Growing Up Is Optional Quotes

Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

Advice to my younger self: 1 Start where you are with what you have 2 Try not to hurt other people 3 Take more chances 4 If you fail, keep trying

To experience commitment as the loss of options, a type of death, the death of childhood's limitless possibility, of the flattery of choice without duress-this will happen, mark me. Childhood's end.

The minute I was bored with a book or a subject I moved to another one, instead of giving up on reading altogether - when you are limited to the school material and you get bored, you have a tendency to give up and do nothing or play hooky out of discouragement. The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than with the act of reading. So the number of the pages absorbed could grow faster than otherwise. And you find gold, so to speak, effortlessly, just as in rational but undirected trial-and-error-based research. It is exactly like options, trial and error, not getting stuck, bifurcating when necessary but keeping a sense of broad freedom and opportunism. Trial and error is freedom.

Growing old is compulsory - growing up is optional.

I'm not body-shy--it's hard to grow up in the Summerlands, where clothes are solidly optional, and stay body-shy--but that doesn't mean I enjoy nudity. Naked people are, by definition, unarmed.​

Growing old is the price you pay for living. Growing up is optional. Be true to yourself - don't let people turn you into something you're not.

Never feel bad about cutting someone out of your life—sometimes that's the only option. When you hang out with people who are true friends, you come away feeling lighter, more inspired to work hard, give love, and take care of yourself.

Growing Old is Mandatory - Growing Up Is Optional

Though his heart denied it with every fiber of its being, his mind knew that home was no longer an option. And he didn't cry. He didn't fret. He lay there on the earth, realizing and accepting and hardening. That was the night that James Hook began to grow up.

When your mom and I were your age, there weren't a lot of options for girls. Like, you know how your mother's always telling you that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up? That wasn't what we heard. Men could be doctors or lawyers. We were just supposed to marry them.

Who hasn't thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it? It's an option taken by a lot of successful people: Ernest Hemingway, Socrates, Jesus. Even before high school, I thought that it would be a cool thing to do if I ever got really famous. If I kept making my maps, for instance, and some art collector came across them and decided to make them worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if I killed myself at the height of that, they'd be worth millions of dollars, and I wouldn't be responsible for them anymore. I'd have left behind something that spoke for itself.

The bible is foreign to me, but its concepts are not. My father always said that hatred is a waste and never an option. He learned this growing up in Ahwaz, Iran, in a Muslim household. I have tried my best to pass the same message to my children, born and raised in the United States. Ultimately, it doesn't matter where we learn that lesson. It's just important that we do.

I guess I just struggle with belonging to any organization. I always feel like I should be able to do it on my own. My ego tells me I'm better than all this... I want to rebel against it, though of course, I don't really have any options.

Growing old is inevitable - growing up is still optional

Because when you grow up poor in the South, you have two options: you can either sink into your misery and die, or you celebrate every little thing you can and live.

What I used to fear was growing old—not the aches and pains part or the what-have-I-done-with-my-life part or the threat of illness, none of that. I just couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without the option of looking good. I had a piece of good luck. I married Rich in my late forties and thus was eased into middle age while living with a man who approved of the way I looked. When after three years of marriage I lamented the fact that I had put on a good deal of weight, he said, “Don’t worry. I love it all. You can get as fat as you want.” Then, upon reflection, he added sweetly, “As long as you can still get up from your chair.

Greek women were not allowed to be: free and untamed. In fact, Artemis is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, her commitment to purity must have been greatly admired by Ancient Greeks; yet she is also untamable and answers to no man. She is truly the eternal wild child who never has to grow up and shoulder the responsibilities that adulthood brings. She never has to compromise herself or conform to any of society’s standards. No wonder she is associated with the moon—completely untouchable, forever unattainable. If offered the option of becoming one of Artemis’ immortal maidens, freed forever from the shackles of marriage or slavery, I think many Ancient Greek women would have jumped on that bandwagon as it careened past

We teach children from a very young age that not having a girlfriend or boyfriend is almost a problem – but happily, we also let them understand that there’s ‘still time’. But we never give them the option of not wanting one. With girls, it’s reinforced by an armada of clichés and conventions conveyed through the fairy stories they absorb, from the sleeping beauty waiting for a kiss from a prince to be brought back to life, to the lonesome wicked witch who devours other people’s children. Boys, meanwhile, grow up with a more nuanced vision, thanks to a fantasy world peopled by solitary heroes who achieve extraordinary things because of their superpowers. The message is fundamentally the same, but boys have more opportunities to develop different perspectives. They’re not so bound to this image of themselves trapped in a depressing and inert solitude. Their sense of self-worth is not conditioned by the fact of having a girlfriend or a wife. They’re encouraged to be actors in a turbulent life, to reach for their dreams, to give their all to reach the top of the mountain. Little girls, meanwhile, must wait for their Prince Charming to turn up.

Growing up, my mom gave me the choice of either golf lessons or piano, and of course I chose the more musical option. That's how I learned to make triumphant trumpet noises with my mouth.

On Rachel's show for November 7, 2012: Ohio really did go to President Obama last night. and he really did win. And he really was born in Hawaii. And he really is legitimately President of the United States, again. And the Bureau of Labor statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month. And the congressional research service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy. And the polls were not screwed to over-sample Democrats. And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad; Nate Silver was doing math. And climate change is real. And rape really does cause pregnancy, sometimes. And evolution is a thing. And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us. And nobody is taking away anyone's guns. And taxes have not gone up. And the deficit is dropping, actually. And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. And the moon landing was real. And FEMA is not building concentration camps. And you and election observers are not taking over Texas. And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism. Listen, last night was a good night for liberals and for democrats for very obvious reasons, but it was also, possibly, a good night for this country as a whole. Because in this country, we have a two-party system in government. And the idea is supposed to be that the two sides both come up with ways to confront and fix the real problems facing our country. They both propose possible solutions to our real problems. And we debate between those possible solutions. And by the process of debate, we pick the best idea. That competition between good ideas from both sides about real problems in the real country should result in our country having better choices, better options, than if only one side is really working on the hard stuff. And if the Republican Party and the conservative movement and the conservative media is stuck in a vacuum-sealed door-locked spin cycle of telling each other what makes them feel good and denying the factual, lived truth of the world, then we are all deprived as a nation of the constructive debate about competing feasible ideas about real problems. Last night the Republicans got shellacked, and they had no idea it was coming. And we saw them in real time, in real humiliating time, not believe it, even as it was happening to them. And unless they are going to secede, they are going to have to pop the factual bubble they have been so happy living inside if they do not want to get shellacked again, and that will be a painful process for them, but it will be good for the whole country, left, right, and center. You guys, we're counting on you. Wake up. There are real problems in the world. There are real, knowable facts in the world. Let's accept those and talk about how we might approach our problems differently. Let's move on from there. If the Republican Party and the conservative movement and conservative media are forced to do that by the humiliation they were dealt last night, we will all be better off as a nation. And in that spirit, congratulations, everyone!

Long ago, I would’ve laughed at the idea of not killing someone as my first option, but here I am. It’s strange, the ease of falling so far from who I once was, but does it not take falling to learn how to stand?

If I gave you every piece of me, I know that you could drop it Give you the chance, I know that you could take advantage once you got it If I open up my heart to you, I know that you could lock it Throw away the key and keep it there forever in your pocket If I gave the opportunity to you, then would you blow it? If I was the greatest thing that happened to you, would you know it? If my love was like a flower, would you plant it, would you grow it? I might give you all my body, are you strong enough to hold it? If I show you all my demons And we dive into the deep end Would we crash and burn like every time before? I would tell you all my secrets Wrap your arms around my weakness If the only other option's letting go

I also hope to be your friend. I am going to need you to hold my hand through some memories, and there may be times that I’ll end up holding yours as we confront similar things that scare us. I’ve come to recognize fear when I see it. It may show itself in different ways, but it’s a familiar face, isn’t it? I have a different relationship to fear now. I’ve learned that we grow from walking through it, and a lot of people don’t even know they have that option. You either conquer it, or you let it destroy you. So, let’s do this together.

Imagine that you're an extremely modern car, equipped with a greater number of options and functions than most cars. You're faster and higher performance. You're very lucky. But it's not easy. Because no one knows exactly the number of options you have or what they enable you to do. Only you can know. And speed can be dangerous. Like when you're eight, you don't know how to drive. There are many things you have to learn: how to drive when it's wet, when it's snowy, to look out for other cars and respect them, to rest when you've been driving for too long. That's what it means to be a grown up.' I'm thirteen and I can see that I'm not managing to grow up in the right way: I can't understand the road signs, I'm not in control of my vehicle, I keep taking the wrong turnings and most of the time I feel like I'm stuck on the dodgems rather than on a race track.

Of the hundreds of answers, most had one thing in common: the majority of regrets were about failures to act, not actions that failed. Psychologists have found that over time we usually regret the chances we missed, not the chances we took. As my mom often told me when I was growing up, “You regret the things you don’t do, not the things you do.

When education is overwhelmed by hypermedia, travel facile or ruinous, and work a blurred mixture of more dependence and less meaning, it’s harder than ever to use those experiences to grow. But growing up, I have argued, has been dogged by dilemma ever since it was a real option. As Enlightenment philosophers knew, it’s a process that is as socially determined as it is profoundly individual.

I licked my dry lips, glancing around at everyone staring at us. Finally I looked up into Cole’s handsome face. “I’m here because I love you, and I need to ask you something.” I took a deep breath. It was time to go big. I lowered myself to one knee. Cole’s eyes grew round and I heard a few female gasps behind him. “Shannon, what—” “Cole Walker, I once told you in fear that you were nothing, but there has never been a day of your life that that was true and there has never been a day I’ve ever really thought that. You’ve been extraordinary to me since we were fifteen.” I smiled shakily, feeling vulnerable and frightened but hopeful too as he stared down at me with growing tenderness in his expression. “Apart from Logan I’ve never had a real family. The kind you can count on through everything. The kind that gives you second, third, fourth chances because the other option is no option at all. Because they love you and they’re there for you. Unconditionally. Logan was the only one who ever gave me that. Until you. You’re my family, Cole. I want you to be my family forever.” I laughed hoarsely. “I don’t have a ring or anything. I just have me. And I know I’m not perfect and I know you deserve perfect . . . but I love you more than anyone else in this world and I promise you I’ll never let you forget that again.” My heart slowed its rapid beating as a sense of calm came over me. A sense of rightness. It was as if I’d found the balance I’d been missing ever since I got in that car and left Cole behind on that stoop on Scotland Street all those years ago. “It’s always been you, and I always want it to be . . . Marry me, Cole.

