Harder To Manipulate Quotes

I hear you're supposed to be good at manipulating people. Try a little harder to make me like you, all right? I'm the queen. Your life will be nicer if I like you.

When we hear another person's thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, it is more difficult to project on to them our perceptions of who they are. It is harder to be manipulative.

It doesn't matter what the manifest problem was in our childhood family. In a home where a child is emotionally deprived for one reason or another that child will take some personal emotional confusion into his or her adult life. We may spin our spiritual wheels in trying to make up for childhood's personal losses, looking for compensation in the wrong places and despairing that we can find it. But the significance of spiritual rebirth through Jesus Christ is that we can mature spiritually under His parenting and receive healing compensation for these childhood deprivations. Three emotions that often grow all out of proportion in the emotionally deprived child are fear, guilt, and anger. The fear grows out of the child's awareness of the uncontrollable nature of her fearful environment, of overwhelming negative forces around her. Her guilt, her profound feelings of inadequacy, intensify when she is unable to put right what is wrong, either in the environment or in another person, no matter how hard she tries to be good. If only she could try harder or be better, she could correct what is wrong, she thinks. She may carry this guilt all her life, not knowing where it comes from, but just always feeling guilty. She often feels too sorry for something she has done that was really not all that serious. Her anger comes from her frustration, perceived deprivation, and the resultant self-pity. She has picked up an anger habit and doesn't know how much trouble it is causing her. A fourth problem often follows in the wake of the big three: the need to control others and manipulate events in order to feel secure in her own world, to hold her world together- to make happen what she wants to happen. She thinks she has to run everything. She may enter adulthood with an illusion of power and a sense of authority to put other people right, though she has had little success with it. She thinks that all she has to do is try harder, be worthier, and then she can change, perfect, and save other people. But she is in the dark about what really needs changing."I thought I would drown in guilt and wanted to fix all the people that I had affected so negatively. But I learned that I had to focus on getting well and leave off trying to cure anyone around me." Many of those around - might indeed get better too, since we seldom see how much we are a key part of a negative relationship pattern. I have learned it is a true principle that I need to fix myself before I can begin to be truly helpful to anyone else. I used to think that if I were worthy enough and worked hard enough, and exercised enough anxiety (which is not the same thing as faith), I could change anything. My power and my control are illusions. To survive emotionally, I have to turn my life over to the care of that tender Heavenly Father who was really in charge. It is my own spiritual superficiality that makes me sick, and that only profound repentance, that real change of heart, would ultimately heal me. My Savior is much closer than I imagine and is willing to take over the direction of my life: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." (John 15:5). As old foundations crumble, we feel terribly vulnerable. Humility, prayer and flexibility are the keys to passing through this corridor of healthy change while we experiment with truer ways of dealing with life. Godly knowledge, lovingly imparted, begins deep healing, gives tools to live by and new ways to understand the gospel.

It is easier to call the storm from the empty sky than to manipulate the heart of a man; and soon, if my bones did not lie to me, I should be needing all the power I could muster, to pit against a woman; and this is harder to do than anything concerning men, as air is harder to see than a mountain.

recipients of such praise do work harder, but only initially. Once they sense the manipulation behind the appreciation, their productivity drops.

You might have to wait years for them to nosedive, but they will. These are people who have lousy life skills. The older they get, the less they sparkle. It becomes harder to operate on pure entitlement, and it all catches up to them—the debt, the lack of investment in relationships, the booze. Whatever it is, chances are they aren’t going to wise up, get healthy, and face it. They’ll use their same old crappy manipulations with the same old crappy results. Only you won’t be around this time to pin it on. Their new soul mate gets that honor.

