Happiness Followed By Sadness Quotes

Ester asked why people are sad. "That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.

Dignity /ˈdignitē/ noun 1. The moment you realize that the person you cared for has nothing intellectually or spiritually to offer you, but a headache. 2. The moment you realize God had greater plans for you that don’t involve crying at night or sad Pinterest quotes. 3. The moment you stop comparing yourself to others because it undermines your worth, education and your parent’s wisdom. 4. The moment you live your dreams, not because of what it will prove or get you, but because that is all you want to do. People’s opinions don’t matter. 5. The moment you realize that no one is your enemy, except yourself. 6. The moment you realize that you can have everything you want in life. However, it takes timing, the right heart, the right actions, the right passion and a willingness to risk it all. If it is not yours, it is because you really didn’t want it, need it or God prevented it. 7. The moment you realize the ghost of your ancestors stood between you and the person you loved. They really don't want you mucking up the family line with someone that acts anything less than honorable. 8. The moment you realize that happiness was never about getting a person. They are only a helpmate towards achieving your life mission. 9. The moment you believe that love is not about losing or winning. It is just a few moments in time, followed by an eternity of situations to grow from. 10. The moment you realize that you were always the right person. Only ignorant people walk away from greatness.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread. You never bake bread, he wrote, and we were still joking. Then it's like I woke up and baked bread, I said, and we were joking even then. I wondered will there come a time when we won't be joking? And what would it look like? And how would that feel? When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent. “Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.

What can I say to you that I haven't already said? What can I give you that I haven't already given? Is there anything of me that isn't yours already? My body, my mind, my heart, even my soul. Everything that is me belonged to you long before this, and it shall be yours long after this. I will follow you anywhere and everywhere you lead. I will keep you and anyone created with our love safe from all harm. From this day on, I choose you, my beloved, to be my wife. To live with you and laugh with you; to stand by your side, and sleep in your arms; to bring out the best in you always, and, for you, to be the most that I can. I promise to laugh with you in good times, to struggle with you in bad; to wipe your tears with my hands; to comfort you with my words; to mirror you with my soul; and savor every moment, happy or sad, until the end of our lives and beyond.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

There’s a saying, “Sadness and gladness follow each other.” As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed.

Or rather, he was sad because that morning he'd understood that he'd understood nothing, because while he still understood nothing he wasn't sad at all, but now that he'd understood that he'd understood nothing he felt sad, if you follow.

IF you want to be a winner than follow one simple rule and feed it in your mind. Take each task and work as " Do it yourself project.

Sadness and happiness are all experienced by someone else before us; we’re simply following their lead.

Create your own path.Don't blindly follow the massess... because most of the time the "M" is silent.

Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim

My sweetheart, my love, my love, my love—do you know what—all the happiness of the world, the riches, power and adventures, all the promises of religions, all the enchantment of nature and even human fame are not worth your two letters. It was a night of horror, terrible anguish, when I imagined that your undelivered letter, stuck at some unknown post office, was being destroyed like a sick little stray dog . . . But today it arrived—and now it seems to me that in the mailbox where it was lying, in the sack where it was shaking, all the other letters absorbed, just by touching it, your unique charm and that that day all Germans received strange wonderful letters—letters that had gone mad because they had touched your handwriting. The thought that you exist is so divinely blissful in itself that it is ridiculous to talk about the everyday sadness of separation—a week’s, ten days’—what does it matter? since my whole life belongs to you. I wake at night and know that you are together with me,—I sense your sweet long legs, your neck through your hair, your trembling eyelashes—and then such happiness, such simmering bliss follows me in my dreams that I simply suffocate . . .

I saw thee once - only once - years ago: I must not say how many - but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared stir, unless on tiptoe - Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light, Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death - Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That smiled and died in the parterre, enchanted By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half reclining; while the moon Fell upon the upturn'd faces of the roses, And on thine own, upturn'd - alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight - Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,) That bade me pause before that garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven! - oh, G**! How my heart beats in coupling those two words!) Save only thee and me. I paused - I looked - And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in mind the garden was enchanted!) The pearly lustre of the moon went out: The mossy banks and the meandering paths, The happy flowers and the repining trees, Were seen no more: the very roses' odors Died in the arms of the adoring airs. All - all expired save thee - save less than thou: Save only divine light in thine eyes - Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them - they were the world to me. I saw but them - saw only them for hours - Saw only them until the moon went down. What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! How dark a wo! yet how sublime a hope! How silently serene a sea of pride! How daring an ambition! yet how deep - How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into a western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go - they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me - they lead me through the years. They are my ministers - yet I their slave. Their office is to illumine and enkindle - My duty, to be saved by their bright fire, And purified in their electric fire, And sanctified in their elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope,) And are far up in Heaven - the stars I kneel to In the sad, silent watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still - two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

He's following me... He needs to have a secret but he can´t help telling the heat is going out of me. The heart is going out of me, and though she cannot remember she cannot forget. Clutching a fistful of sand. What ties me to you is guilt. I crossed two rivers and wept by one I am the beast at the end of the rope Happy and free.

I scratched the word HELLO in small letters. ... And as names go, it's a good one, isn't it? In spite of all the damage that followed, I still think that's the perfect name for a picture drawn by a man who was trying his best not to be sad anymore - who was trying to remember how it felt to be happy.

How long you will live in your dreams? The time is now, it's better to go and follow them..

Always follow your dreams with confidence and conviction, don’t fall for the trap of dream killers

To Helen I saw thee once-once only-years ago; I must not say how many-but not many. It was a july midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe- Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That gave out, in return for the love-light Thier odorous souls in an ecstatic death- Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted by thee, by the poetry of thy prescence. Clad all in white, upon a violet bank I saw thee half reclining; while the moon Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses And on thine own, upturn'd-alas, in sorrow! Was it not Fate that, on this july midnight- Was it not Fate (whose name is also sorrow) That bade me pause before that garden-gate, To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? No footstep stirred; the hated world all slept, Save only thee and me. (Oh Heaven- oh, God! How my heart beats in coupling those two worlds!) Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked- And in an instant all things disappeared. (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) The pearly lustre of the moon went out; The mossy banks and the meandering paths, The happy flowers and the repining trees, Were seen no more: the very roses' odors Died in the arms of the adoring airs. All- all expired save thee- save less than thou: Save only the divine light in thine eyes- Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them- they were the world to me. I saw but them- saw only them for hours- Saw only them until the moon went down. What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres! How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope! How silently serene a sea of pride! How daring an ambition!yet how deep- How fathomless a capacity for love! But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go- they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me- they lead me through the years. They are my ministers- yet I thier slave Thier office is to illumine and enkindle- My duty, to be saved by thier bright light, And purified in thier electric fire, And sanctified in thier Elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), And are far up in heaven- the stars I kneel to In the sad, silent watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still- two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, - and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

My belief in ghosts swings with the wind. But my belief that the cemetery felt happy and not sad—I've never changed my mind about that.

In the days that followed I thought about grief; how nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories but until you experience it for yourself you can't possibly understand. There's no going around it. Or under or over it. You've got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so enormous that the you are smacked against the shore. It will fabric of your life, so that everything you do is stained by it; every moment, good or bad, is steeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments, the achievements and successes, are permeate very tinged with the knowledge that someone something is missing. And the first time that you smile or laugh, you catch yourself, because happiness feels so unfamiliar.

If I’m happy because of something -even if that thing persists- my happiness in time vanishes. But if I regret something or become sad about something that sadness or regret can follow me for many years, maybe even to my deathbed.

WHY DOES it make me so sad when I think back to that time? Is it yearning for past happiness—for I was happy in the weeks that followed, in which I really did work like a lunatic and passed the class, and we made love as if nothing else in the world mattered.

The all-powerful Zahir seemed to be born with every human being and to gain full strength in childhood, imposing rules that would thereafter always be respected: People who are different are dangerous; they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women. We must marry, have children, reproduce the species. Love is only a small thing, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this may seem perverse. When we are married we are authorised to take possession of the other person, body and soul. We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organised society, and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill. We must buy jewelry; it identifies us with our tribe. We must be amusing at all times and sneer at those who express their real feelings; it's dangerous for a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings. We must at all costs avoid saying no because people prefer those who always say yes, and this allows us to survive in hostile territory. What other people think is more important than what we feel. Never make a fuss--it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe. If you behave differently you will be expelled from the tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organise in the first place. We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have. We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving. We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country, wish time away so that retirement comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hair-style, criticise anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday, depending on our religion, and there beg forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with pride because we know the truth and despise he other tribe, who worship false gods. Our children must follow in our footsteps; after all we are older and know more about the world. We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study. We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy. We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private, because I am the all-powerful Zahir, who lays down the rules and determines the meaning of success, the best way to love, the importance of rewards.

The happiness that follows sadness is never the same as that which came before it.