The alternative to soul-acceptance is soul-fatigue. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. When we stay up too late and rise too early; when we try to fuel ourselves for the day with coffee and a donut in the morning and Red Bull in the afternoon; when we refuse to take the time to exercise and we eat foods that clog our brains and arteries; when we constantly try to guess which line at the grocery store will move faster and which car in which lane at the stoplight will move faster and which parking space is closest to the mall, our bodies grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the mind. When we are bombarded by information all day at work . . . When multiple screens are always clamoring for our attention . . . When we carry around mental lists of errands not yet done and bills not yet paid and emails not yet replied to . . . When we try to push unpleasant emotions under the surface like holding beach balls under the water at a swimming pool . . . our minds grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the will. We have so many decisions to make. When we are trying to decide what clothes will create the best possible impression, which foods will bring us the most pleasure, which tasks at work will bring us the most success, which entertainment options will make us the most happy, which people we dare to disappoint, which events we must attend, even what vacation destination will be most enjoyable, the need to make decisions overwhelms us. The sheer length of the menu at Cheesecake Factory oppresses us. Sometimes college students choose double majors, not because they want to study two fields, but simply because they cannot make the decision to say “no” to either one. Our wills grow weary with so many choices.

Thus is the defining characteristic of gay millennials: we straddle the pre-Glee and post-Glee worlds. We went to high school when faggot wasn’t even considered an F-word, when being a lesbian meant boys just didn’t want you, when being nonbinary wasn’t even a remote option. We grew up without queer characters in our cartoons or Nickelodeon or Disney or TGIF sitcoms. We were raised in homophobia, came of age as the world changed around us, and are raising children in an age where it’s never been easier to be same-sex parents. We’re both lucky and jealous. As the state of gay evolved culturally and politically, we were old enough to see it and process it and not take it for granted–old enough to know what the world was like without it. Despite the success of Drag Race, the existence of lesbian Christmas rom-coms, and openly transgender Oscar nominees, we haven’t moved on from the trauma of growing up in a culture that hates us. We don’t move on from trauma, really. We can’t really leave it in the past. It becomes a part of us, and we move forward with it. For LGBTQ+ millennials, our pride is couched in painful memories of a culture repulsed and frightened by queerness. That makes us skittish. It makes us loud. It makes us fear that all this progress, all this tolerance , all of Billy Porter's red carpet looks can vanish as quickly as it all appeared.

It is the teacher's and the lawmaker's responsibility to allow the child to express his feelings about growing up. What happens to a child at that particular age? It is a terribly vulnerable time, and if we provide youths with an environment to be free, to be expressive, without embarrassing them, without shaming them, they would grow up to be healthy, compassionate adults. Instead, if we force them to “belong, belong, belong,” they all become repressed. There is a complete absence of options.

When in child consciousness, an adult relates to themself and the world through helplessness, lack of agency, and feeling dependent on others for them to be OK. They experience their lives narrowly and without many options, leading to a limited sense of capacity and resiliency. They feel the regressive need to protect themselves from the threat of relational loss through a variety of strategies of disconnection (which traditionally have been referred to as defense mechanisms). Any sense of “growing up” or forward progress may feel like threat to the loyalty to these old survival style patterns.

It reminds me of that saying: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." I guess that means we're just products of whoever made us us and we don't have much control. The thing is, when people use that phrase, they ignore the most critical part: the falling. Within the logic of that saying, the apple falls every single time. Not falling isn't an option. So, if the apple has to fall, the most important question in my mind is what happens to it upon hitting the ground? Does it touch down with barely a scratch? Or does it smash on impact? Two vastly different fates. When you think about it, who cares about its proximity to the tree or what type of tree spawned it? What really makes all the difference, then, is how we land.

I could not disagree more,” said Ganesh, my father giving me a hidden wink. “If we build toward them they’ll see it as hostile and we’ll be pulled into a confrontation. Now, I agree that we’ve got to expand — these last few days in Bridewell have clearly shown that. Within a few years Bridewell and the towns against the sea will be at maximum capacity, and then what will we do? We have over ten miles between us and Ainsworth, which I think is a good healthy distance. We can’t expand off the cliffs from Lathbury or Turlock, so those are dead ends. Bridewell is stuck in the middle with no place to grow. I think our best option is to start building two-and three-story buildings. Grow up instead of out. We could grow to twice our size if we just abolished the single-level rule.

When I was growing up, you couldn't be tender; that was not a safe option. This is both a function of masculinity as it's performed in our society, as well as the kind of neighborhood and circumstances I grew up in." One of the limitations of it is the exhaustion of having to have your guard up. "It's like having to put on armor. I guess that's the best metaphor that I could use. And I really do mean that metaphor very intentionally. Because it isn't just the protective shield, but it also makes it harder for you to move around in the world. And it's heavy, it's a burden. I've worked really hard in my adulthood to (a) kind of drop some of that shit; but (b) make sure that I'm in circumstances where I don't have to wear it in the first place. But it's fucking exhausting. And it's painful.

Eric Berne once described it . . . A little boy sees and hears birds with delight. Then the “good father” comes along and feels he should “share” the experience and help his son “develop.” He says: “That’s a jay, and this is a sparrow.” The moment the little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. He has to see and hear them the way the father wants him to. Father has good reasons on his side, since few people can go through life listening to the birds sing, and the sooner the boy starts his “education” the better. Maybe he will be an ornithologist when he grows up. A few people, however, can still see and hear in the old way. But most of the members of the human race have lost the capacity to be painters, poets, or musicians, and are not left the option of seeing and hearing directly even if they can afford to; they must get it secondhand.5

In cultures where asceticism developed and was practiced, people knew that one can suffocate when every option is a readily available one. Without self-limitation, without fixed boundaries - like those given in creation between day and night, summer and winter, being young and growing old-life loses its humanness. Asceticism means to renounce at least for periods of time the options that present themselves . . . In rich societies, the fundamental idea of sacrifice is highly suspect; it contradicts the basic constitution of the world of affluence. Sacrifice, as well as those who are to do the sacrificing have indeed been much abused. Even so, voluntary sacrifice, freely renouncing status, and limiting career or other options available to oneself can consolidate one's capacity for happiness. This seems very apparent to me in ecological resistance movements. No one can feel at home in a world that has to be bought and used up. We ourselves as well as the environment are damaged by consumerism; it dulls the senses so that people no longer know how to smell, taste, feel, and see.

He was walking down a narrow street in Beirut, Lebanon, the air thick with the smell of Arabic coffee and grilled chicken. It was midday, and he was sweating badly beneath his flannel shirt. The so-called South Lebanon conflict, the Israeli occupation, which had begun in 1982 and would last until 2000, was in its fifth year. The small white Fiat came screeching around the corner with four masked men inside. His cover was that of an aid worker from Chicago and he wasn’t strapped. But now he wished he had a weapon, if only to have the option of ending it before they took him. He knew what that would mean. The torture first, followed by the years of solitary. Then his corpse would be lifted from the trunk of a car and thrown into a drainage ditch. By the time it was found, the insects would’ve had a feast and his mother would have nightmares, because the authorities would not allow her to see his face when they flew his body home. He didn’t run, because the only place to run was back the way he’d come, and a second vehicle had already stopped halfway through a three-point turn, all but blocking off the street. They exited the Fiat fast. He was fit and trained, but he knew they’d only make it worse for him in the close confines of the car if he fought them. There was a time for that and a time for raising your hands, he’d learned. He took an instep hard in the groin, and a cosh over the back of his head as he doubled over. He blacked out then. The makeshift cell Hezbollah had kept him in in Lebanon was a bare concrete room, three metres square, without windows or artificial light. The door was wooden, reinforced with iron strips. When they first dragged him there, he lay in the filth that other men had made. They left him naked, his wrists and ankles chained. He was gagged with rag and tape. They had broken his nose and split his lips. Each day they fed him on half-rancid scraps like he’d seen people toss to skinny dogs. He drank only tepid water. Occasionally, he heard the muted sound of children laughing, and smelt a faint waft of jasmine. And then he could not say for certain how long he had been there; a month, maybe two. But his muscles had wasted and he ached in every joint. After they had said their morning prayers, they liked to hang him upside down and beat the soles of his feet with sand-filled lengths of rubber hose. His chest was burned with foul-smelling cigarettes. When he was stubborn, they lay him bound in a narrow structure shaped like a grow tunnel in a dusty courtyard. The fierce sun blazed upon the corrugated iron for hours, and he would pass out with the heat. When he woke up, he had blisters on his skin, and was riddled with sand fly and red ant bites. The duo were good at what they did. He guessed the one with the grey beard had honed his skills on Jewish conscripts over many years, the younger one on his own hapless people, perhaps. They looked to him like father and son. They took him to the edge of consciousness before easing off and bringing him back with buckets of fetid water. Then they rubbed jagged salt into the fresh wounds to make him moan with pain. They asked the same question over and over until it sounded like a perverse mantra. “Who is The Mandarin? His name? Who is The Mandarin?” He took to trying to remember what he looked like, the architecture of his own face beneath the scruffy beard that now covered it, and found himself flinching at the slightest sound. They had peeled back his defences with a shrewdness and deliberation that had both surprised and terrified him. By the time they freed him, he was a different man.  