I know that of all the great shifts that have occurred in America--the freedom of slaves, the rights of women, the equality of gays and lesbians--none has happened easily, and certainly none has happened instantly and without serious attacks and backlash. But the reason we have these things is because the fair-minded people who came before us would not give up. In my life, I have seen elections stolen--either outright or through the electoral college. I have seen wars fought because there was no other way to get peace. I have seen the rich get richer and I have seen the poor get poorer. I have seen facts get harder and harder to hide--and easier and easier to manipulate. I have been angry and I have been frustrated and I have been ecstatic and I have been proven right and wrong and back again. I have given up on some things, but I have refused to give up on most things. And I can honestly say that all of it--all of it--seems to have led me to where we are, here and now.

Hypercritical, Shaming Parents Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations. -BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison. -BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high. -CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me. -HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul. -DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible. Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work. You don’t have to always be “in charge.” The Bible says, “Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him.”13 Instead of trying harder, you trust more. You also know you’re surrendered when you don’t react to criticism and rush to defend yourself. Surrendered hearts show up best in relationships. You don’t edge others out, you don’t demand your rights, and you aren’t self-serving when you’re surrendered.

To borrow from Budd Schulberg’s description of a media manipulator in his classic novel The Harder They Fall, I was “indulging myself in the illusions that we can deal in filth without becoming the thing we touch.” I no longer have those illusions.

When you hold a belief strongly, it is difficult to believe something that is so contrary to it, even if the evidence is undeniable and staring you in the face. When you start opening your eyes to ways the CN has controlled, manipulated, belittled, and demeaned you for years, this is a huge reality paradigm shift. You will fight hard against the evidence no matter how obvious it is. This stirs up great insecurity, confusion, and anxiety in the body. What makes it even harder is that people around you see the CN in a positive light. Cognitive dissonance is one of the most challenging components of healing and recovery. It takes enormous mental strength to look past strong beliefs you have held and be open to looking honestly at the reality that is presenting itself.

The pineal gland is activated by light and controls the body's bio- rhythms in concert with the hypothalamus gland which regulates hunger, thirst, sexual desire and the biological clock that dictates how fast we age. Look at the potential for mass control if you can externally suppress and manipulate the pineal and hypothalamus glands alone. You can make it much harder to perceive beyond the five senses, decide how quickly people age, how much they want sex, when they are hungry and thirsty and for how long. This is the key reason for putting sodium fluoride into water supplies and toothpaste. The pineal gland absorbs more fluoride than any other part of the body and becomes calcified by this highly-damaging toxin. Sodium fluoride is an appalling waste product of the aluminum industry and has been used in rat poison. It causes cancer, genetic damage, Alzheimer's disease, disrupts the endocrine system and dumbs down the brain. It was added to drinking water in the Nazi concentration camps to make the inmates more acquiescent and docile.

When somebody summarizes an argument thoughtfully before offering a counterargument, the resulting debate tends to be more meaningful and productive. Much of what passes for argument in our society consists of people badly misrepresenting each other's arguments and responding to points that another person is not making. This inevitably leads to frustration and anger and a feeling of being rhetorically manipulated instead of honestly challenged. Correctly paraphrasing somebody's position makes it much harder to misrepresent that position while trying to argue against it.

This situation is completely without precedent, and it is now evolving so quickly that we can barely keep track of where we are. And the more technology evolves, the more that new layers of hardware and software are added, the harder it is to change. This is handing tech capitalists a unique source of power. As the Silicon Valley guru Jaron Lanier puts it, they don’t have to persuade us when they can directly manipulate our experience of the world.

Because they are manipulative, narcissists know how to spin a tale that will elicit your sympathy, make you want to help them, and also make it harder for you to criticize them or express your disapproval regarding certain behaviors. The narcissistic partner’s back story is frequently cited as a reason you kept trying to fight for the relationship. The back story often left you wanting to “rescue” him and to fix his past. You keep writing excuses instead of addressing the behavior that is taking a toll on you.

To borrow from Budd Schulberg’s description of a media manipulator in his classic novel The Harder They Fall, I was “indulging myself in the illusions that we can deal in filth without becoming the thing we touch.” I no longer have those illusions. Winston Churchill wrote of the appeasers of his age that “each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.” I was even more delusional. I thought I could skip being devoured entirely. It would never turn on me. I was in control. I was the expert. But I was wrong.

