Ineffective Quotes

Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!

The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.

I entered Excessive Modesty Mode. Nothing is stupider and more ineffective than Excessive Modesty Mode. It is a mode in which you show that you’re modest by arguing with someone who is trying to compliment you. Essentially, you are going out of your way to try to convince someone that you’re a jerk.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

No matter what our intentions, everything we say and do in the pursuit of justice will one day be outdated, ineffective, and yes, probably wrong. That is the way progress works. What we do now is important and helpful so long as what we do now is what is needed now.

Only insofar as you enjoy being sorry, my dear, which, while it is a considerable amount, occurs only after the fact, thus making it a singularly ineffective deterrent, yes?

The scenes in our life resemble pictures in a rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful. That is why to attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and why, though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving as the only road to our goal. That is why most men discover when they look back on their life that they have been living the whole time ad interim, and are surprised to see that which they let go by so unregarded and unenjoyed was precisely their life, was precisely that in expectation of which they lived.

Each of us is trapped in a place, a time and a circumstance and our attempt to use our mind to transcend those boundaries are more often than not ineffective.

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

...that grace is having a commitment to - or at least an acceptance of - being ineffective and foolish.

At a certain point, an eating disorder ceases to be "about" any one thing. It stops being about your family, or your culture. Very simply, it becomes an addiction not only emotionally but also chemically. And it becomes a crusade. If you are honest with yourself, you stop believing that anyone could "make" you do such a thing— who, your parents? They want you to starve to death? Not likely. Your environment? It couldn't careless. You are also doing it for yourself. It is a shortcut to something many women without an eating disorder have gotten: respect and power. It is a visual temper tantrum. You are making an ineffective statement about this and that, a grotesque, self-defeating mockery of cultural standards of beauty, societal misogyny. It is a blow to your parents, at whom you are pissed. And it is so very seductive. It is so reassuring, so all-consuming, so entertaining. At first.

The sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who might have worked, having been canonically established as being ineffective on wood, but nobody had ever figured out how to use the controls on the blasted thing.

The biologist and intellectual E. O. Wilson was once asked what represented the most hindrance to the development of children; his answer was the soccer mom. He did not use the notion of the Procrustean bed, but he outlined it perfectly. His argument is that they repress children's natural biophilia, their love of living things. But the problem is more general; soccer moms try to eliminate the trial and error, the antifragility, from children's lives, move them away from the ecological and transform them into nerds working on preexisting (soccer-mom-compatible) maps of reality. Good students, but nerds--that is, they are like computers except slower. Further, they are now totally untrained to handle ambiguity. As a child of civil war, I disbelieve in structured learning . . . . Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all those things that make life worth living, compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of an empty-suit CEO with a preset schedule and an alarm clock.

Father, You spoke into nothingness and created the world. I speak into this day and declare that it will cooperate with Your plans. Anything sent to frustrate Your purposes for this day is bound now in the name of Jesus and rendered ineffective. I declare that today is pregnant with destiny. Thank You, Father, for divine connections that advance Your kingdom. Lord, give me wisdom and understanding to be more efficient in my work; open doors to new opportunities and new revelation in the name of Jesus. Father, bless the works of my hands; I choose to glorify You in all I do. In the name of Jesus, amen. June

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., "That wasn't really bad, I barely remember it").

You don't serve God by saying: the Church is ineffective, I'll have none of it. Your pain at its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God. We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suffering on account of it.

And as long as you’re making choices unconsciously, you can’t consciously choose to change that ineffective behavior and turn it into productive habits.

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initative or creation, there is one elementary truth...that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves. too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way. Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.

Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; knowledge without compassion is inhuman.

she attempted to deal with her terror in a most ineffective and magical mode-a mode that I have seen many patients use: she attempted to elude death by refusing to live.

I’ve written this book for one reason: to offer a sense of hope, possibility, and empowerment in a world that often makes us feel small, ineffective, and helpless.

Grace is having a commitment to- or at least an acceptance of- being ineffective and foolish. That our bottled charm is the main roadblock to drinking that clear cool glass of love.

