Expectations Always Hurt Quotes

He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.

1) I love you not for whom you are, but who i am when i'm by your side. 2) No person deserves your tears, and who deserves them won't make you cry. 3) Just because someone doesn't love you as you wish, it doesn't mean you're not loved with all his/her being. 4) A true friend is the one, who hold your hand and touches your heart. 5) The worst way to miss someone is, to be seated by him/her and know you'll never have him/her. 6) Never stop smiling not even when you're sad, someone might fall in love with your smile. 7) You may only be a person in this world, but for someone you're the world. 8) Don't spend time with someone, who doesn't care spending it with you. 9) Maybe God wants you to meet many wrong people, before you meet the right one,so when it happens you'll be thankful. 10) Dont cry because it came to an end, smile because it happened. 11) There will always be people who'll hurt you, so you need to continue trusting, just be careful. 12) Become a better person and be sure to know who you are, before meeting someone new and hoping that person knows who you are. 13) Don't struggle so much, best things happen when not expected.

In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training,

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be. Disappointment’ s cousin is Frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.

If a woman truly loves you, you can’t always expect her to tell the truth. You see, women are more attuned to feelings than men are, and if they’re not being truthful, more often than not it’s because they think the truth might hurt your feelings. But that doesn’t mean they don’t love you. If they do lie, it’s because they care.

Unlike me, Renee was not shy; she was a real people-pleaser. She worried way too much what people thought of her, wore her heart on her sleeve, expected too much from people, and got hurt too easily. She kept other people's secrets like a champ, but told her own too fast. She expected the world not to cheat her and was always surprised when it did.

They were always meant to be together, one boy and one girl, two hearts split into two, sent to far-off lands on their own. For God wanted to see if true love could be tested. He wanted to see if two halves of one soul could find each other again, even against the odds. Years would pass. They would both be hurt. They would both be sad, but one day, when they least expected it, they would stumble into each other’s paths. The question is: would they recognize each other’s soul? And would they find their way back to love…?

It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can't always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational.

Always make your needs and expectations known,she used to say. That way no one gets hurt.

No one knows how to hurt you if you always play the fool. No one can be truly disappointed in you if they don’t expect any better.

When I say 'I won't hurt you', it's a promise, which can and will be kept but it does not come from me without a breakdown of what it means. It does not mean we will never disagree, nor does it mean that you will always like everything which I say or do. It does not mean that you will never hurt yourself by behaving in a way which is damaging to a relationship or by behaving in a way which would ultimately result in my withdrawal from your life. What it does mean is that I can promise all that I expect in terms of loyalty, honor and respect. It means I am faithful. It also means that I will not intentionally or carelessly behave in a way which causes upset or doubt. It means, at the lowest level, 'You will break these terms before I do.' Communication is essential. Trust is paramount. Be completely honest and don't make promises that you can't keep, that's all.

Marriage is always something of a compromise, as I'm sure you're now aware. Any long-term relationship is - and one does have to see it in the long term, Charles. No, I expect your mother and myself will never divorce. It's uneconomic and, at my age, usually unnecessary.

Loving you is no more a beautiful memory, but now just a pain, I cry and weep every time I walk down the memory lane, Your love always completed me in every sense as a whole, But now it’s just emptiness and sorrow in my heart that drains, Of all the people in the world, you choose me to be hurt, Of all the hearts in the world, you choose mine to break… Why did you leave me I ask myself every morning and dawn? Why my love was incomplete tell me why you were gone? A silence surrounds my heart and fills it again with despair, Oh this pain is just too much, and the damage beyond repair, Please come back baby, just come back and bring that old smile, Or just come to see me every once in a while, So my heart no more bleeds, and no more my soul aches, So I can be peaceful after my death, in my ashes and burnt flakes…

on the 11th of every month my friend elizabeth would say, "well we made it through another month. so do we get her back now?" we always giggled, but we really did expect to get her back. its not human to let go of love, even when it's dead. we expected one of these monthly anniversaries to be the Final Goodbye. we figured that we'd said all our goodbyes, and given up all the tears we had to give. we'd passed the test and would get back what we'd lost. but instead, every anniversary hurt more, and every anniversary felt like she was further away from coming back. the idea that there wouldn't be a final goodbye- that was a hard goodbye in itself and, at that point, still an impossible goodbye. no private eye has to tell you it's a long goodbye. ...the loss just doesn't go away- it gets bigger the longer you look at it.

It is love. I will have to run or hide. The walls of its prison rise up, as in a twisted dream. The beautiful mask has changed, but as always it is the one. Of what use are my talismans: the literary exercises, the vague erudition, the knowledge of words used by the harsh North to sing its seas and swords, the temperate friendship, the galleries of the Library, the common things, the habits, the young love of my mother, the militant shadow of my dead, the timeless night, the taste of dreams? Being with you or being without you is the measure of my time. Now the pitcher breaks about the spring, now the man arises to the sound of birds, now those that watch at the windows have gone dark, but the darkness has brought no peace. It, I know, is love: the anxiety and the relief at hearing your voice, the expectation and the memory, the horror of living in succession. It is love with its mythologies, with its tiny useless magics. There exists a corner that I dare not cross. Now the armies confine me, the hordes. (This room is unreal; she has not seen it.) The name of a woman gives me away. A woman hurts me in all of my body.

How ridiculous that water ran out of your eyes when your heart hurt. Tragic heroines in books tended to be amazingly beautiful. Not a word about swollen eyes or a red nose. "Crying always gives me a red nose," thought Elinor. "I expect that's why I'll never be in any book.

This catch-22 happens a lot to men. A man can sense that a woman wants to know if he loves her. He doesn't want to share those feelings because, if he does, she will expect him to marry her and be greatly hurt if he doesn't. In romantic movies, loving someone meant that you wanted to marry her. In real life, it is not always the case.

Harry’s letter to his daughter: If I could give you just one thing, I’d want it to be a simple truth that took me many years to learn. If you learn it now, it may enrich your life in hundreds of ways. And it may prevent you from facing many problems that have hurt people who have never learned it. The truth is simply this: No one owes you anything. Significance How could such a simple statement be important? It may not seem so, but understanding it can bless your entire life. No one owes you anything. It means that no one else is living for you, my child. Because no one is you. Each person is living for himself; his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel. When you realize that no one owes you happiness or anything else, you’ll be freed from expecting what isn’t likely to be. It means no one has to love you. If someone loves you, it’s because there’s something special about you that gives him happiness. Find out what that something special is and try to make it stronger in you, so that you’ll be loved even more. When people do things for you, it’s because they want to — because you, in some way, give them something meaningful that makes them want to please you, not because anyone owes you anything. No one has to like you. If your friends want to be with you, it’s not out of duty. Find out what makes others happy so they’ll want to be near you. No one has to respect you. Some people may even be unkind to you. But once you realize that people don’t have to be good to you, and may not be good to you, you’ll learn to avoid those who would harm you. For you don’t owe them anything either. Living your Life No one owes you anything. You owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you’re giving to them. Some people will choose not to be with you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. When that happens, look elsewhere for the relationships you want. Don’t make someone else’s problem your problem. Once you learn that you must earn the love and respect of others, you’ll never expect the impossible and you won’t be disappointed. Others don’t have to share their property with you, nor their feelings or thoughts. If they do, it’s because you’ve earned these things. And you have every reason to be proud of the love you receive, your friends’ respect, the property you’ve earned. But don’t ever take them for granted. If you do, you could lose them. They’re not yours by right; you must always earn them. My Experience A great burden was lifted from my shoulders the day I realized that no one owes me anything. For so long as I’d thought there were things I was entitled to, I’d been wearing myself out —physically and emotionally — trying to collect them. No one owes me moral conduct, respect, friendship, love, courtesy, or intelligence. And once I recognized that, all my relationships became far more satisfying. I’ve focused on being with people who want to do the things I want them to do. That understanding has served me well with friends, business associates, lovers, sales prospects, and strangers. It constantly reminds me that I can get what I want only if I can enter the other person’s world. I must try to understand how he thinks, what he believes to be important, what he wants. Only then can I appeal to someone in ways that will bring me what I want. And only then can I tell whether I really want to be involved with someone. And I can save the important relationships for th

Well, we all like things to be predictable, don't we? We expect things to be safe and to keep on happening just the way they always have. We expect the sun to rise in the morning. We expect to get up, survive the day and finish up back in bed at the end of it, ready to start all over again the next day. But maybe that's just a trick we play on ourselves, our way of making life seem ordinary. Because the truth is, life is so extraordinary that for most of hte time we can't bring ourselves to look at it. It's too bright and it hurts our eyes. The fact of the matter is that nothing is ever certain. But most people never find that out until the ground suddenly disappears from beneath their feet.

A general word of advice: It’s always more effective to assume the best in conflict situations. In fact, expecting the worst—which is typical of people with insecure attachment styles—often acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you assume your partner will act hurtfully or reject you, you automatically respond defensively—thus starting a vicious cycle of negativity.

We aren't fighting right now." I blurted out. He gave me a sidelong look. "Do you want to fight?" "No. I hate fighting with you. Verbally, I mean. I don't mind in the gym." I thought I detected the hint of a smile. Always a half-smile for me. Rarely a full one. "I don't like fighting with you either." Sitting next to him there, I marveled at the warm and happy emotions springing up inside me. There was something about being around him that felt so good, that moved me in a way Mason couldn't. You can't force love, I realized, It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love. The next words that came out of my mouth astonished me, both because they were completely unselfish and because I actually meant them. "You should take it." He flinched. "What?" "Tasha's offer. You should take her up on it. It's a really great chance." I remembered my mom's words about being ready for children. I wasn't. Maybe she hadn't been. But Tasha was. And I knew Dimitri was too. They got along really well. He could go be her guardian, have some kids with her...it would be a good deal for both of them. "I never expected to hear you say anything like that," he told me, voice tight. "Especially after-" "What a bitch I've been? Yeah." I tugged his coat tighter against the cold. It smelled like him. It was intoxicating, and I could half-imagine being wrapped in his embrace. Adrian might have been onto something about the power of scent. "Well. Like I said, I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want us to hate each other. And...well..." I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them. "No matter how I feel about us...I want you to be happy." Silence yet again. I noticed then that my chest hurt. Dimitri reached out and put his arm around me. He pulled me to him, and I rested my head on his chest. "Roza," was all he said. It was the first time he'd really touched me since the night of the lust charm. The practice room had been something different...more animal. This wasn't even about sex. It was just about being close to someone you cared about, about the emotion that kind of connection flooded you with. Dimitri might run off with Tasha, but I would still love him. I would probably always love him. I cared about Mason. But I would probably never love him. I sighed into Dimitri, just wishing I could stay like that forever. It felt right being with him. And-no matter how much the thought of him and Tasha made me ache-doing what was best for him felt right. Now, I knew, it was time to stop being a coward and do something else that was right. Mason had said I needed to learn something about myself. I just had. Reluctantly, I pulled away and handed Dimitri his coat. I stood up. He regarded me curiously, sensing my unease. "Where you going?" he asked. "To break someone's heart," I replied. I admired Dimitri for a heartbeat more-the dark, knowing eyes and silken hair. The I headed inside. I had to apologize to Mason...and tell him there'd never be anything between us.