You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work. You don’t have to always be “in charge.” The Bible says, “Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him.”13 Instead of trying harder, you trust more. You also know you’re surrendered when you don’t react to criticism and rush to defend yourself. Surrendered hearts show up best in relationships. You don’t edge others out, you don’t demand your rights, and you aren’t self-serving when you’re surrendered.

The state hopes to regulate the biochemical pursuit of happiness, separating ‘bad’ manipulations from ‘good’ ones. The principle is clear: biochemical manipulations that strengthen political stability, social order and economic growth are allowed and even encouraged (e.g. those that calm hyperactive kids in school, or drive anxious soldiers forward into battle). Manipulations that threaten stability and growth are banned. But each year new drugs are born in the research labs of universities, pharmaceutical companies and criminal organisations, and the needs of the state and the market also keep changing. As the biochemical pursuit of happiness accelerates, so it will reshape politics, society and economics, and it will become ever harder to bring it under control.

Paley’s book Boys and Girls is about the year she spent trying to get her pupils to behave in a more unisex way. And it is a chronicle of spectacular and amusing failure. None of Paley’s tricks or bribes or clever manipulations worked. For instance, she tried forcing the boys to play in the doll corner and the girls to play in the block corner. The boys proceeded to turn the doll corner into the cockpit of a starship, and the girls built a house out of blocks and resumed their domestic fantasies. Paley’s experiment culminated in her declaration of surrender to the deep structures of gender. She decided to let the girls be girls. She admits, with real self-reproach, that this wasn’t that hard for her: Paley always approved more of the girls’ relatively calm and prosocial play. It was harder to let the boys be boys, but she did. “Let the boys be robbers,” Paley concluded, “or tough guys in space. It is the natural, universal, and essential play of little boys.” I’ve been arguing that children’s pretend play is relentlessly focused on trouble. And it is. But as Melvin Konner demonstrates in his monumental book The Evolution of Childhood, there are reliable sex differences in how boys and girls play that have been found around the world. Dozens of studies across five decades and a multitude of cultures have found essentially what Paley found in her midwestern classroom: boys and girls spontaneously segregate themselves by sex; boys engage in much more rough-and-tumble play; fantasy play is more frequent in girls, more sophisticated, and more focused on pretend parenting; boys are generally more aggressive and less nurturing than girls, with the differences being present and measurable by the seventeenth month of life. The psychologists Dorothy and Jerome Singer sum up this research: “Most of the time we see clear-cut differences in the way children play. Generally, boys are more vigorous in their activities, choosing games of adventure, daring, and conflict, while girls tend to choose games that foster nurturance and affiliation.

Sam, Edilio’s a good guy,” Albert said, breaking in on Sam’s gloomy thoughts. “But like I said, he’ll tell the rest of them. Once the council knows, everyone knows. If everyone knows how desperate things are, what do you think will happen?” Sam smiled without humor. “About half the people will be great. The other half will freak.” “And people will end up getting killed,” Albert said. He cocked his head sideways, trying his best to look like the idea had just occurred to him. “And who is going to end up kicking butts? Who will end up playing Daddy and then be resented and blamed and finally told to go away?” “You’ve gained new skills,” Sam said bitterly. “You used to just be about working harder than anyone else and being ambitious. You’re learning how to manipulate people.” Albert’s mouth twitched and his eyes flashed angrily. “You’re not the only one walking around with a big load of responsibility on your shoulders, Sam. You play the big mean daddy who won’t let anyone have any fun, and I play the greedy businessman who is just looking out for himself. But don’t be stupid: maybe I am greedy, but without me no one eats. Or drinks.