I once two beautiful children playing together. One was a fair white child; the other was her slave, and also her sister. When I saw them embracing each other, and heard their joyous laughter, I turned sadly away from the lovely sight. I foresaw the inevitable blight that would follow on the little slave's heart. I knew how soon her laughter would be changed to sighs. The fair child grew up to be a still fairer woman. From childhood to womanhood her pathway was blooming with flowers, and overarched by a sunny sky. Scarcely one day of her life had been clouded when the sun rose on her happy bridal morning. How had those years dealt with her slave sister, the little playmate of her childhood? She, also, was very beautiful; but the flowers and sunshine of love were not for her. She drank the cup of sin, and shame, and misery, whereof her persecuted race are compelled to drink. In view of these things, why are ye silent, ye free men and women of the north? Why do your tongues falter in maintenance of the right? Would that I had more ability! But my heart is so full, and my pen is so weak! There are noble men and women who plead for us, striving to help those who cannot help themselves. God bless them! God give them strength and courage to go on! God bless those, every where, who are laboring to advance the cause of humanity!

Mama stared at me not with sadness, but with pleading. She was thinner than I'd ever allowed myself to notice, looking more like a child than a woman. I wanted to believe she knew what was best for me. I wanted to believe she was like every other mother and that she loved me more than I loved her. I hoped, if I followed her wishes, I would finally make her happy.

but when i find a place to put my love, i will fucking die for you. i will hand over all my rations until you are fat and happy, and i am shriveled and happy. i will follow you across the country and i will take care of your dog and i will do your laundry. i will love you even when you yell at me. i will try to kiss you when you turn away. i will write poems and you won't read them. i will pretend that this is enough. this is enough. this is enough. this is enough. this is enough. this is-

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

When you are happy, you do not ask yourself- why am I happy or why does happiness come to my life? Similarly, when you are sad, you should not ask yourself- why am I sad or why does sadness follow me like a shadow? Accept both happiness and sadness as inseparable parts of life and your life will be easy!

It seems right now that all I’ve ever done in my life is making my way here to you.’ I could see that Rosie could not place the line from The Bridges of Madison County that had produced such a powerful emotional reaction on the plane. She looked confused. ‘Don, what are you…what have you done to yourself?’ ‘I’ve made some changes.’ ‘Big changes.’ ‘Whatever behavioural modifications you require from me are a trivial price to pay for having you as my partner.’ Rosie made a downwards movement with her hand, which I could not interpret. Then she looked around the room and I followed her eyes. Everyone was watching. Nick had stopped partway to our table. I realised that in my intensity I had raised my voice. I didn’t care. ‘You are the world’s most perfect woman. All other women are irrelevant. Permanently. No Botox or implants will be required. ‘I need a minute to think,’ she said. I automatically started the timer on my watch. Suddenly Rosie started laughing. I looked at her, understandably puzzled at this outburst in the middle of a critical life decision. ‘The watch,’ she said. ‘I say “I need a minute” and you start timing. Don is not dead. 'Don, you don’t feel love, do you?’ said Rosie. ‘You can’t really love me.’ ‘Gene diagnosed love.’ I knew now that he had been wrong. I had watched thirteen romantic movies and felt nothing. That was not strictly true. I had felt suspense, curiosity and amusement. But I had not for one moment felt engaged in the love between the protagonists. I had cried no tears for Meg Ryan or Meryl Streep or Deborah Kerr or Vivien Leigh or Julia Roberts. I could not lie about so important a matter. ‘According to your definition, no.’ Rosie looked extremely unhappy. The evening had turned into a disaster. 'I thought my behaviour would make you happy, and instead it’s made you sad.’ ‘I’m upset because you can’t love me. Okay?’ This was worse! She wanted me to love her. And I was incapable. Gene and Claudia offered me a lift home, but I did not want to continue the conversation. I started walking, then accelerated to a jog. It made sense to get home before it rained. It also made sense to exercise hard and put the restaurant behind me as quickly as possible. The new shoes were workable, but the coat and tie were uncomfortable even on a cold night. I pulled off the jacket, the item that had made me temporarily acceptable in a world to which I did not belong, and threw it in a rubbish bin. The tie followed. On an impulse I retrieved the Daphne from the jacket and carried it in my hand for the remainder of the journey. There was rain in the air and my face was wet as I reached the safety of my apartment.

Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there. What are you doing here? I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you. What do you want. I want you to stop. I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks. It's okay. I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held. It's okay. Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says. Okay. Okay. Okay. Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and fragility are exposed to the soft strength of her open arms and her simple word okay and I start to cry. I start to cry. I want to cry. It comes in waves. THe waves roll deep and from deep the deep within me and I hold her and she holds me tighter and i let her and I let it and I let this and I have not felt this way this vulnerability or allowed myself to feel this way this vulnerability since I was ten years old and I don't know why I haven't and I don't know why I am now and I only know that I am and that it is scary terrifying frightening worse and better than anything I've ever felt crying in her arms just crying in her ams just crying. She guides me to the ground, but she doesn't let me go. THe Gates are open and thirteen years of addiction, violence, hell and their accompaniments are manifesting themselves in dense tears and heavy sobs and a shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. THe loss inhabits, fills and overwhelms me. It is the loss of a childhood of being a Teeenager of normalcy of happiness of love of trust anon reason of God of Family of friends of future of potential of dignity of humanity of sanity f myself of everything everything everything. I lost everything and I am lost reduced to a mass of mourning, sadness, grief, anguish and heartache. I am lost. I have lost. Everything. Everything. It's wet and Lilly cradles me like a broken Child. My face and her shoulder and her shirt and her hair are wet with my tears. I slow down and I start to breathe slowly and deeply and her hair smells clean and I open my eyes because I want to see it an it is all that I can see. It is jet black almost blue and radiant with moisture. I want to touch it and I reach with one of my hands and I run my hand from the crown along her neck and her back to the base of her rib and it is a thin perfect sheer and I let it slowly drop from the tips of my fingers and when it is gone I miss it. I do it again and again and she lets me do it and she doesn't speak she just cradles me because I am broken. I am broken. Broken. THere is noise and voices and Lilly pulls me in tighter and tighter and I know I pull her in tighter and tighter and I can feel her heart beating and I know she can feel my heart beating and they are speaking our hearts are speaking a language wordless old unknowable and true and we're pulling and holding and the noise is closer and the voices louder and Lilly whispers. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.

Tears flood in you your eyes burning your heart scars with my name scratched deep My face is gone my heart betrayed by your lullabies I’m a shadow of a girl inside Hands are touching you nothing takes the place of you Heart wrench, weeps goodbye Lullabies, beautiful and trusting Barely breathing as they break into dust Lonely corners me Sweeps me off my feet Shows me it was better for me Fingertips holding close your grip not as soft Follows me to an empty bed I can’t stop the weakening of my soul my body is dying your tune is holding my mind Let me go see what I do No control No you You whisper your sweet goodbye If it is small it won’t interrupt my sleep But my heart you keep You say it’s for me But who would be happy? Alone left out in the cold

I realize that at every moment, sadness follows the happiness and vice versa sometimes because of which I have never gained the gist of one individually as the other has stalked and tracked another. Sad. Happy. Sad

Physiological stress, then, is the link between personality traits and disease. Certain traits — otherwise known as coping styles — magnify the risk for illness by increasing the likelihood of chronic stress. Common to them all is a diminished capacity for emotional communication. Emotional experiences are translated into potentially damaging biological events when human beings are prevented from learning how to express their feelings effectively. That learning occurs — or fails to occur — during childhood. The way people grow up shapes their relationship with their own bodies and psyches. The emotional contexts of childhood interact with inborn temperament to give rise to personality traits. Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood. There is an important distinction between an inherent characteristic, rooted in an individual without regard to his environment, and a response to the environment, a pattern of behaviours developed to ensure survival. What we see as indelible traits may be no more than habitual defensive techniques, unconsciously adopted. People often identify with these habituated patterns, believing them to be an indispensable part of the self. They may even harbour self-loathing for certain traits — for example, when a person describes herself as “a control freak.” In reality, there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a “controlling” personality is deep anxiety. The infant and child who perceives that his needs are unmet may develop an obsessive coping style, anxious about each detail. When such a person fears that he is unable to control events, he experiences great stress. Unconsciously he believes that only by controlling every aspect of his life and environment will he be able to ensure the satisfaction of his needs. As he grows older, others will resent him and he will come to dislike himself for what was originally a desperate response to emotional deprivation. The drive to control is not an innate trait but a coping style. Emotional repression is also a coping style rather than a personality trait set in stone. Not one of the many adults interviewed for this book could answer in the affirmative when asked the following: When, as a child, you felt sad, upset or angry, was there anyone you could talk to — even when he or she was the one who had triggered your negative emotions? In a quarter century of clinical practice, including a decade of palliative work, I have never heard anyone with cancer or with any chronic illness or condition say yes to that question. Many children are conditioned in this manner not because of any intended harm or abuse, but because the parents themselves are too threatened by the anxiety, anger or sadness they sense in their child — or are simply too busy or too harassed themselves to pay attention. “My mother or father needed me to be happy” is the simple formula that trained many a child — later a stressed and depressed or physically ill adult — into lifelong patterns of repression.