You were right to end it with us,” I said harshly. “And I’m not willing to do it again.” He stared at me, shocked. My words were a lie, of course. Part of me wanted to try again, to endure anything to be with him. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Maddie. Couldn’t stop thinking about the hurt she would go through. It was ironic, really. Last time, he’d gone out of his way to hurt me purposely because it was for the greater good. Now I was doing the same for both of them, saving her from heartache and him from more grief with me. We were in an endless cycle. “You can’t mean that. I know you can’t.” His face was a mixture of incredulity and pain. I shook my head. “I do. You and me are a disaster. What we did during this stasis...it was wrong. It was disgraceful. Immoral. We betrayed someone who loves both of us, who wishes nothing but the best for us. How could we do that? What kind of precedent is that? How could we expect to have a solid relationship that was built on that sort of sordid foundation? One that was built on lies and deceit?” Saying those words hurt. It was tarnishing the beauty of these precious few days we had, but I needed to make my case. Seth was silent for several moments as he assessed me. “You’re serious.” “Yes.” I was a good liar, good enough that the person who loved me most couldn’t tell. “Go back to her, Seth. Go back to her and make it up to her.” “Georgina...” I could see it, see it hitting him. The full weight of betraying Maddie was sinking in. His nature couldn’t ignore the wrong he’d done. It was part of his good character, the character that had gone back to save Dante, the character that was going to make him leave me. Again. Hesitantly, he extended his hand to me. I took it, and he pulled me into an embrace. “I will always love you.” My heart was going to burst. How many times, I wondered, could I endure this kind of agony? “No, you won’t,” I said. “You’ll move on. So will I.” Seth left not long after that. Staring at the door, I replayed my own words. You’ll move on. So will I. In spite of how much he loved me, how much he was willing to risk, I truly felt he’d go back to Maddie, that he’d believe what I said. I’d driven home the guilt, made it trump his love for me. You’ll move on. So will I. The unfortunate part about being a good liar, however, was that while I could get other people to believe my words, I didn’t believe them myself.

The death of these people might have changed the world, Grace, so we might have changed the world, Grace, so we sometimes have to look at death not as something sad, but as something to be glad for. Sometimes death changes our lives in ways we never expect. It can bring with it every emotion; we have to learn to recognize the ones that help us and the ones that hurt us. And we also have to be willing to accept that with everything else, death also brings with it love. That is why we must always be grateful and appreciate it, even if it brings some sadness with it.

I've always given myself in small doses and sometimes nothing at all careful not to share the best parts of myself with someone who could turn out to be the wrong person protective in terms of my heart and soul understanding that most of the people I meet will fall short of my expectations and so I've learned to expect nothing sometimes my emotional switch remains off you can't get hurt if you feel nothing

...I'm a fool. I expect too much, then I'm angry because nothing ever works out the way I want. When I was young and full of hopes and aspirations, I didn't know I would get hurt so often. I think I'll get tough and won't ache again, then my fragile shell shatters, and again, symbolically, my blood is spilled with the tears I shed. I pull myself back together again, go on, convince myself there is a reason for everything, and at some point in my life it will be disclosed. And when I have what I want, I hope to god it stays long enough to let me know I have it, and it wont hurt when it goes, for I don't expect it to stay, not now. I'm like a doughnut, always being punch out in the middle, and constantly I go around searching for the missing piece, and on and on it goes, never ending, only beginning...

He is my other eyes that can see above the clouds; my other ears that hear above the winds. He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea. He has told me a thousand times over that I am his reason for being; by the way he rests against my leg; by the way he thumps his tail at my smallest smile; by the way he shows his hurt when I leave without taking him. (I think it makes him sick with worry when he is not along to care for me.) When I am wrong, he is delighted to forgive. When I am angry, he clowns to make me smile. When I am happy, he is joy unbounded. When I am a fool, he ignores it. When I succeed, he brags. Without him, I am only another man. With him, I am all-powerful. He is loyalty itself. He has taught me the meaning of devotion. With him, I know a secret comfort and a private peace. He has brought me understanding where before I was ignorant. His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things. He has promised to wait for me... whenever... wherever - in case I need him. And I expect I will - as I always have. He is just my dog.

What I want to tell you is what I think he would tell you if he could. Living means taking chances. Risks. Playing it safe all the time is being dead inside, even if you happen to still be breathing. people expected Connor to play it safe all the time. And when he did, he felt dead inside. I saw him take risks, and then he was the most alive person I've ever known. he would ask you to take chances. Sometimes that means getting hurt. Getting an F. Losing a game. Losing someone you love. But if you always play it safe, you lose anyway.

He had been hurt doing everything he had ever done. He expected it, even wanted it. Nothing centered a man like pain. Nothing drove the irrelevant bullshit our of your mind like the taste of your own blood. Duffy always wanted to tell people who were worried about the future of their children, or about God and the order of the universe, to go out and break a rib or two. A few broken ribs threw all thoughts of children, God and the order of the universe right out the window. Nobody with broken ribs ever had free-floating anxiety, or so Duffy was convinced. It was cheaper that a psychiatrist and never so humiliating.

They were always meant to be together, one boy and one girl, two hearts split into two, sent to far-off lands on their own. For God wanted to see if true love could be tested. He wanted to see if two halves of one soul could find each other again, even against the odds. Years would pass, they would both be hurt, they would both be sad, but one day, when they least expected it, they would stumble into each other’s paths. The question is: would they recognize each other’s soul? Would they find their way back to love…?

I’m fucking stupid in love with you. I know you’re scared, but I’ll work with that, I’ll build everything around what you want. I want you to choose me. Choose us. Take a fucking chance on the unknown for once in your life and trust I'm there with you, that I will never hurt you in any way you expect from people and I'll always do my best for us. You are not alone. I’d never leave you alone. I'm fucking crazy in love with you, so fucking crazy it drives me mad wanting you to choose me back, I’d chase you to the goddamn end of the world, that’s how much I want you.

I believe a boy can have anything in life that he wants once he starts working for it. The main thing is not to give up. It makes no difference how tough things get, just bow your back, keep working, and put your heart and soul into it. As you go along your way, live a good clean life, don't hurt anyone or anything, and always be honest. It doesn't hurt to pray a little, too. If you do all those things-someday you'll have your pony and gun. You'll get help when you least expect it.

They were always meant to be together, one boy and one girl, two hearts split in two, sent to far-off lands on their own. For God wanted to see if true love could be tested. He wanted to see if two halves of one soul could find each other again, even against the odds. Years would pass. They would both be hurt. They would both be sad, but one day, when they least expected it, they would stumble into each other’s paths. The question is: would they recognize each other’s soul? And would they find their way back to love…?

I wanted, for so long, for someone to understand me better than I understood myself, to take control of me, to save me, to make it all better. I thought that the hardest part of a loving, mutually healing relationship would be showing my vulnerable, raw spots to a person, even though I'd been hurt so many times before. This has not been the hardest part. The actual hardest part has been realizing that no one, no matter how compassionate and kind they are, will say the perfect things always. Myself included. The hardest part has been learning to communicate what I need, to hear what others need, to tell others how to tell me what they need. Intimacy takes communication. A lot of it. We all have triggers. I don't know your triggers, and you don't know mine. No matter how much I love or trust you, you cannot possibly know exactly the words I need to hear, the words I don't want to hear, and the way I like to be touched. And how strange that we expect these things of each other. How strange (and self-sabotaging) that we refuse to get into relationships and friendships with people unless they treat us in just that perfect way. We've been raised to want fairy tales. We've been raised to wait for flawless saviors to rescue us. But the savior isn't flawless and the savior is not coming. The savior is you. The savior is still learning. The savior is never done learning. The savior is a human being. Forget perfect. Forget flawless. And start speaking your truth. Start speaking what you want and how you want it. And start asking and listening, really listening, to what the people around you say. Maybe, then, we will stop abandoning and hurting each other. Maybe, then, there's hope for us.

We can't please everyone in life. If you know what you're doing is not wrong, If you're not hurting someone, If it's not really wrong then there is nothing to be worried about. Let's always give more and expect less.

I wanted, for so long, for someone to understand me better than I understood myself, to take control of me, to save me, to make it all better. I thought that the hardest part of a loving, mutually healing relationship would be showing my vulnerable, raw spots to a person, even though I'd been hurt so many times before. This has not been the hardest part. The actual hardest part has been realizing that no one, no matter how compassionate and kind they are, will say the perfect things always. Myself included. The hardest part has been learning to communicate what I need, to hear what others need, to tell others how to tell me what they need. Intimacy takes a lot of communication. We all have triggers. I don't know your triggers and you don't know mine. No matter how much I love or trust you, you cannot possibly know exactly the words I need to hear, the words I don't want to hear, and the way I like to be touched. And how strange that we expect these things of each other. How strange, and self-sabotaging, that we refuse to get into relationships and friendships with people unless they treat us in just that perfect way. We've been raised to want fairy tales. We've been raised to wait for flawless saviors to rescue us. But the savior isn't flawless and the savior is not coming. The savior is you. The savior is still learning. The savior is never done learning. The savior is a human being. Forget perfect. Forget flawless. And start speaking your truth. Start speaking what you want and how you want it. And start asking and listening, really listening, to what the people around you say. Maybe, then, we will stop abandoning and hurting each other. Maybe, then, there's hope for us.

My father always said that it is a reasonable expectation of life that no one will go out of his way, against his own interest, to break his word or to hurt another person. And this turns out, not just in obvious cases, for example haters, pathological people and institutions, sadists, but in everyday life itself to be plain untrue. I wonder why. A reasonable expectation of life, I have found, is hardly ever quite borne out.

A feeling struck me one fine day that people call ‘love’, Before that my life was empty, all I had was loneliness and sorrow… I loved the way it felt being with him, for I felt up above, Now everything was complete and nothing remained hollow… That person who cupid made me fall for, was a God descended from heavens, I loved him with all I had, a true heart and a pure soul… I thought I achieved the meaning of life, never did I felt so glad, But when he left me amidst a chaos, I had no one with me to console… I cried, it hurt, I wept and screamed, everyone called me ‘mad’, And still I wonder if in my life, that actually was his role… But a string still binds me to my past of untold vow, Some unsaid promises that linger between us even now, Although I don’t know where he went after that fateful day… I still try to convince myself every day, I know how, Each moment has been tough, each day a new challenge… Each hour passed as if it was my heart that always allowed, One more day to live without him, one more day to cherish… One more day to spend without the love of my life somehow, But he doesn’t know that one day, the girl herself would perish… Who loved him and lived each day of her life in his wait, For the man who never returned, for the man who wasn’t in her fate…

your family, not family they always seem to return when all the hard work is finished they add nothing to the journey but bumps and bruises and yet they wait for you at the finish line with their hands open expecting to be greeted with kindness even when they've spent most of their energy being unkind toward you. taking credit for what you've done alone. taking credit for your joy when all they've ever done was hurt you

I stared out of the window at the bright-blue Swiss sky and I told him a story of two people. Two people who shouldn’t have met, and who didn’t like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other. And I told him of the adventures they had, the places they had gone, and the things I had seen that I had never expected to. I conjured for him electric skies and iridescent seas and evenings full of laughter and silly jokes. I drew a world for him, a world far from a Swiss industrial estate, a world in which he was still somehow the person he had wanted to be. I drew the world he had created for me, full of wonder and possibility. I let him know a hurt had been mended in a way that he couldn’t have known, and for that alone there would always be a piece of me indebted to him. And as I spoke I knew these would be the most important words I would ever say and that it was important that they were the right words, that they were not propaganda, an attempt to change his mind, but respectful of what Will had said. I told him something good...

People always expect you to move on so quickly after you experience loss, don’t they? For the first few months, the sympathy pours on you. Then, gradually, it dwindles down, and one day you find yourself standing alone at the gravesite, wondering why everyone else has moved on to caring about something else while you still stay right here, silently carrying the same hurt. People get bored with your grief. They want something new to talk about. So you stop bringing it up, because you don’t want to bore anyone.

They were always meant to be together, one boy and one girl, two hearts split into two, sent to far-off lands on their own. For God wanted to see if true love could be tested. He wanted to see if two halves of one soul could find each other again, even against the odds. Years would pass. They would both be hurt. They would both be sad, but one day, when they least expected it, they would stumble into each other’s paths. The question is: would they recognize each other’s soul? And would they find their way back to

Caro's right. She should be scared. Everything's out of her hands now. All the things coming Ava's way they won't be able to control, things she won't always ask for because she's a girl. She doesn't even know how hard it's going to be yet, but she will, because all girls find out. And I know it's going to be hard for Ava in ways I've never had to or will ever have to experience and I want to apologize to her now, before she finds out, like I wish someone had to me. Because maybe it would be better if we all got apologized to first. Maybe it would hurt less, expecting to be hurt.