These four changes—in the nature of work, education, social values, and communication technology—make it harder for dictators to dominate citizens in the old way. Harsh laws and bureaucratic regulations provoke furious responses from previously docile groups. These groups have new skills and networks that help them resist. At the same time, violent repression and comprehensive censorship destroy the innovation now central to progress. Eventually, the expansion of the highly educated, creative class, with its demands for self-expression and participation, makes it difficult to resist a move to some form of democracy. But so long as this class is not too large and the leader has the resources to co-opt or censor its members, an alternative is spin dictatorship. At least for a while, the ruler can buy off the informed with government contracts and privileges. So long as they stay loyal, he can tolerate their niche magazines, websites, and international networking events. He can even hire the creative types to design an alternative reality for the masses. This strategy will not work against a Sakharov. But Sakharovs are rare. With a modern, centrally controlled mass media, they pose little threat. Co-opting the informed takes resources. When these run low, spin dictators turn to censorship, which is often cheaper. They need not censor everything. All that really matters is to stop opposition media reaching a mass audience. And here the uneven dynamics of cultural change help. Early in the postindustrial era, most people still have industrial-era values. They are conformist and risk averse. The less educated are alienated from the creative types by resentment, economic anxiety, and attachment to tradition. Spin dictators can exploit these sentiments, rallying the remaining workers against the “counterculture” while branding the intellectuals as disloyal, sacrilegious, or sexually deviant. Such smears inoculate the leader’s base against opposition revelations. As long as the informed are not too strong, manipulation works well. Dictators can resist political demands without destroying the creative economy or revealing their own brutality to the public.

It’s not possible. For better or worse, you cannot significantly change your life by manipulating the material world— not by working harder, not by studying longer, not by schmoozing, not by sweating, not by fasting, not by the hair of your chinny chin chin! But change—great change—is inescapable ... when you first begin manipulating the world of your thoughts. It is that simple. The Universe

By the time he had reached adolescence, he had become adept at manipulating people and getting them to do what he wanted. A few well-placed words in the right ears could be twice as damaging as an equal number of bullets, and much harder to trace back to their source.

energy. To be the most persuasive you have to be full of energy and you have to know how to transfer that energy to others. You have to be able to infuse them, motivate them and leave them feeling invigorated. It may be a simple case of eye contact, a physical touch or showing excitement in their responses o it may be something a little harder to do. Aster it and the world is your oyster.                      Clear Communication is Vital If a younger child cannot gap your concept in a way that they can easily communicate to others, then it is simply too complicated. You have to simplify things, break it down into easy to understand bites and communicate it as clear as crystal. If people don’t understand your message, you have no hope of persuading them.                      Be Prepared When you begin your attempt to persuade people, it is important that you start from a position of knowing – knowing more than they do about themselves and their surrounding situations. Do

The more practiced gaslighters—the real pros—are the hardest to detect. They’re extremely careful when in the company of anyone not close to them and make sure to be polite yet not lay it on too thick. They’ve struck a delicate balance that makes it much harder for anyone outside of their closest relationships to see their true selves. Only their partners and families get to see the darkness they carry and often have no one to turn to for help.

Profitability can be fixed over time if the business has firm roots, but cash problems are usually a sign that the end is coming. Cash is harder to manipulate. While the income statement uses many estimates and can be subject to deliberate manipulation, cash is easily measured because it is backed by what's in bank accounts.

He played the chain store game harder and better than anyone else. Walton invented practically nothing. But he copied everything anybody else ever did that was smart, and he did it with more fanaticism and better employee manipulation. So he just blew right by them all.He

The rewards are not so great, for it is no longer pioneer work and therefore it is not pioneer's pay. But in certain respects manipulation is easier than it was; in other ways much harder than in Keene's day.

It was time. Not just to find whoever was trying to manipulate him for their own ends. To step up and directly oppose Fellis. To fight, until Archax and all who opposed him lay dead at his feet. Magnus clenched his fists harder, feeling his knuckles crack as he stepped forward. "Game on.