Because sadness is the truest emotion,” Greta says. “Happiness isn’t to be trusted. It’s a bald-faced liar. But the truth of your sadness enriches every other thing inside you, especially your joy. You shouldn’t be afraid to go to the place that makes you sad, Molly Hook. The more you go to that dark place inside you, the lighter it gets. You go there enough times, you realize that dark place is actually your sacred place. That place is all of you and the tears you take from that place are just the darkness leaking out, precious drop by precious drop. You following me?

Thoughts have to follow each other, or they get jumbled. While we are thinking about a problem we cannot truly experience either happiness or sadness. We cannot run, sing, and balance the checkbook simultaneously, because each one of these activities exhausts most of our capacity for attention.

In the mornings I could not remember the specifics, only that he was in them and that I was happy, and that the days that followed often felt unbearably dreary and sad, a landscape bled of contentment, and I began to think of them as something to be withstood before I could return to the cosseting blank darkness of night.

In the mornings I could not remember the specifics, only that he was in them and that I was happy, and that the days that followed often felt unbearably dreary and sad, a landscape bled of contentment, and I began to think of them as something to be withstood before I could return to the cosseting blank darkness of night.

On the TV screen in Harry's is The Patty Winters Show, which is now on in the afternoon and is up against Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Today's topic is Does Economic Success Equal Happiness? The answer, in Harry's this afternoon, is a roar of resounding "Definitely," followed by much hooting, the guys all cheering together in a friendly way. On the screen now are scenes from President Bush's inauguration early this year, then a speech from former President Reagan, while Patty delivers a hard-to-hear commentary. Soon a tiresome debate forms over whether he's lying or not, even though we don't, can't, hear the words. The first and really only one to complain is Price, who, though I think he's bothered by something else, uses this opportunity to vent his frustration, looks inappropriately stunned, asks, "How can he lie like that? How can he pull that shit?" "Oh Christ," I moan. "What shit? Now where do we have reservations at? I mean I'm not really hungry but I would like to have reservations somewhere. How about 220?" An afterthought: "McDermott, how did that rate in the new Zagat's?" "No way," Farrell complains before Craig can answer. "The coke I scored there last time was cut with so much laxative I actually had to take a shit in M.K." "Yeah, yeah, life sucks and then you die." "Low point of the night," Farrell mutters. "Weren't you with Kyria the last time you were there?" Goodrich asks. "Wasn't that the low point?" "She caught me on call waiting. What could I do?" Farrell shrugs. "I apologize." "Caught him on call waiting." McDermott nudges me, dubious. "Shut up, McDermott," Farrell says, snapping Craig's suspenders. "Date a beggar." "You forgot something, Farrell," Preston mentions. "McDermott is a beggar." "How's Courtney?" Farrell asks Craig, leering. "Just say no." Someone laughs. Price looks away from the television screen, then at Craig, and he tries to hide his displeasure by asking me, waving at the TV, "I don't believe it. He looks so... normal. He seems so... out of it. So... un dangerous." "Bimbo, bimbo," someone says. "Bypass, bypass." "He is totally harmless, you geek. Was totally harmless. Just like you are totally harmless. But he did do all that shit and you have failed to get us into 150, so, you know, what can I say?" McDermott shrugs. "I just don't get how someone, anyone, can appear that way yet be involved in such total shit," Price says, ignoring Craig, averting his eyes from Farrell. He takes out a cigar and studies it sadly. To me it still looks like there's a smudge on Price's forehead. "Because Nancy was right behind him?" Farrell guesses, looking up from the Quotrek. "Because Nancy did it?" "How can you be so fucking, I don't know, cool about it?" Price, to whom something really eerie has obviously happened, sounds genuinely perplexed. Rumor has it that he was in rehab.

In our day many people are living in the midst of sadness and great confusion. They are not finding answers to their questions and are unable to meet their needs. Some have lost a sense of happiness and joy. The prophets have declared that true happiness is found in following the example and teachings of Christ. He is our Savior, He is our teacher, and He is the perfect example.

You flatter me, my dear girl." He demurred playfully with a small bow. Rose always cheered him up. "You've got a nice bum." She shrugged with a bright, cheerful grin. Seeing her happy was always a pleasure. "That opinion seems to run in your family. Your father said the same to me on numerous occasions. Sadly, he followed it up with 'but it's in the way of the television'." Eric smiled wryly

Dear Abba, I’m starting out free today, free from the advertised lies that promise me everything from four-doors of turbo-charged happiness to some contraption that will shake, rattle, and roll my abs back into a pack I never had even in my twenties. It would be comical if it wasn’t so sad: all of our desires to make ourselves worthy of this world but unfit for the world to come. I want to be a follower of the sacred dream, and one day arrive fully free, free at last.

He got into the tub and ran a little cold water. Then he lowered his thin, hairy body into the just-right warmth and stared at the interstices between the tiles. Sadness--he had experienced that emotion ten thousand times. As exhalation is to inhalation, he thought of it as the return from each thrust of happiness. Lazily soaping himself, he gave examples. When he was five and Irwin eight, their father had breezed into town with a snowstorm and come to see them where they lived with their grandparents in the small Connecticut city. Their father had been a vagabond salesman and was considered a bum by people who should know. But he had come into the closed, heated house with all the gimcrack and untouchable junk behind glass and he had smelled of cold air and had had snow in his curly black hair. He had raved about the world he lived in, while the old people, his father and mother, had clucked sadly in the shadows. And then he had wakened the boys in the night and forced them out into the yard to worship the swirling wet flakes, to dance around with their hands joined, shrieking at the snow-laden branches. Later, they had gone in to sleep with hearts slowly returning to bearable beatings. Great flowering things had opened and closed in Norman's head, and the resonance of the wild man's voice had squeezed a sweet, tart juice through his heart. But then he had wakened to a gray day with his father gone and the world walking gingerly over the somber crust of dead-looking snow. It had taken him some time to get back to his usual equanimity. He slid down in the warm, foamy water until just his face and his knobby white knees were exposed. Once he had read Wuthering Heights over a weekend and gone to school susceptible to any heroine, only to have the girl who sat in front of him, whom he had admired for some months, emit a loud fart which had murdered him in a small way and kept him from speaking a word to anyone the whole week following. He had laughed at a very funny joke about a Negro when Irwin told it at a party, and then the following day had seen some white men lightly kicking a Negro man in the pants, and temporarily he had questioned laughter altogether. He had gone to several universities with the vague exaltation of Old Man Axelrod and had found only curves and credits. He had become drunk on the idea of God and found only theology. He had risen several times on the subtle and powerful wings of lust, expectant of magnificence, achieving only discharge. A few times he had extended friendship with palpitating hope, only to find that no one quite knew what he had in mind. His solitude now was the result of his metabolism, that constant breathing in of joy and exhalation of sadness. He had come to take shallower breaths, and the two had become mercifully mixed into melancholy contentment. He wondered how pain would breach that low-level strength. "I'm a small man of definite limitations," he declared to himself, and relaxed in the admission.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

We come from nothing... which, in reality, is everything; It is that pure energy, the space where Brahmn (energy) resides. Awareness of this absolute reality leads us to the ultimate truth about our lives. It is also through this awareness that Self within can deal with dualities in life, to discriminate and choose, leading to happiness and sadness. To find one's center one needs to respect both dual properties; bring the opposites closer, surrender and accept in oneness... and follow the path of bliss...

today, i choose to let go. i choose to let go of the people who have let go of me. i choose to let go of people who make me overthink and question myself. i choose to let go of people who do not give me joy. today, i choose to be happy. i choose to stay away from any kinds of toxicity. i choose to release myself from all the aches i’ve put myself through. i choose to give myself the love i so generously give to others. today, i choose to stop hurting myself. i choose to follow positivity and not drown in my own sadness anymore. i choose to embrace openness and not build up walls around myself. i choose to accept and embrace my flaws and grow from them. today, i choose to heal. i choose to forgive myself for all the mistakes i’ve made when i didn’t know better. i choose to guard my soul. i choose to move forward. today, i choose to be brave. i choose to say no to the things i don’t want to say yes to. i choose to walk away from places i have outgrown. i choose to value my own time. today, i choose to love myself.

In this book, I have selected seven quantum movies that carry direct healing messages. These movies are powerful because they clearly depict the truth of Jesus’ spiritual teachings from A Course in Miracles; they contain the same deep wisdom, light, and love that Jesus demonstrated. Quantum movies propel us into a direct experience that is aligned with the world-changing perspective of quantum physics. The profound lessons from these movies are directly relevant to the core concerns of life; they are helping us to see all of the ego’s myriad tricks—the belief in history, ambitions, goals, outcomes, and so forth. The Holy Spirit is now using Hollywood to reach the sleeping mind! Holy Spirit has infiltrated Hollywood! This book is our prayer to Spirit: Make everything new! Show us the world anew—fresh, clean, and clear! Then we have nothing to worry about. When we trust, listen to, and follow Spirit, it is game over for the ego. Game over for worry, sadness, and anxiety. As Jesus says in the Course, “Trust would settle every problem now!” Happiness is Who We Are Now!

