Everyone Cares About Themselves Quotes

Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town. I mean, look at it, Q: look at all those culs-de-sac, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.

I mean it. I can't go alone. And I really can't go with Levana." "Well, there are about 200,000 single girls in this city who would fall over themselves to have the privilege." A hush passed between them... "Cinder." She couldn't help it. She looked at him... "200,000 single girls," he said. "Why not you?" Cyborg. Lunar. Mechanic. She was the last thing he wanted. She opened her lips, and the elevator stopped. "I'm sorry. But trust me---you don't want to go with me." The doors opened and the tension released her. She rushed out of the elevator, head down, trying to look at the small group of people waiting for the elevator. "Come to the ball with me." She froze. Everyone in the hallway froze. Cinder turned back. Kai was still standing in elevator B one hand propping open the door. Her nerves frazzled, and all the emotions of the past hour were converging into a single sickening feeling---exasperation. The hall was filled with doctors, nurses, androids, officials, technicians, and they all fell into an awkward hush and stared at the prince and the girl in the baggy cargo pants he was flirting with. Flirting. Squaring her shoulders, she retreated back into the elevator and pushed him inside, not even caring that it was her metal hand. "Hold the elevator," he said to the android as the doors shut behind him. He smiled. "That got your attention.

Because of that she had never had enough energy to be herself, a person who, like everyone else in the world, needed other people in order to be happy. But other people were so difficult. They reacted in unpredictable ways, they surrounded themselves with defensive walls, they behaved just as she did, pretending they didn't care about anything. When someone more open to life appeared, they either rejected them outright or made them suffer, consigning them to being inferior, ingenuous.

Part of one's despair, of course, is that the world cares nothing for the little shocks endured by the sensitive stickler. While we look in horror at a badly punctuated sign, the world carries on around us, blind to our plight. We are like the little boy in The Sixth Sense who can see dead people, except that we can see dead punctuation. Whisper it in petrified little-boy tones: dead punctuation is invisible to everyone else -- yet we see it all the time. No one understands us seventh-sense people. They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes we are often aggressively instructed to "get a life" by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves. Naturally we become timid about making our insights known, in such inhospitable conditions. Being burned as a witch is not safely enough off the agenda.

It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...

In time, when we became adults, we might look back on this pain and loneliness as a funny thing, perfectly ordinary, but—but how were we expected to get by, to get through this interminable period of time until that point when we were adults? There was no one to teach us how. Was there nothing to do but leave us alone, like we had the measles? But people died from the measles, or went blind. You couldn't just leave them alone. Some of us, in our daily depressions and rages, were apt to stray, to become corrupted, irreparably so, and then our lives would be forever in disorder. There were even some who would resolve to kill themselves. And when that happened, everyone would say, Oh, if only she had lived a little longer she would have known, if she were a little more grown up she would have figured it out. How saddened they would all be. But if those people were to think about it from our perspective, and see how we had tried to endure despite how terribly painful it all was, and how we had even tried to listen carefully, as hard as we could, to what the world might have to say, they would see that, in the end, the same bland lessons were always being repeated over and over, you know, well, merely to appease us.

And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It's more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous, than to sit pretty for pictures. A woman's soft tummy is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person's life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart - and nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I've gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it's not true, but I really don't care what anyone says. I have come, at last, to believe in the title I came up with for the book: Everyone Is Beautiful.

There’s all this pressure in our society to be beautiful, to be strong, to be sexy. So we spend our time and money on trying to become these things. We put on the high heels, the suits, the makeup, the mask. Then, we feel more awkward than confident, so we drink away our anxieties. That doesn’t make us look any sexier – it just makes us stop caring about how we look. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is sexy. Everyone is strong. It’s lunacy. We’re all running around trying to become something that we already are. You know what’s really sexy? A person who’s 100% comfortable with themselves. And you know what’s really funny? It is just as time consuming and difficult to learn to accept yourself as it is to pretend to be someone else. The only difference is – with self acceptance, one day, it’s not hard anymore. One day, you feel like your sexiest, strongest self just rolling out of bed in the morning. You’re either going to spend the little time you have in your life on trying to know yourself or trying to hide yourself. The choice is yours. You can’t do both. And you know what’s really amazing about choosing self-love? You’ll be setting an example for all the people around you and all the kids of the coming generation. You’ll be part of a revolution to take back the precious moments of our lives out of the hands of shame-inducing advertisers and back into the hands and hearts of real people like you, like me, like all of us. I know you’ve dreamt about changing the world. So this is your chance. Learn to love yourself, accept yourself, and unleash your strongest, sexiest self. It’s in there. You just have to believe it.

You will not remember much from school. School is designed to teach you how to respond and listen to authority figures in the event of an emergency. Like if there's a bomb in a mall or a fire in an office. It can, apparently, take you more than a decade to learn this. These are not the best days of your life. They are still ahead of you. You will fall in love and have your heart broken in many different, new and interesting ways in college or university (if you go) and you will actually learn things, as at this point, people will believe you have a good chance of obeying authority and surviving, in the event of an emergency. If, in your chosen career path, there are award shows that give out more than ten awards in one night or you have to pay someone to actually take the award home to put on your mantlepiece, then those awards are more than likely designed to make young people in their 20's work very late, for free, for other people. Those people will do their best to convince you that they have value. They don't. Only the things you do have real, lasting value, not the things you get for the things you do. You will, at some point, realise that no trophy loves you as much as you love it, that it cannot pay your bills (even if it increases your salary slightly) and that it won't hold your hand tightly as you say your last words on your deathbed. Only people who love you can do that. If you make art to feel better, make sure it eventually makes you feel better. If it doesn't, stop making it. You will love someone differently, as time passes. If you always expect to feel the same kind of love you felt when you first met someone, you will always be looking for new people to love. Love doesn't fade. It just changes as it grows. It would be boring if it didn't. There is no truly "right" way of writing, painting, being or thinking, only things which have happened before. People who tell you differently are assholes, petrified of change, who should be violently ignored. No philosophy, mantra or piece of advice will hold true for every conceivable situation. "The early bird catches the worm" does not apply to minefields. Perfection only exists in poetry and movies, everyone fights occasionally and no sane person is ever completely sure of anything. Nothing is wrong with any of this. Wisdom does not come from age, wisdom comes from doing things. Be very, very careful of people who call themselves wise, artists, poets or gurus. If you eat well, exercise often and drink enough water, you have a good chance of living a long and happy life. The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day. If you want to move people, simply tell them the truth. Today, it is rarer than it's ever been. (People will write things like this on posters (some of the words will be bigger than others) or speak them softly over music as art (pause for effect). The reason this happens is because as a society, we need to self-medicate against apathy and the slow, gradual death that can happen to anyone, should they confuse life with actually living.)

I appreciate the scientific rigor with which you’ve approached this project, Anna,” said Christopher, who had gotten jam on his sleeve. “Though I don’t think I could manage to collect that many names and also pursue science. Much too time-consuming.” Anna laughed. “How many names would you want to collect, then?” Christopher tilted his head, a brief frown of concentration crossing his face, and did not reply. “I would only want one,” said Thomas. Cordelia thought of the delicate tracery of the compass rose on Thomas’s arm, and wondered if he had any special person in mind. “Too late for me to only have one,” declared Matthew airily. “At least I can hope for several names in a carefully but enthusiastically selected list.” “Nobody’s ever tried to seduce me at all,” Lucie announced in a brooding fashion. “There’s no need to look at me like that, James. I wouldn’t say yes, but I could immortalize the experience in my novel.” “It would be a very short novel, before we got hold of the blackguard and killed him,” said James. There was a chorus of laughter and argument. The afternoon sun was sinking in the sky, its rays catching the jeweled hilts of the knives in Anna’s mantelpiece. They cast shimmering rainbow patterns on the gold-and-green walls. The light illuminated Anna’s shabby-bright flat, making something in Cordelia’s heart ache. It was such a homey place, in a way that her big cold house in Kensington was not. “What about you, Cordelia?” said Lucie. “One,” said Cordelia. “That’s everyone’s dream, isn’t it, really? Instead of many who give you little pieces of themselves—one who gives you everything.” Anna laughed. “Searching for the one is what leads to all the misery in this world,” she said. “Searching for many is what leads to all the fun.

Selfish people are dangerous and poisonous. They don't care about anyone than themselves. They don't take blame or responsibility. They think they are entitled to everything and to everyone. They always think they are the victims and it is never ever their fault.

You might not get the apology you deserve. You might not get answers to explain the actions of others. You might not get truth that makes sense to you. You might not get people to understand what you went through because of them. You might not get communication. You might not get maturity. You might not get mercy or even common decency. You might not get respect or the chance to explain your side of the story. However, you do get to choose how people treat you. God loves you enough to bring people into your life who won't hurt you, abuse you, betray you, lie and gossip about you, psycho analyse you, break your heart or make you an option or choice. He will bring people into your life that will love you, respect you, fight for you, show gratitude for your love and want to be a part of your life mission. The best part of this is you don't have to convince them of your worth. They want to be there. They know your value. They know your struggles. They are in touch with their own faults and understand you struggle just like everyone else. They won't hold you to a greater standard then they do themselves. They care about you and don't want to see you cry, feel discouraged or give up on this life. When you know the power of who you are and what you have to accomplish you will scratch your head in disbelief that you allowed other people to dictate who you are based on little knowledge of what God knows about you and your life purpose. Letting go isn't about accepting defeat or acknowledging you were wrong. Sometimes letting go is realizing that God has something better in store for you.

And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It’s more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous than to sit pretty for pictures. The soft tummy of a woman is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person’s life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart, that nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I’ve gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it’s not true, but I really don’t care what anyone says. I have come at last to believe in the title of the book: Everyone Is Beautiful.

If anyone attempted to rule the world by the gospel and to abolish all temporal law and sword on the plea that all are baptized and Christian, and that, according to the gospel, there shall be among them no law or sword - or need for either - pray tell me, friend, what would he be doing? He would be loosing the ropes and chains of the savage wild beasts and letting them bite and mangle everyone, meanwhile insisting that they were harmless, tame, and gentle creatures; but I would have the proof in my wounds. Just so would the wicked under the name of Christian abuse evangelical freedom, carry on their rascality, and insist that they were Christians subject neither to law nor sword, as some are already raving and ranting. To such a one we must say: Certainly it is true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject neither to law nor sword, and have need of neither. But take heed and first fill the world with real Christians before you attempt to rule it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be unchristian, even if they are all baptized and Christian in name. Christians are few and far between (as the saying is). Therefore, it is out of the question that there should be a common Christian government over the whole world, or indeed over a single country or any considerable body of people, for the wicked always outnumber the good. Hence, a man who would venture to govern an entire country or the world with the gospel would be like a shepherd who should put together in one fold wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep, and let them mingle freely with one another, saying, “Help yourselves, and be good and peaceful toward one another. The fold is open, there is plenty of food. You need have no fear of dogs and clubs.” The sheep would doubtless keep the peace and allow themselves to be fed and governed peacefully, but they would not live long, nor would one beast survive another. For this reason one must carefully distinguish between these two governments. Both must be permitted to remain; the one to produce righteousness, the other to bring about external peace and prevent evil deeds. Neither one is sufficient in the world without the other. No one can become righteous in the sight of God by means of the temporal government, without Christ's spiritual government. Christ's government does not extend over all men; rather, Christians are always a minority in the midst of non-Christians. Now where temporal government or law alone prevails, there sheer hypocrisy is inevitable, even though the commandments be God's very own. For without the Holy Spirit in the heart no one becomes truly righteous, no matter how fine the works he does. On the other hand, where the spiritual government alone prevails over land and people, there wickedness is given free rein and the door is open for all manner of rascality, for the world as a whole cannot receive or comprehend it.

She’s so, everybody’s so stupid, you know? Christian too, Todd, whoever says stupid things, you’re from different worlds, like you dropped here in a spaceship.” I had to say something. “Yeah,” I said. “So—?” “So they can fuck themselves,” you said. “I don’t care, you know?” I felt a smile on my face, tears too. “Because Min, I know, OK? I’m stupid I know, about faggy movies, sorry, fuck, I’m stupid about that too. No offense. Ha! But I want to do it, Min. Any party you want, anything, not go to bonfires. Whatever you want to do, for the eighty-ninth birthday, even though I can’t remember the name.” “Lottie Carson.” I stepped close to you, but you held your hands out, you weren’t done. “And they’ll say things, right? I know they will, of course they will. Your friends are, probably, too, right?” “Yes,” I said. I felt furious, or furiously something, pacing with you and waiting to fall into your moving arms. “Yes,” you said, with a huge grin. “Let’s stay together, I want to be with you. Let’s. Yes?” “Yes.” “Because I don’t care, virginity, different, arty, weird parties with bad cake, that igloo. Just together, Min.” “Yes.” “Like everyone is telling us not to be.” “Yes!” “Because Min, listen, I love you.” I gaped. “Don’t, you don’t have to—I know it’s crazy, Joan says I’ve really lost it, but—” “I love you too,” I said.