An undiscovered universe of animal behavior will yet be traced to parasites. Their meddling, in her view, is just harder to prove in some species than others.

Camille shoots me a pained look, and I immediately regret my stupid comment. Why can I never think of the right thing to say to her? I always knew how to get what I wanted from women before. It was easy to manipulate them. But I don’t want to manipulate Camille. I want us to be in that space we sometimes stumble into by accident, where we understand each other. Where everything is clear between us. I can never seem to get there intentionally. The harder I try, the more I fuck it up.

These four changes—in the nature of work, education, social values, and communication technology—make it harder for dictators to dominate citizens in the old way. Harsh laws and bureaucratic regulations provoke furious responses from previously docile groups. These groups have new skills and networks that help them resist. At the same time, violent repression and comprehensive censorship destroy the innovation now central to progress. Eventually, the expansion of the highly educated, creative class, with its demands for self-expression and participation, makes it difficult to resist a move to some form of democracy. But so long as this class is not too large and the leader has the resources to co-opt or censor its members, an alternative is spin dictatorship. At least for a while, the ruler can buy off the informed with government contracts and privileges. So long as they stay loyal, he can tolerate their niche magazines, websites, and international networking events. He can even hire the creative types to design an alternative reality for the masses. This strategy will not work against a Sakharov. But Sakharovs are rare. With a modern, centrally controlled mass media, they pose little threat. Co-opting the informed takes resources. When these run low, spin dictators turn to censorship, which is often cheaper. They need not censor everything. All that really matters is to stop opposition media reaching a mass audience. And here the uneven dynamics of cultural change help. Early in the postindustrial era, most people still have industrial-era values. They are conformist and risk averse. The less educated are alienated from the creative types by resentment, economic anxiety, and attachment to tradition. Spin dictators can exploit these sentiments, rallying the remaining workers against the “counterculture” while branding the intellectuals as disloyal, sacrilegious, or sexually deviant. Such smears inoculate the leader’s base against opposition revelations. As long as the informed are not too strong, manipulation works well. Dictators can resist political demands without destroying the creative economy or revealing their own brutality to the public.

No means no.” It doesn't mean push harder, or intimidate, or manipulate, or force, relentlessly, until you get your own way.

Actions aren’t like the wind. Actions are like rocks. They are sturdy. Harder to manipulate. Rocks are good. Actions are good. They tell us what we cannot put into words.

Many people today have an irrational—almost phobic—fear of hunger. We live in a society that teaches us that it isn’t ever good to be hungry, and that hunger can even be dangerous. Of course, this is partly true since everyone needs to eat, and when you’re hungry it triggers the reactive part of the survival instinct (which says “I must eat in order to survive”). Nonetheless, when you know how to manipulate hunger correctly, it will serve you in many positive ways. Hunger will trigger the active part of the survival instinct—that which makes you more alert, ambitious, competitive, and creative. Throughout history, humans have had to contend with hunger, and not just because they were unable to afford food or suffered from drought and famine. Learning to deal with hunger was also practiced intentionally, to make people tougher and stronger, thereby more resilient to life’s hardships. The historical correlation between hunger and freedom is quite evident. During the period when the Bible was written, and later, during the Roman Empire, hunger and fasting were considered an integral part of life for free people, warriors, and those who wandered. Slaves, on the other hand, were fed frequently throughout the day. The Israelite slaves’ first complaint after leaving Egypt was of hunger, and they wandered in the desert for forty years, adapting and eventually becoming a free nation. Only the second generation of those escaped from Egypt reached the Promised Land. I firmly believe that hunger triggers the Warrior Instinct, and if it’s under control it will give you a “sense of freedom.” I also believe that frequently feeding—due to a fear of hunger—may, to put it strongly, create a “slave mentality,” because when fed continually, people tend to become more lethargic and submissive—and thus easily controlled. One could almost consider food abundance a less drastic or obvious form of “opiates for the masses.” How

Markets are voting machines; they function by taking referenda. In the new world money market, for example, currency values are now decided by a constant referendum of thousands of currency traders in hundreds of trading rooms around the globe, all connected to each other by a vast electronic network giving each trader instant access to information about any factor that might affect values. That constant referendum makes it much harder for central banks and governments to manipulate currency values.