Without appreciation and respect for other people, true leadership becomes ineffective, if not impossible.

Nothing more inelegant and ineffective than an art conceived in another art's form.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Inspection to improve quality is too late, ineffective, costly. Quality comes not from inspection, but from the improvement of the production process.

Ultimately, work on self is inseperable from work in the world. Each mirrors the other; each is a vehicle for the other. When we change ourselves, our values and actions change as well. When we do work in the world, internal issues arise that we must face or be rendered ineffective.

Effective people lead their lives and manage their relationships around principles; ineffective people attempt to manage their time around priorities and their tasks around goals. Think effectiveness with people; efficiency with things.

I feel her wave of worry like a patio heater - faint and ineffective, but constant.

The enemy's hope for Christians is that we will either be so ineffective we have no testimony, or we’ll ruin the one we have.

The ego might resist change until a person’s level of discomfort becomes unbearable. A person can employ logic to overcome the ego’s defense mechanism and intentionally integrate needed revisions in a person’s obsolete or ineffective beliefs and behavior patterns. The subtle sense that something is amiss in a person’s life can lead to a gradual or quick alteration in a person’s conscious thoughts and outlook on life. Resisting change can prolong unhappiness whereas implementing change can establish internal harmony and instate joy in a person’s life.

Magnus had animated one of his magnificent Chinese fans, and it flapped ineffectively at him, barely stirring the breeze. It was, if he was completely honest with himself (and he did not want to be), a bit too hot for this new striped blue-and-rose-colored coat, made of taffeta and satin, and the silk faille waistcoat embroidered with a scene of birds and cherubs. The wing collar, and the wig, and the silk breeches, the wonderful new gloves in the most delicate lemon yellow . . . it was all a bit warm. Still. If one could look this fabulous, one had an obligation to. One should wear everything, or one should wear nothing at all.

They plummeted toward the volcano as their largest piece of luggage—the forty-foot-tall Athena Parthenos—trailed after them, leashed to a harness on Nico’s back like a very ineffective parachute.

Nonviolent passive resistance is effective as long as your opposition adheres to the same rules as you do. But if peaceful protest is met with violence, its efficacy is at an end. For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.

You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving.

Grace is having a commitment to- or acceptance of- being ineffective and foolish.

Boredom and ineffective attempts to escape tedium are the perpetual lot of humankind.

Was Archbishop Lefebvre justified in contemplating illicit consecrations? ... At the time I believed he was wrong. Twenty years after his death, I believe he was right. Without his action, the traditionalists would now be an ineffective handful of priests at the mercy of the Modernist Church.

Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings, or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behavior.

Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks. Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages of any quest, there is often a Valley of Disappointment. You expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it’s frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere. It’s a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes

The story of Daniel and his friends is a clarion call to our generation to be courageous; not to lose our nerve and allow the expression of our faith to be diluted and squeezed out of the public space and thus rendered spineless and ineffective. Their story will also tell us that this objective is not likely to be achieved without cost.

Stephen watched the three glasses being raised from the counter as his father and his two cronies drank to the memory of their past. An abyss of fortune or of temperament sundered him from them. His mind seemed older than theirs: it shone coldly on their strifes and happiness and regrets like a moon upon a younger earth. No life or youth stirred in him as it had stirred in them. He had known neither the pleasure of companionship with others nor the vigour of rude male health nor filial piety. Nothing stirred within his soul but a cold and cruel and loveless lust. His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys, and he was drifting amid life like the barren shell of the moon. Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless...? He repeated to himself the lines of Shelley's fragment. Its alternation of sad human ineffectiveness with vast inhuman cycles of activity chilled him, and he forgot his own human and ineffectual grieving.

And stop following me. Go away.” He halted immediately, allowing me to storm past him. Dammit if his immediate acquiescence didn’t make me a little less mad at him. Boundary-respecting asshole! I fumed ineffectively.

He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would have made a most ineffective reformer and a very indifferent artist. It seemed to him that the glow of happiness must be found either in action, of some immensely solid kind, on behalf of an idea, or in producing a masterpiece in one of the arts.