With great hope in their hearts and wholehearted belief in their eyes during each new attempt, they keep on using the same approach over and over again, and always FAIL... Yet every time they expect that somehow a totally different result will magically occur! They are “stepping on to the same rake,” and each time they’re surprised and angry when the rake handle hits them on the forehead again. But they keep seeing the reasons for their failures as just another hurtful kick from life—not a result of their own actions, which cause these setbacks. They just keep on blaming the rakes!

My Dearest, Can you forgive me? In a world that I seldom understand, there are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore. You, my darling, are the wind that I did not anticipate, the wind that has gusted more strongly than I ever imagined possible. You are my destiny. I was wrong, so wrong, to ignore what was obvious, and I beg your forgiveness. Like a cautious traveler, I tried to protect myself from the wind and lost my soul instead. I was a fool to ignore my destiny, but even fools have feelings, and I’ve come to realize that you are the most important thing that I have in this world. I know I am not perfect. I’ve made more mistakes in the past few months than some make in a lifetime. I was wrong to deny what was obvious in my heart: that I can’t go on without you. You were right about everything. I tried to deny the things you were saying, even though I knew they were true. Like one who gazes only backward on a trip across the country, I ignored what lay ahead. I missed the beauty of a coming sunrise, the wonder of anticipation that makes life worthwhile. It was wrong of me to do that, a product of my confusion, and I wish I had come to understand that sooner. Now, though, with my gaze fixed toward the future, I see your face and hear your voice, certain that this is the path I must follow. It is my deepest wish that you give me one more chance. For the first few days after you left, I wanted to believe that I could go on as I always had. But I couldn’t. I knew in my heart that my life would never be the same again. I wanted you back, more than I imagined possible, yet whenever I conjured you up, I kept hearing your words in our last conversation. No matter how much I loved you, I knew it wasn’t going to be possible unless we—both of us—were sure I would devote myself fully to the path that lay ahead. I continued to be troubled by these thoughts until late last night when the answer finally came to me. Oh, I am sorry, so very sorry, that I ever hurt you. Maybe I’m too late now. I don’t know. I love you and always will. I am tired of being alone. I see children crying and laughing as they play in the sand, and I realize I want to have children with you. I am sick and sad without you. As I sit here in the kitchen, I am praying that you will let me come back to you, this time forever.

Something creaked beneath me! A soft step on rotting wood! I jumped startled, scared, and turned, expecting to see-God knows what! Then I sighed, for it was only Chris standing in the gloom, silently staring at me. Why? Did I look prettier than usual? Was it the moonlight, shining through my airy clothes? All random doubts were cleared when he said in a voice gritty and low, "You look beautiful sitting there like that." He cleared the frog in his throat. "The moonlight is etching you with silver-blue, and I can see the shape of your body through your clothes." Then, bewilderingly, he seized me by the shoulders, digging in his fingers, hard! They hurt. "Damn you, Cathy! You kissed that man! He could have awakened and seen you, and demanded to know who you were! And not thought you only a part of his dream!" Scary the way he acted, the fright I felt for no reason at all. "How do you know what I did? You weren't there; you were sick that night." He shook me, glaring his eyes, and again I thought he seemed a stranger. "He saw you, Cathy-he wasn't soundly asleep!" "He saw me?" I cried, disbelieving. It wasn't possible . . . wasn't! "Yes!" he yelled. This was Chris, who was usually in such control of his emotions. "He thought you a part of his dream! But don't you know Momma can guess who it was, just by putting two and two together-just as I have? Damn you and your romantic notions! Now they're on to us! They won't leave money casually about as they did before. He's counting, she's counting, and we don't have enough-not yet!" He yanked me down from the widow sill! He appeared wild and furious enough to slap my face-and not once in all our lives had he ever struck me, though I'd given him reason to when I was younger. But he shook me until my eyes rolled, until I was dizzy and crying out: "Stop! Momma knows we can't pass through a looked door!" This wasn't Chris . . . this was someone I'd never seen before . . . primitive, savage. He yelled out something like, "You're mine, Cathy! Mine! You'll always be mine! No matter who comes into your future, you'll always belong to me! I'll make you mine . . . tonight . . . now!" I didn't believe it, not Chris! And I did not fully understand what he had in mind, nor, if I am to give him credit, do I think he really meant what he said, but passion has a way of taking over. We fell to the floor, both of us. I tried to fight him off. We wrestled, turning over and over, writhing, silent, a frantic strug- gle of his strength against mine. It wasn't much of a battle. I had the strong dancer's legs; he had the biceps, the greater weight and height . . . and he had much more determination than i to use something hot, swollen and demanding, so much it stile reasoning and sanity from him. And I loved him. I wanted what he wanted-if he wanted it that much, right and wrong. Somehow we ended up on that old mattress-that filthy, smelly, stained mattress that must have known lovers long before this night. And that is where he took me, and forced in that swollen, rigid male sex part of him that had to be satisfied. It drove into my tight and resisting flesh which tore and bled. Now we had done what we both swore we'd never do.

Time does not heal wounds. It's a body's ritual that does. The instinctual cleansing with rain or other waters, the application of salves. Despite the sting. Even neglected, the body begins to take care. To repair itself. Blood clots, tissues regenerate, flesh scars. Soon, the thin white line is the only evidence of the pain. It is the body, not time. Time does nothing except create distance between the body and that which caused it harm. Recollection of fear can be stronger than the original fear itself. Similarly, bliss is sometimes more vivid when recollected. How else do you explain longing? Longing for what has already passed. That's the real pain. But you insisted, you pried with your fingers to see. You retuned to me after I turned away. You made me recollect for you, collect again and again for you, interrupting the healing with your curiosity. Now that I have given you the words, you may long for them. You may miss me. You may try to find the notes to the song again and again and won't be able to find them. Perhaps, the wounds I made will already have begun to scar. Maybe the body will have begun its ritual of forgetting. I told you not to ask for haunted, not to ask me to recollect. Because recollection is like tearing at closed wounds. Like pealing back the careful tissue put there by the body to make it safe. And because remembered pain is always worse than the original pain, because this time it is expected. This time you already know how much it will hurt.

What are you? Do you know? What you are is you're always trying to smooth everything over. What you are is always trying to be moderate. What you are is never telling the truth if you think it's going to hurt somebody's feelings. What you are is you're always compromising. What you are is always complacent. What you are is always trying to find the bright side of things. The one with the manners. The one who abides everything patiently. The one with ultimate decorum. The boy who never breaks the code.

ALYCE: 'Gracie's got brown hair, like me. She's about the same height, too. People notice her. I think it's her voice. It's always louder than you expect and covered with laughter. I was surprised when she said she didn't want to work with me. I don't know Gracie very well, but I remember once in Year 3 she gave me an invitation to her party. She spelt my name right. Everyone always spells it with an 'i', even the teachers. Ever since then I thought she would be nice. I never thought she'd look at me like I was nothing.

According to Dr. Ham, complex PTSD further clouds our perception of basic sensorial instincts. We are jumpy creatures, expectant of danger and conflict, and so that’s what we see. We’re often blind to what is actually happening. So Dr. Ham advocates for what the Dalai Lama calls “emotional disarmament—to see things realistically and clearly without the confusion of fear or rage.” For every narrow, fear-based C-PTSD reading, Dr. Ham said, there is a wider truth—layers and layers of truths. Of course it isn’t possible to always know that entire truth, because the people we love might not even be aware of that truth themselves. What is important is to approach all of these interactions with curiosity for what that truth is, not fear. He said I should approach difficult conversations with an attitude of “What is hurting you?” instead of “Have I hurt you?

abruptly. “That’s the way it always is. People hurt you and walk all over you. They lie to you and betray you, and then with those two little words, they expect it should all somehow be wiped from the slate. As if I’m sorry had some sort of magical powers to take away the pain.”...I know your faith says you’re supposed to forgive people when they ask for it, but I think that’s malarkey. Why give absolution to someone when they’re only seeking forgiveness to ease their own conscience ? They don’t care that what they’ve done has permanently scarred you. They don’t care that they’ve robbed you of all security.”...When pressed for a reason for their actions or when facing the consequences, people are suddenly ever so sorry and apologetic .” She looked at Jana, but Jana was sure she didn’t see her. Her mother was a million miles away. “Consequences don’t just go away. They aren’t suddenly dissolved just because forgiveness has been desired or given.

A budget?" He'd expected an explosion.Even, perversely,hoped for one.Margo's tantrums were always so..stimulating.It didn't appear that he was going to be disappointed. "A budget?" she repeated,storming to him. "Of all the unbelievable,bloody nerve.You arrogant son of a bitch. Do you think I'm going to stand here and let you treat me like some sort of brainless bimbo who needs to be told how much she can spend on face powder?" "Face powder." Deliberately, he scanned the papers,took a pen out of his pocket,and made a quick note. "That would come under 'Miscellaneous Luxuries.' I think I've been very generous there. Now,as to your clothing allowance-" "Allowance!" She used both hands to shove him back a step. "Just let me tell you what you can do with your fucking allowance." "Careful,duchess." He brushed the front of his shirt. "Turnbill and Asser." The strangled sound in her throat was the best she could do.If there had been anything at all to throw,she'd have heaved it at his head. "I'd rather be picked apart,alive, by vultures than let you handle the money." "You don't have any money," he began, but she barreled on as she whirled around the room. Watching her, he all but salivated. "I'd rather be gang-raped by midgets, staked naked to a wasp nest,be force-fed garden slugs." "Go three weeks without a manicure?" he put in and watched her hands curl into claws. "You go after my face with those, I'll have to hurt you." "Oh,I hate you." "No,you don't.

You’re a werewolf,” said Nemane. “Samuel Cornick.” There was a pause. “The Marrok is Bran Cornick.” I kept my gaze on Samuel. “I was just explaining to Dr. Altman why it would be inadvisable for them to eliminate me even though I’m sticking my nose in their business.” Comprehension lit his eyes, which he narrowed at the fae. “Killing Mercy would be a mistake,” he growled. “My da had Mercy raised in our pack and he couldn’t love Mercy more if she were his daughter. For her he would declare open war with the fae and damned be the consequences. You can call him and ask, if you doubt my word.” I’d expected Samuel to defend me—and the fae could not afford to hurt the son of the Marrok, not unless the stakes were a lot higher. I’d counted on that to keep Samuel safe or I’d have found some way to keep him out of it. But the Marrok… I’d always thought I was an annoyance, the only one Bran couldn’t count on for instant obedience. He’d been protective, still was—but his protective instinct was one of the things that made him dominant. I’d thought I was just one more person he had to take care of. But it was as impossible to doubt the truth in Samuel’s voice as it was to believe that he’d be mistaken about Bran. I was glad that Samuel was focused on Nemane, who had risen to her feet when Samuel began speaking. While I blinked back stupid tears, she leaned on the walking stick and said, “Is that so?” “Adam Hauptman, the Columbia Basin Pack’s Alpha, has named Mercy his mate,” continued Samuel grimly. Nemane smiled suddenly, the expression flowing across her face, giving it a delicate beauty I hadn’t noticed before. “I like you,” she said to me. “You play an underhanded and subtle game—and like Coyote, you shake up the order of the world.” She laughed. “Coyote indeed. Good for you. Good for you. I don’t know what else you’ll run into—but I’ll let the Others know what they are dealing with.” She tapped the walking stick on the floor twice. Then, almost to herself, she murmured, “Perhaps…perhaps this won’t be a disaster after all.

They were always meant to be together, one boy and one girl, two hearts split into two, sent to far-off lands on their own. For God wanted to see if true love could be tested. He wanted to see if two halves of one soul could find each other again, even against the odds. Years would pass, they would both be hurt, they would both be sad, but one day, when they least expected it, they would stumble into each other’s paths. The question is: would they recognize each other’s soul? Would they find their way back to love…?” *

Kevin tried to sleep with a pillow tight over his face, and he nearly suffocated himself. When he tiptoed over to close the door, they were talking in a subdued tone on the narrow couch. Colette's bare legs were curled up on the pillows, her head riding on the camelback motion of his chest. But her eyes were open, and she looked more adrift than comforted. In a tired baritone, Jerry was talking about prison. It was a horror story -- about the echoing screams of young kids and eyeballs cut open with smuggled razor blades, beginning as the usual speech about the hell he'd seen. But somehow it bcame a lonesome country-western love song, about how every long night of his life he had dreamed of a woman like her-- quick-witted and beautiful and tenacious. It was more than Kevin expected from the man. He told her that if he could buy her safe passage out of this life, hers and Kevin's, he would; but it was hard with a teenage son always pressing to know more and a tiring and insatiable young girlfriend who wanted to devour the world. Think of the pressure on him. "You need to know that we're together like this partly because of you. You keep us up and running. I know it and Kevin knows it. I'm not a good person, Colette -- I never claimed to be, I don't want to be, and you can't expect me to be. But look me in the eye and accept me as a snake, and I'll tell you whatever you're waiting to hear: I need you, I want you, I hurt for you, down in the dust, honey, down in the dust of my bones." She interrupted him with kisses that sounded like determined sips at a scalding drink.