A person may follow a religion and yet not come to the realization of the truth, and what use is his religion to him if he is not happy? Religion does not mean depression and sadness. The spirit of religion should give happiness. God is happy. He is the perfection of love/harmony and beauty. A religious person should be happier than one who is not religious. If a person who professes religion is always melancholy, his religion is disgraced; The form has been kept, but the spirit has been lost. If the study of religion and mysticism does not lead to real joy and happiness, it may as well not exist, for it does not help to fulfill the purpose of life.

A few days after the fireworks, I gave them a lesson on category nouns versus exact nouns. I hadn’t heard of this distinction prior to opening the textbook. It transpired that a category noun was something like “vegetables,” whereas exact nouns were “beetroot,” “carrots,” “broccoli.” It was better to use exact nouns because this made your writing more precise and interesting. The chapter gave a short explanation followed by an exercise: an A4 page divided into columns. On the left were various category nouns. On the right, you had to fill in at least three corresponding exact nouns. I told the kids they could use their Cantonese-to-English dictionaries. Cynthia Mak asked what to say for “people.” Did it mean “sister,” “brother,” “father,” or “teacher,” “doctor,” “artist,” or— “They’re all okay,” I said. “But if I put ‘sister,’ ‘father,’ ‘brother’ in ‘people,’ then what about here?” She pointed to the box marked “family.” “Okay, don’t do those. Do ‘teacher’ or something.” “But what about here?”—signaling the “professions” row. “Okay, something else for ‘people.’” “Happy people, sad people?” “‘Happy people’ isn’t an exact noun—it’s an adjective plus a category noun.” “So what should I write?” We looked at each other. It was indeed a challenge to describe people in a way not immediately related to how they earned money or their position in the family unit. I said: “How about ‘friend,’ ‘boyfriend,’ ‘colleague’?” “I don’t want to write ‘boyfriend.’” I couldn’t blame her for questioning the exercise. “Friend,” “enemy,” and “colleague” didn’t seem like ways of narrowing down “people” in the way “apple” did for “fruit.” An apple would still be a fruit if it didn’t have any others in its vicinity, but you couldn’t be someone’s nemesis without their hanging around to complete the definition. The same issue cropped up with my earlier suggestions. “Family” was relational, and “profession” was created and given meaning by external structures. Admittedly “adult,” “child,” and “teenager” could stand on their own. But I still found it depressing that the way we specified ourselves—the way we made ourselves precise and interesting—was by pinpointing our developmental stage and likely distance from mortality. Fruit didn’t have that problem.

1.The moment you realize that the person you cared for has nothing intellectually or spiritually to offer you, but a headache. 2. The moment you realize God had greater plans for you that don’t involve crying at night or sad Pinterest quotes. 3. The moment you stop comparing yourself to others because it undermines your worth, education and your parent’s wisdom. 4. The moment you live your dreams, not because of what it will prove or get you, but because that is all you want to do. People’s opinions don’t matter. 5. The moment you realize that no one is your enemy, except yourself. 6. The moment you realize that you can have everything you want in life. However, it takes timing, the right heart, the right actions, the right passion and a willingness to risk it all. If it is not yours, it is because you really didn’t want it, need it or God prevented it. 7. The moment you realize the ghost of your ancestors stood between you and the person you loved. They really don't want you mucking up the family line with someone that acts anything less than honorable. 8. The moment you realize that happiness was never about getting a person. They are only a helpmate towards achieving your life mission. 9. The moment you believe that love is not about losing or winning. It is just a few moments in time, followed by an eternity of situations to grow from. 10. The moment you realize that you were always the right person. Only ignorant people walk away from greatness.” ― Shannon L. Alder

If you could step inside my world, here is what you would see...... A lifeless soul who is in constant search of not only someone to love but for someone to please show me how to love myself. Someone whose deepest wish is to feel what it is like to truly be loved for who I am. You would see a desperate being in a constant battle with her emotions. Praying no person could see the obvious envy that consumes her soul as she longingly observes the happiness and the joy that accompanies family and true friendships. A gathering of those who most certainly care about each other, to create cherished memories that will be forever etched in their hearts. Memories they have created to fondly look back on in the years to come. You would see the forced insincere smile that must be worn when in the public eye because being pleasant is a requirement amongst your peers, even though you are completely dying inside. You would see how i wake up every morning alone in the barely inhabitable box i reside in that hides me from having to share my pain and sadness with the world. And when the night skies appear, you would see me grateful that it is once again time for me to be reunited with the lonely, yet welcoming call of my bed in that same inhabitable box. You would see me, most eager to surrender to the sleep that would soon follow, for that is when my pain ceases to exist. My world....when most of you fantasize and anxiously anticipate what adventures lie before you when the sun comes up, i struggle hour by hour, wishing I could fast forward time, so the pain will cease to exist when the sun goes down.

We sit here and we talk about sports. We talk about our home improvement projects. We gossip about family members we don’t care about. We self-victimize and complain about petty problems we've created ourselves. We work like dogs to keep up with the Joneses but have no time to enjoy the things we work for. We work purposeless jobs that keep us mildly happy, never really enjoying what we do, but we also never get the balls to leave the job. We drink on the weekends to numb the pain but it never really cures it. We criticize anyone who tries to break away from the rat race, because the idea that there is a way out scares us more than dying in the state we’re in. We only give to causes that affect us personally, only follow religions that suit us, only listen to people who agree with us, and worst of all,” he paused, and in a sad, defeated finale to his rant, he said, “We lie to ourselves.

In attunement, it is the infant who leads and the mother who follows. “Where their roles differ is in the timing of their responses,” writes John Bowlby, one of the century’s great psychiatric researchers. The infant initiates the interaction or withdraws from it according to his own rhythms, Bowlby found, while the “mother regulates her behaviour so that it meshes with his... Thus she lets him call the tune and by a skillful interweaving of her own responses with his creates a dialogue.” The tense or depressed mothering adult will not be able to accompany the infant into relaxed, happy spaces. He may also not fully pick up signs of the infant’s emotional distress, or may not be able to respond to them as effectively as he would wish. The ADD child’s difficulty reading social cues likely originates from her relationship cues not being read by the nurturing adult, who was distracted by stress. In the attunement interaction, not only does the mother follow the child, but she also permits the child to temporarily interrupt contact. When the interaction reaches a certain stage of intensity for the infant, he will look away to avoid an uncomfortably high level of arousal. Another interaction will then begin. A mother who is anxious may react with alarm when the infant breaks off contact, may try to stimulate him, to draw him back into the interaction. Then the infant’s nervous system is not allowed to “cool down,” and the attunement relationship is hampered. Infants whose caregivers were too stressed, for whatever reason, to give them the necessary attunement contact will grow up with a chronic tendency to feel alone with their emotions, to have a sense — rightly or wrongly — that no one can share how they feel, that no one can “understand.” Attunement is the quintessential component of a larger process, called attachment. Attachment is simply our need to be close to somebody. It represents the absolute need of the utterly and helplessly vulnerable human infant for secure closeness with at least one nourishing, protective and constantly available parenting figure. Essential for survival, the drive for attachment is part of the very nature of warm-blooded animals in infancy, especially. of mammals. In human beings, attachment is a driving force of behavior for longer than in any other animal. For most of us it is present throughout our lives, although we may transfer our attachment need from one person — our parent — to another — say, a spouse or even a child. We may also attempt to satisfy the lack of the human contact we crave by various other means, such as addictions, for example, or perhaps fanatical religiosity or the virtual reality of the Internet. Much of popular culture, from novels to movies to rock or country music, expresses nothing but the joys or the sorrows flowing from satisfactions or disappointments in our attachment relationships. Most parents extend to their children some mixture of loving and hurtful behavior, of wise parenting and unskillful, clumsy parenting. The proportions vary from family to family, from parent to parent. Those ADD children whose needs for warm parental contact are most frustrated grow up to be adults with the most severe cases of ADD. Already at only a few months of age, an infant will register by facial expression his dejection at the mother’s unconscious emotional withdrawal, despite the mother’s continued physical presence. “(The infant) takes delight in Mommy’s attention,” writes Stanley Greenspan, “and knows when that source of delight is missing. If Mom becomes preoccupied or distracted while playing with the baby, sadness or dismay settles in on the little face.

A lot of people will ask me “Whats depression like?”. Its the same answer every time. “Its shitty...”. But you know whats its really like? Its like a bundle of dark clouds falling over your head, raining constantly. So your drenched. You cant function properly, you can’t do the things you love because your fingers slip and you mess up. Your clothes metaphorically are like your life, you try to change them, but they only stay dry for a few seconds, then its the same old story all over again. And no one, I repeat no one, wants to be near you. Your a wet, soaking, depressed and helpless kitten lost in depressions firm grip. Its like a stalker, it follows you. Everywhere you go, Its waiting for you. You can’t leave it. You can’t ignore it. Its always there. Thats what makes it so scary. You can never get away from it, unless, someone pushes those fiery and dark clouds away. If their willing to sacrifice everything just to make you happy. Even if that means taking those clouds upon themselves.