I turned my focus to clothes, immediately endeavoring to find just the right dress for the occasion. This was huge--my debut as the girlfriend of Marlboro Man--and I shopped with that in mind. Should I go for a sleek, sexy suit? That might seem too confident and brazen. A floral silk skirt? Too obvious for a wedding. A little black dress? Too conservative and safe. The options pummeled my brain as I browsed the choices on the racks. I tried on dress after dress, suit after suit, outfit after outfit, my frustration growing more acute with each zip of the zipper. I wanted to be a man. Men don’t agonize over what to wear to a wedding. They don’t spend seven hours trying on clothes. They don’t think of wardrobe choices as life-or-death decisions. That’s when I found it: a drop-dead gorgeous fitted suit the exact color of a stick of butter. It was snug, with just a slight hint of sexy, but the lovely, pure color made up for it. The fabric was a lightweight wool, but since the wedding would be at night, I knew it would be just fine. I loved the suit--not only would I feel pretty for Marlboro Man, but I’d also appear moderately, but not overly, confident to all his cousins, and appropriate and proper to his elderly grandmothers.

LEADING LESSONS Criticism can be useful. I’ve taken a beating from the DWTS judges on many occasions. Most of the time, because I’m always aware of the cameras in my face, I just suck it up and take it. Here’s the thing: I realize that maybe they’re seeing something I’m not. Sometimes you’re too close to a situation, too connected to it, to be 100 percent honest with yourself. Or your ego gets in the way and won’t let you improve, because that would mean changing course and admitting you were wrong. I tell my partners to listen carefully when Len, Carrie Ann, or Bruno has a constructive criticism for us. Yes, sometimes it boils down to taste and opinion (and I don’t always agree), but often it’s a valid point. They want us to succeed. The way I see it, you have lots of choices on how to handle it: the first is to lose your temper, get defensive, and spend the rest of the night beating yourself up about it. The second--a natural reaction for most people--is to mentally shut down when someone points out your flaws. Who wants to hear that? Let me just drown it out and ignore it. The third option is your best: keep your mind and your ears open. You can learn about your weaknesses and how you can improve them. A leader is never scared of criticism, but instead knows there is always room to grow and improve. So bring it on.

Lord Gareth?" He froze. It was she, staring out at him with an expression of astounded disbelief on her lovely face. Gareth was caught totally unprepared. He knew he must look like an arse because he certainly felt like one. But the comic ridiculousness of the situation suddenly hit him, and his lips began twitching uncontrollably. He gazed up at her with perfect innocence. "Hello, Juliet." A chorus of out-of-tune voices came up from below. "Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?" Gareth flung his crop down at their heads. Cokeham let out a yelp, then fell to laughing. The girl's smooth, high brow pleated in a frown as she took in the scene. Perry down there with the horses. The other Den of Debauchery members all gathered below, beaming stupidly up at her. And Gareth, grinning, sprawled full-length along a tree branch just outside her window. "Just what on earth are you doing, Lord Gareth?" The way she said it made his cheeks warm with embarrassment. So he was a pillock. Who cared? Instead, he gave her his most devastating grin and said with cheerful earnestness, "Why, I have come to rescue you, of course." "Rescue me?" "Surely you didn't think I'd allow Lucien to banish you into obscurity, now, did you?" "Well, I —  The duke didn't ban—"  She gave a disbelieving little laugh and leaned out the window, grasping the blanket tightly at her breasts. Her hair, caught in a long, dark braid, swung tantalizingly out over her bosom. "Really, Lord Gareth. This is ... highly irregular!" "Yes, but the hour is late, and as it took me all day to find you, I was feeling rather impatient. I do hope you'll forgive me for resorting to such desperate measures. May I come in and talk?" "Of course not! I — I cannot have a man in my bedroom!" "Why not, my sweet?" He pushed aside a small, leafy twig in order to see her better and grinned cajolingly up at her. "I had you in mine." She shook her head, torn between what she wanted to do — and what she ought to do. "Really, Lord Gareth ... your brother will never approve of this. You should go home. After all, you're the son of a duke and I'm just a — " " — beautiful young woman with nowhere else to go. A beautiful young woman who should be a part of my family. Now, do collect Charlotte and your things, Miss Paige — I fear we must make haste, if we are to marry before Lucien catches up to us." "Marry?!" she cried, forgetting to whisper. He gazed at her in blank, perfect innocence. "Well, yes, of course," he said, clinging to the branch as it dropped another few inches. "Surely you don't think I'd be hanging out of a tree for anything less, do you?" "But —" "Come now."  He smiled disarmingly. "Surely, you must see there is really no other option for you. And I won't have my niece growing up without a father. What kind of a man do you think I am? Now, gather up Charlotte and get your things, my dear Miss Paige, and come outside. I am growing most uncomfortable." Juliet

We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.” “It is,” Len said. “It is,” I repeated. “There seem to be solid biological reasons why we are the way we are. If there weren’t, the cycles wouldn’t keep replaying. The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves. We can grow up. We can leave the nest. We can fulfill the Destiny, make homes for ourselves among the stars, and become some combination of what we want to become and whatever our new environments challenge us to become. Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They’ll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it’s only to begin a new one, a different one.

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

YOU FIRST When entering into relationships, we have a tendency to bend. We bend closer to one another, because regardless of what type of relationship it might be — romantic, business, friendship — there’s a reason you’re bringing that other person into your life, and that means the load is easier to carry if you carry it together, both bending toward the center. I picture people in relationships as two trees, leaning toward one another. Over time, as the relationship solidifies, you both become more comfortable bending, and as such bend farther, eventually resting trunk to trunk. You support each other and are stronger because of the shared strength of your root system and entwined branches. Double-tree power! But there’s a flaw in this mode of operation. Once you’ve spent some time leaning on someone else, if they disappear — because of a breakup, a business upset, a death, a move, an argument — you’re all that’s left, and far weaker than when you started. You’re a tree leaning sideways; the second foundation that once supported you is…gone. This is a big part of why the ending of particularly strong relationships can be so disruptive. When your support system presupposes two trunks — two people bearing the load, and divvying up the responsibilities; coping with the strong winds and hailstorms of life — it can be shocking and uncomfortable and incredibly difficult to function as an individual again; to be just a solitary tree, alone in the world, dealing with it all on your own. A lone tree needn’t be lonely, though. It’s most ideal, in fact, to grow tall and strong, straight up, with many branches. The strength of your trunk — your character, your professional life, your health, your sense of self — will help you cope with anything the world can throw at you, while your branches — your myriad interests, relationships, and experiences — will allow you to reach out to other trees who are likewise growing up toward the sky, rather than leaning and becoming co-dependent. Relationships of this sort, between two equally strong, independent people, tend to outlast even the most intertwined co-dependencies. Why? Because neither person worries that their world will collapse if the other disappears. It’s a relationship based on the connections between two people, not co-dependence. Being a strong individual first alleviates a great deal of jealousy, suspicion, and our innate desire to capture or cage someone else for our own benefit. Rather than worrying that our lives will end if that other person disappears, we know that they’re in our lives because they want to be; their lives won’t end if we’re not there, either. Two trees growing tall and strong, their branches intertwined, is a far sturdier image than two trees bent and twisted, tying themselves into uncomfortable knots to wrap around one another, desperately trying to prevent the other from leaving. You can choose which type of tree to be, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with either model; we all have different wants, needs, and priorities. But if you’re aiming for sturdier, more resilient relationships, it’s a safe bet that you’ll have better options and less drama if you focus on yourself and your own growth, first. Then reach out and connect with others who are doing the same.

had the disease, just like Mum and just like my grandmother before her. Suddenly my options for the future were radically altered. To start with I knew I wouldn’t ever want to have children now, because there was a fifty-fifty chance I would pass the disease on to them and continue it down the line after that, plus there was the fact that I might not be around to see them grow up and might end up being a burden to them. On the positive side, at least I didn’t have to

When humans are born, we assign them to be either male or female based on their external genitalia. Based on that assignment, we raise them to be either men or women, which are essentially the polar opposite options of personality, occupations, dress, behavior, and demeanor. “As they grow up, we constantly curb their behavior if they don’t fit within the extremely limited options they are given based on their gender assignment and place an incredible amount of social pressure on them to embody every aspect of that identity. If they question their identity, we silence them. If they act in ways that conflict with their assigned identity, we ridicule them. If they don’t align with one of the two options available, we stigmatize them. And if they decide we assigned them the wrong identity, we question their mental health.

I longed for a foolproof recipe of how to do faith well, and God placed me in a world where no recipe would do. He made it my job to know Him, not just know about Him. Behind the scenes of this ministry He was growing, the only viable option was to chase after Him with all my might, holding out His Word to women as I ran. Then wake up the next day and do it again. It became my job to trust. It became my job to believe. It became my job--and it still is--to marvel at the depth and breadth of His goodness, to see up close the way He has provided, and to praise Him as He continues to provide.

What’s most important, contrary to what the prevailing cultural word may be, is not bringing the desires of your heart to bear on the world, but letting the real-life needs of others shape your heart. In seeking God’s will for us vocationally, we look for where our developing aspirations match up with our developing abilities to meet the actual needs of others. Over time, we seek to cultivate a kind of dialogue (with ourselves and with others) between what we desire to do and what we find ourselves good at doing for the benefit of others. Delight in certain kinds of labor typically grows as others affirm our efforts, and we see them receiving genuine help. You may feel called, and others may affirm your abilities, but you are not yet fully called until God opens a door. Here we glory in the truth of God’s providence, not just hypothetically but tangibly. The real world in which we live, and various options as they are presented to us, are not random or coincidental. God rules over all things — from him, through him, to him (Romans 11:36). And so as real-life options (job offers) are presented that fulfill an aspiration in us, and are confirmed by the company of others, we can take these as confirmation of God’s “calling.” Not that such a calling will never change. But for now, when your own personal sense of God’s leading, and good perspective and guidance from others, align with a real-world opportunity in the form of an actual job offer in front of you, you have a calling from God. And we can say this calling is from him because God himself, in his hand of providence, has done the decisive work. He started the process by planting in us righteous desires to help others; and he affirmed the direction through our lived-out abilities and the affirmation of friends. Now, he confirms that sense of calling by swinging open the right door at the right time. It is finally God, not man who provides the job offer. He gives you to the world in the service of others.

In contrast, those countries with extremely high rates of organ donation asked citizens to opt out by checking a box if they do not want to be an organ donor. One of my clients used this concept to grow their average sale. Here’s what they did. Instead of allowing buyers to choose the product options they wanted, they set up standard product packages and allowed buyers to customize (remove) the options they did not want. This simple change increased revenue and helped the company provide solutions that better met the needs of their customers.