Tell The Truth. Most of your problems come from not telling the truth. The lies you tell, even to spare other people's feelings, always come back to haunt you. If you simply tell people what you mean you would be better off, a lot happier, not trapped in some awkward social situation. Others will know where they standand will be more honest with you. They won't expect you to be what you're not. They won'tneed to test you to discover your intentions. You won't have to make excuses for not doing things you didn't want to do or explain why you prefer to do what like to do. They'll know. Telling the truth and being your own person are closely linked. A strong person says what he or she means. A weak person lies to please others. A strong person lets the truth be other people's problem. A weak person holds the truth inside and complains about being treated unfairly. What is telling the truth hurts other people's feelings? You're not supposed to tell people that they look fat, are stupid or ugly. That's just being rude. Tell the truth avout what you feel, want, and like and mean what you say. If other's get hurt by your truth, they'll have to deal with it. Others may not like what you say, but they'll respect you for being honest and they'll survive better than if you lie to them. If you lie to please people, they won't really believe you. They'll be suspicious and suffer with every inconsistency they find in your story. You'll be called on to update alibis and others will undermine you and try to trap you. People hate being lie to, because lying takes away their free choice and their ability to defend themselves. Tell the truth. It only hurts once. Lies hurt everyone all the time.

Frustrations are an inevitable part of life, and learning to deal with them in manageable doses helps us to develop a solid sense of ourselves and of reality. Our parents teach us how to handle frustrations by setting reasonable degrees of restriction for us. The enables us to relinquish the magical expectation that every need or wish we have will always be met. When a child is faced with a disappointment and his parent tells him that "life is full of frustrations but we all have to learn to live with them," the parent is helping the child to learn to cope with reality.

Reason, truth, innocence." Royce sat back against the wall and folded his arms. "Unicorns, pixies, and dragons. You're not that young to believe in such such things. How is it you fancy yourself a resident of a make believe world?" "I told you, at this point it's a choice." "It's not. It's fooling yourself. "I can decide between eating fish or pork, but I can only pretend to eat unicorn meat. I can't actually eat a unicorn. The world is the world and you live in it with open eyes or choose to be blind. It's all the same to me but don't stand there pretending you're right." Hadrian grimaced. _There are so many things wrong with that statement. Only Royce could think of a unicorn eating metaphor. Where do thoughts like that bubble up from?_ ... Hadrian had a point of his own. "You always wear black and gray. That's a choice too, and it says a lot about you." "It says I don't like to be seen at night." "It says you like to hide. And people who like to hide are usually up to no good. That's a message you declare to everyone you meet, and people receive it as you might expect. Then when others don't trust you; when they avoid you; hurt or arrest you for doing nothing, your worldview is justified. "So, you're right. You can't eat unicorns in your world because they don't exist. But they do in mine. But they do in mine. Probably because in my world we don't eat them.

Two people who shouldn’t have met, and who didn’t like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other. And I told him of the adventures they had, the places they had gone, and the things I had seen that I had never expected to. I conjured for him electric skies and iridescent seas and evenings full of laughter and silly jokes. I drew a world for him, a world far from a Swiss industrial estate, a world in which he was still somehow the person he had wanted to be. I drew the world he had created for me, full of wonder and possibility. I let him know a hurt had been mended in a way that he couldn’t have known, and for that alone there would always be a piece of me indebted to him.

Nothing had changed in that moment when Violet and Jay had finally decided to have sex. Nothing-and everything. Violet was amazed by what they’d done. Amazed that they’d shared themselves with each other, like that. It was wonderful, and beautiful, and not anything that Violet had expected it to be. The pain had been more intense than she could have imagined, and she’d done her best not to cry out. But, of course, Jay had noticed as her body tensed, and then she shuddered. Tears dampened her lashes, yet she’d refused to let them fall. Jay had insisted that they stop, but Violet wouldn’t let him. Instead they’d waited, with Jay holding her, stroking her hair, her shoulders, her face, until the pain subsided, becoming something…less. Later, when she was lying in his arms, she shuddered again. Jay hugged her tight. “What’s wrong? You’re not sorry, are you?” The tenderness of his words made her heart twist. “Of course not. How could I be sorry for that?” He kissed her eyes, gently. “Then why are you shivering? I didn’t mean to hurt you, Vi.” She shook her head, clumsily bumping his chin. “I don’t know why.” She ran her fingertips over his arm, memorizing the feel of his coarse hairs, his skin, the muscles beneath it all. “It’s just…it’s a lot. You know?” Jay smiled. It was a satisfied smile. “Yeah.” He leaned back and pulled her to him, tucking her against his shoulder. “It was a lot. A really good lot.” She wanted to shove him, to banter, to play, but she was too exhausted. When Jay finally got up to leave, Violet leaned up on her elbow and watched as he buttoned his jeans. She wished they could stay like that-together-for longer. Forever. She already missed the feel of him beside her, and the scent of him around her. She sat up to give him back the T-shirt she was wearing. His lazy smile was far too beautiful to be real. “Keep it,” he insisted. “I like it better on you anyway.” The way he stared at her made her stomach flip. It was a look brimming with tenderness. They were a part of something more now; they belonged to each other. He tugged his hoodie over his bare chest, and then he leaned down to kiss her one last time, his lips lingering. His thumb traced the line of her cheek. “I love you, Violet Marie. I’ll always love you.” And then he left. And, once again, Violet slept deeply, soundly, wrapped in Jay’s shirt. He was the perfect remedy to all her worries.

One afternoon, I am complaining about the confusion of my age, what is expected of me versus what I want for myself. “Have I told you about the tension of opposites?” he says. The tension of opposites? “Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. “A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.” Sounds like a wrestling match, I say. “A wrestling match.” He laughs. “Yes, you could describe life that way.” So which side wins, I ask? “Which side wins?” He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. “Love wins. Love always wins.

At a talk I gave at a church months later, I spoke about Charlie and the plight of incarcerated children. Afterward, an older married couple approached me and insisted that they had to help Charlie. I tried to dissuade these kind people from thinking they could do anything, but I gave them my card and told them they could call me. I didn't expect to hear from them, but within days they called, and they were persistent. We eventually agreed that they would write a letter to Charlie and send it to me to pass on to him. When I received the letter weeks later, I read it. It was remarkable. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings were a white couple in their mid-seventies from a small community northeast of Birmingham. They were kind and generous people who were active in their local United Methodist church. They never missed a Sunday service and were especially drawn to children in crisis. They spoke softly and always seemed to be smiling but never appeared to be anything less than completely genuine and compassionate. They were affectionate with each other in a way that was endearing, frequently holding hands and leaning into each other. They dressed like farmers and owned ten acres of land, where they grew vegetables and lived simply. Their one and only grandchild, whom they had helped raise, had committed suicide when he was a teenager, and they had never stopped grieving for him. Their grandson struggled with mental health problems during his short life, but he was a smart kid and they had been putting money away to send him to college. They explained in their letter that they wanted to use the money they'd saved for their grandson to help Charlie. Eventually, Charlie and this couple began corresponding with one another, building up to the day when the Jenningses met Charlie at the juvenile detention facility. They later told me that they "loved him instantly." Charlie's grandmother had died a few months after she first called me, and his mother was still struggling after the tragedy of the shooting and Charlie's incarceration. Charlie had been apprehensive about meeting with the Jenningses because he thought they wouldn't like him, but he told me after they left how much they seemed to care about him and how comforting that was. The Jenningses became his family. At one point early on, I tried to caution them against expecting too much from Charlie after his release. 'You know, he's been through a lot. I'm not sure he can just carry on as if nothing has ever happened. I want you to understand he may not be able to do everything you'd like him to do.' They never accepted my warnings. Mrs. Jennings was rarely disagreeable or argumentative, but I had learned that she would grunt when someone said something she didn't completely accept. She told me, 'We've all been through a lot, Bryan, all of us. I know that some have been through more than others. But if we don't expect more from each other, hope better for one another, and recover from the hurt we experience, we are surely doomed.' The Jenningses helped Charlie get his general equivalency degree in detention and insisted on financing his college education. They were there, along with his mother, to take him home when he was released.

Now I have a question for you: why did you kill those men? You knew you wouldn’t make it out of the citadel. Was it just to spite Galbatorix, as he said?” She sighed and pushed herself off Murtagh’s chest so she was sitting upright. With some reluctance, he released his hold around her shoulders. She sniffed, then looked him square in the eyes. “I couldn’t just lie there and let him do whatever he wanted to me. I had to fight back; I had to show him that he hadn’t broken me, and I wanted to hurt him however I could.” “So it was spite!” “In part. What of it?” She expected him to express disgust or condemnation at her actions, but instead he gave her an appraising look and his lips curved in a small, knowing smile. “Then I say well done,” he replied. After a moment, she returned his smile. “Besides,” she said, “there was always a chance I might escape.” He snorted. “And dragons might start eating grass.” “Even so, I had to try.

He had never asked anything from them; it was they who wished to hold him, they who pressed a claim on him- and the claim seemed to have the form of affection, but it was a form which he found harder to endure than any sort of hatred. He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved. he wondered what response they could hope to obtain from him in such manner- if his response was what they wanted. And it was, he thought; else why those constant complaints, those unceasing accusations about his indifference? Why that chronic air of suspicion, as if they were waiting to be hurt? He had never had a desire to hurt them, but he had always felt their defensive, reproachful expectation; they seemed wounded by anything he said, it was not a matter of his words or actions, it was almost ... almost as if they wounded by the mere fact of his being.

Many potential readers will skip the shopping cart or cash-out clerk because they have seen so many disasters reported in the news that they’ve acquired a panic mentality when they think of them. “Disasters scare me to death!” they cry. “I don’t want to read about them!” But really, how can a picture hurt you? Better that each serve as a Hallmark card that greets your fitful fevers with reason and uncurtains your valor. Then, so gospeled, you may see that defeating a disaster is as innocently easy as deciding to go out to dinner. Remove the dread that bars your doors of perception, and you will enjoy a banquet of treats that will make the difference between suffering and safety. You will enter a brave new world that will erase your panic, and release you from the grip of terror, and relieve you of the deadening effects of indifference —and you will find that switch of initiative that will energize your intelligence, empower your imagination, and rouse your sense of vigilance in ways that will tilt the odds of danger from being forever against you to being always in your favor. Indeed, just thinking about a disaster is one of the best things you can do —because it allows you to imagine how you would respond in a way that is free of pain and destruction. Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.