Keith’s fractures came at the hand of such savage instruments that he steps on shards nearly every step he takes. He told me once, “Lizabeth, life is harder for some people than others.” I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to say how everyone had the same opportunity to be happy in Jesus. I wanted to ask him why the blessings of the present couldn’t make up for the curses of the past. I wanted to ask him why I wasn’t enough to make him too glad to be sad, but I knew I’d be talking like a fool. Life is harder for some people than others. Shadows follow me often enough, but not incessantly. Not everywhere I go. I’ve not spent a single night’s sleep in a burning garage. I deal with bouts of anxiety and depression, but they don’t chase me down constantly like ravenous wolves after a bleating sheep. I wondered sometimes, as most kids do, if my parents really loved me, but never once was I faced with circumstances wooing me to wonder if my parents wished their other child had been the one to survive.

The beauty isn’t in the jewel itself, but in the way the light shines through it. Emmy, on the other hand, was a cutie, with a thick mop of curls just like Little Orphan Annie in the funny papers, and we all loved her. “I’m happy they’ve fed you,” Mrs. Frost said. “You have a very busy day ahead.” I reached out to tickle Emmy. She stepped back, giggling. I looked up at her mother and shook my head sadly. “Mr. Volz told me. I’m working Bledsoe’s hayfields.” “You were going to work for Mr. Bledsoe. I’ve managed to get your assignment changed. You’ll be working for me today. You and Albert and Moses. My garden and orchard need seeing to. Mr. Brickman just gave me approval to use all three of you. Finish your breakfast and we’ll be off.” I gulped down what was left and took my bowl to the kitchen, where I explained to Mr. Volz what was up. He followed me back to the table. “You got Brickman to change his mind?” the German said, clearly impressed. “A little flutter of the eyelashes, Mr. Volz, and that man melts like butter on a griddle.” Which might have been true if she’d been a beauty. I

It bears repeating that so much of our frustrations in life come from being confused. This feeling that the purpose of life is to be happy is a major source of our confusion. We want to be happy, and we like to think we were put here to be happy, so why aren’t we happy all the time? And why can’t we just choose to be happy? It makes perfect sense to desire happiness, and as much of it as possible. After all, happiness is the reward mechanisms in our brains firing. Remember the rats from the first part of this series? They kept pressing their levers, over and over, because the wires buried in their brains were located inside the reward centers. Pressing the lever made them feel happy, and there’s no better raw feeling in the world, so they would press the lever until they died. Drug addicts, overeaters, smokers, gamblers, alcoholics, and thrill junkies will all do the same thing. The happy chemicals flood our brains, and we believe we have found the meaning of life. I have sad news for you, dear reader. News that is so sad, it comes first with a reminder that happiness arises as we dispel confusion. And the reason we do not want to accept the following truth is because on its face, it seems depressing. But I promise that once we work through all the implications, we will be less confused and far happier on the other side. The truth is this: The meaning of life is to survive, reproduce, and see that our offspring survive. I know that’s quite the bomb to drop on you while we are discussing happiness, but there’s a reason I bring it up now. Because happiness and sadness are not states that our bodies seek for the sake of feeling those things. No, our bodies use happiness and sadness to motivate and reward us for certain

unexpected and inexplicable that emerged along with the generated responses had to do with the differences between happiness and sadness, children and adults, not being all they’re cracked up to be, much to our scientific chagrin: a change in the rules. Intensity is the unassimilable. For present purposes, intensity will be equated with affect. There seems to be a growing feeling within media, literary, and art theory that affect is central to an understanding of our information- and image-based late capitalist culture, in which so-called master narratives are perceived to have foundered. Fredric Jameson notwithstanding, belief has waned for many, but not affect. If anything, our condition is characterized by a surfeit of it. The problem is that there is no cultural-theoretical vocabulary specific to affect.2 Our entire vocabulary has derived from theories of signification that are still wedded to structure even across irreconcilable differences (the divorce proceedings of poststructuralism: terminable or interminable?). In the absence of an asignifying philosophy of affect, it is all too easy for received psychological categories to slip back in, undoing the considerable deconstructive work that has been effectively carried out by poststructuralism. Affect is most often used loosely as a synonym for emotion.3 But one of the clearest lessons of this first story is that emotion and affect—if affect is intensity—follow different logics and pertain to different orders. An emotion is a subjective content, the sociolinguistic fixing of the quality of an experience which is from that point onward defined as personal. Emotion is qualified intensity, the conventional, consensual point of insertion of intensity into semantically and semiotically formed progressions, into narrativizable action-reaction circuits,

Any relationship will have its difficulties, but sometimes those problems are indicators of deep-rooted problems that, if not addressed quickly, will poison your marriage. If any of the following red flags—caution signs—exist in your relationship, we recommend that you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor. Part of this list was adapted by permission from Bob Phillips, author of How Can I Be Sure: A Pre-Marriage Inventory.1 You have a general uneasy feeling that something is wrong in your relationship. You find yourself arguing often with your fiancé(e). Your fiancé(e) seems irrationally angry and jealous whenever you interact with someone of the opposite sex. You avoid discussing certain subjects because you’re afraid of your fiancé(e)’s reaction. Your fiancé(e) finds it extremely difficult to express emotions, or is prone to extreme emotions (such as out-of-control anger or exaggerated fear). Or he/she swings back and forth between emotional extremes (such as being very happy one minute, then suddenly exhibiting extreme sadness the next). Your fiancé(e) displays controlling behavior. This means more than a desire to be in charge—it means your fiancé(e) seems to want to control every aspect of your life: your appearance, your lifestyle, your interactions with friends or family, and so on. Your fiancé(e) seems to manipulate you into doing what he or she wants. You are continuing the relationship because of fear—of hurting your fiancé(e), or of what he or she might do if you ended the relationship. Your fiancé(e) does not treat you with respect. He or she constantly criticizes you or talks sarcastically to you, even in public. Your fiancé(e) is unable to hold down a job, doesn’t take personal responsibility for losing a job, or frequently borrows money from you or from friends. Your fiancé(e) often talks about aches and pains, and you suspect some of these are imagined. He or she goes from doctor to doctor until finding someone who will agree that there is some type of illness. Your fiancé(e) is unable to resolve conflict. He or she cannot deal with constructive criticism, or never admits a mistake, or never asks for forgiveness. Your fiancé(e) is overly dependant on parents for finances, decision-making or emotional security. Your fiancé(e) is consistently dishonest and tries to keep you from learning about certain aspects of his or her life. Your fiancé(e) does not appear to recognize right from wrong, and rationalizes questionable behavior. Your fiancé(e) consistently avoids responsibility. Your fiancé(e) exhibits patterns of physical, emotional or sexual abuse toward you or others. Your fiancé(e) displays signs of drug or alcohol abuse: unexplained absences of missed dates, frequent car accidents, the smell of alcohol or strong odor of mouthwash, erratic behavior or emotional swings, physical signs such as red eyes, unkempt look, unexplained nervousness, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has displayed a sudden, dramatic change in lifestyle after you began dating. (He or she may be changing just to win you and will revert back to old habits after marriage.) Your fiancé(e) has trouble controlling anger. He or she uses anger as a weapon or as a means of winning arguments. You have a difficult time trusting your fiancé(e)—to fulfill responsibilities, to be truthful, to help in times of need, to make ethical decisions, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has a history of multiple serious relationships that have failed—a pattern of knowing how to begin a relationship but not knowing how to keep one growing. Look over this list. Do any of these red flags apply to your relationship? If so, we recommend you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, not any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