[Public housing projects] are not lacking in natural leaders,' [Ellen Lurie, a social worker in East Harlem] says. 'They contain people with real ability, wonderful people many of them, but the typical sequence is that in the course of organization leaders have found each other, gotten all involved in each others' social lives, and have ended up talking to nobody but each other. They have not found their followers. Everything tends to degenerate into ineffective cliques, as a natural course. There is no normal public life. Just the mechanics of people learning what s going on is so difficult. It all makes the simplest social gain extra hard for these people.

This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

The problem is that when we don’t care at all what people think and we’re immune to hurt, we’re also ineffective at connecting. Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.

Under Chairman Mao, every Chinese family was obliged to kill a sparrow a week to stop them eating all the rice. The project was ineffective because sparrows don’t eat rice.

When the performance of a unit goes down after an officer leaves, it is taken as a sign that he was a good leader, not that he was ineffective in training his people properly.

feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur. When emotional intensity is high, many of us engage in nonproductive efforts to change the other person, and in so doing, fail to exercise our power to clarify and change our own selves. The old anger-in/anger-out theory, which states that letting it all hang out offers protection from the psychological hazards of keeping it all pent up, is simply not true. Feelings of depression, low self-esteem, self-betrayal, and even self-hatred are inevitable when we fight but continue to submit to unfair circumstances, when we complain but live in a way that betrays our hopes, values and potentials, or when we find ourselves fulfilling society’s stereotype of the bitchy, nagging, bitter, or destructive woman. Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.

Prayer doesn’t work. Perhaps it makes the believer feel better (in the same way that meditation or deep thought would), but prayer doesn’t actually affect the external world. Not only is it ineffective, but it is also a very narcissistic practice… why would a 'God' change its 'Divine Plan' to accommodate any person’s wishes?

That’s when someone in the audience asked for an example of an ineffective collision—something that lacked energy and never changed, but still had a big effect. Evans had leaned into his microphone. “Religion,” he said. Then he got up and left.

Relationship building at a distance, through the filter of a computer, is ultimately ineffective for the sincere friend seeker, but it is ideally suited to the sociopath whose powers of manipulation are enhanced when he can operate not merely behind his usual masks but behind an electronic mask as well.

You can't live with the idea that someone might leave. So instead of being happy for me, like any normal person, you're pissed off because ooh, oh no, Hassan doesn't like me anymore. You're such a sitzpinkler. You're so goddamned scared of the idea that someone might dump you that your whole fugging life is built around not gettting left behind. Well, it doesn't work, kafir. I just - it's not just dumb, it's ineffective. Because then you're not being a good friend or a good boyfriend or whatever, because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you. There's your goddamned Theorem.

This may be the most insane, ineffective cure in the world, but if you have the opportunity to travel back in time, please go see it performed, even though visiting the fourteenth century is dumb, so dumb, just so dumb.

As you can see, “No” has a lot of skills. ■​“No” allows the real issues to be brought forth; ■​“No” protects people from making—and lets them correct—ineffective decisions; ■​“No” slows things down so that people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements they enter into; ■​“No” helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable, and in control of their decisions; ■​“No” moves everyone’s efforts forward.

We often use the Bible as a source for personal validation and defense, a sidekick and a shield, but these will prove ineffective without first the other part. We must also allow ourselves to be wounded by it. We tend to forget its authority - that it is a double-edged sword. Our decrepit, depraved hearts must be completely ripped out in order to welcome that of God.

Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are—weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible!