2/3 cup milk 1 cup frozen corn, divided 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese 1 (16 oz.) can kidney beans, drained Optional toppings: Fresh salsa, fresh chopped green onion, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese 1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. 2. In a 9- or 10-inch cast-iron skillet or sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the onion and sauté for 1 minute before adding the garlic. Sauté for another minute and add the ground beef and pork, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon and stirring until the meat is brown. 3. Drain off any excess fat and stir in the chili seasoning, diced tomatoes, and tomato paste. Mix over medium heat for 1 minute, then pour in the chicken broth. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 4. While the meat simmers, make the corn bread mixture: Stir together the Jiffy mix, eggs, and milk in a mixing bowl until just combined (do not overmix). Stir 1/2 cup of the frozen corn and the cheese into the corn bread batter and set aside.

Stir the remaining 1/2 cup of corn and the kidney beans into the meat mixture. 5. If using a baking or casserole dish, transfer the meat mixture from the stove top to the baking dish. Pour the corn bread batter over the meat mixture and bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden brown on top. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving with optional toppings such as salsa, green

There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to keep this baby and be the absolute best mom that I could be. From day one, nothing else was an option. This was a sign that it was time to change my life. This was my chance to turn everything around. I knew it was time for me to move on from the partying and to grow up, to be a woman who had responsibilities and priorities. I was going to make this happen no matter what it took. There were no other options for me. I’m a strong believer that there are no accidents and that nothing in life is a mistake. This happened for a reason, and I believe it saved my life.

It wouldn’t be long before I’d learn another lesson that was a real turning point. I saw a dog scrounging around in the school parking lot, a dirty and scrawny mutt that had evidently been on his own for a while. Some of the kids and I shared a bit of food with the dog at recess. By the time classes were starting again we had befriended the poor thing. I suddenly felt an unusual responsibility toward the stray. I didn’t feel it was enough just to give it something to eat and say that I’d helped it, and then move on. I needed to make sure that dog was in a safe place. “We’ve got to do something to help,” I said to my teacher. “The school’s already called animal control,” my teacher explained. She assured me that if the owners were looking for the stray, they would have the best chance of finding it through animal control. I was stubborn. “But after a period of time, if the dog isn’t claimed, they’ll put it to sleep, right?” My teacher nodded reluctantly. “I suppose.” “So that’s not good enough.” My teacher sighed, giving me an I-haven’t-got-time-for-this look. “There aren’t really any other options, Terri.” And that was that. What happened to the stray dog, I’ll never know. But with the fierce determination of a child to right injustice, I resolved that when I grew up, I would no longer turn a blind eye and walk past a problem. I would stop and fix it. I remember that episode very clearly as a defining moment in my life. Neither the stray dog nor the ducklings were huge events, just minor incidents in the life of a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest. But they formed two vital threads in the fabric of who I am today: When you help an animal, do your absolute best to make sure you don’t harm it at the same time, and Never walk past a problem with an animal--fix it. These were the lessons I remembered when I encountered a sick, emaciated cougar in a plastic pet cage.

Years ago, Aaron and I were talking with the pastor of a fast-growing church, and another friend, a more seasoned pastor. The first pastor was telling the story of how the church had exploded, how they couldn’t stop the growth, how it was utterly out of their control, an inexplicable, unstoppable phenomenon. The seasoned pastor pushed him gently: “You’ve built this, and it’s okay to say that. You’ve intentionally and strategically built a very large church. It’s okay to say that.” The young pastor kept protesting, preferring the narrative of wild and unexplained growth. “We had nothing to do with it,” he insisted. “Well, not nothing,” said the older pastor. “You kept putting up more chairs.” And then our minds sort of exploded, because it didn’t occur to us that there was another option. We were all raised to build, build, build. Bigger is better, more is better, faster is better. It had never occurred to us, in church-building or any other part of life, that someone would intentionally keep something small, or deliberately do something slow. This

Few people try, because few people dare. And most don’t want to give up on the easy. Think of your favorite sports star. Let me tell you, they spent every waking moment of their teenage years in the gym, pounding pavements or knocking a ball against a wall. You just don’t get good at something unless you dedicate yourself to it. It’s not rocket science: the rewards go to the dogged. But sacrifice hurts, which is why so many take the easy option. But what most people don’t realize is that sacrifice also has power. Knowing that you have denied yourself something you wanted often means you put even more effort into achieving your goal. It’s the Yin for the Yang. I like to see sacrifice as a type of fuel that powers you towards your destination. The more you give up, then the more energy, time and focus you gain to commit to your goal. It’s never easy to make sacrifices, especially when you know they are going to hurt. But I would encourage you to choose the option that will make you proud. There is a great line in the poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost that says: ‘I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.’ Do you want to make a difference? Do you want to be one of the few or the many? If you want to achieve something special, then you have to choose a path that most won’t dare to tread. That can be scary; but exciting. And there will be a cost. Count it. Weigh it. Are you really prepared to pay the price? The sacrifice? Remember this: Pain is transitory; pride endures for ever.

A small but significant echo of this attitude can be traced in our habit of asking even very young children what they want to be when they grow up. There’s a faint but revealing assumption that somewhere in the options being entertained by the child (footballer, zookeeper, space explorer, etc.), there will already be the first stumbling articulations of the crucial inner voice announcing the small person’s true destiny. It appears not to strike us as peculiar to expect a five-and-a-half-year-old to understand their identity in the adult labour market.

The construction of gender roles is one of the major problems that individuals bring into a relationship. As children, we're programmed into the limitations of gender distinction: little boys to be fighters, little girls to be pretty and nice. But as we grow older, there's a self-awareness that sees gender as a decision, as something malleable. You can play with the traditional options - dressing up, cruising in cars, the tough posturing - or play against the rules, by displaying your tenderness or toughness to contradict stereotypes. When I was fifteen, the perfect world seemed a place of total androgyny, where you wouldn't know a person's gender until you were in bed with him or her. I've since realized that gender is much deeper than style. Rather than accept gender distinction, the point is to redefine it. Along with playing out the clichés, there is the decision to live out the alternatives, even to change one's sex, which to me is the ultimate act of autonomy.

To fill this gap in the capital market, Davis and Rock set themselves up as a limited partnership, the same legal structure that had been used by a short-lived rival called Draper, Gaither & Anderson.[18] Rather than identifying startups and then seeking out corporate investors, they began by raising a fund that would render corporate investors unnecessary. As the two active, or “general,” partners, Davis and Rock each seeded the fund with $100,000 of their own capital. Then, ignoring the easy loans to be had from the fashionable SBIC structure, they raised just under $3.2 million from some thirty “limited” partners—rich individuals who served as passive investors.[19] The beauty of this size and structure was that the Davis & Rock partnership now had a war chest seven and a half times larger than an SBIC, and with it the ammunition to supply companies with enough capital to grow aggressively. At the same time, by keeping the number of passive investors under the legal threshold of one hundred, the partnership flew under the regulatory radar, avoiding the restrictions that ensnared the SBICs and Doriot’s ARD.[20] Sidestepping yet another weakness to be found in their competitors, Davis and Rock promised at the outset to liquidate their fund after seven years. The general partners had their own money in the fund, and thus a healthy incentive to invest with caution. At the same time, they could deploy the outside partners’ capital for a limited time only. Their caution would be balanced with deliberate aggression. Indeed, everything about the fund’s design was calculated to support an intelligent but forceful growth mentality. Unlike the SBICs, Davis & Rock raised money purely in the form of equity, not debt. The equity providers—that is, the outside limited partners—knew not to expect dividends, so Davis and Rock were free to invest in ambitious startups that used every dollar of capital to expand their business.[21] As general partners, Davis and Rock were personally incentivized to prioritize expansion: they took their compensation in the form of a 20 percent share of the fund’s capital appreciation. Meanwhile, Rock was at pains to extend this equity mentality to the employees of his portfolio companies. Having witnessed the effect of employee share ownership on the early culture of Fairchild, he believed in awarding managers, scientists, and salesmen with stock and stock options. In sum, everybody in the Davis & Rock orbit—the limited partners, the general partners, the entrepreneurs, their key employees—was compensated in the form of equity.

Thiel’s doomsday predictions also prompted an unusual request. In preparation for a summer 2000 board meeting, Thiel had asked Musk if he could present a proposal. Musk agreed. “Uh, Peter’s got an agenda item he’d like to talk about,” Musk said, handing the reins to Thiel. Thiel began. The markets, he said, weren’t done driving into the red. He prophesied just how dire things would get—for both the company and for the world. Many had seen the bust as a mere short-term correction, but Thiel was convinced the optimists were wrong. In his view, the bubble was bigger than anyone had thought and hadn’t even begun to really burst yet. From X.com’s perspective, the implications of Thiel’s prediction were dire. Its high burn rate meant that it would need to continue fundraising. But if—no, when—the bubble truly burst, the markets would tighten further, and funding would dry up—even for X.com. The company balance sheet could drop to zero with no options left to raise money. Thiel presented a solution: the company should take the $100 million closed in March and transfer it to his hedge fund, Thiel Capital. He would then use that money to short the public markets. “It was beautiful logic,” board member Tim Hurd of MDP remembered. “One of the elements of PayPal was that they were untethered from how people did stuff in the real world.” The board was uniformly aghast. Members Moritz, Malloy, and Hurd all pushed back. “Peter, I totally get it,” Hurd replied. “But we raised money from investors on a business plan. And they have that in their files. And it said, ‘use of proceeds would be for general corporate purposes.’ And to grow the business and so forth. It wasn’t to go speculate on indices. History may prove that you’re right, and it will have been brilliant, but if you’re wrong, we’ll all be sued.” Mike Moritz’s reaction proved particularly memorable. With his theatricality on full display, Moritz “just lost his mind,” a board member remembered, berating Thiel: “Peter, this is really simple: If this board approves that idea, I’m resigning!

Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional.