Our minds automatically seek explanations for things, so when we don’t know something for sure, we make assumptions. For someone with ADHD, her symptoms are clear but the explanation isn’t, so everyone makes assumptions about why she doesn’t do better. Of course, all the old familiar explanations are used—she just needs to try harder, she’s irresponsible, she doesn’t care enough, she wants to do badly. This very much adds insult to injury. Not only doesn’t it help her do better, but it just makes her question herself: “Huh. I thought I tried my best on that, but maybe I didn’t.” Initially most people tend to fight back against these accusations, but over time the accusations begin to sink in and influence how people see and feel about themselves.

Moreover, grandmothers of students who aren't doing so well in class are at even higher risk - students who are failing are fifty times more likely to lose a grandmother compared with non-failing students. In a paper exploring this sad connection, Adam speculates that the phenomenon is due to intrafamilial dynamics, which is to say, students' grandmothers care so much about their grandchildren that they worry themselves to death over the outcome of exams.

Jesus does not divide the world into the moral “good guys” and the immoral “bad guys.” He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways. Even though both sons are wrong, however, the father cares for them and invites them both back into his love and feast. This means that Jesus’s message, which is “the gospel,” is a completely different spirituality. The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism. Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles—it is something else altogether.

It's a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all the cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses,burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for 18 years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.

And everyone drank too much coffee too, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. They drank it when they came in every morning to get going, and then again in the afternoon to keep going. They ran on caffeine fumes all day and never fucking got anywhere. Then they went home spent and empty and crashed in front of the TV every night and slept away the few hours they had for themselves. All these motherfuckers are always talking about the best ways to manage your time. The fact is any time spent at work not sleeping in the bathroom is wasted time, and it’s hard to sleep when you’re pumped full of caffeine. Everyone’s awake for the wrong part of their lives. And by the weekend they’re too exhausted from all the frantic, useless activity to even care, and it’s only fucking two days off anyway. Nobody has the time or the energy to do what they really want, or to even figure out what that is.

You get to thinking of the Earth as an organism, a living thing. You get to worry about it, care for it, wish it well. National boundaries are as invisible as meridians of longitude, or the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The boundaries are arbitrary. The planet is real. Spaceflight, therefore, is subversive. If they are fortunate enough to find themselves in Earth orbit, most people, after a little meditation, have similar thoughts. The nations that had instituted spaceflight had done so largely for nationalistic reasons; it was a small irony that almost everyone who entered space received a startling glimpse of a transnational perspective, of the Earth as one

Anything that's shiny, shines due to its reflective quality. Reflection. People usually think that you are shiny because you are shiny. But what does it actually mean? It means that you reflect back to others the beauty in themselves and the love and care that they give to you. It's never actually about you. It's actually about everyone else. Your capability to reflect determines how luminous you are.

Everyone has it within their heart to be vegan, but each time they eat anything from an animal they deny that this is so, they deny that they have enough love in their hearts to show these animals mercy and free them from our tyranny. This is a blatant lie that they keep telling themselves, time and time again. They would rather argue that they don't care about animals and find excuses to justify and continue harming them, than acknowledge any 'sissy' ability they might have to feel compassion for them. What they don't understand is, that they hurt themselves by not acknowledging this latent ability within their hearts though, and with this they deny themselves love too, for what is given out always comes back multifold.

Their so-called spirituality is completely self-serving, designed to make them happy, or make the people around them think they’ve found some kind of happiness. It’s this shallow belief in immediate profit. They go around talking about seeing something big. As if everything they feel, everything they’re thinking, is so big, bigger than all of us. That’s what they do. They act like they’re all big, ready to share their happiness with everyone, when the only happiness they care about is their own. Like, why can’t they just keep all that stuff to themselves and leave the rest of us alone?

You get to thinking of the Earth as an organism, a living thing. You get to worry about it, care for it, wish it well. National boundaries are as invisible as meridians of longitude, or the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The boundaries are arbitrary. The planet is real. Spaceflight, therefore, is subversive. If they are fortunate enough to find themselves in Earth orbit, most people, after a little meditation, have similar thoughts. The nations that had instituted spaceflight had done so largely for nationalistic reasons; it was a small irony that almost everyone who entered space received a startling glimpse of a transnational perspective, of the Earth as one world. It

I don't really know a whole lot about complicated, worldly things. But I think parents and siblings, they need to be able to care for each other unconditionally. How many people could you risk your life to protect? Not that many, I bet. Everyone's top priority is taking care of themselves. But if there's anyone who can overcome that, it's flesh and blood. If you understand that feeling, then you can look at other people, and realize, this person's family cares about them, too. That's a really heavy feeling. When you think about that, it becomes a lot harder to do horrible things to them. So I think that love for your family....is really at the root of what it means to care for other people.

We’ve got to reach everyone who is left on the west coast.  I think Alaska and Hawaii are, unfortunately, on their own at this point.”   Conner snorted.  “I’ve been to Alaska; don’t worry about them.  They know how to take care of themselves.

If societies are going to elevate women to equality with men—and declare that people of any race or religion have the same rights as anyone else—then we have to have men and women and every racial and religious group together writing the code. … Diversity is the best way to defend equality. If people from diverse groups are not making those decisions, the burdens and benefits of society will be divided unequally and unfairly—with the people writing the rules ensuring themselves a greater share of the benefits and a lesser share of the burdens of any society. … That’s why we have to include everyone in the decisions that shape our cultures, because even the best of us are blinded by our own interests. If you care about equality, you have to embrace diversity—

Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different. Let’s be clear. There’s absolutely nothing admirable or confident about indifference. People who are indifferent are lame and scared. They’re couch potatoes and Internet trolls. In fact, indifferent people often attempt to be indifferent because in reality they give way too many fucks. They give a fuck about what everyone thinks of their hair, so they never bother washing or combing it. They give a fuck about what everyone thinks of their ideas, so they hide behind sarcasm and self-righteous snark. They’re afraid to let anyone get close to them, so they imagine themselves as some special, unique snowflake who has problems that nobody else would ever understand. Indifferent people are afraid of the world and the repercussions of their own choices. That’s why they don’t make any meaningful choices. They hide in a gray, emotionless pit of their own making, self-absorbed and self-pitying, perpetually distracting themselves from this unfortunate thing demanding their time and energy called life. Because here’s a sneaky truth about life. There’s no such thing as not giving a fuck. You must give a fuck about something. It’s part of our biology to always care about something and therefore to always give a fuck.

truth is we feel like everyone is always watching and judging us. Nope. People just care about themselves. You’ve likely seen someone really botch a presentation or be really nervous speaking in public and never given it a second thought once it was done. Return the favor to yourself.

Stay Humble. Often anger comes from our own ego and pride. We don't get our own way and so we get angry. But remember, it's not all about you. :) There are other people on the planet that have wants and needs to. :) If what you want conflicts with what others want, sometime you will have to let them have what they want. Everyone is not here to meet your needs alone. They need to take care of themselves sometimes too. Sometimes anger is an ego trip. It's when we think everyone should cater to our needs and do things our own way. Our pride makes us start to think that it's our way or the highway. But you are not God. No one but God is God. :) You cannot run the universe and you are not perfect. These are all good things to remind ourselves of all the time. Paul says in Romans 12, "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment." Often times anger comes when we have a high opinion of ourselves and the way we think things SHOULD be done. But no one of is perfect. None of us has a perfect way of doing things. We need to allow for differences in other people and different opinions on things. It is never we are right and everyone else is wrong. We need to admit that sometimes we might be wrong too. Amen. So always remember to stay humble and not think of yourself as being perfect or better than you are. If you are able to see that you too make mistakes all the time, then you will have more grace for other people, and you will then become angry less. Amen.

But looking at the internet, I don't see many ideas worth dying for. The only idea on there seems to be that we should watch the immense human misery unfolding before us and just wait for the most immiserated, most oppressed people to turn around and tell us how to stop it. It seems that there exists a curiously unexplained belief that the conditions of exploitation will by themselves generate a solution to exploitation - and that to suggest otherwise is condescending and superior, like mansplaining. But what if the conditions don't generate the solution? What if we're waiting for nothing, and all these people are suffering without the tools to end their own suffering? And we who have the tools refuse to do anything about it, because people who take action are criticised. Oh, that's all very well, but then, what action do I ever take? In my defence I'm very tired and I don't have any good ideas. Really my problem is that I'm annoyed at everyone else for not having all the answers, when I also have none. And who am I to ask for humility and openness from other people? What have I ever given the world to ask so much in return? I could disintegrate into a heap of dust, for all the world cares, and that's as it should be.

No one should care about appearances and yet everyone does. It’s subliminal. Clothing may be a facade, but people read body language for intent. They read posture, temperament and styling as a measure of character. By themselves, these things are meaningless and yet they amplify the message being delivered by the candidates.

Many men find themselves unable to cope with even minor frustration. They get angry over trivial things, such as a broken pencil lead or an overcooked hamburger. Their anger erupts and gets out of control. They feel as though they are constantly under attack, that everyone is out to get them, and that nobody understands or cares about them. They may even get superstitious and believe that fate has it in for them, or that God has turned against them. This feeling of having no control leads to a state of continual frustration and anger. This tendency to react with instant anger can be called rage. Rage is anger that never completely goes away. Unlike regular anger, it is not a response to a specific event; rather, it is a response set, or tendency. In other words, it is an automatic way of reacting to the world without much thought. When you react to more and more situations with anger, it becomes your habitual response. You may often find yourself furiously yelling or seething inside without even knowing what it was that made you so angry. Rage sees personal attack in every disagreement. Rage causes you to feel threatened when there is no threat. And rage causes you to viciously counter-attack even a minor threat. Rage is like a wounded animal. It attacks anything that moves. And as with a wounded animal, the attacks do nothing to ease the pain. Rage depersonalizes individual people and events into a faceless, nameless "them".

In time, when we became adults, we might look back on this pain and loneliness as a funny thing, perfectly ordinary, but—but how were we expected to get by, to get through this interminable period of time until that point when we were adults? There was no one to teach us how. Was there nothing to do but leave us alone, like we had the measles? But people died from the measles, or went blind. You couldn't just leave them alone. Some of us, in our daily depressions and rages, were apt to stray, to become corrupted, irreparably so, and then our lives would be forever in disorder. There were even some who would resolve to kill themselves. And when that happened, everyone would say, Oh, if only she had lived a little longer she would have known, if she were a little more grown up she would have figured it out. How saddened they would all be. But if those people were to think about it from our perspective, and see how we had tried to endure despite how terribly painful it all was, and how we had even tried to listen carefully, as hard as we could, to what the world might have to say, they would see that, in the end, the same bland lessons were always being repeated over and over, you know, well, merely to appease us. And they would see how we always experienced the same embarrassment of being ignored. It's not as though we only care about the present. If you were to point to a faraway mountain and say, If you can make it there, it's a pretty good view, I'd see that there's not an ounce of untruth to what you tell us. But when you say, Well, bear with it just a little longer, if you can make it to the top of that mountain, you'll have done it, you are ignoring the fact that we are suffering from a terrible stomachache—right now. Surely one of you is mistaken to let us go on this way. You're the one who is to blame.

These questions weren’t really about him; no, they were questions about how perceptive people were and what they missed and who else was about to announce their divorce and whether the undercurrent of tension in their own marriages would eventually lead to their demise. Did the fight I had with my wife on our actual anniversary that was particularly vicious mean we’re going to get divorced? Do we argue too much? Do we have enough sex? Is everyone else having more sex? Can you get divorced within six months of an absentminded hand-kiss at a bat mitzvah? How miserable is too miserable? How miserable is too miserable? One day he would not be recently divorced, but he would never forget those questions, the way people pretended to care for him while they were really asking after themselves.

I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, and all the things I had found them before. I still saw all the peculiar twists of personality I previously saw. But, I saw deeper. I saw people who were hostile; they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again. They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry. They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threatened to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone. And nobody but them seemed to notice or care. I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done. I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of tolerating honesty. I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was. I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just taking up the slack. I saw hurting, confused people who needed comfort, understanding, and information. I saw victims of alcoholism who didn’t drink but were nonetheless victimized by alcohol. I saw victims struggling desperately to gain some kind of power over their perpetrators.

No one talks about life, no one cares anymore, or maybe they never did to begin with. People just go about their business like it doesn't matter, and I think maybe they sometimes talk or think about meaningful things, hell maybe even everyone does, but you'll never hear about it from them. Maybe they don't even know it themselves, everyone just wants to talk about stupid bullshit that doesn't matter, like celebrities or the past.

