely end up where I don’t want to be. Going my own way once nearly cost me my family. God’s Jehovah-nissi name is really about protection. God’s way leads to the “path of life” (Psalm 16:11). In following, I am protected. Lord, turn my eyes to where You are shining, and I will have found my way. —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Mt 16:24; Jn 8:12

Your Mr. Skukman is a man of few words, isn’t he?” Bram said as he walked up to join her. “It’s one of the reasons I hired him.” Bram frowned. “You prefer men who don’t speak much?” “Would you be insulted if I admitted I do?” To Lucetta’s surprise, instead of looking insulted, Bram sent her a look of understanding as he stepped closer to her. “You’re obviously overcome by the shock you’ve recently experienced because of my goat. And while I would love to be able to say that Geoffrey was just out of sorts today, I’m afraid he’s been out of sorts ever since someone abandoned him at Ravenwood a few months back, in the middle of the night.” “Your goat’s name is Geoffrey?” “My sister, Ruby, named it after a gentleman she’d once set her sights on, but a gentleman who turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.” Bram shook his head. “The man had the audacity to go off and marry some well-connected society miss, breaking Ruby’s heart in the process.” Lucetta smiled. “I do believe I’m going to like this sister of yours, Mr. Haverstein, especially since it appears she has no qualms about naming a cranky beast after a gentleman she no longer holds in high esteem.” “Please, since you’ve been set upon by my dogs, and practically mauled by my goat, feel free to call me Bram.” “Very well, since I have experienced all of that madness at the paws and hooves of your animals, I will call you Bram and you may call me Lucetta.” Her smile began to fade. “But pleasantries aside, why do you think your goat tried to attack me, and what was it doing in the tower room in the first place?” Bram blew out a breath. “Geoffrey attacked you because he has a problem with dresses—something we learned when he chased poor Mrs. Macmillan, who’d been trying to help get Geoffrey to the barn the morning we discovered him.” Bram shook his head. “Mrs. Macmillan has not been back to the barn since. As for what Geoffrey was doing in the tower room, I must admit that I can’t even fathom how he got up there without someone noticing.” “It’s

Good heavens, those men really did hit your head hard, didn’t they?” Millie pressed the wet cloth into Reverend Gilmore’s hand before heading Everett’s way. Reaching out, she plucked the meat off his face and peered into his eyes. “Your pupils seem to be working all right, but . . . perhaps we should summon the physician to make certain you haven’t been grievously injured.” “My wits aren’t addled.” “I imagine that’ll change once Caroline hears about your latest foray—which means venture—into brawling.” Everett simply stared at Millie for a long moment before he laughed. “There’s nothing funny about this, Everett. Caroline is determined to pull off the ball of the summer season tonight, and she’ll be hard-pressed to do that if everyone at the ball spends their time discussing your recent activities.” “She probably won’t even notice the new bruises I incurred today.” “Do you think she’s not going to notice that your father is sporting bruises as well, and Reverend Gilmore’s lip is twice its normal size?” “I wasn’t planning on attending the ball, dear,” Reverend Gilmore said. “And I was only punched because one young gentleman got a little too enthusiastic when the mayhem began.” Fletcher smiled but then winced as if smiling caused him pain. “That certainly did put an end to everything rather quickly, once everyone realized an elderly gentleman—and a man of the cloth, at that—had been pulled into the fray.” Reverend Gilmore suddenly looked a little smug. “I’m sure the local churches will see an increase in their attendance, especially since I just couldn’t seem to resist suggesting all those gentlemen repent and make reparations for speaking such vile things about my lovely Lucetta.” Everett grinned. “That was the best part of the whole brawl.” Reverend Gilmore returned the grin. “I do still have my uses, son, but . . .” He rose slowly to his feet and sighed. “I think I’ll go have a nice lie down. As Fletcher so kindly pointed out, I am an elderly gentleman, and brawls can be rather taxing on us, even though, truth be told, I’ve never been in the midst of one before today.” Everyone