Cooks find it hard to give up the way that meat and animal fat flavor things so intensely, but it’s so easy! An animal has transformed all the plants he ate into something with lots of complexity, and you need to learn a few tricks to get similar complexity with vegan dishes. But your palate will change, if you will only turn down the volume and listen. Living a plant-based life is like traveling light. Your system adjusts to foods that don’t weigh you down and take forever to digest. You may find that maintaining your weight gets easier, as long as you don’t hit vegan desserts too hard. The vegan mainstream has food manufacturers taking notice: Vegan-friendly packaged foods multiply daily. While that makes it easier to eat vegan, don’t become a junk-food vegan. The upside? Options in dairy-free milks, ice creams, and vegan-friendly sweeteners are growing. The downside? You can construct a vegan diet out of pudding cups, fake bologna, and white bread, but you will not be all that healthy doing it. You still have to seek balance and listen to your body. It will tell you how things are going, if you just pay attention. In the years I have spent cooking for vegans, it seems to me that what they craved most was special food—food for celebrations and shared dinners; food that really tastes great. It’s not that difficult to put together a big salad or sandwich on your own. Restaurants will happily strip down dishes and leave off the cheese. You can eat vegan and survive, but it’s the special foods that you crave. After going to the same sandwich shop a few times and having a sandwich with just veggies and no cheese, vegans want recipes for genuinely interesting food. A virtual world exists on the Internet, where vegans swap sources for marshmallow crème and recipes for mock cheese sauces. This book is my best effort for plant-based diners who want food that rocks. Why Vegan?

Transforming Challenges into Opportunities: Enhancing Problem-Solving Skills through Critical Thinking In today's fast-paced and competitive business world, the ability to think critically and solve problems effectively is crucial for success. Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or a budding startup owner, developing strong problem-solving skills can give you a significant edge in the market. By harnessing the power of critical thinking, you can transform challenges into opportunities and propel your business towards success. As a coach for business start-ups and a catalyst for innovation, I understand the importance of equipping entrepreneurs with the necessary tools to overcome obstacles and thrive in the face of adversity. In this blog post, I will explore how honing your critical thinking skills can help you navigate the challenges of starting and growing a business. 1. Identifying the Problem: Critical thinking involves the ability to accurately identify and define the problem at hand. As a coach for business start-up ideas, I can help you analyze your unique challenges and break them down into manageable parts. By clarifying the problem, you can focus your efforts on finding the most effective solution. 2. Analyzing Different Perspectives: One of the key aspects of critical thinking is considering different perspectives and viewpoints. When faced with a problem, it is important to step back and evaluate the situation from various angles. This allows you to gain valuable insights and uncover opportunities that may not be immediately apparent. As a coach, I can guide you through this process, helping you see the bigger picture and explore alternative solutions. 3. Developing Creative Solutions: Critical thinking encourages out-of-the-box thinking and the ability to generate creative solutions. By breaking away from conventional thought patterns, you can discover innovative approaches to solving problems. As your coach, I can help you tap into your creative potential and unlock new possibilities for your business. 4. Evaluating Risks and Benefits: Effective problem-solving requires a thorough analysis of the risks and benefits associated with different solutions. Through critical thinking, you can weigh the pros and cons, assess potential outcomes, and make informed decisions. As your coach, I can guide you in evaluating the risks and benefits of various options, enabling you to make strategic choices that align with your business goals. 5. Adapting to Change: In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, adaptability is crucial. Critical thinking allows you to embrace change and adapt your strategies as needed. By honing your problem-solving skills, you can navigate unexpected challenges with ease and turn them into opportunities for growth. As your coach, I can provide you with the tools and techniques to foster adaptability and resilience in the face of change. In conclusion, developing strong problem-solving skills through critical thinking is essential for entrepreneurs and business start-ups. By working with a coach who specializes in business start-up ideas, you can enhance your problem-solving abilities, uncover new opportunities, and position your business for long-term success. So, why wait? Invest in your critical thinking skills today and unlock the potential within your business. If you are looking for a coach to guide you in transforming challenges into opportunities, I am here to help. Contact me to explore how we can work together to enhance your problem-solving skills and achieve your business goals. Keywords: coach startup ideas, coach for business start-up, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, challenges, opportunities, entrepreneurs, innovation, analyze, creative solutions, risks, benefits, adaptability.

Despite the ubiquity of government-organized trans pageants in the Philippines, trans people themselves are not politically recognized. We are culturally visible but legally erased. To this day, trans Filipinas have M gender markers on their documents and cannot change their names in court. We don't have robust antidiscrimination protections. No amount of pageant glory can make up for the fact that our government still doesn't see and treat trans people as full citizens able to participate in society as we truly are. In a country of over 100 million people, only a few dozen certified endocrinologists offer gender-affirming care. Growing up, I relied on other trans people to find hormones, figuring out the right dosages through hearsay, transitioning entirely without proper medical supervision. There was no other choice back then - and for many today, DIY is still the only option. My community is littered with stories of injections gone horribly wrong. Even worse, when someone dies from an overdose or an unsupervised medical treatment, it's shrugged off as a sad fact of life. 'That's what happens,' the emergency techs will say, our lives stripped of value by the very institutions that ought to care for us. I will never forget when one of my Garcia clan sisters succumbed to death from a botched medical procedure, a victim of all the intersecting forces trans Filipinas have to navigate to get treatment.

USING YOUR NEST EGG TO DELAY CLAIMING If you’re fortunate enough to have a nest egg and you want to retire, you can consider withdrawing more savings up front as a way to hold off starting your Social Security benefit. But does the strategy make sense? It well may, and there are some important things to keep in mind. Social Security benefits go up about 7 percent for each year they are not claimed between age 62 and your full retirement age. Wait longer and the reward grows even more: Benefits increase 8 percent annually for each year they are not claimed between full retirement age and 70. Are your financial resources adequate to support your lifestyle without Social Security, so you can delay claiming and lock in the income gains I just described? The issue can get complicated, and those interested may want to talk it over with a financial advisor. Among the considerations are the following: The tax bite: A portion of your Social Security benefit may be subject to income tax (though at least 15 percent is tax free for everyone). Withdrawals from (non-Roth) Individual Retirement Accounts will surely have tax implications. But some research has shown that withdrawing more up front may reduce the tax bite later. Check your situation with an expert. Family income: Is your spouse eligible for Social Security based on his or her work record? This increases your options. Just know that your total income may affect whether your Social Security benefits are subject to income tax, how much, and whether it makes sense to delay claiming. (See Chapter 13 for a discussion of income tax rules and Social Security, including provisional income.) Your investments: Consider reasonable rates of return, including your appetite for risk, in weighing the pros and cons of delaying a claim for Social Security. It’s extremely difficult to beat Social Security’s guaranteed returns. Finally, a note of caution (and common sense): If your nest egg is modest, the strategy of withdrawing savings to delay Social Security may be unwise, because it’s important to have a cushion. Be realistic when calculating how much of a cushion you need.

Nonviolence is nonsense – or to be more accurate – bookish nonviolence is nonsense. Nonviolence is to injustice, what homeopathy is to illness – it claims all the credit without any of the responsibility. Placebo brings comfort, not change. Does that mean, violence is the solution? That’s the problem, you see. This prehistoric world has an instinctual affinity to black and white concepts – to binary concepts – and a gigantic blind spot for grey areas. Justice is too grand an exercise to be contained by the primitive dualistic nonsense of violence and nonviolence. Let me put this into perspective with an example. Bullets are an act of violence, silence is an act of nonviolence – but there is a third option – the option of the slipper. Slippers are more effective in fighting bugs, than bullets – bullets make martyr of the bugs, slippers put them in their place. When the slippers of a nation’s civilians combine, even the mightiest of tyrant is bound to fall – be it a state head, court judge or law enforcement officer. Whenever a bunch of bugs turn the courts into a cradle of animal masculinity – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the parliament into a cradle of fundamentalism and bigotry – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the police stations into a cradle of badge-bearing barbarism – grab hold of that household bug-repellent you wear on your feet, and put them to some good, wholesome use. Treat the corrupt and bigoted like your children, and do with them as you would your own child when they go astray. When your child starts to bully other kids, if you adopt pacifism and pamper them further in the name of nonviolence, instead of taking stringent steps to nip their megalomania in the bud, it’s very much possible, they might grow up to be the next orange-haired terrorist to roam the oval office or the next musky moron who takes pleasure in destroying people’s livelihoods and providing safe haven to hate speech and disinformation to satisfy their giant ego and puny mind. So, I repeat – pick up the democratic superweapon from under your feet and put it to good use – treat the privileged orangutans like your children and put them in their rightful place, without actually harming them. Your world, your rules – remember that. Slippers are democracy’s first line of defense, bullets it’s last.

In our affluent Western culture, growing up for many of us is weirdly optional. Historically, men have had no choice but to grow up. They had to work to eat. They had to defend themselves, their families, and their communities. But most of us here and now can choose the life of an entertainment consumer, just moving from one experience to the next.

I love you. For meeting me where I was at and helping me grow into who I am. For never giving up no matter how many times I shut you down. And for showing me what it feels like to love someone else and be loved in return in all the ways that count, even when you weren't able to admit it to yourself. When words weren't an option, you showed me with everything in you.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, [Thomas Hylland Eriksen] said, our economies have been built around a new and radical idea - economic growth. This is the belief that every year, the economy - and each individual company in it - should get bigger and bigger. That's how we now define success. If a country's economy grows, its politicians are likely to get reelected. ...If a country or a company's share price shrinks, politicians or CEOs face a greater risk of being booted out. Economic growth is the central organising principle of our society. It is at the heart of how we see the world. Thomas explained that growth can happen in one of two ways. The first is that a corporation can find new markets - by inventing something new, or exporting something to a part of the world that doesn't have it yet. The second is that a corporation can persuade existing consumers to consume more. If you can get people to eat more, or to sleep less, then you have found a source of economic growth. Mostly, he believes, we achieve growth today primarily through this second option. Corporations are constantly finding ways to cram more stuff into the same amount of time. To give one example: they want you to watch TV and follow the show on social media. Then you see twice as many ads. This inevitably speeds up life. If the economy has to grow every year, in the absence of new markets it has to get you and me to do more in the same amount of time. As I read Thomas' work more deeply, I realised this is one of the crucial reasons why life has accelerated every decade since the 1880s: we are living in an economic machine that requires greater speed to keep going - and that inevitably degrades our attention over time. If fact, when I reflected on it, this need for economic growth seemed to be the underlying force that was driving so many of the causes of poor attention that I had learned about - our increasing stress, our swelling work hours, our more invasive technologies, our lack of sleep, our bad diets.