It is like this: Some people care deeply but they don't know how to say it; then some people say words to make it seem like they care deeply, but in reality they don't. Some people care deeply only in the moment, like seeds which last in the soil for three days until dying out; and others can't see the moments, but their roots do run deep. Some people can imitate what it looks like to care deeply and they can fabricate that for a while though they never did feel anything on the inside of them; while others are incapable of showing outwardly how they feel on the inside, it is a monster they struggle with, their feelings so strong they cannot even let those beasts out of their cages, they fear their own creatures! Some people care deeply here, and over there, and all over the place, you never really know where they belong because they seem to belong to everyone and to everything; while others don't care about anybody but you can see where they belong, who they belong to, there is always this one person or those two people and small places. Some people belong to themselves only and if you want to be a part of their lives, you'll have to become a part of them and after you do, they will never leave you because you are inside of their bones now; while others don't even know who they are or where they're going and if you belong to someone like that, you could be here today and gone tomorrow! Some people don't care and don't act like they care and we don't believe them until they make us believe them; while others care and they act like they care and we don't believe them until it's too late. We are often wounded and torn, because we never know which kind of a person they are until we are either wounded and torn, or until we have found a home. It's either or, always either or, and neither of these outcomes are easy ones because either one will change your life.

He's such a good man," my mother said. "How I wish I loved him." "He's certainly crazy about you," I said, trying to make carefully chosen words sound casual. "I know," she admitted. "It's horrible." "It's horrible that someone loves you?" "Yes," she said, looking off somewhere. "I want...my own true love." Her own true love. The outrageous simplicity, modesty, and arrogance of it took my breath away. It seemed to me, then and now, a wish that everyone had a right to, but that only the very foolish or the terminally naive trouble themselves over.

You see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.

believe, rather than the exception. Most individuals are dealing with one or more serious health problems while going productively and uncomplainingly about their business. If anyone is fortunate enough to be in a rare period of grace and health, personally, then he or she typically has at least one close family member in crisis. Yet people prevail and continue to do difficult and effortful tasks to hold themselves and their families and society together. To me this is miraculous—so much so that a dumbfounded gratitude is the only appropriate response. There are so many ways that things can fall apart, or fail to work altogether, and it is always wounded people who are holding it together. They deserve some genuine and heartfelt admiration for that. It’s an ongoing miracle of fortitude and perseverance. In my clinical practice I encourage people to credit themselves and those around them for acting productively and with care, as well as for the genuine concern and thoughtfulness they manifest towards others. People are so tortured by the limitations and constraint of Being that I am amazed they ever act properly or look beyond themselves at all. But enough do so that we have central heat and running water and infinite computational power and electricity and enough for everyone to eat and even the capacity to

You get to thinking of the Earth as an organism, a living thing. You get to worry about it, care for it, wish it well. National boundaries are as invisible as meridians of longitude, or the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The boundaries are arbitrary. The planet is real. Spaceflight, therefore, is subversive. If they are fortunate enough to find themselves in Earth orbit, most people, after a little meditation, have similar thoughts. The nations that had instituted spaceflight had done so largely for nationalistic reasons; it was a small irony that almost everyone who entered space received a startling glimpse of a transnational perspective, of the Earth as one world.

In the elaborate con that is American electoral politics, the Republican voter has long been the easiest mark in the game, the biggest dope in the room. Everyone inside the Beltway knows this. The Republican voters themselves are the only ones who never saw it. Elections are about a lot of things, but at the highest level, they’re about money. The people who sponsor election campaigns, who pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the candidates’ charter jets and TV ads and 25-piece marching bands, those people have concrete needs. They want tax breaks, federal contracts, regulatory relief, cheap financing, free security for shipping lanes, antitrust waivers and dozens of other things. They mostly don’t care about abortion or gay marriage or school vouchers or any of the social issues the rest of us spend our time arguing about. It’s about money for them, and as far as that goes, the CEO class has had a brilliantly winning electoral strategy for a generation. They donate heavily to both parties, essentially hiring two different sets of politicians to market their needs to the population. The Republicans give them everything that they want, while the Democrats only give them mostly everything. They get everything from the Republicans because you don’t have to make a single concession to a Republican voter. All you have to do to secure a Republican vote is show lots of pictures of gay people kissing or black kids with their pants pulled down or Mexican babies at an emergency room. Then you push forward some dingbat like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin to reassure everyone that the Republican Party knows who the real Americans are. Call it the “Rove 1-2.” That’s literally all it’s taken to secure decades of Republican votes, a few patriotic words and a little over-the-pants rubbing. Policywise, a typical Republican voter never even asks a politician to go to second base. While we always got free trade agreements and wars and bailouts and mass deregulation of industry and lots of other stuff the donors definitely wanted, we didn’t get Roe v. Wade overturned or prayer in schools or balanced budgets or censorship of movies and video games or any of a dozen other things Republican voters said they wanted.

What tends to go on in a bull session is that the participants try out various thoughts and attitudes in order to see how it feels to hear themselves saying such things and in order to discover how others respond, without it being assumed that they are committed to what they say. It is understood by everyone in a bull session that the statements people make do not necessarily reveal what they really believe or how they really feel. The main point is to make possible a high level of candor and an experimental or adventuresome approach to the subjects under discussion. Therefore provision is made for enjoying a certain irresponsibility, so that people will be encouraged to convey what is on their minds without too much anxiety that they will be held to it.

People, in all sorts and kinds.. They always want something from you. Whether it's lust, money or love. Whether they need a listening ear of a shoulder to lean on.. Most of the time people just want other people because of their loneliness. They don't even look at what you have to offer, or what you truly need. All people care about is having someone who consumes their time. Someone who looks good on 'em. I mean, who even cares about personality nowadays? Man, as long as your'e pretty they will jump right on your ass. And that to me, is the ugliest thing in human kinds. The selfishness, the greed. Sure, everyone lives for their own longings. But oh, how beautiful it would be to find someone who asks for nothing but your well-being, it's so god damn rare these days. I just wish to find people who live for happiness within themselves and others. Even if that means being alone. Solitude is the most beautiful thing in life, embrace it.

It seems that there exists a curiously unexplained belief that the conditions of exploitation will by themselves generate a solution to exploitation—and that to suggest otherwise is condescending and superior, like mansplaining. But what if the conditions don’t generate the solution? What if we’re waiting for nothing, and all these people are suffering without the tools to end their own suffering? And we who have the tools refuse to do anything about it, because people who take action are criticised. Oh, that’s all very well, but then, what action do I ever take? In my defence I’m very tired and I don’t have any good ideas. Really my problem is that I’m annoyed at everyone else for not having all the answers, when I also have none. And who am I to ask for humility and openness from other people? What have I ever given the world to ask so much in return? I could disintegrate into a heap of dust, for all the world cares, and that’s as it should be.

People, in all sorts and kinds.. They always want something from you. Whether it's lust, money, love or even friendship. Whether they need a listening ear of a shoulder to lean on. Most of the time people just want other people because of their loneliness. They don't even look at what you have to offer, or what you truly need. All people seem to care about is having someone who consumes their time. Someone who looks good on 'em. I mean, who even cares about personality nowadays? Man, as long as you're pretty they will jump right on your ass. And that to me, is the ugliest thing in human kinds. The selfishness, the greed. Sure, everyone lives for their own longings. But oh how beautiful it would be to find someone who asks for nothing but your well-being, it's so god damn rare these days. I just wish to find people who live for happiness within themselves and others. Even if that means being alone. Solitude is the most beautiful thing in life, embrace it.

Beside him Mr. Harris folded his morning newspaper and held it out to Claude. "Seen this yet?" "No." "Don't read it," Mr. Harris said, folding the paper once more and sliding it under his rear. "It will only upset you, son." "It's a wicked paper... " Claude agreed, but Mr. Harris was overspeaking him. "It's the big black words that do it. The little grey ones don't matter very much, they're just fill-ins they take everyday from the wires. They concentrate their poison in the big black words, where it will radiate. Of course if you read the little stories too you've got sure proof that every word they wrote above, themselves, was a fat black lie, but by then you've absorbed a thousand greyer ones, and where and how to check on those? This way the mind deteriorates. The best way you can save yourself is not to read it, son." "No, I... " "That's right, if you're not careful," Mr. Harris went on, blue-eyed, red-faced, "you find yourself pretty soon hating everyone but God, the Babe, and a few dead senators. That's no fun. Men aren't so bad as that." "No." "That's right, you begin to worry about anyone who opens his mouth except to say ho it looks like rain, let's bowl. Otherwise you wonder what the hell he's trying to prove, or undermine. If he asks what time it is, you wonder what terrible thing is scheduled to happen, where it will happen, when. You can't even stand to be asked how you feel today - he's probably looking at the bumps on you, they may have grown more noticeable overnight. Soon you feel you should apologize for standing there where he can watch you dying in front of him, he'd rather for you to carry your head around in a little plaid bag, like your bowling ball. There's no joy in that. Men aren't so very bad." Mr. Harris paused to remove his Panama hat. Water seeped from his knobby forehead, which he mopped with a damp handkerchief. "I've offended you, son," he said. "Not at all, I entirely agree with you." Mr. Harris replaced his hat, folded his handkerchief. "I shouldn't shoot off this way," he said. "I read too much." "No, no. You're right...

They had forgotten the Golden Rule; they did whatever benefited and pleased them. When someone was ill in the street, they looked the other way. They were indifferent to the poor and homeless among them. They only wanted more and more for themselves. The young man was so disturbed that he started to preach on the streets about caring for others. But no one paid attention to him. This went on for years; he became an excellent speaker and was known as "the preacher. " He spoke of the joys of loving everyone and helping the poor. He helped the homeless. He warned of God's wrath. No matter how hard he tried to get them to change, the people of these two cities wouldn't listen.Instead, they thought he was weird. When he was an old man and very tired, a young boy listened to a part of one of his sermons and then shouted, "Why do you preach so much old man? Don't you know people won't change?" The old man said, "Oh, by now, I know that. " "So why do you keep on preaching?" asked the boy."So they won't change me," said the old man. If you really love another properly, there must be sacrifice.-Mother Teresa Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.-Sir James M.BarriePage 48 of 48

The market is the first force that has led to the shriveling of citizenship. The classic case is the Wal-Mart effect. A town has a Main Street of small businesses and mom-and-pop shops. The shopkeepers and their customers have relationships that are not just about economic transactions but are set in a context of family, neighborhood, people, and place. Then Wal-Mart comes to town. It offers lower prices. It offers convenience. Because of its scale and might in the marketplace, it can compensate its workers stingily and drive out competition.   The presence of Wal-Mart leads the townspeople to think of themselves primarily as consumers, and to shed other aspects of their identities, like being neighbors or parishioners or friends. As consumers first, they gravitate to the place with the lowest prices. Wal-Mart thrives. The small businesses struggle and lay off workers. They cut back on their sponsorship of tee ball, their support of the food bank. As the mom-and-pops give way to the big box, and commutes become necessary, lives become more frenetic and stressful. People see each other less often. The sense of mutual obligation that townsfolk once shared starts to evaporate. Microhabits of caring and sociability fall away. In this tableau of libertarian citizenship, market forces triumph and everyone gets better deals—yet everyone is now in many senses poorer.

That’s right, isn’t it?” Harry urged him. “You died, but I’m talking to you. . . . You can walk around Hogwarts and everything, can’t you?” “Yes,” said Nearly Headless Nick quietly, “I walk and talk, yes.” “So you came back, didn’t you?” said Harry urgently. “People can come back, right? As ghosts. They don’t have to disappear completely. Well?” he added impatiently, when Nick continued to say nothing. Nearly Headless Nick hesitated, then said, “Not everyone can come back as a ghost.” “What d’you mean?” said Harry quickly. “Only . . . only wizards.” “Oh,” said Harry, and he almost laughed with relief. “Well, that’s okay then, the person I’m asking about is a wizard. So he can come back, right?” Nick turned away from the window and looked mournfully at Harry. “He won’t come back.” “Who?” “Sirius Black.” said Nick. “But you did!” said Harry angrily. “You came back — you’re dead and you didn’t disappear —” “Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod,” said Nick miserably. “But very few wizards choose that path.” “Why not?” said Harry. “Anyway — it doesn’t matter — Sirius won’t care if it’s unusual, he’ll come back, I know he will!” And so strong was his belief that Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly white and transparent but beaming, walking through it toward him. “He will not come back,” repeated Nick quietly. “He will have . . . gone on.” “What d’you mean, ‘gone on’?” said Harry quickly. “Gone on where? Listen — what happens when you die, anyway? Where do you go? Why doesn’t everyone come back? Why isn’t this place full of ghosts? Why — ?” “I cannot answer,” said Nick. “You’re dead, aren’t you?” said Harry exasperatedly. “Who can answer better than you?” “I was afraid of death,” said Nick. “I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn’t to have . . . Well, that is neither here nor there. . . . In fact, I am neither here nor there. . . .” He gave a small sad chuckle. “I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I choose my feeble imitation of life instead. I believe learned wizards study the matter in the Department of Mysteries —” “Don’t talk to me about that place!” said Harry fiercely. “I am sorry not to have been more help,” said Nick gently. “Well . . . well, do excuse me . . . the feast, you know . . .” And he left the room, leaving Harry there alone, gazing blankly at the wall through which Nick had disappeared. Harry felt almost as though he had lost his godfather all over again in losing the hope that he might be able to see or speak to him once more. He walked slowly and miserably back up through the empty castle, wondering whether he would ever feel cheerful again.