You were brave to do what you did," he said slowly. "And I know you did it out of live for our friends. But if you ever do something like this again, I can promise you that Ten Men and Executives are going to be the least of your worries- do you understand?" His espression was very severe, his jaw was set, and his words were clipped and terse as if spoken with much suppressed anger. Kate burst out laughing. "Milligan," she said, "I'll bet you scare the wits out of bad guys, but as a dad you don't scare anyone very much." "She's right." Constance said. "I can tell you aren't really angry." Milligan frowned and looked at Reynie, but Reynie averted his eyes to avoid disappointing him- for he, too, had been unfazed by Milligan's stern admonition. Only Sticky, furiously polishing his spectacles in the back seat, showed the effect Milligan had hoped for. But Sticky was easily unnerved and could hardly be used as a measure. "Well," Milligan said, his face relaxing. "At least I tried." "... Speaking of which, the boys weren't actually touching the breifcases in the trunk, I hope?" Wondering how Milligan knew, Kate stuck her head out the office door and gave Reynie and Sticky a warning look. They nodded and tried to close the trunk as quietly as possible. "They aren't now anyway." "Good," Milligan said, picking up his duffel bag. "I'd hate to have to speak sternly to them again. It embarasses me to be so ineffective.

But if we define the Megaphone as the composite of the hundreds of voices we hear each day that come to us from people we don't know, via high-tech sources, it's clear that a significant and ascendant component of that voice has become bottom-dwelling, shrill, incurious, ranting, and agenda-driven. It strives to antagonize us, make us feel anxious, ineffective, and alone; convince us that the world is full of enemies and of people stupider and less agreeable than ourselves; is dedicated to the idea that, outside the sphere of our immediate experience, the world works in a different, more hostile, less knowable manner. This braindead tendency is viral and manifests intermittently; while it is the blood in the veins of some of our media figures, it flickers on and off in others.

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back; ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and assistance, which no one could have dreamt would come [their] way.

For many of us homemakers our greatest fear is in being found incompetent, insufficient, and ineffective. We prefer to look like we've got it all together. We give lip service to the idea that nobody's perfect, but we would rather die trying to prove that we're the exception to the rule.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. It is this: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves you. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man or woman could have dreamed would have come his/her way.

I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith--contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition--the desire to succeed--to have power--leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied--ah! if it is denied--let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! The are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be shut off from life itself forever.

Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA) instead of Conditional Self-Esteem (CSE). You rate and evaluate your thoughts, feelings, and actions in relation to your main Goals of remaining alive and reasonably happy to see whether they aid these Goals. When they aid them, you rate that as “good” or “effective,” and when they sabotage your Goals you rate that as “bad” or “ineffective.” But you always—yes, always—accept and respect yourself, your personhood, your being, whether or not you perform well and whether or not other people approve of you and your behaviors.

The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not. The

Both in Jnani and ajnani, ego is sprouting forth, but with this difference, namely the ajnani's ego when it rises up is quite ignorant of its source, or he is not aware of his sushupti in the dream and jagrat states; whereas a Jnani when his ego rises up enjoys his transcendental experience with this ego keeping his lakshya (aim) always on its source. This ego is not dangerous: it is like the skeleton of a burnt rope: in this form it is ineffective. By constantly keeping our aim on our source, our ego is dissolved in its source. like a doll of salt in the ocean.

The important question isn't how to keep bad physicians from harming patient; it's how to keep good physicians from harming patients. Medical malpractice suits are a remarkably ineffective remedy. (In reference to a Harvard Medical Practice Study)... fewer than 2 percent of the patients who had received substandard care ever filed suit. Conversely, only a small minority among patients who did sue had in fact been victims of negligent care. And a patient's likelihood of winning a suit depended primarily on how poor his or her outcome was, regardless of whether that outcome was caused by disease or unavoidable risks of care. The deeper problem with medical malpractice is that by demonizing errors they prevent doctors from acknowledging & discussing them publicly. The tort system makes adversaries of patient & physician, and pushes each other to offer a heavily slanted version of events.

As the moon without the light of the sun is dark, so likewise the images produced by thought have no power unless they are strengthened by the Will; while the Will is useless unless it is guided and brought into a form by thought. If thought and will are divided, they are both ineffective; but if thought and will are in unison, they become effective; they then constitute a Unity, and this unity is called "Spirit.