After studying all the hidden data - the stuff that Facebook doesn't release to the public - the company's scientists reached a definite conclusion. They wrote: 'Our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness,' and 'if left unchecked,' the site would continue to pump its users with 'more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention and increase time on the platform.' A separate internal Facebook team ...independently reached the same conclusions. They found that 64 percent of all the people joining extremist groups were finding their way to them because Facebook's algorithms were directly recommending them. This meant that across the world, people were seeing in their Facebook feeds racist, fascist and even Nazi groups next to the words: 'Groups You Should Join.' They warned that in Germany one-third of all the political groups on the site were extremist. Facebook's own team was blunt, concluding: 'Our recommendation systems grow the problem.' After carefully analysing all the options, Facebook's scientists concluded there was one solution: they said Facebook would have to abandon its current business model. Because their growth was so tied up with toxic outcomes, the company should abandon attempts at growth. The only way out was for the company to adopt a strategy that was 'anti-growth' - deliberately shrink, and choose to be a less wealthy company that wasn't wrecking the world. Once Facebook was shown - in plain language, by their own people - what they were doing, how did the company's executives respond? According to the Journal's in-depth reporting, they mocked the research, calling it an 'Eat Your Veggies' approach. They introduced some minor tweaks, but dismissed most of the recommendations.

Your five-year-old son wanders around his kindergarten classroom distracting other kids. The teacher complains: he can’t sit through her scintillating lessons on the two sounds made by the letter e. When the teacher invites all the kids to sit with her on the rug for a song, he stares out the window, watching a squirrel dance along a branch. She’d like you to take him to be evaluated. And so you do. It’s a good school, and you want the teacher and the administration to like you. You take him to a pediatrician, who tells you it sounds like ADHD. You feel relief. At least you finally know what’s wrong. Commence the interventions, which will transform your son into the attentive student the teacher wants him to be. But obtaining a diagnosis for your kid is not a neutral act. It’s not nothing for a kid to grow up believing there’s something wrong with his brain. Even mental health professionals are more likely to interpret ordinary patient behavior as pathological if they are briefed on the patient’s diagnosis.[15] “A diagnosis is saying that a person does not only have a problem, but is sick,” Dr. Linden said. “One of the side effects that we see is that people learn how difficult their situation is. They didn’t think that before. It’s demoralization.” Nor does our noble societal quest to destigmatize mental illness inoculate an adolescent against the determinism that befalls him—the awareness of a limitation—once the diagnosis is made. Even if Mom has dressed it in happy talk, he gets the gist. He’s been pronounced learning disabled by an occupational therapist and neurodivergent by a neuropsychologist. He no longer has the option to stop being lazy. His sense of efficacy, diminished. A doctor’s official pronouncement means he cannot improve his circumstances on his own. Only science can fix him.[16] Identifying a significant problem is often the right thing to do. Friends who suffered with dyslexia for years have told me that discovering the name for their problem (and the corollary: that no, they weren’t stupid) delivered cascading relief. But I’ve also talked to parents who went diagnosis shopping—in one case, for a perfectly normal preschooler who wouldn’t listen to his mother. Sometimes, the boy would lash out or hit her. It took him forever to put on his shoes. Several neuropsychologists conducted evaluations and decided he was “within normal range.” But the parents kept searching, believing there must be some name for the child’s recalcitrance. They never suspected that, by purchasing a diagnosis, they might also be saddling their son with a new, negative understanding of himself. Bad

I do think I've seen the generation that I've seen grow up have different resources, have different skills and options around dealing with that harm, and that makes a difference for me. But I did have a hope that like, OK, we had to go through all this stuff, but at least we can have this set of children that we can see from here, this set of children that we are raising in this context and they will not have to go through things that are very similar. And they have gone through things that are very similar, and that is something that, you know, intellectually, we understand that these things are intergenerational cycles of violence, and it's really hard to accept that it will be incrementally different, but not totally gone within the span of a decade or two.

Voyagers, I’ve always wanted to write about you. And now, at 4:41 a.m. on an autumn morning, Words have found their way into my mind. I picture myself like you— Distant from life, Alone, Yet moving towards an unknown destination! Like you, in the early stages of my journey, I could see, I could gather knowledge and transmit it, I was useful and efficient. But sometimes, to keep connected to the world, To be able to stay on course and conserve my energy, I had to shut parts of myself down, To survive, To go blind, to be deaf, to be isolated, and just occasionally signal my existence to the world. The same thing I do, that you do, that so many others do. The boundless reaches of space Have become somewhat more comprehensible through you, Yet the depths of the human soul remain unfathomable, And its pain incurable. We live in an age surrounded by a torrent of information, Yet somehow, we remain lonely and lost. Language has advanced, There are words for nearly everything, Everyone can describe their own state of mind, yet we’re still at war with one another. Earth has turned into a vast ship, Perhaps like Noah’s Ark, With maximum diversity and multiplicity, Yet everyone on this ship plays their own tune, rallies their own cause! Someone steps forward, claiming each individual’s thoughts and personal benefit are like rare pearls to be cherished, While another insists that collective welfare takes precedence, That the needs of the masses outweigh individual desires. Some launch movements to claim their rights, While others start movements to flaunt the rights they’ve acquired. No one knows what they truly want; We’re all still lost. I don’t know how Earth looks from afar— Perhaps like a blueberry-flavored lollipop, A lollipop with a stick, But Earth’s stick is an invisible one made of sorrow. I find something common among all the passengers on this ship, All the inhabitants of this blueberry lollipop: sorrow. A fetus in its mother’s womb is also like a lollipop, But connected by an umbilical cord. As a fetus, Growing in the mother’s womb, Suffering, malnutrition, and physical ailments can be painful for us. If the mother’s state is stable, We may enjoy brief periods of security and calm, but after that, We must endure the pain of separation, Learn how to breathe, And besides the sorrow of leaving security behind, We face new emotions like fear and anger. Later in life, We each take our own path. No matter how much they try to show humans as social creatures, It’s always the individual who walks their own way, who has the freedom to choose, Even if one finds the meaning of their path in joining a group or a collective, it’s their individual choice that put them on that path. Today, people have countless options to join others who are like them, And these options themselves bring confusion, And when you join a group out of confusion, You treat the other groups with hostility. Science, philosophy, religion, politics…each of them has thousands of branches, and each branch Wants to disprove the other, cleanse itself of its shameful past. Freedom of speech has become an excuse for verbal assaults and psychological wounds, Non-violence has become a breeding ground for new and emerging dictators, For heartless sects and brutal factions. Knowledge and science alone cannot save us, Just as religion couldn’t. I don’t want to write about chaos, Life isn’t that disorganized, In some corner of the world, A lover is staring up at his beloved’s window, A child is laughing joyfully. But writing about sorrow, Speaking of chaos and Asking questions can reveal where we stand. Now, we know so much about space, And about the Sun, too. The James Webb telescope has mapped out the cosmos for us, and countless projects are underway for the future, crafted with flawless precision and extraordinary coherence, but the rift between humans remains deep.

don’t take my word for it.  If you do a simple Google search for “blogs that pay $100 an article,” you’ll see lots of options come up. Once you really know

growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.

not only deprives workers of the fruits of their labour by paying them 1/200th of the salary that goes to their CEO (the international average as of this writing, not including bonuses and stock options); it deprives workers of the very meaning of labour itself

GROWING OLD IS MANDATORY GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL

The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists. I’ve spent more than a decade studying this, and it turns out to be far less difficult than I expected. The starting point is curiosity: pondering why the default exists in the first place. We’re driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse—we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems. Without a vuja de event, Warby Parker wouldn’t have existed. When the founders were sitting in the computer lab on the night they conjured up the company, they had spent a combined sixty years wearing glasses. The product had always been unreasonably expensive. But until that moment, they had taken the status quo for granted, never questioning the default price. “The thought had never crossed my mind,” cofounder Dave Gilboa says. “I had always considered them a medical purchase. I naturally assumed that if a doctor was selling it to me, there was some justification for the price.” Having recently waited in line at the Apple Store to buy an iPhone, he found himself comparing the two products. Glasses had been a staple of human life for nearly a thousand years, and they’d hardly changed since his grandfather wore them. For the first time, Dave wondered why glasses had such a hefty price tag. Why did such a fundamentally simple product cost more than a complex smartphone? Anyone could have asked those questions and arrived at the same answer that the Warby Parker squad did. Once they became curious about why the price was so steep, they began doing some research on the eyewear industry. That’s when they learned that it was dominated by Luxottica, a European company that had raked in over $7 billion the previous year. “Understanding that the same company owned LensCrafters and Pearle Vision, Ray-Ban and Oakley, and the licenses for Chanel and Prada prescription frames and sunglasses—all of a sudden, it made sense to me why glasses were so expensive,” Dave says. “Nothing in the cost of goods justified the price.” Taking advantage of its monopoly status, Luxottica was charging twenty times the cost. The default wasn’t inherently legitimate; it was a choice made by a group of people at a given company. And this meant that another group of people could make an alternative choice. “We could do things differently,” Dave suddenly understood. “It was a realization that we could control our own destiny, that we could control our own prices.” When we become curious about the dissatisfying defaults in our world, we begin to recognize that most of them have social origins: Rules and systems were created by people. And that awareness gives us the courage to contemplate how we can change them. Before women gained the right to vote in America, many “had never before considered their degraded status as anything but natural,” historian Jean Baker observes. As the suffrage movement gained momentum, “a growing number of women were beginning to see that custom, religious precept, and law were in fact man-made and therefore reversible.

Growing Old is Mandatory - Growing Up Is Optional

Parents never you make church and studying the word of God optional for your children. If they are in your house, get them up, teach them the word of God, the greatest awards, PhD or achievements any child could have is to grow up in the word of God. I and my family are living witness and it is extending to our third generation.