Because the second wave was so much more severe than the first, a lot of people refused to believe it could be the same disease. It had to be terrorism. They didn't care what medical experts kept telling them, about how it was the nature of influenza to occur in waves and that there was nothing about this pandemic, terrible though it was, that wasn't happening more or less as had long been predicted. No, not bioterrorism, others said, but a virus that had escaped from a laboratory. These were the same people who believed that both Lyme disease and West Nile virus were caused by germs that had escaped many years ago from a government lab off the coast of Long Island. They scoffed at the assertion that it was impossible to say for sure where the flu had begun because cases had appeared in several different countries at exactly the same time. Cover-up! Everyone knew the government was involved in the development of bioweapons. And although the Americans were not the only ones who were working on such weapons, the belief that they were somehow to blame--that the monster germ had most likely been created in an American lab, for American military purposes--would outlive the pandemic itself. In any case, according to a poll, eighty-two percent of Americans believed the government knew more about the flu than it was saying. And the number of people who declared themselves dead set against any vaccine the government came up with was steadily growing.

A Favorite start to a book [sorry it's long!]: "In yesterday’s Sunday Times, a report from Francistown in Botswana. Sometime last week, in the middle of the night, a car, a white American model, drove up to a house in a residential area. Men wearing balaclavas jumped out, kicked down the front door, and began shooting. When they had done with shooting they set fire to the house and drove off. From the embers the neighbors dragged seven charred bodies: two men, three women, two children. Th killers appeared to be black, but one of the neighbors heard them speaking Afrikaans among themselves. And was convinced they were whites in blackface. The dead were South Africans, refugees who had moved into the house mere weeks ago. Approached for comment, the SA Minister of Foreign Affairs, through a spokesman, calls the report ‘unverified’. Inquiries will be undertaken, he says, to determine whether the deceased were indeed SA citizens. As for the military, an unnamed source denies that the SA Defence Force had anything to do with the matter. The killings are probably an internal ANC matter, he suggests, reflecting ‘ongoing tensions between factions. So they come out, week after week, these tales from the borderlands, murders followed by bland denials. He reads the reports and feels soiled. So this is what he has come back to! Yet where in the world can one hide where one will not feel soiled? Would he feel any cleaner in the snows of Sweden, reading at a distance about his people and their latest pranks? How to escape the filth: not a new question. An old rat-question that will not let go, that leaves its nasty, suppurating wound. Agenbite of inwit. ‘I see the Defense Force is up to its old tricks again,’ he remarks to his father. ‘In Botswana this time.’ But his father is too wary to rise to the bait. When his father picks up the newspaper, he cares to skip straight to the sports pages, missing out the politics—the politics and the killings. His father has nothing but disdain for the continent to the north of them. Buffoons is the word he uses to dismiss the leaders of African states: petty tyrants who can barely spell their own names, chauffeured from one banquet to another in their Rolls-Royces, wearing Ruritanian uniforms festooned with medals they have awarded themselves. Africa: a place of starving masses with homicidal buffoons lording over them. ‘They broke into a house in Francistown and killed everyone,’ he presses on nonetheless. ‘Executed them .Including the children. Look. Read the report. It’s on the front page.’ His father shrugs. His father can find no form of words spacious enough to cover his distaste for, on one hand, thugs who slaughter defenceless women and children and, on the other, terrorists who wage war from havens across the border. He resolves the problem by immersing himself in the cricket scores. As a response to moral dilemma it is feeble; yet is his own response—fits of anger and despair—any better?" Summertime, Coetzee

#25. Valuing Yourself and Your Needs (As a Parent): This is about taking care of your OWN needs as a parent because when you consistently put yourself last to be taken care of and habitually continue to sacrifice your basic necessities to make everyone else happy…Essentially, what you’re teaching your children is that they’re here to be of service to others, then themselves. In other words, you’re teaching them to take advantage of you and use you as they please, which in turn communicates to them that they’re most likely to be used. To prevent this from happening, you need to set consistent limits that protect you from demands that could be overbearing and unfair. That way, you’re communicating that your basic needs are just as important as theirs. It’s true…often times parents that are constantly sacrificing themselves are idealized and praised by other parents. You know… the ones that have no hobbies, no friends and no avenue of enjoyment. Is this really desirable? Parents constantly stressed about the needs of others in the family are usually irritable, and unmotivated to try anything new, fun or exciting. How can parents do this long term with no outlet? Instead, us parents need to enjoy ourselves and focus on being re-energized. When you take good care of yourself, you provide the means to take better care of your children. Going out to dinner or cocktails, trips to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, date night with your spouse or even some alone time reading or going for a walk allows you to be a more productive, interested and patient parent.

Hear that? Living skulls! What are we doing here? What war at Troy? Does anyone care? Gods of love and hate! Aren't they the same god? All of us, all our lives, searching for the one perfect enemy- you, me, Helen, Paris, Menelaos, all those crazy Greeks! all those hapless Trojans! my dear beloved Jack! Jack and I fought all the time. I remember almost nothing but the fights - every fight a war to end all wars, you know how it goes, a righteous war, a final war, the worst fight you've ever had, you can't do this again, this time you'll get things straight one way or the other or it's over, he'll see what you mean, see you're right, fights aren't about anything except being right, are they? once and for all. You feel old. Wrong. Clumsy. You sit in two chairs on the porch. Or the kitchen. Or the front hall. Hell arrives. It's as if the war was already there, waiting, the two of you poured into it like wet concrete. The chairs you sit in are the wrong chairs, they're the chairs you never sit in because they're so uncomfortable, you keep thinking you should move but you don't, your neck hurts, you hate your neck, evening closes in. Birds move about the yard. Hell yawns. War pours out of both of you, steaming and stinking. You rush backward from it and become children, every still sentence slamming you back into the child you still are, every sentence not what you meant to say at all but the meaning keeps flaring and contracting, as sparks drop on gasoline, Fuckshit this! Fuckshit that! no reason to live. You're getting vertigo. He's being despicable. Your mother was like this. Stop whimpering. No use asking, What is this about? Don't leave the room. I have to leave the room. Breathless, blaming, I'm not blaming! How is this not blaming! Hours pass or do they. You say the same things or are they different things? Hell smells stale. Fights aren't about anything, fights are about themselves. You're stiff. You hate these chairs. Nothing is resolved. It is too dark to see. You both go to bed and doze slightly, touching slightly. In the night a nightmare. Some giant bird, or insect, some flapping thing, trying to settle on the back of your neck, you can't see what it is or get it off. Pure fear. Scream unearthly. He jerks you awake. Oh sweetie, he says. He is using his inside voice, his most inside voice. The distance between that voice and the fight voice measures your whole world. How can a voice change so. You are saved. He has saved you. He sees you saved. An easement occurs, as night dew on leaves. And yet (you think suddenly) you yourself do not possess sort of inside voice - no wonder he's lonely. You this cannot offer this refuge, cannot save him, not ever, and, although physiological in origin, or genetic, or who knows, you understand the lack is felt by him as a turning away. No one can heal this. You both decide without words to just - skip it. You grip one another. In the night, in the silence, the grip slowly loosens and silence washes you out somewhere onto a shore of sleep. Morning arrives. Troy is still there. You hear from below the clatter of everyone putting on their armour. You go to the window.

One way to respond to these "sins" is found in The Divine Comedy, in which Dante is ultimately led to the vision of God by his guide, Beatrice. In first traversing through the Inferno, Dante reveals that the inhabitants of the Inferno are not there because they are sinners. Sinners also make up the populations of Purgatory and Paradise. Rather, those souls are in the Inferno because they are sinners who refused to admit to their own sins. They denied their faults and projected them onto others, blaming everyone around them. The lesson we learn is that only when our sins become acknowledged and deeply felt can they be integrated. Deep reflection and prayer are an important part of the integration of the [inner] shadow. Once we admit to our shadow with honesty and an open heart, the shadow has the potential to become transformed. Once the shadow is integrated, the Seven Deadly Sins can become aspects of a healthy self. Greed and lust become passion, imbuing our journey with heart and fire. Anger transforms into righteousness that acts compassionately for own and other's behalf. The healthy side to gluttony is self-care, something many women have to learn. Envy, once integrated, becomes an appreciation of others. And in a society where doing is valued over being, sloth turns into the ability to be still. Pride enables us to feel good about our accomplishments and grow in confidence and strength. But the path to authenticity is to admit these qualities are within us. It is shadow work that enables holy women to make their hidden struggles into levers with which to free themselves.

Writers take and remake everything we see around us: we metabolize the details of our loved ones, alter time and memory, shapeshift our personal and physical differences into transformative images that, when done with care, can create a world that feels more than accurate, but real. Doing this requires that we watch and listen to one another with great attention, something we’re generally discouraged from doing lest we come off as stalkers. From the time we’re children, we’re taught it’s rude to stare, nosy to eavesdrop; you can’t just root around in other people’s journals and closets and minds. I can’t ask my colleagues what they really think and feel about their marriages or children, because that’s private, and privacy requires that I pretend to believe what both strangers and loved ones tell me. Being polite means, ironically, paying less attention to the people I want to be close to, bypassing their foibles and idiosyncrasies and quiet outrages in the name of communal goodwill. But writing requires we pay attention to others at a level that can only be classified as rude. The writer sees the button trailing by its single thread on the pastor’s shirt; she tastes the acid sting behind a mother’s compliment. To observe closely leads the writer to the radical recognition of what both binds her to and separates her from others. It will push her to hear voices she’s been taught should remain silent. Oftentimes, these voices, and these truths, reveal something equally powerful, and profoundly unsettling, about ourselves. I want to end this letter to you by proposing something that some critics and sociologists might reject out of hand, which is the possibility that White people, too, might, by paying close attention to the voices around them and inside themselves, be able to experience double consciousness. If double consciousness is in part based on the understanding of the systemic power of Whiteness, and if it is also the realization that one’s self-regard can never be divorced from the gaze of others, then the practice of double consciousness might be available to everyone, including those who constitute the majority.

Quanta. On Yom Kippur Eve, the quanta went to ask Einstein for his forgiveness. “I'm not home,” Einstein yelled at them from behind his locked door. On their way back, people swore loudly at them through the windows, and someone even threw a can. The quanta pretended not to care, but deep in their hearts they were really hurt. Nobody understands the quanta, everybody hates them. “You parasites,” people would shout at them as they walked down the road. “Go serve in the army.” “We wanted to, actually,” the quanta would try to explain, “but the army wouldn't take us because we're so tiny.” Not that anyone listened. Nobody listens to the quanta when they try to defend themselves, but when they say something that can be interpreted negatively, well, then everyone's all ears. The quanta can make the most innocent statement, like “Look, there's a cat!” and right away they're saying on the news how the quanta were stirring up trouble and they rush off to interview Schrödinger. All in all, the media hated the quanta worse than anybody, because once the quanta had spoken at an IBM press conference about how the very act of viewing had an effect on an event, and all the journalists thought the quanta were lobbying to keep them from covering the Intifada. The quanta could insist as much as they wanted that this wasn't at all what they meant and that they had no political agenda whatsoever, but nobody would believe them anyway. Everyone knew they were friends of the government's Chief Scientist. Loads of people think the quanta are indifferent, that they have no feelings, but it simply isn't true. On Friday, after the program about the bombing of Hiroshima, they were interviewed in the studio in Jerusalem. They could barely talk. They just sat there facing the open mike and sniffling, and all the viewers at home, who didn't know the quanta very well, thought they were avoiding the question and didn't realize the quanta were crying What's sad is that even if the quanta were to write dozens of letters to the editors of all the scientific journals in the world and prove beyond a doubt that people had taken advantage of their naiveté, and that they'd never ever imagined it would end that way, it wouldn't do them any good, because nobody understands the quanta. The physicists least of all.

what makes life worth living when we are old and frail and unable to care for ourselves? In 1943, the psychologist Abraham Maslow published his hugely influential paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” which famously described people as having a hierarchy of needs. It is often depicted as a pyramid. At the bottom are our basic needs—the essentials of physiological survival (such as food, water, and air) and of safety (such as law, order, and stability). Up one level are the need for love and for belonging. Above that is our desire for growth—the opportunity to attain personal goals, to master knowledge and skills, and to be recognized and rewarded for our achievements. Finally, at the top is the desire for what Maslow termed “self-actualization”—self-fulfillment through pursuit of moral ideals and creativity for their own sake. Maslow argued that safety and survival remain our primary and foundational goals in life, not least when our options and capacities become limited. If true, the fact that public policy and concern about old age homes focus on health and safety is just a recognition and manifestation of those goals. They are assumed to be everyone’s first priorities. Reality is more complex, though. People readily demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice their safety and survival for the sake of something beyond themselves, such as family, country, or justice. And this is regardless of age. What’s more, our driving motivations in life, instead of remaining constant, change hugely over time and in ways that don’t quite fit Maslow’s classic hierarchy. In young adulthood, people seek a life of growth and self-fulfillment, just as Maslow suggested. Growing up involves opening outward. We search out new experiences, wider social connections, and ways of putting our stamp on the world. When people reach the latter half of adulthood, however, their priorities change markedly. Most reduce the amount of time and effort they spend pursuing achievement and social networks. They narrow in. Given the choice, young people prefer meeting new people to spending time with, say, a sibling; old people prefer the opposite. Studies find that as people grow older they interact with fewer people and concentrate more on spending time with family and established friends. They focus on being rather than doing and on the present more than the future.