I think you might be cracking my ribs,” Lucetta mumbled into his chest, her words having him release his death grip on her before he took a step—but only a step—away from her. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you” was all he could think to say. Lucetta smiled. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you as well, and”—she nodded to Stanley, Ernie, and Mr. Skukman, who were currently sitting on top of Silas Ruff, while Tilda stood guard at the door they’d blown open, looking rather menacing as she kept a pistol at the ready—“I’m delighted to see you brought some assistance as well.” She nodded toward the blown-apart door. “Assistance proficient in the use of dynamite, if I’m not mistaken.” “That was me,” Ernie said, sending Lucetta a grin. “Not that I use dynamite all that often anymore,” he hurried to assure her. “But my expertise with the substance does come in remarkably handy at the oddest of times.” “Should I ask why Ernie’s an expert with dynamite?” Lucetta asked, turning back to Bram. “I would suggest not,” Bram said. Wrinkling her nose, Lucetta nodded. “You’re probably right, but tell me, how did you find me?” “Using a wide variety of interesting contacts spread throughout the city.” Bram blew out a breath. “Everyone’s been so worried about you.” “I’ve been fine,” Lucetta began, nodding when he quirked a brow her way. “Honestly, I have been. I mean, yes, the men Silas hired to abduct me scared me half to death—especially the man I heard was some sort of tracker—but as soon as they delivered me here, they left and I never saw them again. Truth be told, until today, it’s just been me along with a pack of intimidating women Silas hired to make certain I didn’t escape from this cozy little nest he’s been holding me in.” “Silas left you alone until today?” “Curious as that may seem, yes. He only showed up about an hour ago.” She smiled. “I do believe he had a most romantic dinner planned for the two of us, but matters got off to a rough start when he demanded I play him a piece by Bach, and discovered I . . . Well, let’s just say that, if you’d compared my playing with Ruby’s, your sister would sound downright competent at the keys.” Brushing

Washington’s language is a far cry from anything we hear today. I am not referring to his lofty and ennobling style of speech, although to some extent that is at issue too. But far more important is his use of specific words and phrases like “reputation,” “patient virtue,” “dignity,” “glory,” and “sacred honor.” These words and phrases are most striking to us in that they have disappeared, generally speaking, and not just as words but as concepts. Who speaks of “sacred honor” or “glory” today? These words and ideas have been quietly banished from our cultural conversation. Nor is it that we have replaced these terms with less antiquated equivalents. We’ve lost them altogether. The question is whether we can ever recover them, and whether, short of that, we can survive. Can it be that the further we have strayed from thinking of such things, the further we have strayed from what is necessary for the ordered liberty bequeathed to us by the founders? And that in neglecting the cultivation of these virtues have we unwittingly undermined our entire way of life? What we see in Washington here is a man who lives in a world in which virtue and honor are accepted as vital to the life they all wish to lead. There is no possibility that they can get where they wish to go without them. To ignore these things or to mock them would have been unthinkable, and we must wonder how we can have come to a place where that’s no longer the case, where to take them seriously is unthinkable for so many, especially in the elite cultural circles of our day. But

... so, for those keeping score at home, he wants a guerrilla war where Americans shoot and hang other Americans. It will be very easy to tell who they need to kill because they will be the ones telling you to wear a medical mask and get a vaccine. Even after I gave him the first food he had eaten in two days, he still was not willing to listen to me for just a few seconds and explain that “socialism” actually means using taxes to pay for hospital visits, instead of running up huge medical debts. Rather than letting me talk, he threatened to hang me, all while still eating my food. On most days, I might dismiss a conversation like this as nothing but the rantings of a homeless guy whose mind has been pushed too far. But today he’s just come from the Sea of People who stormed the Capitol and forced Congress to flee for their lives. On a day like today, I think this interview merits more consideration, especially when so many others I interviewed concurred with parts of what he said. I believe

... so, for those keeping score at home, he wants a guerrilla war where Americans shoot and hang other Americans. It will be very easy to tell who they need to kill because they will be the ones telling you to wear a medical mask and get a vaccine. Even after I gave him the first food he had eaten in two days, he still was not willing to listen to me for just a few seconds and explain that “socialism” actually means using taxes to pay for hospital visits, instead of running up huge medical debts. Rather than letting me talk, he threatened to hang me, all while still eating my food. On most days, I might dismiss a conversation like this as nothing but the rantings of a homeless guy whose mind has been pushed too far. But today he’s just come from the Sea of People who stormed the Capitol and forced Congress to flee for their lives. On a day like today, I think this interview merits more consideration, especially when so many others I interviewed concurred with parts of what he said. I believe men like him represent a much larger segment of the population than those mesmerized by The Media want to accept. Based on the miles I’ve driven and the conversations I’ve had while Chasing History, I’d say men (and women!) like him are a large minority of the population and they ain’t going away. And unless some modern-day messiah manages to re-open political dialogue in this country, I see more trouble in the years ahead.