Become What You Believe Take a step back today and consider all the options available to you. There are several different directions you can take to get to the next dimension, but there is only one that is best suited to manifest your heart’s desire. The best option to take will be the one that scares you the most. It is the one that requires you to go deeper than you have ever gone before. Your mind may tell you it’s not a good idea and bring up all the reasons why it won’t work, but check your heart. Intuitively, if it feels right; it is right. Say “yes” to the option that will allow you to grow more into your brilliance. No more straddling the fence. No more half commitments. Go forth with boldness. Become what you believe.

Some species-like spruce-rely on timing. Male and female blossoms open a few days apart so that, most of the time, the latter will be dusted with the foreign pollen of other spruce. This is not an option for trees like bird cherries, which rely on insects. Bird cherries produce male and female sex organs int he same blossom, and they are one of the few species of true forest trees that allow themselves to be pollinated by bees. As the bees make their way through the whole crown, they cannot help but spread the tree's own pollen. But the bird cherry is alert and senses when the danger of inbreeding looms. When a pollen grain lands on a stigma, its genes are activated and it grows a delicate tube down to the ovary in search of an egg. As it is doing this, the tree tests the genetic makeup of the pollen and, if it matches its own, blocks the tube, which then dries up. Only foreign genes, that is to say, genes that promise future success, are allowed entry to form seeds and fruit. How does the bird cherry distinguish between "mine" and "yours"? We don't know exactly. What we do know is that the genes must be activated, and they must pass the tree's test. You could say, the tree can "feel" them. You might say that we, too, experience the physical act of love as more than just the secretions of neurotransmitters that activate our bodies' secrets, though what mating feels like for trees is something that will remain in the realm of speculation for a long time to come.

I like her,” Gracie said, the questions as clear as if she’d spoken them. Mitch gave the woman he’d come to think of as a sister a level-eyed stare, keeping his mouth shut. Gracie tilted her head to the side, sending her mop of blond curls flying. “How are you going to keep her?” “She lives in Chicago. I’m not keeping her.” He was temporarily borrowing her until she decided to hightail it to her real life. She gave a smug smile. “I meant keep her for now.” Mitch scrubbed a hand over his jaw, contemplating. “I’m not sure she has any other options.” “Don’t tell me you’re banking on that?” Gracie looked up to the ceiling as if exasperated by his complete stupidity. “A woman always has options, and she’ll think of plenty if you’re stupid enough to point out that she has to choose you by default.” Of course, Gracie was right. But he’d talked her into staying once; he could do it again. The question was, how? Mitch sat forward, placing his elbows on the table, his brain starting a slow, methodical spin. He took a sip of coffee and looked at Gracie. She practically danced in her chair. He rolled his eyes. “What’s on your mind?” “The way I see it,” Gracie said, not letting grass grow under her feet with any long dramatic silences, “her car’s broken down, and Tommy’s is closed today. That buys you a couple of days.” Immediately finding fault with her logic, Mitch shook his head. “Not necessarily. She has family. She could come to her senses and call them, and be gone by noon.” Just because she’d been adamant last night about not contacting them didn’t mean her justifications would hold true in the light of day. “I don’t think so.” Gracie peered behind him, looking thoughtful. “She told me she has no money.” Mitch pressed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The more he thought about it, the more he saw it as the most likely outcome. He’d only been able to convince her to come back to his house last night because she’d been tired, scared, and drunk. “There’s no way she’ll take any from me. What other option is there?” “One little hitch and you’re giving up?

growing old was mandatory but growing up was optional.

I guess I’m left with only one option.” She spun out of the kitchen into the pantry. “I’ll have to be the one to go and get her.” She stomped toward the back door and banged it open. As she rushed outside, a gust of wind slapped her cheeks. “Where are you going?” Connell caught the door before it slammed shut, and he followed her outside. A hill of dark clouds had pushed in with the growing darkness. She pulled her coat tighter and started toward the front of the hotel, trying to ignore the long shadows of the evening that reached out to haunt her. “I’m heading to the Stockade to see if Frankie’s there.” “You can’t go up there by yourself,” he called after her. “I’m certain God would want me to do whatever I can to rescue the girl, even if it means going by myself.” She picked up her pace, and her boots sloshed through the muddy snow that remained after the past week. She made it only a half a dozen more steps before Connell’s hand gripped her upper arm and dragged her to a stop. “I won’t let you go.” He spun her around so that she had no choice but to face him. “How dare you? What right do you have to stop me?” She jerked her arm and tried to break away. But his hold didn’t budge. “I probably don’t have any right to stop you.” She tugged again, this time harder. “Then leave me alone.” He wavered, almost as if he would let her go, but then with a growl he yanked her against his body. The strength of his grip held her captive. But the hard width of his chest against hers and the nearness of his face—only inches away—held her in greater captivity. For a long moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The crashing thud of her heartbeat and the soft rasp of his breath filled the space between them. His gaze lingered upon her cheek, her chin, her other cheek before moving to her lips. Spring butterflies awakened in her stomach, and she couldn’t keep from studying his mouth, so close, so warm, so firm. But the boldness of such an inspection sent embarrassed heat through her, making her want to duck her head. “Lily,” he whispered. His eyes turned into a forest at midnight. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you. I can’t let you go up to the Stockade. It’s too dangerous.

We began with a warning that we must be careful not to read the book of Acts as a strict rule book for church planting. Yet our secular, urbanized, global world today is strikingly like the Greco-Roman world in certain ways. For the first time in fifteen hundred years, there are multiple, vital, religious faith communities and options (including true paganism) in every society. Traditional, secular, and pagan worldviews and communities are living side by side. Once again, cities are the influential cultural centers, just as they were in the Greco-Roman world. During the Pax Romana, cities became furiously multiethnic and globally connected. Since we are living in an Acts-like world again rather than the earlier context of Christendom, church planting will necessarily be as central a strategy for reaching our world as it was for reaching previous generations. Ultimately, though, we don’t look to Paul to teach us about church planting, but to Jesus himself. Jesus is the ultimate church planter. He builds his church (Matt 16:18), and he does so effectively, because hell itself will not prevail against it. He raises up leaders and gives them the keys to the kingdom (Matt 16:19). He establishes his converts on the word of the confessing apostle, Peter — that is, on the word of God (Matt 16:18). When we plant the church, we participate in God’s work, for if we have any success at all, it is because “God made it grow.” Thus, “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Cor 3:6–7).

Everything short of an explanation of the world as a whole is frustratingly partial. An explanation of the world must include an answer to why the world as a whole is just that way. And the only truly satisfying answer would be: because it’s the best of all possible ones.

Consider providing an emailing frequency option when it comes to signing up for your mailing list can help to grow and sustain your mailing lists.

Love is the sweetness of life.” “Pray is gold, whereas love is a diamond.” “Love does not wear hatred and bias.” “Love is a fulfillment of life; without that, life is nothing.” Love cannot appear and become true love without respect, tolerance, empathy, sympathy, care, and sacrifice.” “One can love whoever and whenever one wants; however, expecting similar feelings from that whom one loves is a risk of self-hurting.” “Love speaks in your words, sights with your eyes, grows on your conduct, and finally resides in your heart, becoming your heartbeat.” “When your mind is rich in wisdom, and your heart is sensitive and filled with love, you are a person who can change the world.” “Love does not recognize the terms hide and seek. When it happens, it becomes visible without any fear or hesitation.” “Those who care for self-respect show real and true love, and they do not break the trust and certainty of their beloved. Love cannot stay where there is no self-respect.” “If you love someone, and you are also keeping the options, it is not fair to your lover, not even yourself. You are just an opportunist. True love knows no options.” “Love for humanity is the mother of every love; no other love can prevail over it.” “Etiquette, respect, and love embellish and beautify the character while also helping to reach and qualify for success in life.” “Love with motives does not have success and embraces shame and sorry.” “My religion is love, which I have learned from my religion.” “Beauty hits eyes, and love touches heartbeats.” “The billions of beautiful faces exist in the world, but I fell in love with one face.” “The silent love has more truth than the spoken one.” “Please pray for me. I am going to fall in love.” “I do not search for a true friend and true love. I practice becoming a true friend and giving true love.” “I can never feel again such love which I had felt for the first time in my youth.” “If there is no current, the lamp does not light up; similarly, if there is no passion, love does not become the heartbeat.” “Love with the heart validates purity and truth. Love with the mind may evidence diplomacy and tact.” “Real and pure love exists at the age of nine and ninety years; between that lies a risk. However, an exception may become a wonder.” “Love fragrances, and colors, the breath waves that inspire the heart language.” “Love bears two negative feelings; fear and jealousy, overcoming that beautify life; otherwise, these become self-hurting.” “Love is not just a remedy for sex frustration; it is a solemn life pledge to be together for all seasons and circumstances.” “How simple it is, how deep it is, and how true it is, within the two-L-that you are my Life and Love. Do we honestly make also perfumed that?” “Log in Love; log out Hatred and scan evil threats with the purity of thoughts: Life becomes secure and stays smooth and flowery.” “Anyone who indulges only in self-love remains devoid of true love.” "Your words can be constructive or destructive. Love is a positive energy that grows when it is filled up with sweet words and keeps love fresh and alive. If there are destructive words, love will go dry and finally die. "Love is a context of heartbeats; intimacy is its dictionary; use it carefully and properly; otherwise, typos can cause risks.

The only option for girls when I was growing up was mother, secretary, or teacher. Now I must say how lucky we are as women to live in an age where “dental hygienist” has been added to the list.

In 2020, researchers found that parasitic plants can read this changing light ratio to know who or what is nearby. In a lab, parasitic dodder vine seedlings appeared to detect the size, shape, and distance of neighboring plants, and used that information to decide which plants to grow toward and parasitize. This makes sense; dodders don’t photosynthesize. As seedlings, they have very little time to locate a good host before they run out of their built-in supply of energy. And once a parasitic vine commits to winding around a host plant, their fates are forever entwined too. Choosing the right one quickly is an absolute must. Growing blindly in a random direction would be disastrous much of the time. To the researchers’ surprise, the dodder’s assessment of red light ratios appeared to be exquisitely fine-grain. In the lab, they used a combination of far-red LED arrays and real plants to set up tests; when given the option of LEDs arranged to resemble light passing through a grass-shaped plant and another resembling the body of a branched plant, the seedlings chose the direction of the “branched” one (dodders can’t grow on grasses). They also chose to grow toward the nearer of any two same-sized plants, even if the difference in distance was only four centimeters. It’s not a stretch to say that this parasitic plant can, in this basic way, see its host—or at least the size and shape of it.