Babel led to an explosion in the number of languages. That was part of Enki's plan. Monocultures, like a field of corn, are susceptible to infections, but genetically diverse cultures, like a prairie, are extremely robust. After a few thousand years, one new language developed - Hebrew - that possessed exceptional flexibility and power. The deuteronomists, a group of radical monotheists in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., were the first to take advantage of it. They lived in a time of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, which made it easier for them to reject foreign ideas like Asherah worship. They formalized their old stories into the Torah and implanted within it a law that insured its propagation throughout history - a law that said, in effect, 'make an exact copy of me and read it every day.' And they encouraged a sort of informational hygiene, a belief in copying things strictly and taking great care with information, which as they understood, is potentially dangerous. They made data a controlled substance... [and] gone beyond that. There is evidence of carefully planned biological warfare against the army of Sennacherib when he tried to conquer Jerusalem. So the deuteronomists may have had an en of their very own. Or maybe they just understood viruses well enough that they knew how to take advantage of naturally occurring strains. The skills cultivated by these people were passed down in secret from one generation to the next and manifested themselves two thousand years later, in Europe, among the Kabbalistic sorcerers, ba'al shems, masters of the divine name. In any case, this was the birth of rational religion. All of the subsequent monotheistic religions - known by Muslims, appropriately, as religions of the Book - incorporated those ideas to some extent. For example, the Koran states over and over again that it is a transcript, an exact copy, of a book in Heaven. Naturally, anyone who believes that will not dare to alter the text in any way! Ideas such as these were so effective in preventing the spread of Asherah that, eventually, every square inch of the territory where the viral cult had once thrived was under the sway of Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. But because of its latency - coiled about the brainstem of those it infects, passed from one generation to the next - it always finds ways to resurface. In the case of Judaism, it came in the form of the Pharisees, who imposed a rigid legalistic theocracy on the Hebrews. With its rigid adherence to laws stored in a temple, administered by priestly types vested with civil authority, it resembled the old Sumerian system, and was just as stifling. The ministry of Jesus Christ was an effort to break Judaism out of this condition... an echo of what Enki did. Christ's gospel is a new namshub, an attempt to take religion out of the temple, out of the hands of the priesthood, and bring the Kingdom of God to everyone. That is the message explicitly spelled out by his sermons, and it is the message symbolically embodied in the empty tomb. After the crucifixion, the apostles went to his tomb hoping to find his body and instead found nothing. The message was clear enough; We are not to idolize Jesus, because his ideas stand alone, his church is no longer centralized in one person but dispersed among all the people.

Everyone was always thinking of themselves—how to get ahead, pretending to care about the party, watching their own backs, scrambling for food, and using cigarettes and alcohol as bribes to get in with people who had power. To be fair, it was the only way to survive. The system had dehumanized them completely.

There used to be a time when neighbors took care of one another, he remembered. [Put “he remembered”first to establish reflective tone.] It no longer seemed to happen that way, however. [The contrast supplied by “however”must come first. Start with “But.”Also establish America locale.] He wondered if it was because everyone in the modern world was so busy. [All these sentences are the same length and have the same soporific rhythm; turn this one into a question?] It occurred to him that people today have so many things to do that they don’t have time for old-fashioned friendship. [Sentence essentially repeats previous sentence; kill it or warm it up with specific detail.] Things didn’t work that way in America in previous eras. [Reader is still in the present; reverse the sentence to tell him he’s now in the past. “America”no longer needed if inserted earlier.] And he knew that the situation was very different in other countries, as he recalled from the years when he lived in villages in Spain and Italy. [Reader is still in America. Use a negative transition word to get him to Europe. Sentence is also too flabby. Break it into two sentences?] It almost seemed to him that as people got richer and built their houses farther apart they isolated themselves from the essentials of life. [Irony deferred too long. Plant irony early. Sharpen the paradox about richness.] And there was another thought that troubled him. [This is the real point of the paragraph; signal the reader that it’s important. Avoid weak “there was”construction.] His friends had deserted him when he needed them most during his recent illness. [Reshape to end with “most”; the last word is the one that stays in the reader’s ear and gives the sentence its punch. Hold sickness for next sentence; it’s a separate thought.] It was almost as if they found him guilty of doing something shameful. [Introduce sickness here as the reason for the shame. Omit “guilty”; it’s implicit.] He recalled reading somewhere about societies in primitive parts of the world in which sick people were shunned, though he had never heard of any such ritual in America. [Sentence starts slowly and stays sluggish and dull. Break it into shorter units. Snap off the ironic point.]

Maury and I spent more than one month in Pakistan, talking with AID personnel and their Pakistani counterparts and learning about the conduct of the projects over the six-year period. Most importantly, we focused on the dialogue between senior U.S. embassy and mission personnel and those in the Pakistani government responsible for economic policy formulation. One day, he and I were asked to attend a “brown bag luncheon” with the senior mission staff. The idea was to be totally informal, put our feet on the desks and just chat about our impressions. Everyone was eager to learn what Maury thought about the program. Three important things emerged for me out of that discussion. 1. The mission director explained that he had held some very successful consultations and brainstorming sessions with senior Pakistani government leaders. He said the Pakistanis were open to his ideas for needed reform, listened carefully and took extensive notes during these meetings. Although there had been little concrete action to implement these recommendations to date, he was confident they were seriously considering them. Maury smiled and responded, “Yeah. They used to jerk me around the same way when I was in your position. The Paks are masters at that game. They know how to make you feel good. I doubt that they are serious. This is a government of inaction.” The mission director was crestfallen. 2. Then the program officer asked what Maury thought about the mix of projects that had been selected by the government of Pakistan and the mission for inclusion in the program for funding. Maury responded that the projects selected were “old friends” of his. He too, had focused on the same areas i.e. agriculture, health, and power generation and supply. That said, the development problems had not gone away. He gave the new program credit for identifying the same obstacles to economic development that had existed twenty years earlier. 3. Finally, the mission director asked Maury for his impressions of any major changes he sensed had occurred in Pakistan since his departure. Maury thought about that for a while. Then he offered perhaps the most prescient observation of the entire review. He said, when he served in Pakistan in the 1960s, he had found that the educated Pakistani visualized himself and his society as being an important part of the South-Asian subcontinent. “Today” he said, “after having lost East Pakistan, they seem to perceive themselves as being the eastern anchor of the Middle-East.” One wonders whether the Indian government understands this significant shift in its neighbor’s outlook and how important it is to work to reverse that world view among the Pakistanis for India’s own security andwell-being.

Maury and I spent more than one month in Pakistan, talking with AID personnel and their Pakistani counterparts and learning about the conduct of the projects over the six-year period. Most importantly, we focused on the dialogue between senior U.S. embassy and mission personnel and those in the Pakistani government responsible for economic policy formulation. One day, he and I were asked to attend a “brown bag luncheon” with the senior mission staff. The idea was to be totally informal, put our feet on the desks and just chat about our impressions. Everyone was eager to learn what Maury thought about the program. Three important things emerged for me out of that discussion. 1. The mission director explained that he had held some very successful consultations and brainstorming sessions with senior Pakistani government leaders. He said the Pakistanis were open to his ideas for needed reform, listened carefully and took extensive notes during these meetings. Although there had been little concrete action to implement these recommendations to date, he was confident they were seriously considering them. Maury smiled and responded, “Yeah. They used to jerk me around the same way when I was in your position. The Paks are masters at that game. They know how to make you feel good. I doubt that they are serious. This is a government of inaction.” The mission director was crestfallen. 2. Then the program officer asked what Maury thought about the mix of projects that had been selected by the government of Pakistan and the mission for inclusion in the program for funding. Maury responded that the projects selected were “old friends” of his. He too, had focused on the same areas i.e. agriculture, health, and power generation and supply. That said, the development problems had not gone away. He gave the new program credit for identifying the same obstacles to economic development that had existed twenty years earlier. 3. Finally, the mission director asked Maury for his impressions of any major changes he sensed had occurred in Pakistan since his departure. Maury thought about that for a while. Then he offered perhaps the most prescient observation of the entire review. He said, when he served in Pakistan in the 1960s, he had found that the educated Pakistani visualized himself and his society as being an important part of the South-Asian subcontinent. “Today” he said, “after having lost East Pakistan, they seem to perceive themselves as being the eastern anchor of the Middle-East.” One wonders whether the Indian government understands this significant shift in its neighbor’s outlook and how important it is to work to reverse that world view among the Pakistanis for India’s own security andwell-being.

U4NBA News: Notice The Version Of NBA 2K18 Is For You NBA 2K18 is scheduled to debut on store shelves until September 15th for those that who pre-order. It'll come to Xbox One, PS4, Windows PCs and mobile. You must have noticed some NBA 2K18 version informations to help you to decide which version of NBA 2K18 is the one to pre-order now or purchase on release day. NBA 2K18 Standard Edition NBA 2K18 Standard Edition is for mild fans of the series that don't care as much about Virtual Currency as they do getting access four-days before everyone else. Standard Edition is $59.99. Buyers get 5,000 in Virtual Currency, 10 Weeks of MyTeam Packs and some MyTeam themed cosmetic items for use in the game. This version will come to the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS4, PS3, PCs and the Nintendo Switch. This version of the game gets you access to the NBA 2K18 Early Tip-Off Weekend, provided you place a pre-order before September 15th. Also Read: Kyrie Irving Will Grace The Cover Of The Standard Edition Of NBA 2K18 NBA 2K18 Legend Edition NBA 2K18 Legend Edition is the upgraded version of the standard game and the version is for big-time fans of Shaq. It’s also for anyone that loves MyCareer and wants an early jumpstart to their character. It doesn’t come with any exclusive features. Instead, it packs Virtual Currency that could make starting out in MyCareer a little easier. Legend Edition is $99.99. There's 100,000 in Virtual Currency included with Legend Edition. Again, you can use Virtual Currency to buy upgrades for your character in the game. The more Virtual Currency you have, the easier it’ll be to get extras in MyCareer. Character add-ons include a Shaq Championship Ring, Shaq Attaq shoes, Shaq Jerseys and Shaq clothing. There are 20 weeks of MyTeam Packs instead of the 10 that the basic version comes with. Physical copies of this game come with 5 Panini cards, Shaq MyTeam Stickers and a poster. Xbox One, PS4, PCs and the Nintendo Switch will get this version. This version qualifies for Early Tip-Off Weekend. NBA 2K18 Legend Edition Gold NBA 2K18 Legend Edition Gold is for the player that enjoys the series year after year and will find themselves spending hours across MyCareer and MyTeam modes for a long time. It’s also for the fan that loves basketball games and doesn’t have a lot of free time to dump into the game to earn Virtual Currency. This version costs $149.99, the most that any version of the game does. Shoppers get 250,000 in Virtual Currency when they buy Legend Edition Gold. There's 40 weekly MyTeam Packs. Developers guaranteed that players who own those packs can get at least one of Shaq and a TEAM 2K Card. Buyers also get the Shaq Attaq Shoes, the championship ring and Shaq Themed Jerseys and apparel. Physical add-ons include a poster, 10 Panini Cards, Shaq MyTeam Stickers and a lenticular printing. Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Windows PCs and PS4 will get this version. The game qualifies for Early Tip-Off Weekend. In order meet player's demand for NBA 2K18 MT during Early Tip-Off Weekend, we decide to bring forward the activity where offers coupon code "NBA2017". You can buy NBA 2K18 MT from now on to gain up to 5% off.

Warrior beckoned to her. “Loh-rhett-ah, you come, eh?” Loretta glanced uneasily at Red Buffalo. To her surprise, he moved closer to Maiden of the Tall Grass to make room for her. Blackbird dashed across the room and seized Loretta’s hand. “Keemah!” she cried. Loretta rose and let the child lead her to the circle. She shot a glance at Red Buffalo. He caught the look and smiled. She had the uneasy feeling he did so only for the benefit of Warrior and Maiden of the Tall Grass, and that he had a motive for this sudden turnabout. Oh, God. Did he hope that Warrior might leave him alone with her? “This Comanche will not eat you,” he said. “Be easy.” Not sure what to make of his mood, Loretta arranged her skirt around her and sat down, folding her hands in her lap. With Warrior sitting so close, she felt fairly safe. These last five days he had proven himself to be an even-tempered and kind man. Maiden of the Tall Grass, in her sweet, quiet way, ruled the roost. Loretta felt confident no one would harm her with Warrior close at hand. After the corn finished popping, Maiden removed the kettle from over the flames and set it in the center of their circle. When she whisked away the lid, the smell itself was almost good enough to eat. Once everyone else had helped themselves, Loretta shyly scooped a small handful, trying not to think about Amy and failing miserably. Red Buffalo snorted and dipped his hands into the fluffed kernels, his palms forming a sizable bowl. The next instant he dumped the mountain of corn onto Loretta’s skirt where it stretched across her lap. “Oh, my! I--” Loretta was about to say she couldn’t possibly eat so much. She swallowed the words and forced a smile. These people didn’t know Amy. She couldn’t expect them to understand her somber mood--or even to care. “Thank you.” Blackbird snitched a piece of popcorn from Loretta’s mound, and everyone laughed. Not to be outdone, Pony Girl, always on the move, toddled over and helped herself as well. “You see? It is good you have so much,” Red Buffalo said.