I don’t want your love. I want the same love you want. I don’t want your love. I want what you want & we can find It together & share our deepening experience of It….I thought it was your love I wanted and it hurt so much when you couldn’t give it. I even made a bargain that if I gave it to you, I could expect it back. I thought you agreed to this bargain. I thought you were part of the deal. I lived in fear that your love would disappear. I moved so deeply into the veil. Now I hear within me the whispering of something else. I feel the possibility of a Love that has nothing to do with you – an infinite resource that it always there. This Love is not affected by any condition, nor does it change in the stream of time. It is the same Love whether my body is strong or weak, whether I am rich and bountiful in material things or whether I am poor. It is not affected by things of this world. This is the Love that brings release. This is the Love that dissolves chains. This is the love that brings peace. This is the only Love I want. It releases you, my friend, from all our contracts.” Stephen Schwartz, Compassionate Presence

You’re the only person who doesn’t see the advantage in such a match.” “That’s because I don’t believe in marriages of convenience. Given your family’s history, I’d think that you wouldn’t either.” She colored. “And why do assume it would be such a thing? Is it so hard to believe that a man might genuinely care for me? That he might actually want to marry me for myself?” “Why would anyone wish to marry the reckless Lady Celia, after all,” she went on in a choked voice, “if not for her fortune or to shore up his reputation?” “I didn’t mean any such thing,” he said sharply. But she’d worked herself up into a fine temper. “Of course you did. You kissed me last night only to make a point, and you couldn’t even bear to kiss me properly again today-“ “Now see here,” he said, grabbing her shoulders. “I didn’t kiss you ‘properly’ today because I was afraid if I did I might not stop.” That seemed to draw her up short. “Wh-What?” Sweet God, he shouldn’t have said that, but he couldn’t let her go on thinking she was some sort of pariah around men. “I knew that if I got his close, and I put my mouth on yours…” But now he was this close. And she was staring up at him with that mix of bewilderment and hurt pride, and he couldn’t help himself. Not anymore. He kissed her, to show her what she seemed blind to. That he wanted her. That even knowing it was wrong and could never work, he wanted to have her. She tore her lips from his. “Mr. Pinter-“ she began in a whisper. “Jackson,” he growled. “Let me hear you say my name.” Backing away from him, she cast him a wounded expression. “Y-you don’t have to pretend-“ “I’m not pretending anything, damn it!” Grabbing her by the sleeves, he dragged her close and kissed her again, with even more heat. How could she not see that he ached to take her? How could she not know what a temptation she was? Her lips intoxicated him, made him light-headed. Made him reckless enough to kiss her so impudently that any other woman of her rank would be insulted. When she pulled away a second time, he expected her to slap him. But all she did was utter a feeble protest. “Please, Mr. Pinter-“ “Jackson,” he ordered in a low, unsteady voice, emboldened by the melting look in her eyes. “Say my Christian name.” Her lush dark lashes lowered as a blush stained her cheeks. “Jackson…” His breath caught in his throat at the intimacy of it, and fire exploded in his brain. She wasn’t pushing him away, so to hell with trying to be a gentleman. He took her mouth savagely this time, plundering every part of its silky warmth as his blood pulsed high in his veins. She tasted of red wine and lemon cake, both tart and sweet at once. He wanted to eat her up. He wanted to take her, right here in this room. So when she pulled out of his arms to back away, he walked after her. She didn’t stop backing away, but neither did she turn tail and run. “Last night you claimed this wouldn’t happen again.” “I know. And yet it has.” Like someone in an opium den, he’d been craving her for months. And how that he’d suddenly had a taste of the very thing he craved, he had to have more. When she came up against the writing table, he caught her about the waist. She turned her head away before he could kiss her, so he settled for burying his face in her neck to nuzzle the tender throat he’d been coveting. With a shiver, she slid her hands up his chest. “Why are you doing this?” “Because I want you,” he admitted, damning himself. “Because I’ve always wanted you.” Then he covered her mouth with his once more.

now is love—real love. I have discovered that lonely and hurting people often don’t expect you to meet their needs . . . they simply want to be loved and understood. If you’re in need of real love, receive it from God right now. Then let it flow through you to bless others. JANUARY 18 God Has Not Forgotten You God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:13 NIV The world is full of people struggling with trials and temptations and looking for a way out. If you have ever felt pressed on every side and couldn’t find an escape, or confused and didn’t know what to do, you know what a desperate and lonely feeling that can be. The Word tells you God is faithful and He will provide a way for you, but He doesn’t always show us the way immediately. That is when you must wait . . . and trust. Waiting on God purifies your faith and builds character in you. You may not like waiting, but God’s way is perfect! So be assured God has not forgotten you. Trust Him, and in His time He will reveal His perfect plan for you. While you’re waiting, don’t forget to enjoy your life.

How goes the investigation into Lady Lynden?" Hughe asked. "We saw her yesterday in the village." "She saw you too," Orlando said. "She thought your hat was ridiculous by the way." She'd said no such thing, but Orlando knew the sort of hat Hughe usually wore when he was playing the part of the fop and they were always elaborate and impractical. "That was my best hat." "She's very beautiful," Cole said, unexpectedly. He never noticed beautiful things, not even women. Or if he did, he never commented. For him to say Susanna was a beauty meant he'd certainly noticed. "So?" Orlando snapped. "So I was expecting a murderess to look more...bitter. Shrew-ish." Orlando's head began to pound inside his skull. "Perhaps she's not a murderess then," he heard himself say. "If she isn't," Hughe said lightly, "I wonder if she'd agree to become the next Lady Oxley. I wouldn't mind that slender body wrapped around my-" He slammed back into a tree trunk and his muttered oomph echoed through the woods. Orlando shook out his hand. It hurt, but it felt bloody good shutting Hughe up. It wasn't often he caught him unawares like that. "I win," Cole said. Hughe rubbed his jaw and grunted. "That wasn't a wager I wanted to lose." -Hughe, Orlando and Cole. (The Charmer)

This is weird for me, too, you know. It’s like, ever since I got that letter…” He hesitates. “Forget it.” “Just say it,” I say. “Ever since I got that letter, things have been messed up between us. It’s not fair. You got to say everything you wanted to say, and I’m the one who has to rearrange the way I think about you; I have to make sense of it in my head. You totally blindsided me, and then you just shut me out. You start dating Kavinsky, you stop being my friend.” He exhales. “Ever since I got your letter…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. It definitely wasn’t that. “Josh…” “I know you don’t want to hear it, but just let me say what I need to say, okay?” I nod. “I hate that you’re with Kavinsky. I hate it. He’s not good enough for you. I’m sorry to say it, but he’s just not. In my opinion, no guy will ever be good enough for you. Least of all me.” Josh ducks his head, and then suddenly he looks up at me and says, “There was this one time, I guess it was a couple of summers ago. We were walking home from somebody’s house--I think it was Mike’s.” It was hot, around dusk. I was mad because Mike’s older brother Jimmy had said he’d give us a ride home, and then he went somewhere and didn’t come back, so we had to walk. I was wearing espadrilles and my feet were hurting something terrible. Josh kept telling me to keep up with him. Quietly he says, “It was just me and you. You had on that tan suede shirt you used to wear, with the straps, and it showed your belly button.” “My Pocahontas-meets-seventies-Cher-style shirt.” Oh, how I loved that shirt. “I almost kissed you that day. I thought about it. It was this weird impulse I had. I just wanted to see what it would be like.” My heart stops. “And then?” “And then I don’t know. I guess I forgot about it.” I let out a sigh. “I’m sorry you got that letter. You were never supposed to see that. It wasn’t meant for you to ever read. It was just for me.” “Maybe it was fate. Maybe this was all supposed to happen just like this, because…because it was always gonna be you and me.” I say the first thing that comes to mind. “No, it wasn’t.” And I realize it’s true. This is the moment I realize I don’t love him, that I haven’t for a while. That maybe I never did. Because he’s right there for the taking: I could kiss him again; I could make him mine. But I don’t want him. I want someone else. It feels strange to have spent so much time wishing for something, for someone, and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.

I bring my Fern here, cutting into her night's sleep, because I want her to remember what she knew in the beginning of her life. What I knew my whole young life. The other night when I tried to rouse her, she rubbed her eyes sleepily, whined and kicked. She didn't want to go. She threw the blanket up over her head. Eventually I cajoled her out of bed, but I'm afraid of the day when I can't. When she becomes obstinate. When she becomes different from me. What will we share if we can't share this? Will we be nothing but strangers? I want to grab her in these moments, squeeze her too hard, growl into her hair, never let her go. But she always wriggles free, unfazed, or maybe with a small eye roll. She knows she has everything I can give her. I think of my mother in these moments. She was someone who never did what I expected her to. When she looked at me, I didn't understand what her look meant. She looked at me sharp-eyed, her mouth twisting and pained. As though looking at me hurt her sometimes. I didn't understand it until I had the chance to care for this little Fern and I looked at her and saw all that came before and all that would come after and all its potential awfulness and certain beauty and it was too much for me to bear. I looked away, scared, disgusted, overcome with love, on the verge of crying and laughing, and finally, finally, finally I began to know my mother.

more than anything.” He turned to Jean Louise. “Seven-thirty tonight and no Landing. We’ll go to the show.” “Okay. Where’re you all going?” “Courthouse. Meeting.” “On Sunday?” “Yep.” “That’s right, I keep forgetting all the politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.” Atticus called for Henry to come on. “Bye, baby,” he said. Jean Louise followed him into the livingroom. When the front door slammed behind her father and Henry, she went to her father’s chair to tidy up the papers he had left on the floor beside it. She picked them up, arranged them in sectional order, and put them on the sofa in a neat pile. She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye. On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague. Its author was somebody with several academic degrees after his name. She opened the pamphlet, sat down in her father’s chair, and began reading. When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt. “What is this thing?” she said. Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. “Something of your father’s.” Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in. “Don’t do that,” said Alexandra. “They’re hard to come by these days.” Jean Louise opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Aunty, have you read that thing? Do you know what’s in it?” “Certainly.” If Alexandra had uttered an obscenity in her face, Jean Louise would have been less surprised. “You—Aunty, do you know the stuff in that thing makes Dr. Goebbels look like a naive little country boy?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jean Louise. There are a lot of truths in that book.” “Yes indeedy,” said Jean Louise wryly. “I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn’t help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places. Good God, Aunty—” Alexandra was ramrod straight. “Well?” she said. Jean Louise said, “It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty.” Her aunt was silent, and Jean Louise continued: “I was real impressed with the parable where since the dawn of history the rulers of the world have always been white, except Genghis Khan or somebody—the author was real fair about that—and he made a killin’ point about even the Pharaohs were white and their subjects were either black or Jews—” “That’s true, isn’t it?” “Sure, but what’s that got to do with the case?” When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery. Three sprightly figures

Can't you just let it go? Move on?" His face darkened. His eyes glared in response and he was silent a long time while his jaw worked over a toothpick. She'd used the same line that the prophet and his representatives had been using for years. Even if these things did happen, there is no point in being bitter. You should forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones. Kind of galling, considering the insistence upon forgiveness was being made by the people who had done the hurting and done nothing to make up for it. But then, that was the standard 'blame the victim' abuser mentally, and to be expected. Gideon seemed to work through this slap in the face and let it slide. He said, "For a while I thought maybe, you know, if I could talk to the people responsible. If I could show them how difficult life has been because of them, that maybe they would care. I don't know. I thought maybe if they apologized, it would be so much easier to forget this shit. You know? To do what they say and 'let it go'. But nobody will take any personal responsibility. My own parents have nothing to offer but a bunch of whiny excuses. They try to convince me that my life wasn't as bad as I remember it." "Fuck that," he said, "They weren't even there. They don't even know what went on with me. I just..." He paused and pulled his fingers through his hair. "Christ," he said. He paused again, eyes to the sky, and then back to her. "Even the people who never personally raised a hand against me still propped up the regime that made it happen. They stood by and allowed it. Played a part. All of them. Every single one was a participant. Either directly or by looking away. Institutionally, doctrinally, they abused us. Sent us into the streets to beg, denied us an education, had us beaten, starved, exorcised, and separated from our parents. They broke up our families, gave our bodies to perverts, and stole our future. And then they turn around and say we're supposed to just forget it happened and move on from it. If instead we bring up the past, then they'll call us liars. Say we're exaggerating or making it up completely. Why the hell would be make any of this shit up? What's the point in that? To make our lives seem worse than they were? Not that I would, but do you have any idea how much exaggeration it would take for the average person to even begin to grasp how fucking miserable it was? And then, if they ever do admit to any of it, they say that 'mistakes were made'. " "Mistakes." he said. He was leaning forward again, punctuating the air with his finger. "Michael, they commit crimes against children. You know, those things people in society go to jail for when they're caught. And then to the public they do what they always do. Deny. Deny. Deny. And we're left more raped than ever. Victimized first by what they did, and again by their refusal to admit that it happened. They paint us as bitter apostates and liars to a world that not only doesn't give a shit, but also couldn't possibly understand even if it did." "I do," Munroe said. And Gideon stopped.

1. Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you. 2. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. 3. A wise man does not make demands of kings. 4. A mind needs a book as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep it's edge. 5. People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up. 6. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. 7. I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one. 8. In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness. 9. If a man paints a target on his chest, he should expect that sooner or later someone will loose an arrow on him. 10. Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them. 11. In battle a Captain's lungs are as important as his sword arm. I does not matter how brave or brilliant the man is if his commands can't be heard. 12. A man is never so vulnerable in battle as when he flees. 13. Gold has it's uses, but wars are won with iron. 14. The man who fears losing has already lost. 15. Words are wind. 16. The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome. 17. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different. 18. Give gold to a foe and he will just come back for more. 19. In this world only winter is certain. 20. The gods have no mercy. That's why they're gods. 21. I have learned that the contents of a man's letters are more valuable than the contents of his wallet

When I first started to run the Jingu Gaien course, Toshihiko Seko was still an active runner and he used this course too. The S&B team used this course every day for training, and over time we naturally grew to know each other by sight. Back then I used to jog there before seven a.m. — when the traffic wasn’t bad, there weren’t as many pedestrians, and the air was relatively clean—and the S&B team members and I would often pass each other and nod a greeting. On rainy days we’d exchange a smile, a guess-we’re-both-havingit-tough kind of smile. I remember two young runners in particular, Taniguchi and Kanei. They were both in their late twenties, both former members of the Waseda University track team, where they’d been standouts in the Hakone relay race. After Seko was named manager of the S&B team, they were expected to be the two young stars of the team. They were the caliber of runner expected to win medals at the Olympics someday, and hard training didn’t faze them. Sadly, though, they were killed in a car accident when the team was training together in Hokkaido in the summer. I’d seen with my own eyes the tough regimen they’d put themselves through, and it was a real shock when I heard the news of their deaths. It hurt me to hear this, and I felt it was a terrible waste. Even now, when I run along Jingu Gaien or Asakasa Gosho, sometimes I remember these other runners. I’ll round a corner and feel like I should see them coming toward me, silently running, their breath white in the morning air. And I always think this: They put up with such strenuous training, and where did their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, disappear to? When people pass away, do their thoughts just vanish?

It wasn't only my friends who suffered from female rivalry. I remember when I was just sixteen years old, during spring vacation, being whisked off to an early lunch by my best friend's brother, only to discover, to my astonishment and hurt, that she was expecting some college boys to drop by and didn't want me there to compete with her. When I started college at Sarah Lawrence, I soon noticed that while some of my classmates were indeed true friends, others seemed to resent that I had a boyfriend. It didn't help that Sarah Lawrence, a former girls' school, included very few straight men among its student body--an early lesson in how competing for items in short supply often brings out the worst in women. In graduate school, the stakes got higher, and the competition got stiffer, a trend that continued when I went on to vie for a limited number of academic jobs. I always had friends and colleagues with whom I could have trusted my life--but I also found women who seemed to view not only me but all other female academics as their rivals. This sense of rivalry became more painful when I divorced my first husband. Many of my friends I depended on for comfort and support suddenly began to view me as a threat. Some took me out to lunch to get the dirt, then dropped me soon after. I think they found it disturbing that I left my unhappy marriage while they were still committed to theirs. For other women, the threat seemed more immediate--twice I was told in no uncertain terms that I had better stay away from someone's husband, despite my protests that I would no more go after a friend's husband than I would stay friends with a woman who went after mine. Thankfully, I also had some true friends who remained loyal and supportive during one of the most difficult times of my life. To this day I trust them implicitly, with the kind of faith you reserve for people who have proved themselves under fire. But I've also never forgotten the shock and disappointment of discovering how quickly those other friendships turned to rivalries.

expected that it would go on to have such a long and varied life. I started with a very simple image of two boys sitting on either side of a fence, talking to each other, and was immediately interested in the journey that would bring them there, the conversations they would have, and the necessary end that I felt their story would reach. Ten years later, the novel not only changed my life but introduced me to people whom I had never expected to encounter. In my travels, I’ve been fortunate to meet survivors of the many death camps that were built around Europe during the early 1940s and to hear their stories firsthand, as well as descendants of the murdered, who have been generous enough to share their memories and grief with me. It’s been a privilege to be present for such moments and to take part in such emotive conversations. There are two things that interest me above all others in young people’s literature, and I’ve returned to them several times in subsequent books: the manner in which war affects and destroys the experience of childhood, which is supposed to be a happy and carefree period, and what it means for a child to be thrust into an adult situation far ahead of time. The heroes of my novels are, like Bruno, always optimistic, resourceful, and a little naïve, and they don’t want an adult to solve their problems for them, even when they’re not always capable of solving them themselves. They’re growing up surrounded by confusion and trying to make sense of it all. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes the chaos overwhelms them. But they’re never defeated. I will always be grateful to those millions of readers who allowed The Boy in the Striped Pajamas into their lives, those who have been moved by the story and, indeed, those who have taken issue with aspects of it and been vocal in their antipathy. After all, the great joy of literature, as opposed to politics or religion, is that it embraces differing opinions, it encourages debate, it allows us to have heated conversations with our closest friends and dearest loved ones. And through it all, no one gets hurt, no one gets taken away from their homes, and no one gets killed. Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements Introduction

true—helping a hurting person is a bit scary. We want to do the right thing, not the wrong thing—say what will help, not what will hurt. To add to our confusion, our friend is “not quite herself.” She’s different. We want our friend fixed and back to normal. All you have to do is care. Harold Ivan Smith described the process so well: Grief sharers always look for an opportunity to actively care. You can never “fix” an individual’s grief, but you can wash the sink full of dishes, listen to him or her talk, take his or her kids to the park. You can never “fix” an individual’s grief but you can visit the cemetery with him or her. Grief sharing is not about fixing—it’s about showing up. Coming alongside. Being interruptible. “Hanging out” with the bereaving. In the words of World War II veterans, “present and reporting for duty.” The grief path is not a brief path. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.[1] What can you expect from a friend who is hurting? Actually, not very much. And the more her experience moves beyond a loss and closer to a crisis or trauma, the more this is true. Sometimes you’ll see a friend experiencing a case of the “crazies.” Her response seems irrational. She’s not herself. Her behavior is different from or even abnormal compared to the person not going through a major loss. Just remember, she’s reacting to an out-of-the-ordinary event. What she experienced is abnormal, so her response is actually quite normal. If what the person has experienced is traumatic she may even seem to exhibit some of the symptoms of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). And because your friend is this way, she is not to be avoided. Others are needed at this time in her life. These are responses you can expect. Your friend is no longer functioning as she once did—and probably won’t for a while. You Are Needed You are needed when a person experiences a sudden intrusion or disruption in her life. If you (or another friend) aren’t available, the only person she has to talk with for guidance, support, and direction is herself. And who wants support from someone struggling with a case of the “crazies”? But a problem may arise when your friend doesn’t realize that she needs you, at least at that particular time. Your sensitivity is needed at this point. Remember, when your friend is hurting and facing a loss, you are dealing with a loss as well, because the relationship you had with your friend has changed. It’s not the same.

The final examination came and my mother came down to watch it. She hated watching me fight. (Unlike my school friends, who took a weird pleasure in the fights--and more and more so as I got better.) But Mum had a bad habit. Instead of standing on the balcony overlooking the gymnasium where the martial arts grading and fights took place, she would lie down on the ground--among everyone else vying to get a good view. Now don’t ask me why. She will say it is because she couldn’t bear to watch me get hurt. But I could never figure out why she just couldn’t stay outside if that was her reasoning. I have, though, learned that there is never much logic to my wonderful mother, but at heart there is great love and concern, and that has always shone through with Mum. Anyway, it was the big day. I had performed all the routines and katas and it was now time for the kumite, or fighting part of the black-belt grading. The European grandmaster Sensei Enoeda had come down to adjudicate. I was both excited and terrified--again. The fight started. My opponent (a rugby ace from a nearby college), and I traded punches, blocks, and kicks, but there was no real breakthrough. Suddenly I found myself being backed into a corner, and out of instinct (or desperation), I dropped low, spun around, and caught my opponent square round the head with a spinning back fist. Down he went. Now this was not good news for me. It was bad form and showed a lack of control. On top of that, you simply weren’t meant to deck your opponent. The idea was to win with the use of semicontact strikes, delivered with speed and technique that hit but didn’t injure your opponent. So I winced, apologized, and then helped the guy up. I then looked over to Sensei Enoeda, expecting a disapproving scowl, but instead was met with a look of delight. The sort of look that a kid gives when handed an unexpected present. I guess that the fighter in him loved it, and on that note I passed and was given my black belt. I had never felt so proud as I did finally wearing that belt after having crawled my way up the rungs of yellow, green, orange, purple, brown--you name it--colored belts. I had done this on my own and the hard way; you can’t buy your way to a black belt. I remember being told by our instructor that martial arts is not about the belts, it is about the spirit; and I agree…but I still couldn’t help sleeping with my black belt on that first night. Oh, and the bullying stopped.

He was so very gentle, despite his power and size, his fingertips sliding over her in light, beguiling patterns. His focus on her, his awareness of every sound, pulse, shiver, was absolute. His low voice tickled her ear as he murmured how beautiful she was, how good she felt, how hard she made him... and all the while, the thick shaft kept sinking deeper and deeper. By the time he filled her completely, she was feverish with need. A little sob of anticipation escaped her as he began to move. But every thrust was long and agonizingly slow, withholding the last bit of stimulation she needed. He held her more closely now, his weight on her from pelvis to breasts, while his hips rolled and circled, drawing up new surges of feeling. His mouth lowered to one of her breasts, licking and gently gnawing at the erect nipple. Squirming in frustration, she pushed her hips upward, but he pulled back reflexively. "No, love. I could hurt you." "You won't. Please... Keir..." "Please what?" "I need more." His laugh, a smolder of a sound, could have come from the devil himself. "I dinna think you can take more than this, darlin'." "I can." She strained against him. "This deep?" he asked, reaching places in her that had never been touched before. She shook at the pleasure of it. "Oh, God. Yes." His hands grasped her hips, keeping them angled firmly upward as he pumped in a steady rhythm. Slow in... slow out... "Faster," she said desperately. "No' yet," he whispered. "Please," she begged. His low, dark voice curled in her ear. "There's a saying we have about whisky: Slow fire makes sweet malt." She whimpered as he rolled his hips gently, his hardness caressing everywhere inside. The deliberate pace didn't alter, no matter how she tried to drive herself harder onto the rigid length of him. Every time she began to plead for more, his mouth came to hers in another one of those obliterating kisses. None of this was what she'd expected. Her husband had been a considerate lover, doing everything she liked and giving her exactly what she wanted. Keir, however, was doing the exact opposite. He delighted in tormenting her until she didn't recognize herself in the frantic creature she'd become. He was absolutely wicked, shameless, making love to her in ways that felt unimaginably good, always holding satisfaction just out of reach. "You give me so much pleasure, darlin'... more than a body can stand. The way you hold me so tight inside... like that... I can feel you pulling at me. Your wee, hungry body wants me deeper, aye? Put your hands on me... anywhere... ah, how I love your sweet touch...