When Phil Knight was building Nike, he hired other distance runners to work with him because he knew that whatever they lacked in terms of business knowledge, they made up for in stamina. They would never give up. They would take the pain and make it to the end of the race despite the difficulties. When you start a company, you are usually happy to find anyone of quality willing to go on the journey with you. But as you grow, you realize that some people are like wide receivers in football with hands of stone. You throw to them, and the ball just bounces off them. Others have hands like glue. As a decent person you think your role is to coax the bad ones along, to find workarounds. As employees, these are 6s and 7s out of 10. If you keep them, you will end up with a dysfunctional company, where you do all the work, staying up all night with the few people who can make it happen. You have two options: either run a middling company going nowhere or clear out the mediocrity you created so you can grow. If you are ambitious, you have to fill your company with 9s and 10s, and give them the difficult tasks to do. Finally, to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to be paranoid. You always have to believe your company, regardless of size, is a little company. The moment you start to become big and successful, challengers will appear and do their best to take your customers and defeat your business. You are never more vulnerable than at the moment you think you have succeeded.

Attention is a yin to the yang in focus. Attention (mindfulness) and attention (focus) work together to provide a true, rounded experience of both being centered on the task at hand (whatever it may be), as well as being fully aware of, and responsive to, the many facets of the moment in which you are. In most forms of meditation you must demonstrate a certain level of concentration as well as free mind. What You’ll Get Out of It You must expand your mind and embrace the fullness of the moment in which you are. We might compare our sensitivity to light: When we concentrate on something, we could say we're "shining a spotlight" about it. Instead of shining a spotlight on one particular thing, as we exercise transparent consciousness, we may suggest that we encourage our awareness to "shine" in every direction around us, like the glow of a candle flame. This light of consciousness surrounding us will be referred to as our area of knowledge. The response area is the total sum of all the sensory input. The practice of open consciousness is an experiment of encouraging the senses to feel the fullness of the present moment, being mindful of even the subtleties you would usually forget, neglect or completely miss, such as the warmth of the air around you or the occasional crackling of floorboards. When we just accept and allow things to be as they are, we disengage instinctively from the urges that would try to control or change things. In passivity or indifference, this isn't a custom–quite the contrary. This is an exercise of opening your mind and encouraging you to obtain all the knowledge you can potentially before you make any moves or take any action. Remember that the term makes. We don't push ourselves to pick up on sensory input; perception simply grows from a state of quiet, comfortable allowing. We have a biological tendency to "brace for impact" when we are resistant to something that is happening, which means we withdraw and tighten up the muscles in our body. The subconscious then automatically begins to think all the way things could or ought to be different from what they are. When we're open to something, we seem to be more enthusiastic about the unexpected, and even more willing to embrace, leaving the body more at ease. It helps us to be more open to learning what we're doing and to learn. With an open mind we strive to see more options on issues and multiple perspectives. Open Awareness Meditation will strengthen the ability to see things as they really are and embrace them for what they are.

None of this matters. I mean, those people—that man and his kids who you just fed—they matter, but no one cares about them. Those kids ar the future if they don't starve to death. But if they manage to grow up, what kind of men will they be?' 'That's what Earthseed was about,' I said. 'I wanted us to understand what we could be, what we could do. I wanted to give us a focus, a goal, something big enough, complex enough, difficult enough, and in the end, radical enough to make us become more than we ever have been. We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things have always been.' 'It is,' Len said. 'It is,' I repeated. 'There seem to be solid biological reasons why we are the way we are. If there weren't, the cycles wouldn't keep replaying. The human species is a kind of animal, of course. But we can do something no other animal species has ever had the option to do. We can choose: We can go on building and destroying until we either destroy ourselves or destroy the ability of our world to sustain us. Or we can make something more of ourselves. We can grow up. We can leave the nest. We can fulfil the Destiny, make homes for ourselves among the stars, and become some combination of what we want to become and whatever our new environments challenge us to become. Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They'll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it's only to begin a new one, a different one. 'Earthseed is about preparing to fulfil the Destiny. It's about learning to live in partnership with one another in small communities, and at the same time, working out a sustainable partnership with our environment. It's about treating education and adaptability as the absolute essentials that they are. It's...' I glanced at Len, caught a little smile on her face, and wound down. 'It's about a lot more than that,' I said. 'But those are the bones.' 'Makes a strange sermon.' 'I know.

The Advantage of Long Range Technique and Why Close Range Is Deadly Let's be clear: you always want to maintain distance. For the long stick, long range is the optimum strategy. At long range, the opponent must reach out with his hand to hit you. At the farthest range, he can only hit you with that hand: the other hand is too far back to touch you, and his feet are planted as he stretches. If he extends to kick you, his hands can't touch you, while his other foot is planted. In either case, at this longest range only one hand or foot threatens you. With the big stick, you want to maintain a range where you can blast him, but he can't touch you. This is the safest range. As the opponent gets closer he enters a range where he can hit you with both hands and kick you with both feet, so you now have four potential weapons to contend with. At even closer range he can hit with the hands, elbows, knees, head, so the number of threats grows larger still. At this range if he has a knife, he can use one hand to hold you while he stabs with the other, which is easily a fatal attack. At close range an opponent can bring a concealed gun or knife into play, and you may not see the weapon until it is too late. While long range is the desired range, you must realize that you can't always maintain that range, so you must be prepared to fight in close. You not only want to be able to hit at very close range, but be able to drive the opponent back out into the kill zone. Countering the Closing Opponent 1) Recognize the Danger Avoid overconfidence, the delusional thinking, “If anybody tries to tackle me I'll knock him out.” It's not that easy. As long as you're standing, running is always an option, but once an opponent has clinched or tackled you, you lose that option. If you get taken to the ground spectators can very easily kick you in the head, a very powerful, inconspicuous kick that is like kicking a football off a tee. Martial artist Geoff Thompson knew two men who were killed in just such a fashion. A gang tactic is to assign one member to tie you up, sacrificing himself if necessary, so that the rest of the gang can pick you off. Against multiple opponents your primary strategy is mobility, fleeing if possible, but once you're clutched or tackled you've lost that option. A clinching assailant with a knife is your worst nightmare, posing a highly lethal threat.

Stop asking kids what they want to be when the grow up. They don't have to define themselves in terms of a career. A single identity can close the door to alternatives. Instead of trying to narrow their options, help them to broaden their possibilities. They don't have to be one thing. They can do many things.

Attention is a yin to the yang in focus. Attention (mindfulness) and attention (focus) work together to provide a true, rounded experience of both being centered on the task at hand (whatever it may be), as well as being fully aware of, and responsive to, the many facets of the moment in which you are. In most forms of meditation you must demonstrate a certain level of concentration as well as free mind. What You’ll Get Out of It You must expand your mind and embrace the fullness of the moment in which you are. We might compare our sensitivity to light: When we concentrate on something, we could say we're "shining a spotlight" about it. Instead of shining a spotlight on one particular thing, as we exercise transparent consciousness, we may suggest that we encourage our awareness to "shine" in every direction around us, like the glow of a candle flame. This light of consciousness surrounding us will be referred to as our area of knowledge. The response area is the total sum of all the sensory input. The practice of open consciousness is an experiment of encouraging the senses to feel the fullness of the present moment, being mindful of even the subtleties you would usually forget, neglect or completely miss, such as the warmth of the air around you or the occasional crackling of floorboards. When we just accept and allow things to be as they are, we disengage instinctively from the urges that would try to control or change things. In passivity or indifference, this isn't a custom–quite the contrary. This is an exercise of opening your mind and encouraging you to obtain all the knowledge you can potentially before you make any moves or take any action. Remember that the term makes. We don't push ourselves to pick up on sensory input; perception simply grows from a state of quiet, comfortable allowing. We have a biological tendency to "brace for impact" when we are resistant to something that is happening, which means we withdraw and tighten up the muscles in our body. The subconscious then automatically begins to think all the way things could or ought to be different from what they are. When we're open to something, we seem to be more enthusiastic about the unexpected, and even more willing to embrace, leaving the body more at ease. It helps us to be more open to learning what we're doing and to learn. With an open mind we strive to see more options on issues and multiple perspectives. Open Awareness Meditation will strengthen the ability to see things as they really are and embrace them for what they are. By practicing Open Awareness Meditation, you will cultivate: Discernment Open Awareness Meditation allows us to better appreciate the moment we are at. The more we know the more educated our choices can be in any situation. Through cultivating conscious awareness, we develop discernment by being more sensitive to the larger picture, and how it is connected to the present moment.

Before the Second World War, the British paid ample lip service to the idea of self-government in India, but granting full independence was never a serious option. The Raj was the jewel in His Majesty’s crown; giving it up was unthinkable. But by 1947, the British nation was exhausted and traumatized by German bombing; discouraged by the loss of so many of its soldiers; shocked by the desertion and mutiny of its Indian servicemen; benumbed by unprecedented winter cold and an energy shortage that had the population shivering and its factories shuttered; broke, owing not only the Americans for the money that was keeping its economy afloat but India, too; and disgusted by the growing violence between Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs for which it took no responsibility, violence that would shortly lead to a bloodbath of historic proportions. Overwhelmed by these troubles at home and in its disintegrating colony, Britain concluded that exit from the subcontinent was the only option.

to find workarounds. As employees, these are 6s and 7s out of 10. If you keep them, you will end up with a dysfunctional company, where you do all the work, staying up all night with the few people who can make it happen. You have two options: either run a middling company going nowhere or clear out the mediocrity you created so you can grow. If you are ambitious, you have to fill your company with 9s and 10s, and give them the difficult tasks to do. Finally, to succeed as an entrepreneur, you have to be paranoid. You always have to believe your company, regardless of size, is a little company. The moment you start to become big and successful, challengers will appear and do their best to take your customers and defeat your business. You are never more vulnerable than at the moment you think you have succeeded.

However, to keep a relationship healthy and growing, we need to be courageous enough to rock the boat, bring up difficult conversations when necessary, and try to figure out how to bridge some of our differences, accept them or talk about options for moving forward in new directions.