The way I see it, if we were encouraged to express who we truly are, we’d all be very loving beings, each bringing our uniqueness to the world. Problems and strife come as a result of our not knowing who we are and not being able to show our inner beauty. We’ve created so much judgment about what’s “perfect,” which leads to doubt and competitiveness. Since we feel as though we’re not good enough, we go around acting out. However, if each of us became aware of our magnificence and felt good about ourselves, it seems to me the only thing we’d have to share is our unique nature, expressed outwardly in a loving manner that reflects our self-care. It follows that the problems we see in the world aren’t from the judgment or hatred we have for others but for ourselves. Just as the key to my healing was unconditional self-love that eliminated fear, the key to a better world is for everyone to care for themselves the same way, realizing their true worth. If we stopped judging ourselves, we’d automatically find less and less need to condemn others. We’d begin to notice their true perfection. The universe is contained within us, and what we experience externally is only a reflection. I believe that at the core, no one is truly bad—that evil is only a product of our fears, the same way my cancer was.

Part of your job as a fully alive human is to make people feel better about themselves. And to make others smile. It may shock you how little it takes to make someone happy. Write old-school love letters to everyone you care about, thank-you notes to those who have helped you and messages of consideration for anyone you think needs some appreciation. Express how you really feel without being limited by the devilish fear of rejection. And always be more interested in other people than being concerned with coming off as an interesting person.

The most effective way of dealing with policy resistance is to find a way of aligning the various goals of the subsystems, usually by providing an overarching goal that allows all actors to break out of their bounded rationality. If everyone can work harmoniously toward the same outcome (if all feedback loops are serving the same goal), the results can be amazing. The most familiar examples of this harmonization of goals are mobilizations of economies during wartime, or recovery after war or natural disaster. Another example was Sweden’s population policy. During the 1930s, Sweden’s birth rate dropped precipitously, and, like the governments of Romania and Hungary, the Swedish government worried about that. Unlike Romania and Hungary, the Swedish government assessed its goals and those of the population and decided that there was a basis of agreement, not on the size of the family, but on the quality of child care. Every child should be wanted and nurtured. No child should be in material need. Every child should have access to excellent education and health care. These were goals around which the government and the people could align themselves. The resulting policy looked strange during a time of low birth rate, because it included free contraceptives and abortion—because of the principle that every child should be wanted. The policy also included widespread sex education, easier divorce laws, free obstetrical care, support for families in need, and greatly increased investment in education and health care.4 Since then, the Swedish birth rate has gone up and down several times without causing panic in either direction, because the nation is focused on a far more important goal than the number of Swedes.

Don't tell me you're thinking about nonsense like 'you wish you were never born', right?" "Sakura-san..." "You said you wanted to be here with everyone... and that's what everyone's fightin' for. Take that helplessness and that frustration, and then swallow all of those feelings while you carefully watch as all of these guys put themselves through the wringer for you. And we swear... we'll never let anyone lay a finger on you".

To forestall misunderstandings: there is value in creating and enjoying art. To many people, drawing, painting, sculpting, singing, and playing a musical instrument are vital forms of self-expression, and their lives would be poorer without them. People produce art in all cultures and in all kinds of situations, even when they cannot satisfy their basic physical needs. Other people enjoy seeing art. In a world in which everyone had enough to eat, basic health care, adequate sanitation, and a place at school for each of their children, there would be no problem about donating to museums and other institutions that offer an opportunity to see original works of art to all who wish to see them, and (more important, in my view) the opportunity to create art to those who lack opportunities to express themselves in this way. Sadly, we don’t live in that world, at least not yet.

The Invitational Church In the invitational church, the focus is on growth. The goal of the church is to reach out and gather people into the church. Therefore, the church is designed as a consumer-oriented place that takes special care to make sure the red carpet is rolled out for visitors and guests. A highly trained staff puts forth great effort to ensure the very best experience for everyone who comes to the church, with special attention paid to visitors. Invitational churches are often successful at growth because this is a large part of their goal and focus. There are many wonderful aspects of the invitational church. I believe God sovereignly birthed the church growth and seeker movements to help the institutional church get beyond itself and start caring about the millions of people trying to find God who were unable to fit into the institutional church. I deeply appreciate and value invitational churches, because they have come up with a way to re-create a modern day “Court Of The Gentiles” aspect of the temple, a place where God-seekers can come and find God. They have unselfishly set aside their desire for church to be about themselves, and they have designed church services for lost people and seekers. What a refreshing change when invitational churches hit the scene! They have really harvested many people for Jesus and helped thousands of churches become outward-focused. This is a good thing! The difficulty with the invitational church is that the individual is essentially irrelevant. What I mean is, when most people walk into an invitational church, it really doesn’t matter whether or not they show up. Why is this true? Because the invitational church has, by default, set the bar very low to make sure that whosoever will may come. However, the inadvertent message is that the individual is not really needed. Little is asked or required of people, and it is very clear that if they aren’t part of the overall goal to facilitate growth, their gifts may not be needed. To prove the point: where do many of the people who have left institutional churches go? They often sit in the back of invitational churches where they can go unnoticed and where they can have very little asked of them. The invitational church is a great place to recover from the institutional church. Some go on and become involved in meaningful ways. But often over time, two negative things happen to believers who have been in invitational churches. One, they become sedentary, consumer-oriented Christians. Those who joined the institutional church and who wanted to make a difference have all but lost their initial fire. Often they no longer burn with zeal for God and His purposes. Instead, they unwittingly adopt the culture of the invitational church into their Christianity, and they, too, lower the bar to the point where, for all intents and purposes, they are now just showing up at a weekend service. Or two, they begin to feel the need for a more personal, relational church, and they move on to something more personal and meaningful to them.

When his teaching is more straightforward, it is no less baffling or challenging. Blessed are the meek (Mt 5:5); to look at a woman with lust is to commit adultery (Mt 5:28); forgive wrongs seventy times seven (Mt 18:22); you can't be my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions (Lk 14:33); no divorce (Mk 10:9); love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Mt 5:44). A passage that gives us the keys to the reign, or kingdom, of God is Matthew 25:31–46, the scene of the judgment of the nations: Then the king will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” As Mother Teresa put it, we meet Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor. Jesus’ teaching and witness is obviously relevant to social, economic, and political issues. Indeed, the Jewish leaders and the Romans (the powers that be of the time) found his teaching and actions disturbing enough to arrest him and execute him. A scene from the life of Clarence Jordan drives home the radicalism and relevance of Jesus’ message. In the early 1950s Clarence approached his brother, Robert Jordan, a lawyer and future state senator and justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, to legally represent Koinonia Farm. Clarence, I can't do that. You know my political aspirations. Why if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I've got. We might lose everything too, Bob. It's different for you. Why is it different? I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church the same Sunday, as boys. I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me about the same question he did you. He asked me, “Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” And I said, “Yes.” What did you say? I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point. Could that point by any chance be—the cross? That's right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I'm not getting myself crucified. Then I don't believe you're a disciple. You're an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you're an admirer not a disciple. Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn't have a church, would we? The question, Clarence said, is, “Do you have a church?”25 The early Christian community tried to live according to the values of the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed, to be disciples. The Jerusalem community was characterized by unlimited liability and total availability for each other, sharing until everyone's needs were met (Acts 2:43–47; 4:32–37).26 Paul's exhortation to live a new life in Christ in his letter to the Romans, chapters 12 through 15, has remarkable parallels to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapters 5 through 7, and Luke 6:20–49.27 Both Jesus and Paul offer practical steps for conflict resolution and peacemaking. Similarly, the Epistle of James exhorts Christians to “be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves” (1:22), and warns against class divisions (2:1–13) and the greed and corruption of the wealthy (5:1–6).

Thus, there are times when a deep pragmatist should feel free to speak of rights—and not just legal rights but moral rights. These times, however, are rarer than we think. If we are truly interested in persuading our opponents with reason, then we should eschew the language of rights. This is, once again, because we have no non-question-begging (and non utilitarian) way of figuring out which rights really exist and which rights take precedence over others. But when it’s not worth arguing—either because the question has been settled or because our opponents can’t be reasoned with—then it’s time to stop arguing and rally the troops. It’s time to affirm our moral commitments, not with wonky estimates of probabilities but with words that stir our souls. But please do not take this as license to ignore everything else that I’ve said about “rights.” Most moral controversies are not simple cases of one tribe’s dominating another. In nearly all moral controversies, there are truly moral considerations on both sides.* There is something to be said for individualist systems that encourage people to take care of themselves. And there is something to be said for collective systems in which everyone gets the help they need. There is something to be said for not killing any human fetuses, and there is something to be said for letting people make their own tough bioethical choices. Here the solution is not for us to bludgeon one another with heartfelt assertions about rights, however tempting this may be. The solution is, once again, to put our automatic settings aside and shift into manual mode, seeking bargains brokered with the common currency.

I didn't cry. But it hurt. The betrayal ran deep. But, I have to admit, there was a also a small sense of relief. Because now I knew: I had not failed. I just didn't own the wig. Successful, powerful working mother mothers who keep silent about how they take care of their homes and families, who behave as if they maybe have to clone themselves or possess Hermione Granger's Time-Turner so they can be two places at once... well, they are making everyone else get out their curling irons. Don't do that. Don't make me get my curling iron out for no reason.

You must guard yourself against the wrong influencers. Everyone has an opinion and some people will encourage you to act selfishly and leave your mate in order to pursue your own happiness. Be careful about listening to advice from people who don’t have a good marriage themselves.

Simone Simmons Simone Simmons works as an energy healer, helping her patients through empowering them rather than creating a dependency on the healer. She specializes in absent healing, mainly with sufferers of cancer and AIDS. She met Diana four years before her death when the Princess came to her for healing, and they became close friends. In 2005, Simone wrote a book titled Diana: The Last Word. I realized Diana had been born with an extraordinary ability, which had only been waiting to be released. By 1996, when she was fully in control of her life for the first time, she was able to give a great deal of consolation and encouragement to so many people. She received scant attention for this at the time. Everyone seemed to concentrate on the negative aspects. Instead of seeing how genuinely caring she was, they accused her of doing it for the publicity. That was utterly untrue. I often joined her when she returned from a day’s work, and she would be so exhausted, she found relief in crying. She was anxious about what she had seen and experienced and was determined to find something she could do to help. Her late-night visits to hospitals were supposed to be private. She knew how frustrating it is to be alone in a hospital; the staff and patients were always very surprised and pleased to see her. She used to make light of it and say, “I just came round to see if anyone else couldn’t sleep!” Although Diana saw the benefits of the formal visits she also made, and she did get excited when money poured in for her charities, she much preferred these unofficial occasions. They allowed her to talk to people and find out more about their illness and how they were feeling about themselves, in a down-to-earth way without a horde of people noting her every word. She wasn’t trying to fill a void or to make herself feel better. To her, it was not a therapy to help other people: It was a commitment born of selflessness. Diana was forever on the lookout for new projects that might benefit from her involvement. Her attention was caught by child abuse and forced prostitution in Asia. We had both seen a television program showing how little children were being kidnapped and then forced to sell themselves for sex. Diana told me she wanted to do everything she could to eradicate this wicked exploitation taking place in India, Pakistan, and most prevalently in Thailand. As it turned out, it was one of her final wishes. She didn’t have any idea of exactly how she was going to do it, and hadn’t got as far as formulating a plan, but she would have found a way. When Diana put her mind to something, nothing was allowed to stand in her way. As she said, “Because I’ve been given the gift to shine a light into the dark corners of this world, and get the media to follow me there, I have to use it,” and use it she did--to draw attention to a problem and in a very practical way to apply her incredible healing gifts to the victims. In her fight against land mines, she did exactly that. If anyone ever doubted her heartfelt concern for the welfare of others, this cause must surely have dispelled it. It needed someone of her fame and celebrity to bring the matter to the world’s attention, and her work required an immense amount of personal bravery. She faced physical peril and endured public ridicule, but Diana would have seen the campaign to get land mines banned as her greatest legacy. Helping others was her calling in life--right to the very end.

You weren’t going to tell us about Orsay?” “I didn’t say I—” “You don’t get to decide that, Sam. You’re not the only one in charge anymore. Okay?” Astrid had an icy sort of anger. A cold fury that manifested itself in tight lips and blazing eyes and short, carefully enunciated sentences. “But it’s okay for all of us to lie to everyone in Perdido Beach?” Sam shot back. “We’re trying to keep kids from killing themselves,” Astrid said. “That’s a little different from you just deciding not to tell the council that there’s a crazy girl telling people to kill themselves.” “So not telling you something is a major sin, but lying to a couple of hundred people and trashing Orsay at the same time, that’s fine?