What are these substances? Medicines or drugs or sacramental foods? It is easier to say what they are not. They are not narcotics, nor intoxicants, nor energizers, nor anaesthetics, nor tranquilizers. They are, rather, biochemical keys which unlock experiences shatteringly new to most Westerners. For the last two years, staff members of the Center for Research in Personality at Harvard University have engaged in systematic experiments with these substances. Our first inquiry into the biochemical expansion of consciousness has been a study of the reactions of Americans in a supportive, comfortable naturalistic setting. We have had the opportunity of participating in over one thousand individual administrations. From our observations, from interviews and reports, from analysis of questionnaire data, and from pre- and postexperimental differences in personality test results, certain conclusions have emerged. (1) These substances do alter consciousness. There is no dispute on this score. (2) It is meaningless to talk more specifically about the “effect of the drug.” Set and setting, expectation, and atmosphere account for all specificity of reaction. There is no “drug reaction” but always setting-plus-drug. (3) In talking about potentialities it is useful to consider not just the setting-plus-drug but rather the potentialities of the human cortex to create images and experiences far beyond the narrow limitations of words and concepts. Those of us on this research project spend a good share of our working hours listening to people talk about the effect and use of consciousness-altering drugs. If we substitute the words human cortex for drug we can then agree with any statement made about the potentialities—for good or evil, for helping or hurting, for loving or fearing. Potentialities of the cortex, not of the drug. The drug is just an instrument. In analyzing and interpreting the results of our studies we looked first to the conventional models of modern psychology—psychoanalytic, behavioristic—and found these concepts quite inadequate to map the richness and breadth of expanded consciousness. To understand our findings we have finally been forced back on a language and point of view quite alien to us who are trained in the traditions of mechanistic objective psychology. We have had to return again and again to the nondualistic conceptions of Eastern philosophy, a theory of mind made more explicit and familiar in our Western world by Bergson, Aldous Huxley, and Alan Watts. In the first part of this book Mr. Watts presents with beautiful clarity this theory of consciousness, which we have seen confirmed in the accounts of our research subjects—philosophers, unlettered convicts, housewives, intellectuals, alcoholics. The leap across entangling thickets of the verbal, to identify with the totality of the experienced, is a phenomenon reported over and over by these persons.

If YOUR free READ it calmly. This to all my FOLKS and MYSELF our expectations, our needs, our dreams, our destiny, our life style, Our likes and dislikes. we always RUN around so many things without even THINKING. Have a look on our SATISFACTION list # new gadget or a mobile for example fun for 2 months? # New bike fun for "2 months" . # New car for "3"? # Getting into a relationship wantedly as we are alone max 3/4 months? # Revenge ? A weak? Month? # flirting ? 2/3 months # sex ? Few mins # boozing, joint or a fag? Few hours? # addicting to something leaving behind everything? One year? # your example of anything repeatedly done for satisfaction? Max? Get a number yourself! ¦¦¦ Even though we satisfy our soul by all the above. Passing day by day. Years passed. Yet left with the same IRRITATING feeling to satisfy our needs. ONE after ANOTHER . ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ Some day we realize it was " pure SELFISH satisfaction " and left with a "GUILT " and EMPTINESS . questioning LIFE ! ¦¦¦ "In the RAMPAGE of getting everything we wished. We might not realize what we MISSED . Being CARELESS of our surrounding." "Feelings left hurt and hearts broken. Family friends and people we cares and who cares us. PRIORITIES made by ourself to be satisfied even here." If LIFE was just to satisfy what ever we WISHED for. Was it A life worth lived? May be! Yes. But it's SURE you end up questioning life with BLACKNESS ! # So many questions unanswered. Our EXISTENCE ? Our DESTINY ? To question the existence of God and HEAVEN .? At Last questioning the existence of UNIVERSE itself? The whole system CRACKS a nerve! Why spoil our LIFE when we are the creators of our LIFE ! When we are capable of finding an answer to does questions by our self Finding that true meaning of LIFE beyond all the mess we live by daily. which is Going to satisfy us. We need to realize by now our Every action should lead to Happiness and satisfaction of the people around us. It's the real paradise feeling we all wish for. The real deal. We disrupt our LIFE in the rampage of getting everything we need which can automatically be provided by LIFE . When we start sacrificing our LIFE in a positive way being busy fulfilling the needs of our dears ones. They indeed be busy trying to fulfill our needs and wishes. It's giving some things and getting something back. With less expectations. Rather than grabbing. A SECRET for a PERFECT LIFE which we FAIL to live by. Starting from FORGIVING everyone who tumbles in our path trying to steal away our positive life and happiness. Because as we all are tamed to do MISTAKE at some point. There is not much TIME left to waste by hating and cursing LIFE when we can start LIVING right now. "A REMINDER just to make sure we try to be SELFLESS and find that UNMATCHED HAPPINESS and SATISFACTION ." ~~¦¦ LIFE is complex to understand yet so SIMPLE ¦¦ ¶¶ Never be in a hurry on GETTING on to something you might be left with NOTHING ¶¶ << Being SELFISH makes us a HEALTHY human but being SELFLESS makes you A HUMAN >> «« LIFE is meaningful when we forget about our THIRST and QUENCH the thirst of OTHERS .»» RETHINK AND REDEFINE LIFE ¶¶ ~ Sharath kumar G .

It didn’t play out the way we expected it to, yet it did work out in a completely different way,” said Lin. “And it sort of taught us that if we were flexible we could always earn something and figure it out. We didn’t get hurt. We didn’t starve.

April 21 Now Don’t Hurt the Lord! Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? John 14:9 Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us—astounded at how un-simple we are. It is opinions of our own which make us stupid; when we are simple we are never stupid, we discern all the time. Philip expected the revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in the One Whom he knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be, it is now; we look for it presently, in some cataclysmic event. We have no reluctance in obeying Jesus, but it is probable that we are hurting Him by the questions we ask. “Lord, shew us the Father.” His answer comes straight back—“There He is, always here or nowhere.” We look for God to manifest Himself to His children: God only manifests Himself in His children. Other people see the manifestation, the child of God does not. We want to be conscious of God; we cannot be conscious of our consciousness and remain sane. If we are asking God to give us experiences, or if conscious experience is in the road, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus because they are not the questions of a child. “Let not your heart be troubled”—then am I hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe the character of Jesus, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to perturb my heart, any morbid questions to come in? I have to get to the implicit relationship that takes everything as it comes from Him. God never guides presently, but always now. Realise that the Lord is here now, and the emancipation is immediate.

was now over two million dollars, a nice little nest egg nobody knew about, not even his ex-wife. The $200,000 from Smith would simply be walking-around cash. The St. Paul police and the bureau suspected Smith had a partner when they took him down, but Smith never put Burton’s name in play. He took all the weight. When Smith was being sodomized in jail, when the bureau visited him, talking about how they could make his life easier if he just told them who he worked with, he didn’t give in, didn’t fold, and didn’t turn in his partner. Burton knew all this, tracking his partner’s incarceration, always worried he might break. He never did. Meanwhile, Burton moved to kidnapping and found his true calling within the bureau. When he brought home the daughter of one of New York’s wealthiest businessmen, taking down the kidnappers in a spectacular chase through the subway tunnels, his name and reputation were cemented. He published a book. Traveled the country speaking about his cases, and now performed training for the bureau. Retiring at the end of the year, he could expect to greatly enhance his wealth on the speaking circuit. Several prestigious colleges had inquired of his interest in teaching. His life was set. Then, four months ago Smith showed up on his doorstep. Burton owed him and there was no argument. His life was what it was because Smith never turned him in. Smith took all the heat, and Burton ended up with all the glory. Burton spent days and nights thinking of ways out of helping Smith. He offered up part of his nest egg. Smith wasn’t interested. Burton offered to put him in touch with people who would put him to work, let him earn a respectable living, start a new life, a comfortable life, a decent life. Smith wasn’t interested in any of that. He wanted one thing: he wanted Charlie Flanagan, and he didn’t just want to hurt him, he wanted to gut him. And Burton owed him. And if Burton refused, Smith would kill him. If he could just get through the next day, help Smith get what he wanted and get his crew theirs; he’d be free and clear. Smith would be gone. Burton could retire a happy and wealthy man. If Charlie Flanagan, Lyman Hisle, and their daughters had to pay the ultimate price for that—well, it was him or them. If that was the way it had to be, he’d

I’ve ruined things for you,” I said, eyes hot and tears threatening to fall. “I fucked up and now you’ll end up with a record. You’ll never have your dream because of me. I’m so sorry.” Wrapping me in his strong arms, Nick sighed. “I punched him and made the first move. It’s not your fault.” “You had to punch him. He was calling me names and you’re my man.” Nick smiled down at me. “Yeah, I couldn’t let him trash my girl.” “I should have just ignored him or been polite.” “I love you enough to know ignoring him and doing the polite shit was never happening. It’s not your way and I don’t want you to pretend. Maybe other people need that from you, but I love all of you even the crazy temperamental parts.” “I ruined your dream though.” “I’ll get a new dream.” My heart broke at how easily Nick accepted his lost dream. “You wanted that one so bad.” “I want you more.” “Maybe we can run. I have money. Let’s run and hide. You’re giving up your dream. I can give up my home, so we’ll be even.” Nick grinned then looked behind me. “This is my home now too and I’m not giving it up.” Turning to follow Nick’s gaze, I saw my parents approaching. Pop tossed his cigarette on the ground then laughed. “I always figured Sawyer would be the one to attack a cop,” he said as Mom smiled. “He called me a bitch and Nick punched him.” “Seems fair.” “Then he was going to arrest Nick, so I had to do something.” “I can see that,” Pop said, hugging me. “Did he rough you two up?” “No. Well, his face might have hurt Nick’s fist.” “I’m fine,” Nick said, giving me an amused look. “Pop,” I mumbled, panicking despite attempts to find the situation funny. “Dickhead is going to ruin Nick’s future as a teacher. You have to do something.” My pop grinned at Mom then shook his head. “All this drama is Coop’s problem now. I’m retired.” Frowning, I wanted Pop to wave his hand and fix things like he normally did. Instead, he expected me and my brothers to behave like adults. Had he never met us? “It’ll be fine,” Nick said, lacing his finger in the loop of my shorts and tugging back against him. “Darling can file charges if he wants, but he’ll put a target on himself too. It’s his choice.” My dad smiled and nodded while Mom threw a ball at the dogs. “Nick ain’t wrong. Dickhead might have a big mouth and show off, but he knows his place. He went to school with your brothers and understands what happens when the family feels threatened.” “Okay,” I said, still worried. “I can’t believe I lost my temper like that.” Mom and Pop laughed first then Nick started up. I just rolled my eyes.

JANUARY 17 Learn to Love I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another. JOHN 13:34 How much do you know about real love . . . God’s kind of love? Everybody knows love is always spoken of in connection with Christianity. There are lots of sermons on love—it’s a pretty plain and simple subject. Everybody talks about love. But where are all the people who love? God’s kind of love is unconditional and always available. He extends His love toward you and He wants you to receive it and be blessed. Then He wants you to give it away to others. What the world needs now is love—real love. I have discovered that lonely and hurting people often don’t expect you to meet their needs . . . they simply want to be loved and understood. If you’re in need of real love, receive it from God right now. Then let it flow through you to bless others.

When you confess your sin, you need to expect that those you’ve wronged are likely to be upset, angry, and deeply hurt by your sin. You should expect relational consequences, not all of which will be in just proportion to what you have done. Remember that we always sin against other sinners. Offering forgiveness can be just as hard as confessing sin.

Attitude creates actions create results create destiny. Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, has traveled the world studying the everyday living habits of people who are healthiest and live the longest of anyone on the planet. Of all the factors possibly influencing health, vitality, and longevity, Buettner and his team compiled a list of nine. These people (1) live an active life, (2) cultivate purpose and a reason to wake up every morning, (3) take time to de-stress (appreciation, prayer, etc.), (4) stop eating when they are 80 percent full, (5) eat a diet emphasizing vegetables, especially beans, (6) have moderate alcohol intake (especially dark red wine), (7) play an active role in a faith-based community, (8) place a strong emphasis on family, and (9) are part of like-minded social circles with similar habits. As Buettner points out, physiological factors like exercise and diet play a role—but not as big a role as you’d expect. A big part of it is factors that have to do with attitude, habits of behavior, and who they associate with. And while we’re talking about positivity, let me clear up a common misconception about positive outlook, right here and now. Cultivating positive outlook does not mean you are always happy. It does not mean life never gets you down. It does not mean you walk around with an idiotic grin on your face even when you’re hurting, and it doesn’t mean living in denial, ignoring the realities of pain and struggle, or checking your brain at the door. People who cultivate a genuinely positive outlook go through tough times, too; when we’re cut, we bleed red blood just like everyone else.