As the sun set, I ate a hospital meal and watched TV. Every few minutes, I glanced at the girl on the bed and tried to see Raven. I struggled to remember her smile and laugh. With her face so swollen, she didn’t seem like my love. I worried I’d lost her because I brought Caleb to Ellsberg. Eventually, the nurse showed me how to turn the chair into a pull out bed. I thanked her, but the thing was too damn small for me to fit on. Besides, I didn’t want to sleep until Raven woke up. Finally, I gave into my weird little urge to kiss the sleeping beauty. I needed to know she was okay. Know she wanted me to stay because she still loved me. I felt nervous until her swollen lips twitched into a smile after my kiss. “Tell me a story,” she mumbled while gripping my shirt with her good hand and tugging me into the bed with her. I adjusted our bodies just enough for me to rest next to her. While the position wasn’t comfortable, I finally relaxed at knowing my woman wanted me close. Caressing her battered face with my fingers, I loved how she smiled for me. Even in pain and after a hellish day, she soothed my fears. “Once upon a time,” I said and she smiled again, “there was a lonely fool who wasted one day after another of his life. One day, he met the most fascinating chick and she quickly wrapped the fool around her finger. She loved him in the best way and saved him from himself. He loved her too and only wanted for her to be happy and safe.” Hesitating, I frowned at the sight of her suffering. As if knowing what I was thinking, she reached up and ran a finger of my lips. “More.” “After the evil… let’s call them gnomes because I hate those ugly little fuckers. So, once the gnomes were destroyed, the fool and his lovely savior bought a big house for all the beautiful blond babies they would have together.” As Raven smiled at this idea, my uneasiness faded. “Their kids all had names with a V in them to honor their hot parents.” Raven laughed then moaned at the gesture. Still, she kept smiling for me. “The fool, his beautiful woman, and their army of glorious babies played videogames, bowled, and roller skated. They were always happy and never sad in a town with their friends and family. They all lived happily ever after.” Raven swollen lips smiled enough to show her missing tooth. Even though she was essentially blind with her battered eyes, she knew I’d seen her mouth and covered it with her hand. “You’re beautiful, darling. Nothing will ever change that.” Raven grunted, unconvinced. “There’s more to love about you than your beauty.” Another grunt followed by a hint of a pout. “Sugar, if I got all banged up and my stunning good looks were damaged, you’d still love me, right?” Raven laughed, but said nothing, so I answered for her. “Of course, you would. My amazing personality and giant brain would keep you horny even if my hot body wasn’t at its best.” Laughing harder now, Raven leaned against me. “I liked your story.” “Unlike most fairytales, this one is coming true.

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out—if not in the word, in the sound;—and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words:— "I am going away to the Great House Farm! O, yea! O, yea! O!" This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul,—and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee! And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompence. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

Remember to write continuously the entire twenty minutes. And never forget that this writing is for you and you alone. At the conclusion of your twenty minutes of writing, read the section “Post-writing thoughts” and complete the post-writing questionnaire. Post-Writing Thoughts Following the Day One Writing Session Congratulations! You have completed the first day of writing. After each writing exercise, it can be helpful to make objective assessments about how the writing felt. In this way, you can go back and determine which writing methods are most effective for you. For this and for all future writing exercises, respond to each of the five following questions either at the end of your writing or in a separate place. Put a number between 0 and 10 by each question. 0 — Not at all 1 2 3 4 5— Somewhat 6 7 8 9 10— A great deal ____ A. To what degree did you express your deepest thoughts and feelings? ____ B. To what degree do you currently feel sad or upset? ____ C. To what degree do you currently feel happy? ____ D. To what degree was today’s writing valuable and meaningful for you? E. Briefly describe how your writing went today so you may refer to this later. For many people, the first day of writing is the most difficult. This kind of writing can bring up emotions and thoughts that you may not have known that you had. It may also have flowed much more easily than you expected — especially if you wrote about something that you have been keeping to yourself for a long time. If you don’t want anyone to see your writing, keep the pages in a secure place or destroy them. If keeping them is not a problem, you can go back and analyze the pages at the end of the four days of writing. Now, take some time for yourself. Until tomorrow.

I once heard a story about a king who, in trying to teach one of his servants humility, told him to find a ring that when worn was able to make the happy sad and the unhappy glad. Knowing no such a ring existed, he set the servant off, giving him six months to seek it. The servant searched all over the land to no avail. The night before the six months expired, he met a wise man in a village and asked, "Do you know of a ring when worn can make the happy sad and the unhappy glad?" The wise man silently nodded his head and engraved a few words on a ring. The following day the king summoned the servant and asked if he had found the ring. While everyone in the room, including the king, was getting ready to laugh and humiliate him, the servant handed him the ring. The cheerful mood of the king changed as he read the words engraved on it: This Too Shall Pass

I become blessed through you when I follow you and your Son, in the foot steps you both left for me to follow. You give me life, happiness, joy satisfaction, contentment, love and abundance when I'm at the heel of your feet but when I sin, I feel wretched, worn down, punished, sad, empty and alone. In my heart I know what to do but I choose not to and I'm sorry.

I'd become a follower of Emerson for that one sentence: the miracle of "the blowing clover and the falling rain." Just imagine what it would do for your religion if you shifted your sense of the miraculous from some astounding feat of a master magician to a profound appreciation of the miracle of rain. You would be a different kind of person living a different kind of life You wouldn't be sad from the weight of your religious obligations, but rather joyful at the beauty and holiness of the natural world. You'd be happy, open, and graceful, all because of your positive, world-based spiritual vision.

What if following Jesus is about resurrection in a bigger way than people realize. Not just about rising again to new life in the future, though that is part of it. But also about the clash of two kingdoms. The kingdoms of this world bring death, His kingdom brings life. The way of man is death but the way of Christ is life. In a world consumed by violence, from physical to emotional, Jesus teaches against all violence. He goes as far as to say that to hate someone is to commit murder in your heart. He says to love even your enemies. This is in strong contrast to even our modern kingdoms and empires whose leaders threaten one another with nuclear carnage. In effect, these leaders, these blind guides, are saying they are happy to kill millions if they feel like it if it serves the agenda they follow. Happy to plunge the world into more world wars. Sadly many people support them. The heart of man can be truly wicked, but can also be truly redeemed by the Prince of Peace. He can raise hearts from violence and death to peace and new life. His resurrection power is at work turning hate to love, violence to peace, despair to hope. All his followers have a part to play in repenting of all violent thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and encouraging other to do the same. This is a counter culture not the poisonous alliance of church and state. This can only be done with the power of Ressurection, the power of a different kingdom, the power of a different kind of king, the power of Christ in us. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

Things go wrong, worst happens, you curse your life, luck doesn’t follow, good deeds aren’t just in your destiny, bad people ruins your routine. I have seen people surrounded by these all repeatedly to which I always question the philosophers and motivational speakers ‘Have you researched enough when you said life is all about sadness & happiness?’.

I like my women fed and happy,” Landon replied. “Ten pounds is not worth the sadness that a night without cake inspires.

The pursuit of happiness and fulfilment is a journey many people commit their lives to. Sadly, many people fail in their mission due to seeking it out in the wrong places, such as in their career, their net worth, entertainment, or the size of their social media following.

He yawned, his face performing that universal mixture of a smile and a frown as he stretched his arms out. One was not sure why faces did this—either waking people were activating their muscles in preparation for the day or more soulfully, the smile was gratitude for life and the frown to follow was recognition of what that life entailed.

Busy street of emotions On a languid Sunday afternoon on the busy street, Everything everywhere appeared to be missing a beat, Few of their desires, of their hopes, many of their own dreams, And in midst of all this I could hear strange screams, There was rush, there was movement, there was life in its busiest state, Many loved to be a part of it whereas a few showed all signs of hate, They were the ones who were not chasing life, they were after something different, That the busy street did not offer, and to the most people caught in its glamour it nothing meant, To me all appeared to be seeking the same illusive something, A thing that is born of nothing, and to a few it means everything, That something, about which I had no clue, but the busy street certainly knew about it, It knew everything about it, But it had concealed it from all, happy and sad alike, For now it had kept everyone busy pursuing what he/she liked, and what next he/she would like, It was then she appeared in the busiest corner of the street, Where people crossed each other; but noone nobody did ever meet, They all saw other people's eyes but not what their eyes could see, All were in this maze of fascinations where they had been before, but there they again and again wished to be, And then she got up and left this busy corner, And whispered in my ear, “let me show you a life that is real and livelier!” I followed her wherever she went, And that is how my Sunday was spent, Finally as the evening set in and people began to feel weary, And life too seemed dreary, I looked at the once busy street that was now empty and desolate, “This is the fact of life, and this is what you shall be able to isolate!” With these last words she disappeared, And now on the street, only I and my infinite avatars appeared, Everywhere, in everything, and the street got busy again, Because now I was dealing with life in its reality: joy, sorrow, love, faith, defection, everything and even pain, So whenever you visit this busy street, walk towards everything with every feeling, Because in our lives we all are either with retreating joy or with an advancing pain dealing!

No one tells you what it’s like, being a mom. I want to be able to sing a rhyme and teach my kids exactly how to be, but it didn’t work for me. I did everything I was supposed to, followed all the rules, I never stopped, even after. And I’m so sad. I’m so sad. All the time. And I don’t know how not to be sad. I kept having babies, thinking I wouldn’t feel alone. That I would have my own circle, that I would be the center of it. But there’s no circle. It’s a chain. And you’re right _ I’m the link holding everything together. And it’s all just weight. It’s weight, and it never lets up and no one else ever holds it. No one else even notices it. I don’t understand how I can be there every moment of every single day and somehow not exist at the same time.Most days, I think I’m not even a person - not to them, not to myself. I look at my girls and this pit, this yawning pit of despair opens in me. Because they’re so sweet. And they’re so new. And they’re going to go through everything I did. They’re going to do everything I’m teaching them and telling them to do to be happy, and I’m not happy. And I don’t know how to be happy. I haven’t been happy since…I want the rules to matter. I want the rules to help.