Think about it, why do people lie? What are some of their motives? They don’t want to look stupid, they don’t want to be wrong, they don’t want to let people down, they want to keep everyone happy, they want to get what they want. All of these motives have the “self” at the center. Liars make every situation all about them. They’re not thinking about the questions, How will this impact people I care about? What will be the consequences of my lies? No, liars are very short sighted, focusing only on the immediate and easy way out of a situation. In the long run, it is impossible to have a long-term, healthy relationship built on mutual trust and honesty because liars are narcissists. They’re essentially only in a relationship with themselves. ...Instead of admitting their shortcomings, their failures – their basic humanness – they will lie in order to cover it up (and) destroy their closest relationships in the process. Liars need courage to overcome their...deceit.

I never mentioned anything about my family, but we talked about narcissism because everyone you hurt was a narcissist. He said that it’s reached the point of becoming an epidemic. Everyone is out for themselves and couldn’t care less who they hurt or what it takes to get what they want. It’s something short of being a human being. It’s a mental illness that wipes out evolution in favor of the knuckle dragger. He said that most shrinks won’t even take them as patients because their disease can’t be cured. They like being animals. They enjoy it. That’s why I wonder why you spared my father. Why didn’t you do everybody a favor and just kill him?” A

After a few minutes, Duncan leaned down to press a kiss to her hair. Damn, she smelled good. He wanted to see her and feel her and smell her every day if he could. “How can I get you to stay?” “Hmm…?” her voice was drowsy, but she looked up at him. “How can I get you to stay? I miss you, Alex. I saw you tonight and I wanted to jump up and down and cheer. Not my normal reaction to people, I might add.” She chuckled. “I felt the same way. When the doors opened, I thought I was imagining you standing there.” He gripped her hand in his own, marveling at the chance meeting. “I didn’t handle the breakup well. I should have chosen my words better and been more careful of your feelings. I’m sorry about that.” “I’m sorry too,” she told him softly. “I could have not reacted so harshly. Everyone is allowed to feel the way they want to feel. You don’t want kids. I get that now. But I think I still want to see where this relationship goes.” Duncan pulled back to look at her. “You would stay with me even though I told you I don’t want kids?” She shrugged, looking away. “What if I told you I think you could change my mind?” Alex looked up at him sharply. “What?” “I had a lot of long nights thinking about where we’d gone wrong,” he told her softly, “and I’m not sure anymore that it’s the kids themselves that I object to. I think it’s just the responsibility in general.” “Are you serious? You’re one of the most responsible men I know,” she told him firmly. “I am,” he agreed, “but what if a child is the one thing that comes along that I’m not good at handling?” Alex leaned into him again, laughing softly. “Oh, Duncan, I think you just voiced the fear of every single parent in the world. I bet if you asked Shannon that question, she’d have the same concerns.” Her words made sense. Responsibility was a heavy weight, and he already had a lot of it on his shoulders. “I would like to try again as well,” she told him softly.

Jt'i to- You shall love your neighbor as yourself. -LEVITICUS 19:18 Yes, I give you permission to be selfish at times. One thing I notice about so many people is that they are burned out because they spend so much time serving others that they have no time for themselves. As a young mom I was going from sunup to late in the evening just doing the things that moms do. When evening came around I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was take a hot bath and slip into bed and catch as much sleep as possible before I was awakened in the night by one of the children. After several years I remember saying to myself, I've got to have some time just for me-I need help. One of the things I did was to get up a half hour before everyone else so I could spend time in the Scriptures over an early cup of tea. This one activity had an incredibly positive effect upon my outlook. I went on to making arrangements to get my hair and nails taken care of periodically. I was even known to purchase a new outfit (on sale of course) occasionally. As I matured I discovered that I became a better parent and wife when I had time for myself and my emotional tank was filled up. I soon realized I had plenty left over to share with my loved ones. When you're able to spend some time just for you, you will be more relaxed, and your family and home will function better. I find these to be beneficial time-outs: • taking a warm bath by candlelight • getting a massage • having my hair and nails done • meeting a friend for lunch • listening to my favorite CD • reading a good book • writing a poem

Think of how your work environment would be altered if the leaders in your organization related to themselves differently. If they hate the parts of themselves that want to slow down and enjoy life, they will be impatient with workers who aren’t as driven as they are. If they want to get rid of their own insecurity and anxiety, they’ll create an atmosphere in which people fear for their jobs if they show vulnerability. If they attack themselves for making mistakes, everyone will pretend to be perfect. If they fear their own inner critics, they’ll fear the judgment of others and let people become exploitive. On the other hand, if they can relate to those parts of themselves in caring ways, that compassion and acceptance will permeate the company, making it much easier for all the employees to relate compassionately to their own parts and to one another. The same process applies to your inner family. This new way of relating to yourself can’t be forced. It doesn’t work to command yourself to be curious about these parts of you or pretend to feel compassion for them. It has to be genuine. So how do you get to that point? This raises the question of who the “you” is who relates to your parts. Who are you at your core?

Action means something. Rude people can make a bigger difference in the world than nice people.” “I really don’t want to meet any more of your friends.” “Always the joker.” Patrick shook his head again. “Ethically rude people change the world.” “Here we go. Patrick the Philosopher.” Hunter shook his head. “Ethically rude people?” “The ones that are willing to be disliked to get what’s best. The people that are willing to risk everything for something they think is right, and they don’t care if you like them or not. Take your current client—voted against his ethics so he didn’t lose his backers. He’s not ethically rude; he’s being nice, agreeable and likable. But his party room colleague, Cindy Mendel, went against all the odds, everyone, including her own council, to do what she thought was ethically right.” “I didn’t realize being likable was so bad.” “Someone who chooses to be likable, instead of what’s ethically correct, is actually being selfish and thinking about themselves. They’re choosing particular choices because of the way they will feel about it.” “Being nice isn’t all bad.” “Of course not. The world needs nice people, but it also needs ethically rude people. They’re the people that get stuff done. It’s like that saying by James Freeman Clarke— ‘A politician looks to the next election, while a statesman looks to the next

1. Create intimacy: You’ll get more trust—and capture the attention of your prospects—by establishing a personal connection. Your emails should read as if one person has written it to another: one to one. This can be achieved by: using a personal, or plain-text template; using “you” instead of “we”, or “I”; telling stories; and making good use of personalization. For an even greater effect, you can add subtle personalization throughout your copy. For example: “…this is what we’ve heard from other people in [ Tampa ]”. 2. Make users feel special: On top of personalization, you can create exclusivity: “This offer is only for our most engaged users” “…it’s for early adopters” Or appeal to vanity: “Our most successful users want to feel this way…” 3. Demonstrate that you understand their reality: You can create obvious qualifications everyone wants to have assigned to themselves, for example “…people who care about maximizing their return on investment”; or “…savvy marketers”. Illustrate product benefits and value with clear examples that relate to the unique situation of your users. 4. Create urgency: As Zapier did, you can also get creative with deadlines. Use coupons with limited-time offers to accentuate the fear of missing out (FOMO)17: “Offer only available until June 4th…” “Only a few people get this plan…” 5. Use clear actions: Use a CTA that clearly establishes the next steps. Repeat it throughout the email, coming at it from different angles. Use the P.S. to attract the eye and to reinforce the action you want users to take (when appropriate). Keep your emails simple and your messaging scannable. It’s important for users to be able to get the email at a glance. Short and sweet often outperforms long and complex emails. You want a near-instant reaction from your readers. Your email has to build up to the desired action. Use copy to overcome objections, and accentuate the desire to buy or engage. A good email has to: capture attention through the subject line, personalization, or a story; build reader interest by demonstrating either the benefit or the problem; build desire to act by creating information gaps, time constraints, or the fear of missing out; and drive action through a well-timed CTA, telling users exactly what you want them to do. These are really just the four steps of the AIDA model18 (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) applied to email copywriting. Don’t get intimidated by copywriting. Emails that are too polished often don’t work as well. Get started crafting your own email offers. We’ll get started working on subject lines in the next chapter.

Hey,” Arethusa said from my right, just past Sally. “What’s wrong with pacifists? Look at Buddhists: they’re nice people.” I gave her my best smile, and got a much better one in trade. Arethusa can smile like a long-distance kiss. I poured her two plastic cups of peach juice from the flask on my bedside table. Lady Sally started to adjust her chair so she could see us both… then left it as it was and spoke past me, to Arethusa’s other body, which opened its eyes politely. “They’re different,” Lady Sally conceded. “They’re honest pacifists. You don’t have to worry about them fighting dirty, because they never fight: they don’t have Jihads or Crusades. The strongest weapon they use is reason; the strongest protest they allow themselves is suicide, and they’re always careful not to let the flames spread. Pacifism of that sort is no more objectionable than belief in astrology or membership in the Flat Earth Society. I was speaking of the kind of pacifists we grew like hothouse flowers in this country fifteen or twenty years ago, and still have all too many of. Pacifist terrorists. The kind who want all wars everywhere to cease and everyone to live in peace… and are prepared to keep blowing up wealthier and less enlightened fellow citizens until that day comes. There’s nothing wrong with wanting wars to stop—but the moment a pacifist uses any weapon but calm speech, he’s a hypocrite. If he’s willing to kill, he’s a psychotic. The only good thing about them as opponents is that it isn’t murder to kill one.

With her brown eyes wide as fuck, her staring up at me like she actually gave a fuck about what I needed to talk to her about, as if she really, truly feared me, fuck, it had done something to me. People in Redwood only cared about themselves, but Vera… well, she now cared about what I had to say to her. It was comical, laughable almost. And it brought me joy in this miserable place that everyone called Redwood.

And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It’s more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous, than to sit pretty for pictures. A woman’s soft tummy is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person’s life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart—and nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I’ve gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it’s not true, but I really don’t care what anyone says. I have come, at last, to believe in the title I came up with for the book: Everyone Is Beautiful.

Yung Pueblo, the modern poet and philosopher, is a beacon of personal growth, healing, and self-awareness. His words, steeped in wisdom, resonate with people seeking peace, transformation, and a deeper connection with themselves. Let's look at some of Yung Pueblo's quotes and break them down in a way that adds value to your life. Each quote is followed by an easy-to-understand explainer, using metaphors to help you understand his message's depth. These explanations are guideposts, showing how to apply his insights to your journey. ## Yung Pueblo Quotes on Healing **"True healing is the willingness to treat yourself with kindness."** Healing is like tending to a garden. You can't rush it, and you can't force it. As you carefully water plants and pull weeds, you must approach yourself with patience and compassion. Only by treating yourself kindly will you create an environment where healing can flourish. **"The more you heal, the less you push away what's uncomfortable."** Healing isn't about avoiding discomfort—it's about embracing it. Think of it like building a muscle. Every stretch and strain makes you stronger. As you heal, you grow more capable of sitting with discomfort, knowing that it's part of the process, not a thing to run from. **"Healing happens when you are ready to let go of what is hurting you."** Letting go is like releasing a heavy anchor holding your ship in place. You can't sail forward until you free yourself from the weight of old wounds. Healing begins when you untie yourself from the past and allow yourself to move freely into the future. ## Yung Pueblo Quotes About Self-Love **"You must love yourself so deeply that your energy and presence become a gift to the world."** Imagine your heart as well. The more you fill it with love for yourself, the more you have to share with others. Self-love isn't selfish—the overflow enriches everything and everyone around you. By loving yourself deeply, you become a gift to those you meet. **"Self-love is creating space in your life to take care of yourself."** Self-love is like building a sanctuary in your daily life. You need to create space, even negligible, to retreat and recharge. It's not about indulgence; it's about recognizing that taking care of yourself is essential to thriving in a busy, chaotic world. **"Self-love is accepting that you are a constantly evolving work of art."** You are like a canvas, always in progress. Some days, the strokes are bold; others, they're gentle. Self-love means accepting that your life is a masterpiece in progress—you are never finished, and that's where the beauty lies. Embrace each phase and layer, and know it all adds to something magnificent.

too easy for you! Why don’t we try doing something more challenging that you can learn from?” The goal is not to make easily performed tasks the basis for our admiration. Focus on effort—and keep it genuine Be careful praising for failures or mistakes. Saying things like “Well done!” “You did your best!” “Better luck next time!” can be heard as pity. Focus on what they did accomplish and how it can be worked on—“I know you missed the goal, but it was very close! Let’s get out and practice next week so you’ll get it next time! Remember, practice is the key!” By focusing on the effort involved in learning, we create a growth mind-set. This mind-set is helpful in all aspects of life, from work to relationships. 9. Teach children not to compare themselves with others They need to realize themselves whether they did their best on a project or if they feel they can do more. Not everyone can be the best at everything, but you can be the best for yourself. This focus, as opposed to competing with others, fosters well-being. 10.