However much Ylo enjoyed women, he would always expect them to have fun, also. He believed quite honestly that he was doing them a good turn. With his word of power to aid him, Andor was a much more calculating hunter. He knew the damage his seductions might cause. Not only would he care little about hurting his victims, he probably enjoyed that, also. There was a difference between amorality and immorality — not much of one, but some. The

Don’t Hurt the Lord “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?” (John 14:9). Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us—astounded at how “un-simple” we are. It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time. Philip expected the future revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in Jesus, the Person he thought he already knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be—it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event. We have no reluctance to obey Jesus, but it is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask—“Lord, show us the Father . . .” (14:8). His response immediately comes back to us as He says, “Can’t you see Him? He is always right here or He is nowhere to be found.” We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself in His children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not. We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child. “Let not your heart be troubled . . .” (14:1, 27). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.

If we expect perfection from man instead of God, we are indeed in trouble, and our personal problems, with others and with ourselves, are many. Our lives will then be easily soured. Take, for example, a common situation: wedding invitations. More than a few people are annoyed when they get one, because it means a gift, and they "feel cheap" sending just a card, even though only casual friends. However, if they do not get an invitation, they are then hurt or offended. In brief, sinful man will always milk trouble out of any situation. What then do you do? "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes," that is, men at their highest and best are still not to be trusted, for they are sinners. Our trust or dependence must be in the Lord. Thus remember, people are sinners. If they hurt and disappoint you, it is because there is first of all something with you: you have put your trust in the creature rather than the Creator. We can enjoy people, be good friends and neighbors, and live best with them if we know ourselves and them as alike sinners, either saved or lost, but even as saved, still very capable of thoughtlessness and sin. Our trust must be in the Lord.

You’re bleeding,” he said. “A thorn prick, no more,” she stated. “I didn’t know fairy creatures could bleed. I always fancied them spun of mist and moonlight, not flesh and blood.” “Let go.” “No, my love—” “I’m not a fairy creature, and I am surely not your love.” “It’s just an expression.” “It’s a lie. But ’tis no high wonder to me. I’d be expecting falsehoods from a Sassenach.” “Poor Caitlin. Does it hurt?” Very slowly, with his eyes fixed on hers, he put her finger to his lips and gently slipped it inside his mouth. Too shocked to stop him, she felt the warmth of his mouth, the moist velvet brush of his tongue over the pad of her finger. Then with an excess of gentleness he drew it out and placed her hand in her lap. “I think the bleeding’s stopped,” he said.

Insulting your intelligence. Not making you feel special and appreciated . All the times I continued to do things when you asked me to stop. Using the silent treatment to get what I wanted. Choosing to ignore you until you said you were sorry when we had a fight . Expecting sex whenever I wanted it but not giving it when you did . Not meeting your emotional needs and driving you to get them from another man . Not recognizing just how strong of a person you are . Making you wear a bathing suit when you were pregnant so I could make fun of you. All of the times that I didn't do things around the house because I knew you would do them eventually. Not doing more upkeep on our house. Having so many hobbies and interest and not simply appreciating you, the kids, our home, and our life. Always finding something to criticize about you. Not nurturing you . Not building you up but always tearing you down. Not complimenting you more. Taking you for granted. Not taking care of my body more to give you something pleasing to look at. Not letting go . All the emails. Expecting my needs to be the first priority of the family because I was the head of the household . Not knowing the true meaning of being the head of the household . Not reading more with you . Getting mad at you about something 3 or 4 times a week, maybe more . Not learning to enjoy your hobbies with you . Not working in the yard with you more . Interrupting you when you talk . Always acting like the victim . Limiting your spending money by giving you an allowance . Being unhappy so many days of my life . Ingraining in you and the kids "Is dad mad?". Getting mad and not staying overnight at the marriage seminar a few years ago . All the 1000's of more times I’m not remembering of "being mad because ______”. Yelling at you 1000's of times. Not providing the means for you to fix up the house the way you wanted to. Destroying your dreams. Always having to struggle for money . Not going to kids events with you . Defending myself whenever you'd point out something I was doing to upset you or the kids. You being married to a man who was still a child in his emotional development. Not recognizing how hurt you were . Being verbally abusive . Taking my misery out on you and the kids . My ego and my pride . Putting you first instead of God . Making you feel as if you never measured up . Crushing the tender flower in you . Not building the children up spiritually . Always thinking your issues were no big deal . All the tax problems . Not paying all our bills . Being lazy . Thinking I always had all the answers . Never apologizing . Never backing down. Telling you why you shouldn't feel the way you felt about things . Not learning the true meaning of a godly man and godly marriage. Having to make you suffer because of my fear of abandonment . Asking you to do things during sex that you didn’t like or were not comfortable doing . Any event(s) that are strong in your mind that I have failed to recognize in this list that was ever hurtful, disrespectful or disappointing to you. Making you have to divorce me. There was no other way for me to wake up and realize exactly the person I have been and how I was in our marriage. I am waking up.

Someone who was always at the Pillar’s side, someone who gave him advice he needed to hear, who made everything run smoother. Who helped the Pillar to be the Pillar.” Hilo got up and went over to Wen. He held out a hand and raised her to her feet. “You’re that person,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t be Pillar without you, and I still can’t. We’ve both hurt each other because we were too stubborn about what we expected, and we paid badly for that. But what’s the point of life if we give up on the people we love?” He enfolded her into his arms and stroked her smooth hair. He kissed her on the forehead and cheeks and mouth. “Wen, will you be my Pillarman?

In the precapitalist world, patriarchy allowed all men to completely rule women in their families, to decide their fate, to shape their destiny. Men could freely batter women with no fear of punishment. They could decide whom their daughters were to marry, whether they would read or write, etc. Many of these powers were lost to men with the development of the capitalist nation-state in the United States. This loss of power did not correspond with decreased emphasis on the ideology of male supremacy. However, the idea of the patriarch as worker, providing for and protecting his family, was transformed as his labor primarily benefited the capitalist state. Men not only no longer had complete authority and control over women; they no longer had control over their own lives. They were controlled by the economic needs of capitalism. As workers, most men in our culture (like working women) are controlled, dominated. Unlike working women, working men are fed daily a fantasy diet of male supremacy and power. In actuality, they have very little power and they know it. Yet they do not rebel against the economic order nor make revolution. They are socialized by ruling powers to accept their dehumanization and exploitation in the public world of work and they are taught to expect that the private world, the world of home and intimate relationships, will restore to them their sense of power which they equate with masculinity. They are taught that they will be able to rule in the home, to control and dominate, that this is the big pay-off for their acceptance of an exploitative economic social order. By condoning and perpetuating male domination of women to prevent rebellion on the job, ruling male capitalists ensure that male violence will be expressed in the home and not in the work force. The entry of women into the work force, which also serves the interests of capitalism, has taken even more control over women away from men. Therefore men rely more on the use of violence to establish and maintain a sex role hierarchy in which they are in a dominant position. At one time, their dominance was determined by the fact that they were the sole wage earners. Their need to dominate women (socially constructed by the ideology of male supremacy) coupled with suppressed aggression towards employers who "rule" over them make the domestic environment the center of explosive tensions that lead to violence. Women are the targets because there is no fear that men will suffer or be severely punished if they hurt women, especially wives and lovers. They would be punished if they violently attacked employers, police officers. Black women and men have always called attention to a "cycle of violence" that begins with psychological abuse in the public world wherein the male worker may be subjected to control by a boss or authority figure that is humiliating and degrading. Since he depends on the work situation for material survival, he does not strike out or oppose the employer who would punish him by taking his job or imprisoning him. He suppresses this violence and releases it in what I call a "control" situation, a situation where he has no need to fear retaliation, wherein he does not have to suffer as a consequence of acting violently. The home is usually this control situation and the target for his abuse is usually female. Though his own expression of violence against women stems in part from the emotional pain he feels, the pain is released and projected onto the female. When the pain disappears he feels relief, even pleasure. His pain is gone even though it was not confronted or resolved in a healthy way. As the psychology of masculinity in sexist societies teaches men that to acknowledge and express pain negates masculinity and is a symbolic castration, causing pain rather than expressing it restores men's sense of completeness, of wholeness, of masculinity.

No mother is guaranteed that her children will always love her, or that they’ll never hurt her. In fact, I think the one thing they’re guaranteed is being left behind. And being left behind hurts, even when you’re happy that they’re grown, it still hurts. So, I guess loving is accepting that it’s about giving and never about taking. If you expect something in return, then love becomes a transaction and it’s not love anymore.

As often as possible, sometimes at all costs, and often times in spite of good reason, we are both compelled by our psyche and pressured by our social circumstances to always be right. And when we aren’t, it hurts. So much so that it can often create horrible sensations in the brain akin to real physical pain. And so, we of course try to avoid it, or at least admitting it, at all costs. And yet, it is impossible to avoid. And furthermore, it is possibly the case that fundamentally, we are never actually right at all. In the words of St. Augustine, “I err, therefore I am.” As a consciousness, in the form that we are born into, we are all put up against the imperative of our mind to desire absolute truth, while simultaneously, the seeming imperative of the natural world that prohibits us from obtaining it. We will all cling to reason and answers and worldviews just to have them smashed to pieces time and time again, whether we know it or admit it to ourselves or not. We will all likely not only be wrong often but right rarely, even in the meta, subjective sense. And so, perhaps we can and must learn how to be ok with this if we wish to be ok with consciousness. Perhaps we must learn how to fundamentally be ok with being wrong, or we will loath ourselves until the end. Perhaps we must love and accept the hypocrisy that runs through the very veins of the human condition, or we will hate all of humankind. Perhaps we must learn how to dial back our expectations and the degree in which we dread over the inevitable failure of everything we believe, and the beliefs of others just the same. This is not to make light of the immense challenge of such an arduous endeavor. It is an endless upward climb of surpassing one’s default mode and understanding of the world. But perhaps if we can, at least some of the time, succeed in doing so, we can feel a little less embarrassed, disgusted, miserable, ashamed, bitter, angry, and all the rest, and perhaps we can be a little less wrong a little more often. This apparent impossibility of successfully thinking paired with the inability to ever not be thinking, seems to beg the question: is consciousness a gift or a curse? Or perhaps some combination of both? Perhaps the answer depends on whether or not all of this, the ability to be curious about and discuss things like the possible impossibility of ever truly being right is worth possibly never being right about anything. And perhaps such a truth can only be answered by you.

You’ve done better than anyone could have expected or asked of you. I’m proud of you." Draco stared at Sirius for a moment. No one had ever said that to him before. Not once, not ever. "I didn’t have a choice," he said. "There’s always a choice," said Sirius. "When we say there’s no choice, we’re just comforting ourselves about the decision we’ve already made." His voice was, for a moment, bitter. "Even under threat or torture there is always a choice. And you’ve made the right ones. Draco..." He rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder. "Being a good person...it doesn’t mean adhering to some random set of rules you’ve imagined, or imposed on yourself. It means doing each right thing because it is the right thing; because it protects the people you care about. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s not to be afraid of the responsibility that comes with caring for other people. What we do for love: those things endure." And his eyes darkened. "Even if the people you did them for don’t." Sympathy tore out of Draco what anger or condemnation would not have. His throat tightened, and he burst out, "I told Harry about his parents - that was wrong of me-- " Sirius silenced him with a gesture. "I know you’d rather cut your own hand off than hurt him. You did the wrong thing but for the right reasons. Maybe you saved his life. I did the wrong thing; I should have told him myself, before.

Because letting Brendon get to know her meant letting him in. It meant trusting him with a million left facts, all the haphazard pieces of herself, and hoping he'd remember them all. You couldn't be disappointed when someone forgot your middle name if they didn't know your middle name. You couldn't be upset when someone forgot your favorite food or how you felt about your job if you never told them to begin with. You couldn't be disappointed when someone stopped caring if you never expected them to in the first place. Rejections always stung, but nothing hurt quite as badly as sharing pieces of yourself, trusting someone with your heart, and then being cast aside when you cared more than they did.

Yet he worked unceasingly, amassing a considerable fortune in the process, at turning clients who were indubitably criminals loose upon society. He always assumed that the words from a witness' mouth were perjury, unless he had put them there himself. He expected his friends eventually to double-cross him, and was neither surprised nor hurt when they occasionally did. Yet this did not interfere in the least with his very sincere liking for them.