A securely attached child will store an internal working model of a responsive, loving, reliable care-giver, and of a self that is worthy of love and attention and will bring these assumptions to bear on all other relationships. Conversely, an insecurely attached child may view the world as a dangerous place in which other people are to be treated with great caution, and see himself as ineffective and unworthy of love. These assumptions are relatively stable and enduring: those built up in the early years of life are particularly persistent and unlikely to be modified by subsequent experience.

Severe punishment unquestionably has an immediate effect in reducing a tendency to act in a given way. This result is no doubt responsible for its widespread use. We 'instinctively' attack anyone whose behavior displeases us - perhaps not in physical assault, but with criticism, disapproval, blame, or ridicule. Whether or not there is an inherited tendency to do this, the immediate effect of the practice is reinforcing enough to explain its currency. In the long run, however, punishment does not actually eliminate behavior from a repertoire, and its temporary achievement is obtained at tremendous cost in reducing the over-all efficiency and happiness of the group. (p. 190)

Failure was a luxury we couldn't afford, all chained together as we were, our fates locked up tight. One box office flop from a female director and no one wanted "girl" movies, one stock market plunge from a company with a woman CEO and women couldn't lead, one false accusation and we were liars, all of us. Because when we failed it was because of our chromosomes, it wasn't because of a market dip or an ineffective advertising campaign or plain bad luck.

Tears that are driven by white guilt are self-indulgent. When we are mired in guilt, we are narcissistic and ineffective; guilt functions as an excuse for inaction. Further, because we so seldom have authentic and sustained cross-racial relationships, our tears do not feel like solidarity to people of color we have not previously supported. Instead, our tears function as impotent reflexes that don’t lead to constructive action. We need to reflect on when we cry and when we don’t, and why. In other words, what does it take to move us? Since many of us have not learned how racism works and our role in it, our tears may come from shock and distress about what we didn’t know or recognize. For people of color, our tears demonstrate our racial insulation and privilege.

You look concerned,” Roshaun said from behind her. Dairine scowled over her shoulder at him. “The whole universe is in danger,” she said, “and we’re not sure how to save it, assuming it can be saved. One of the Powers That Be has stuffed secret messages into my brain without telling me. And a friend of mine who happens to be my wizard’s manual is being reprogrammed with software that even these guys haven’t had time to beta test! Wow, Roshaun, why would I need to be concerned?” Roshaun glanced at the ground. Another chair appeared for him, a slight distance from Dairine’s. He lowered himself into it, stretching out his legs with a sigh. “Sarcasm,” he said, “Amusing, if ineffective.

Spiritual crises happen to us every day. Most of them are sufficiently low grade, devoid of enduring consequences, so we pay no attention and keep on rolling. A spiritual crisis occurs when our identity, our roles, our values, or our road map are substantially called into question, prove ineffective, or are overwhelmed by experience that cannot be contained by our understandings of self and world.

What is the proper justification of a mathematician’s life? My answers will be, for the most part, such as are expected from a mathematician: I think that it is worthwhile, that there is ample justification. But I should say at once that my defense of mathematics will be a defense of myself, and that my apology is bound to be to some extent egotistical. I should not think it worth while to apologize for my subject if I regarded myself as one of its failures. Some egotism of this sort is inevitable, and I do not feel that it really needs justification. Good work is no done by "humble" men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking "Is what I do worth while?" and "Am I the right person to do it?" will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others. He must shut his eyes a little and think a little more of his subject and himself than they deserve. This is not too difficult: it is harder not to make his subject and himself ridiculous by shutting his eyes too tightly.

Acknowledge and appreciate these efforts, and give yourself a pat on the back for what you did right. This is absolutely essential for self-encouragement. It’s not enough to merely unhook from all our harsh criticisms and self-judgments; we need to actively appreciate our efforts, especially when we fail to achieve our goals. Each time we do this, we are learning how to be an effective coach. Ineffective coaches focus only on what went wrong, and do so in a harsh, judgmental manner. Effective coaches first acknowledge and appreciate what went right—and then, in a respectful, nonjudgmental manner, they acknowledge what went wrong and turn it into a useful learning experience.