Not only do soul teachers fail to fall in with our hustles, they may actually talk about the fact that we’re hustling. Instead of praising our designer clothes or clever wordplay, they may mention that we seem to be trying to impress them. When we cover our existential despair with flippancy, they may skip the polite laughter and ask why we’re acting happy when we seem so sad. Yes, I know! Shocking! This violates what psychiatrist Alice Miller calls the cardinal rule of all cultures: DON’T EVER MENTION THE RULES. In other words, never articulate that there’s an unspoken code everyone in the room has been trained to follow.

In LOVE YOURSELF (Tear's first song, "Intro: Singularity," the final lyrics go, "Tell me / Even if the pain was fake / What should I have done," while the next song, "FAKE LOVE," opens with, "For you I could pretend like I was happy when I was sad." These lyrics are saying that, no matter what pain the person is going through, they can show a happy face in front of the one they love. Then, in the following song, "The Truth Untold" (Feat. Steve Aoki), the lyrics go, "I'm afraid / I feel small / I'm so afraid / Will you end up leaving me as well / I put on a mask and go to you again." These lyrics tell the story of someone who is afraid that the one why love will turn away if they see their true face, and so, they wear a mask.

When you move first toward being healthy, holiness will follow. But you cannot have genuine holiness without first achieving healthiness. God cares about your holiness and your happiness, but God also cares about your healthiness, because it is the pivot upon which everything else turns. It is not by accident that Jesus was both a teacher and a healer. . . . You cannot be truly holy without first being healthy, and your holiness is a sad legacy if you can find no joy in it.

In LOVE YOURSELF (Tear's first song, "Intro: Singularity," the final lyrics go, "Tell me / Even if the pain was fake / What should I have done," while the next song, "FAKE LOVE," opens with, "For you I could pretend like I was happy when I was sad." These lyrics are saying that, no matter what pain the person is going through, they can show a happy face in front of the one they love. Then, in the following song, "The Truth Untold" (Feat. Steve Aoki), the lyrics go, "I'm afraid / I feel small / I'm so afraid / Will you end up leaving me as well / I put on a mask and go to you again." These lyrics tell the story of someone who is afraid that the one they love will turn away if they see their true face, and so, they wear a mask.

The Bible promises trials for followers of Christ, so we’re wise to prepare for battle now. A soldier doesn’t begin his training after he’s called into battle; he’s been sacrificing and preparing for months and years before his boots hit the battlefield. So, how do we put on our armor for a spiritual battle? By studying and memorizing God’s Word. It forms a protective shield over our souls, warding off enemy attacks. Many times this past year, I’ve had to cling to the Bible. From sad incidences like pit bulls killing our favorite family dog; to therapies not quite working to allow my youngest son to eat solid foods; to my oldest heading to Iraq again; to dangerous stalkers disrupting our lives; to parents’ health issues; to getting canned from one job and not knowing what was next; to a daughter’s long-awaited happy wedding that didn’t happen; to biopsy results positive for cancer; to all the messed-up political and national security issues I cover in my work; to . . . well, a whole lot more. It’s been a heck of a year, and I couldn’t get through it without God’s promises for a brighter day. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Memorizing Scripture is a tool to get us through to the other side. Write verses on Post-It Notes and stick them on mirrors, the fridge, the TV. Commit to memorizing new Scripture every month so that when trials come your way, you’ll be locked and loaded and ready for spiritual battle!

Perhaps I could help,” Marcus suggested pleasantly, stopping beside her. “If you would tell me what you’re looking for.” “Something romantic. Something with a happy ending. There should always be a happy ending, shouldn’ there?” Marcus reached out to finger a trailing lock of her hair, his thumb sliding along the glowing satin filaments. He had never thought of himself as a particularly tactile man, but it seemed impossible to keep from touching her when she was near. The pleasure he derived from the simplest contact with her set all his nerves alight. “Not always,” he said in reply to her question. Lillian let out a bubbling laugh. “How very English of you. How you all love to suffer, with your stiff…stiff…” She peered at the book in her hands, distracted by the gilt on its cover. “…upper lips,” she finished absently. “We don’t like to suffer.” “Yes, you do. At the very least, you go out of your way to avoid enjoying something.” By now Marcus was becoming accustomed to the unique mixture of lust and amusement that she always managed to arouse in him. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping one’s enjoyments private.” Dropping the book in her hands, Lillian turned to face him. The abruptness of the movement resulted in a sharp wobble, and she swayed back against the shelves even as he moved to steady her with his hands at her waist. Her tip-tilted eyes sparkled like an array of diamonds scattered over brown velvet. “It has nothing to do with privacy,” she informed him. “The truth is that you don’t want to be happy, bec—” She hiccupped gently. “Because it would undermine your dignity. Poor Wes’cliff.” She regarded him compassionately. At the moment, preserving his dignity was the last thing on Marcus’s mind. He grasped the frame of the bookcase on either side of her, encompassing her in the half circle of his arms. As he caught a whiff of her breath, he shook his head and murmured, “Little one…what have you been drinking?” “Oh…” She ducked beneath his arm and careened to the sideboard a few feet away. “I’ll show you…wonderful, wonderful stuff…this.” Triumphantly she plucked a nearly empty brandy bottle from the edge of the sideboard and held it by the neck. “Look what someone did…a pear, right inside! Isn’ that clever?” Bringing the bottle close to her face, she squinted at the imprisoned fruit. “It wasn’ very good at first. But it improved after a while. I suppose it’s an ac”—another delicate hiccup— “acquired taste.” “It appears you’ve succeeded in acquiring it,” Marcus remarked, following her. “You won’ tell anyone, will you?” “No,” he promised gravely. “But I’m afraid they’re going to know regardless. Unless we can sober you in the next two or three hours before they return. Lillian, my angel…how much was in the bottle when you started?” Showing him the bottle, she put her finger a third of the way from the bottom. “It was there when I started. I think. Or maybe there.” She frowned sadly at the bottle. “Now all that’s left is the pear.” She swirled the bottle, making the plump fruit slosh juicily at the bottom. “I want to eat it,” she announced. “It’s not meant to be eaten. It’s only there to infuse the—Lillian, give the damned thing to me.

Tozer wrote, When the followers of Jesus Christ lose their interest in heaven they will no longer be happy Christians, and when they are no longer happy Christians they cannot be a powerful force in a sad and sinful world.

Consciousness is very personal like happiness, sadness, or awareness. You can only feel it and you cannot see it. It does not follow any quantum rules. It has no weight or dimension and does not occupy any space. Consciousness has no beginning and no end.

What would Buddha do to be happy? “Seek health, the greatest blessing; follow virtue. Listen to people; read good books and learn. Be truthful; break the chain of sad attachment. These six paths lead to the greatest good.” Jatakas 84

After she swore herself to secrecy and did her best to seem trustworthy and closemouthed, Mr. Nobley revealed that those two had been more than fond acquaintances. In fact, last year he’d proposed and she’d accepted. “Her mother disapproved, as he was merely a sailor. Mr. Heartwright, her brother, informed East that he was dismissed from being her suitor, and Miss Heartwright never had an opportunity to explain that it hadn’t been her wish. She fears it is too late now, but I don’t believe her heart ever let go of the man.” “Ah,” Jane said, now fitting their story into the correct Austen novel context--Persuasion, more or less. And that was a real bummer. Captain East had offered Jane the best shot at curative love. Oh well. Two down…one to go? She studied Mr. Nobley and wondered why she had the impression that he was dangerous--or would be if he didn’t so often look tired or bored. Was he a sleeping tiger? Or a sack of potatoes? “And how do you feel about this, Mr. Nobley?” she asked. “It does not matter how I feel about Miss Heartwright.” He nudged his horse forward, and hers followed. She hadn’t been talking about Miss Heartwright, but, okay. “Wait, are you heartbroken?” She knew Miss Erstwhile shouldn’t ask the question, but Jane couldn’t help it. “No, of course not.” “Not about Miss Heartwright, anyway.” Jane watched Mr. Nobley’s face closely for signs of Henry Jenkins. His mouth was still, unrevealing, but his eyes were sad. She’d never noticed before. “Maybe you’re not heartbroken anymore, maybe you’ve passed that part, and now you’re just lonely.” Mr. Nobley smiled, but with just half of his mouth. “You are very good at nettling me, Miss Erstwhile. As I said, it does not matter how I feel. We are speaking of Miss Heartwright and Captain East. I think it nonsense how they have kept silent about it these past days. They should speak their minds.” “You approve of speaking one’s mind? So, do you approve of me?” As it appeared Mr. Nobley had no intention of answering the question, and Jane was stumped at how to restart the conversation, they rode on in silence. Of course just at that moment, she would see Martin by a line of trees, looking her way. Why couldn’t she be chatting and laughing and having a wonderful time? She smiled generously at the world around her and hoped that Martin would think she was enthralled with Mr. Nobley’s company and perfectly happy. Mr. Nobley turned to ask her a question, but when he saw her grinning without apparent cause, the words hung in his mouth. His eyes widened. “What? You are laughing at me again. What have I done now?” Jane did laugh. “I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to help myself around you. You are so teas-able.” Which was precisely not true, and yet saying it somehow made it so. Mr. Nobley looked over his shoulder just as the line of trees hid Martin from view. Jane wasn’t sure if he saw him. “I’m sorry I annoy you so much,” said Jane. “I’ll stop. I really will.” “Hm,” said Mr. Nobley as if he doubted it. He looked at his hands thoughtfully, not speaking again for several moments. In the silence, Jane became aware of her heart beating. Why was that?