Thayer also said that clinic workers were trained to persuade pregnant mothers, especially hesitant ones, that abortion was their only option: If they’d say, “I’m not able to pay [my bill] today,” then we would say something like, “Well, if you can’t pay $10 today, how are you going to take care of a baby? Have you priced diapers? Do you know how much it costs to buy a car seat? Where would you go for help? There’s no place in Storm Lake (or whatever town they were in), you know, where you can get help as a pregnant mom. So really, don’t you think your smartest choice is termination?

Without You Everything Is Hideous How are you? , sweetheart, here I am writing these letters and your thought does not leave me and here you are still the closest to me since that day, which did not end until now. I scatter my letters in front of your beautiful eyes to tell you that I am wrong and guilty ; Although I have not forgotten you for a moment, even while I am trying to convince myself that everything is finished from your point of view, but I make up for it and say well, this is enough for me to try to snatch her icy heart again, this heart that loved me with all sincerity that innocent childish heart that never hated One even over the one who is because of him has left me for a long time due to false suspicion I remember all your letters, so I read them from time to time How nice it was to call me a childish nickname - capturing like your cheeks a happy nickname. You didn’t know all my reasons, sweetie I indirectly told you about the biggest reason when I told you to read “So Forgive Me ”You are the most beautiful thing that has happened to me since I knew you. My beauty, today I want to tell you that you forgot something one day. You asked me: Have you loved before? So I told you : Yes I did it was a long time ago when I was a teenager; I never thought that I would love again after I was wounded by that deep wound, when I was left alone, the wolves of loneliness and separation scattered me, and no one comes to me to pull me from the bottom of the debris that happened in my heart, And to be honest, I was not afraid for myself as much as I feared for your tender heart; I don’t ever want to be the lover who leaves his lover, especially if it is you. My beautiful woman, I wanted to make sure that my heart never beats for anyone but you It’s not easy, believe me I admire you since we became close, since we started speaking in the innocent language of children, since you used to say to me you are late to respond, even if I was late for a few seconds since night became for us a second day we talk about it until dawn and more Since you were quarreling with others trying to make them understand my point of view. How delicious days were when you looked at me from a distance and smiled, and when I heard your laughter as much as I was jealous, my heart beat with joy All your conditions were beautiful even when you quarreled with me I am not here trying to tell you that I am innocent, I am not I hurt you many times but I swear it was not with intent They were rather fleeting and spontaneous things. I admit that I have hurt your pride and here I am now bearing the consequences of this matter, and I swear it is not an easy thing. But, my flower, when you told me that excuse to stay away from me for three months, it smashed me, how can someone take my moon from me? The one that shone my eyes and melted the ice around my heart after my heart became so attached to her that I became so addicted to her that when I talk to any girl I call her by your name. My little girl I lost my love previously, and I do not want to lose you, because I know that you are a twin of my soul, even if you deny this now, but in the depths of your heart you know the validity of this matter. I apologize for every moment that made you think with pain I just wanted to protect you from fleeting feelings or just those feelings that were attracted to you And I know you crave someone to love you just because you are beautiful I wanted to protect you from the feelings of a teenager And if it was a year or less late to reveal it You know that valuable things no matter how late they are, their value will be better, finer, sincere and thinner, and you deserve strong, sincere feelings that stem from the depths of the heart and from the depths of the soul feelings befitting you I see in you all the beauties in life And without you, everything is Hideous You have all my feelings, beautiful cheeks.

invective to be used against someone you loathed. I laughed and am still laughing. Such things only happen when we live in a me-centered world. We’re so sure that the way in which we view the world is the only right and proper one that we see those who deviate from it as misguided and those who completely diverge from it as aliens from Mars. Such thinking inevitably leads to the sharp polarization that occurs in many facets of life today, especially in politics and religion. Kornfield, because of his training and intellect, recognized what was happening, and this incident played a role in launching him on his path of explaining Buddhism to a Western lay audience. We don’t know what changes, if any,