That's not my point. My point is everyone talks these days about going off and finding themselves. But no one ever seems to care about what they might lose in the process.

A recovery friend of mine once belonged to an AA group called “What’s Your Motivation?” She said she’d always ask herself that in situations where she had to say or do something she might regret, and she’d ask others as well. She asked me that once or twice. So, you start out by asking yourself that question when the situation arises, and a lot of time you realize there is no good motive behind the thing you want to do or say, so you don’t say it. You don’t do it. After a while, it becomes second nature. Unfortunately, however, so many people out there are living their lives while untreated for their afflictions. Whether it’s addiction, including alcoholism, or a type of personality disorder, their behavior often stems from how they feel about themselves based on other people’s words and actions, things they had inadvertently taken on and clung to fiercely. They may have a desperate need for attention, validation, admiration, and respect. Maybe their delusions distort their perception of themselves and how others view them. They are so busy worrying about themselves that they are often oblivious to their motives and may not realize how little regard they have for others. In a genuine sense, they are fighting for themselves, but they’re not winning. Many of us have lived that way once upon a time and, because of it, spent a copious amount of energy on damage control. Knowing we said something we shouldn’t have said or did something we shouldn’t have done and going into this anxiety-ridden desperation to save our “image”—an image that likely isn’t real but a delusion. When we should be more concerned about apologizing or making amends, we’re more obsessed with not wanting to be seen in a negative light and having to act in order to change the negative perception. It takes recovery, healing, and time to learn that if you are intent on doing the right thing, doing right by people, and having everyone’s best interests at heart, you’ll know how to react and respond to things. And if you ever say or do something you regret, you simply say you were wrong and apologize. Empathy for others and for ourselves is what makes it possible. It makes us care about how we treat people and the effect it’s having on not only them but on our lives and the lives of anyone who cares about us. We eventually understand that how we treat people is just as important as catering to our own needs. I think it’s important to understand what made us a certain way in life and to acknowledge that, but then we have to fix it. It becomes our job and responsibility to heal that so that we grow and change. Too many people never get to a point where they can see it, let alone understand it, so those of us who do are quite fortunate.

I stand up for equality, justice, criminal justice, racism, laws, human rights&more serious issues too! It's so important for everyone to educate themselves on to learn more about these serious issues to gain more knowledge from it too! Everyone have to be careful with their words, their actions and their behaviours for what they say to other people about these serious issues too!

I don’t want to go in there,” Bessie said. “Everyone is going to stare at us.” “No one is going to stare at you, Bessie,” I told her. “They will. They’ll think we’re weirdos.” “Honestly, Bessie? People don’t care about anyone but themselves. They don’t notice anything. They are never looking at what’s interesting. They’re always looking at themselves.

I certainly admit that there’s some longing inside me to be remembered or thought of long after I am gone. I believe it probably comes from the same place that yearns to live forever and lose nothing. But nothing lives forever, and everyone loses everything. To live for or caring about being remembered is like planning your own birthday party on a day that you can’t go. If I want to celebrate my life, I can only do it now, while I am still here. I believe everyone should still dedicate themselves to something or some things that they want to be remembered for, be it a cause, a passion, a good heart, or all of the above. But not because it’s something that they will be remembered for. But because it’s what they want to imagine their life is for. And what you imagine your life is for, is what your life is for, isn’t it? Whether one is remembered for 500,000 year or just 5 minutes after they’re gone, makes no difference to the person who lived for it. Ultimately I have no illusions that I will last beyond the minds of a couple generations after me, at best. And so, what I do now, what I dedicate myself to, what I experience behind the eyes of my own self, must be enough. If it isn’t, nothing is.

Going to therapy and talking about healing may just be the go-to flex of our time. It is supposedly an indicator of how profoundly self-aware, enlightened, emotionally mature, or “evolved” an individual is. Social media is obsessed and saturated with pop psychology and psychiatry content related to “healing”, trauma, embodiment, neurodiversity, psychiatric diagnoses, treatments alongside productivity hacks, self-care tips and advice on how to love yourself without depending on anyone else, cut people out of your life, manifest your goals to be successful, etc. Therapy isn’t a universal indicator of morality or enlightenment. Therapy isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that everyone must pursue. There are many complex political and cultural reasons why some people don’t go to therapy, and some may actually have more sustainable support or care practices rooted in the community. This is similar to other messaging, like “You have to learn to love yourself first before someone else can love you”. It all feeds into the lie that we are alone and that happiness comes from total independence. Mainstream therapy blames you for your problems or blames other people, and often it oscillates between both extremes. If we point fingers at ourselves or each other, we are too distracted to notice the exploitative systems making us all sick and sad. Oftentimes, people come out of therapy feeling fully affirmed and unconditionally validated, and this ego-caressing can feel rewarding in the moment even if it doesn’t help ignite any growth or transformation. People are convinced that they can do no wrong, are infallible, incapable of causing harm, and that other people are the problem. Treatment then focuses on inflating self-confidence, self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-love to chase one’s self-centered dreams, ambitions, and aspirations without taking any accountability for one’s own actions. This sort of individualistic therapeutic approach encourages isolation and a general mistrust of others who are framed as threats to our inner peace or extractors of energy, and it further breeds a superiority complex. People are encouraged to see relationships as accessories and means to a greater selfish end. The focus is on what someone can do for you and not on how to give, care for, or show up for other people. People are not pushed to examine how oppressive conditioning under these systems shows up in their relationships because that level of introspection and growth is simply too invalidating. “You don’t owe anyone anything. No one is entitled to your time and energy. If anyone invalidates you and disturbs your peace, they are toxic; cut them out of your life. You don’t need that negativity. You don’t need anyone else; you alone are enough. Put yourself first. You are perfect just the way you are.” In reality, we all have work to do. We are all socialized within these systems, and real support requires accountability. Our liberation is contingent on us being aware of our bullshit, understanding the values of the empire that we may have internalized as our own, and working on changing these patterns. Therapized people may fixate on dissecting, healing, improving, and optimizing themselves in isolation, guided by a therapist, without necessarily practicing vulnerability and accountability in relationships, or they may simply chase validation while rejecting the discomfort that comes from accountability. Healing in any form requires growth and a willingness to practice in relationships; it is not solely validating or invalidating; it is complex; it is not a goal to achieve but a lifelong process that no one is above; it is both liberating and difficult; it is about acceptance and a willingness to change or transform into something new; and ultimately, it is going to require many invalidating ego deaths so we can let go of the fixation of the “self” to ease into interdependence and community care.

Besides, I’ve … er, dealt with a case of rape once before. There isn’t a great deal you can do, externally. Maybe there isn’t a great deal you can do, period,” I added. I changed my mind and picked up the cup again. “Perhaps not,” Raymond agreed. “But if anyone is capable of reaching the patient’s center, surely it would be La Dame Blanche?” I set the cup down, staring at him. My mouth was unbecomingly open, and I closed it. Thoughts, suspicions, and realizations were rioting through my head, colliding with each other in tangles of conjecture. Temporarily sidestepping the traffic jam, I seized on the other half of his remark, to give me time to think. “The patient’s center?” He reached into an open jar on the table, withdrew a pinch of white powder, and dropped it into his goblet. The deep amber of the brandy immediately turned the color of blood, and began to boil. “Dragon’s blood,” he remarked, casually waving at the bubbling liquid. “It only works in a vessel lined with silver. It ruins the cup, of course, but it’s most effective, done under the proper circumstances.” I made a small, gurgling noise. “Oh, the patient’s center,” he said, as though recalling something we had talked about many days ago. “Yes, of course. All healing is done essentially by reaching the … what shall we call it? the soul? the essence? say, the center. By reaching the patient’s center, from which they can heal themselves. Surely you have seen it, madonna. The cases so ill or so wounded that plainly they will die—but they don’t. Or those who suffer from something so slight that surely they must recover, with the proper care. But they slip away, despite all you can do for them.” “Everyone who minds the sick has seen things like that,” I replied cautiously.

- Can you keep secrets? - Yesss. - We are going to make one of the biggest coffeeshops in Barcelona with my boss, Adam. - Realllllly? - This Adam guy is kind of my friend and kind of my boss, but I don't trust him; he is a bad guy. “Bad to the bone.” His father is an even darker figure. I am pretty sure that both have killed before, hired to kill people. - I am from Buenos Airessss. - I understand honey but you don’t know this kind of people, these f…g desert roses. - There are Jewish people in Argentina too. - I am sure, baby, but these are not regular Jewish people, not regular Israeli people. These people are dark. Hocus-pocus. Criminal minds. Do you understand? - I guessss. - There are a lot of criminals in this town. They will try to take our club away, just like the Camorra is taking away other people's clubs. Just like that. Do you understand? - Yessss. - I know them; they are one of my clients. If there is anyone in the world who could make a deal with them, it would be me and Adam. He cannot cross me and I cannot cross him either. I would never do that. I am not sure about him though what is on his mind, I can tell there is something he is orchestrating I just don’t know what exactly, but he is as fishy as Sabrina. The problem is that only my ex-girlfriend knows about my signature on the non-profit organization, which is the base of the coffeeshop, the marijuana grow and the smoker club. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - We are talking about millions of Euros monthly cashflow. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - By telling you everything now, you are becoming my trusted; your life is in danger too if they manage to find a gap between us. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - I'm not sure what they're up to. They owe me already more money than anyone in this town would murder for. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - Now you know about it, too. Sabrina didn't care; she didn't think I would make it happen. She doesn’t know about the place. Only you know about it and us. But she will figure it out somehow; she will try to take your position, slipping between the criminals. Do you know how to play chess? - Not really. - OK then. Imagine this as a throne, these chairs you are sitting on top of. OK. No one can remove you from this throne being my girlfriend, no one can stand between us. No one can take the club away from us. They have no chance. Understand? - Yesss. - As long as you stick with me, she cannot do anything; no one can mess with us. Do you understand? - Yes. Everyone in the world would try to take your place, being my girlfriend, and they will try to push you out from this position, which only me I can give you, with Love. They will tell you lies about me and about themselves who’s club is it. Do you understand? - Yes. But why? - Because Rachel and Tom, the other two founding members of the club, Golan, I signed up with, are Adam's puppets. I don't trust any one of them. If they kill me, they never have to pay me what they owe me already, plus they can keep the 33% of the club which belongs to me. 100% Adam would keep. Do you understand now? - Yessss. - We will pull all the trash out and remodel the place without any permit, under the rug, in secret. - I sssseeee. (Eye. See.)

- Can you keep secrets? - Yesss. - We are going to make one of the biggest coffeeshops in Barcelona with my boss, Adam. - Realllllly? - This Adam guy is kind of my friend and kind of my boss, but I don't trust him; he is a bad guy. “Bad to the bone.” His father is an even darker figure. I am pretty sure that both have killed before, hired to kill people. - I am from Buenos Airessss. - I understand honey but you don’t know this kind of people, these f…g desert roses. - There are Jewish people in Argentina too. - I am sure, baby, but these are not regular Jewish people, not regular Israeli people. These people are dark. Hocus-pocus. Criminal minds. Do you understand? - I guessss. - There are a lot of criminals in this town. They will try to take our club away, just like the Camorra is taking away other people's clubs. Just like that. Do you understand? - Yessss. - I know them; they are one of my clients. If there is anyone in the world who could make a deal with them, it would be me and Adam. He cannot cross me and I cannot cross him either. I would never do that. I am not sure about him though what is on his mind, I can tell there is something he is orchestrating I just don’t know what exactly, but he is as fishy as Sabrina. The problem is that only my ex-girlfriend knows about my signature on the non-profit organization, which is the base of the coffeeshop, the marijuana grow and the smoker club. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - We are talking about millions of Euros monthly cashflow. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - By telling you everything now, you are becoming my trusted; your life is in danger too if they manage to find a gap between us. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - I'm not sure what they're up to. They owe me already more money than anyone in this town would murder for. Do you understand? - Yesssss. - Now you know about it, too. Sabrina didn't care; she didn't think I would make it happen. She doesn’t know about the place. Only you know about it and us. But she will figure it out somehow; she will try to take your position, slipping between the criminals. Do you know how to play chess? - Not really. - OK then. Imagine this as a throne, these chairs you are sitting on top of. OK. No one can remove you from this throne being my girlfriend, no one can stand between us. No one can take the club away from us. They have no chance. Understand? - Yesss. - As long as you stick with me, she cannot do anything; no one can mess with us. Do you understand? - Yesss. - Everyone in the world would try to take your place, being my girlfriend, and they will try to push you out from this position, which only me I can give you, with Love. They will tell you lies about me and about themselves who’s club is it. Do you understand? - Yes. But why? - Because Rachel and Tom, the other two founding members of the club, Golan, I signed up with, are Adam's puppets. I don't trust any one of them. If they kill me, they never have to pay me what they owe me already, plus they can keep the 33% of the club which belongs to me. 100% Adam would keep. Do you understand now? - Yessss. - We will pull all the trash out and remodel the place without any permit, under the rug, in secret. - I sssseeee. (Eye. See.)