Bullshit still thrives, and rumour is rife, but an early grounding in media literacy means a generation of people who will doubt first impressions, who will not settle for single-source news. This is a generation much, much harder to manipulate. A generation that expects it is being lied to. And eventually, a generation of feminists raised by feminists will find a way to hold our political system accountable for one of its greatest lies: the lie that we could expect full equality in our lifetimes. (Jennifer Mills)

But when our egos are out of balance due to a barrage of stress hormones, our analytical minds go into high gear and become overstimulated. That’s when the analytical mind is no longer working for us, but against us. We get overanalytical. And the ego becomes highly selfish by making sure that we come first, because that’s its job. It thinks and feels as though it needs to be in control to protect the identity. It tries to have power over outcomes; it predicts what it needs to do to create a certainly safe situation; it clings to the familiar and won’t let go—so it holds grudges, feels pain and suffers, or can’t get beyond its victimhood. It will always avoid the unknown condition and view it as potentially dangerous, because to the ego, the unknown is not to be trusted. And the ego will do anything to empower itself for the rush of addictive emotions. It wants what it wants, and it will do whatever it takes to get there first, by pushing its way to the front of the line. It can be cunning, manipulative, competitive, and deceptive in its protection. So the more stressful your situation, the more your analytical mind is driven to analyze your life within the emotion you’re experiencing at that particular time. When this happens, you’re actually moving your consciousness further away from the operating system of the subconscious mind, where true change can occur. You’re then analyzing your life from your emotional past, although the answers to your problems aren’t within those emotions, which are causing you to think harder within a limited, familiar chemical state. You’re thinking in the box.

Nonetheless, studies by Schaller and other researchers indicate that people who chronically worry about disease are especially prone to antipathy toward those whose appearances diverge from the “normal” template, and these people have a harder time moving beyond that reaction.

Yes. It makes things ... easier. I can't manipulate, can't lie, can't hurt if I can't speak. Or at least, it's a lot harder. And I never care. I never at all feel like I'm missing out. People assume there's something wrong with me, so they talk freely in front of me. Nothing anyone says is worth anything. Why would I want to talk to any of them anyway

Many debaters argue that reducing income inequality is a good idea not merely in an AI-dominated future, but also today. Although the main argument tends to be a moral one, there’s also evidence that greater equality makes democracy work better: when there’s a large well-educated middle class, the electorate is harder to manipulate, and it’s tougher for small numbers of people or companies to buy undue influence over the government. A better democracy can in turn enable a better-managed economy that’s less corrupt, more efficient and faster growing, ultimately benefiting essentially everyone.

Clenching my fists, his subsequent snore emphasises my suspicions. He has been sleeping on the job. I put my hands on my hips and glide over to him. I have one intent in mind. Picking up the book next to his elbow, I slam it down on the table. There are definitely some perks to being able to manipulate objects. Adam’s reaction is priceless. “W…w….what? W…where? W…why?” He stammers, blinking frantically. One hand flies to his heart, which he clutches dramatically and he raises his other to his forehead, wiping his brow. When he realises who has disturbed him and what I have done, he scowls at me. “Why did you do that?” He snaps, rubbing his eyes. He yawns at the end, meaning that I definitely can’t take him seriously. “I was enjoying that dream.” At hearing his answer, I roll my eyes. Part of me is tempted to interrogate him, to find what he was dreaming about exactly. The other rational and sensible part wins, meaning that I thrust the book in his direction, winding him considerably. He throws me a sharp glare, which ends in a grimace. The book juts sharply into his ribs. “You should be reading NOT sleeping!” I retort, making sure that the book digs harder into his chest. I give it one last push. “So get going.