James had never thought it was possible to feel so lonely in a room full of people he liked. “Jamie?” Ryan said suddenly. “You okay?” “Yeah,” James said, without looking at him. “I just have to go. I remembered something important Dad told me to do.” He felt Tristan’s gaze on him. After bidding everyone goodbyes, James made his way to the door. He wasn’t surprised when Tristan followed him. “Don’t tell him anything,” James said, putting on his jacket. “Please.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Tristan leaned against the wall and eyed him. “You know what?” he said mildly. “You want my opinion?” Did he have a choice? “Shoot.” “Are you really planning to suck it up and suffer in silence all your life, watching him get married and have kids with her? Really? That’s just sad. Walk away or tell him you want him. Worst-case scenario, your friendship becomes strained and dies sooner rather than later. You have nothing to lose.” Tristan sneered. “And don’t kid yourself. You’ll lose him anyway when you eventually get sick of watching him with someone else.” Cocking his head, Tristan said softly, “You already feel it, don’t you? The bitterness, the jealousy, the ugliness.” James swallowed and averted his eyes. He wanted to deny it but couldn’t. He didn’t like the person he was becoming: someone who constantly lied to hide his feelings, someone who put on a smile when he felt like punching people or curling up and crying like a baby. Someone who felt sick and bitter watching the person he loved be happy. Wasn’t love supposed to be selfless? He was better than that. Wasn’t he? Wasn’t he? James looked at Tristan. “Why are you helping me? Why are you so nice all of a sudden?” A faint smile touched Tristan’s face. “I’m not being nice. To be honest, I find it hilarious that you, of all people…” He looked over James’s shoulder, presumably at Zach, and his expression softened and warmed. “But I’m trying to be a better person. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s easier to be a better person when you’re happy.” He looked back at James. “Bitterness and jealousy are my old friends. Trust me, the longer you know them intimately, the uglier it gets. Cut your losses now.” James opened the door and left without saying a word. Outside, a cold gust of November wind blew into his face, biting at his skin and making his eyes water.

The midwife blinked back her own tears. "I don't know But these will be difficult days for your family. The midwife was right: the days that followed were terrible and traumatic. Yet when I think back to this time, I remember very little. Perhaps this is the mind's way of protecting us from events that are so devastating we would otherwise lose all reason. The same way a lizard, if its body is threatened, will drop its tail, providing a distraction to the predator in order with its life. And grief, for anyone who has ever experienced it, is exactly like a predator. It steals first your happiness, and then- if you allow it everything else.

When an adult has been abused as a child, he or she lives life always expecting the other shoe to drop. That is because it always did. There was never a good day that did not end badly. Sadness always followed happiness, and fear always preempted confidence.

When an adult has been abused as a child, he or she lives life always expecting the other shoe to drop. That is because it always did. There was never a good day that did not end badly. Sadness always followed happiness, and fear always preempted confidence. A guaranteed emotional roller coaster when you are not the one in control.

She thinks about that now. Is grief the price? Why does love have to be so costly? The benefits she has reaped from this love, have they been enough? When she had just Daisy toddling around, an older woman had said to her, “I think by the time they’re two, kids have repaid their parents for everything. They give us so much joy in just those first two years of their life. All the worrying and misery that might come after is just paying the piper.” Margaret, then a frizzled first-time mom, wondered what the woman was talking about. But now she thinks she knows. She’s had these moments, a nestling child in her arms, a kiss and a deep inhale of the heady sent of a sleeping baby, a laugh of pure joy shared with her husband at something funny that has been said by an unknowing innocent – she has had so, so many of these moments. Her life has been rich with those moments. She is grateful for them. She wants to remember and honor them. This is such a moment, she realizes. Sitting here, on the beach, with the warm sand beneath and the bright sun above, with Clarke and two of her children present, she feels something like a brief moment of contentment. You don’t win anything for being the saddest the longest, Dr. Stein has said. There’s no prize for being the most miserable. You are not betraying anyone by trying to live a better life. You are not giving up on anyone. I’m not telling you to be happy. I’m telling you that it’s okay to have moments when you’re not sad. You can laugh, maybe once a month, maybe twice. It’s okay. Here’s the thing. You think only one specific event, one miracle, will make things better, but actually life will get better if you only let it. You have to let life get better. You have to for your family’s sake, and for your sake. You don’t think your happiness matters, but it does. It matters for your family. They can’t be happy unless you see that you have the ability to be. Time will help. It can be agonizingly slow, but it always does. Forward. Onward. Those are the directions she has to follow. Remember this moment, she thinks fiercely. Hold onto it. - The Expatriates

I forgave you, but it took me a long time to forgive myself. We reminisce in reason to create ideas of rebellion. I rebelled against the idea of happiness. When you wallow, it feels hollow, and you follow the thought of a sullen sadness. You break to bend in situations you leave yourself in. You become in moments of sadness as you find the strength to pull through.

One day in discussing the question of submission to the authority of the Spiritual Assemblies Shoghi Effendi said: ‘The Master has not left any latitude for personal opinion, it is not a matter of reason, it is a matter of faith. ‘Some of the instructions and commands may seem unreasonable, but if we believe we have faith in them and the sign of faith is obedience. The whole question resolves itself into a matter of faith and obedience is the proof of faith, it is the result of faith, if we do not obey it is because we have not faith in the commands of the Master. ‘I cannot see it in any other way. ‘When a certain believer was here the question was put to the Master very plainly; supposing that in a Convention the will of the majority, the decision of the majority is against my individual conscience, suppose that my conscience cannot agree with their decision, must I submit my conscience to the will of the majority? ... ‘The Master answered that the individual conscience must yield to the majority. He left no room for doubt on this point. He not only gave the command, but He explained the reason for it. He said that if each one followed his own conscience there would be no result, confusion would reign as no two consciences agree, therefore we must follow the will of the majority.’ The energy of our Guardian is inexhaustible, and as he retires at one or two o’clock in the morning, his working day is very long. His strength and vigour never flag, the stress of work, the magnitude of the complex problems pouring in daily in voluminous mail from every corner of the earth seem to serve to renew his forces, the progress of the Cause is reflected in his joy, his buoyancy, his eager enthusiasm and absorbed interest. But when the welfare or progress of the Cause is menaced through the lack of love and harmony among the believers in any part of the world, when this sad news reaches him, his divine happiness suffers eclipse, his strength ebbs away ...[191

happiness scares me more than anything else perhaps, because i have realized that the only thing that follows after a flicker of joy is an ocean of sadness. and crying only makes it deeper. -the inevitable

Sadly, Thomas Croxton did not get the monument he deserved. The following words are what he requested to be inscribed onto his monument; I hope that placing the wording into this page helps preserve his memory: Departed the life, in his happy flight, THOMAS CROXTON Founder of the Town of Croxton, and the Statue of his Majesty George the Third Æ67, A.D. 1815

Nona was happy enough to take Noodle’s lead, and Noodle was even happier; he whisked a bit. He was always good at sensing feelings. Nona thought she and Noodle were very alike in some ways, except she sadly did not have an arboreal anything. She and Hot Sauce shrugged on their dust jackets and buttoned up the sleeves in the cloakroom, and Nona clipped the leash to Noodle’s collar and led him down the flight of black and cool and quiet stairs, Hot Sauce following behind, and once they were one floor down she said— “Camilla hasn’t come for me.” “Sleep at mine if she doesn’t,” said Hot Sauce. The idea quite startled Nona, who had never slept apart from Camilla. She was homesick thinking about her. She had thought Hot Sauce would maybe say something sympathetic or understanding, like, “Don’t worry about it,” but the problem with Hot Sauce was that she was a bit like Cam. When you came to her with a problem she gave you something to do about it.

All I can see is the open dark path in front of me—train on one side, forest on the other. I imagine following the tracks for days, finding what lies at the end of them. By the time I got there, maybe I would have outrun my sadness, forever. No more blue days. No more fear.

Because sadness is the truest emotion," Greta says. "Happiness isn't to be trusted. It's a bald-faced liar. But the truth of your sadness enriches every other thing inside you, especially your joy. You shouldn't be afraid to go to the place that makes you sad, Molly Hook. The more you go to that dark place inside you, the lighter it gets. You go there enough times, you realize that dark place is actually your sacred place. That place is all of you and the tears you take from that place are just the darkness leaking out, precious drop by precious drop. You following me?

There’s a saying, “Sadness and gladness follow each other.” As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed. Some people lead a painful life full of nothing but sorrow. I should know.