Whether plagues are managed quickly doesn't just depend on hardworking doctors and scientists. It depends on people who like to sleep in on weekends and watch movies and eat French fries and do the fantastic common things in life, which is to say, it depends on all of us. Whether a civilization fares well during a crisis has a great deal to do with how the ordinary, nonscientist citizen responds. A lot of the measures taken against plagues discussed in this book will seem stunningly obvious. You should not, for instance, decide diseased people are sinners and burn them at a literal or metaphorical stake, because it is both morally monstrous and entirely ineffective. But them a new plague crops up, and we make precisely the same mistakes we should have learned from three hundred years ago.

They have learned not to expect their father to attend to them or to be expressive about much of anything. They have come to expect him to be psychologically unavailable. They have also learned that he is not accountable in his emotional absence, that Mother does not have the power either to engage him or to confront him. In other words, Father’s neglect and Mother’s ineffectiveness at countering it teach the boys that, in this family at least, men’s participation is not a responsibility but rather a voluntary and discretionary act. Third, they learn that Mother, and perhaps women in general, need not be taken too seriously. Finally, they learn that not just Mother but the values she manifests in the family—connection, expressivity—are to be devalued and ignored. The subtext message is, “engage in ‘feminine’ values and activities and risk a similar devaluation yourself.” The paradox for the boys is that the only way to connect with their father is to echo his disconnection. Conversely, being too much like Mother threatens further disengagement or perhaps, even active reprisal. In this moment, and thousands of other ordinary moments, these boys are learning to accept psychological neglect, to discount nurture, and to turn the vice of such abandonment into a manly virtue.

Your Script Here’s what to tell someone or yourself while you’re feeling hopelessly fucked-up. Dear [Me/Family Member/Fuckup I Can’t Help But Care About], I know you feel like [the royal “we”/you/our fuckup son] is on the verge of [insert mistake or potential tragic experience], and life feels like an unholy disaster. The truth is, however, that life often sucks and sometimes I can’t expect to feel other than [insert classier, more dire synonym for “shitty”], especially given issues in the past regarding [bad luck/anxiety/your many addictions and world-record unemployment]. So don’t take it personally and do take credit for whatever good things you were doing, even if they were totally ineffective at fending off this mess. Take pride in doing a good job, regardless of bad [luck/genes/associates/mental pain] and don’t stop.

At this time we should take a brife moment to mention quacks: alternative therapists who sell vitamins and homeopathy sugar pills [the latter of which, by definition, contain no active ingredients], which perform no better than placebo in fair tests, and who use even cruder marketing tricks than the ones described in this book. In these people profit at all from the justified anger that people feel towards the pharmaceutical industry, then it comes at the expense of genuinely constructive activity. Selling ineffective sugar pills is not a meaningful policy response to the regulatory failure we have seen in this book

I will not service your sister,” he told her flatly, unable to think of anything else to say. Elina laughed. “She does not want servicing. At least not from you.” “But when I came into your room earlier—” “It gets cold on Steppes. We share beds. We share food. We do not share cocks. There is no cock sharing among the Daughters of the Steppes. That is disgusting.” “So then earlier . . .” “She was inviting you to nap with us, like our brothers and cousins sometimes do. But not fuck.” “Oh.” “You sound disappointed.” “No. Just depressingly relieved.” “What?” “Beautiful sisters invite me to bed—I usually dive in headfirst. A little time away with you and suddenly I’m . . . my father.” “I like your father. Now he is charming. You are dolt with ineffective travel-cow and cousin that keeps trying to dress me like doll.” “Is that where you got that eye patch from?” “Yes.” “It’s a nice color on you.

It is six months before the election, and the Republicans have already done their focus groups. How do I know? I can hear it in their “message,” which they repeat over and over again like a mantra: “Bernie Sanders is ineffective. Bernie Sanders is out of touch. Bernie Sanders is a left-wing extremist. Bernie Sanders rants and raves on the House floor and still no one listens to him. Susan Sweetser, on the other hand, is a sensible moderate who can work with everyone.” They think that’s how they can beat me. Maybe.

It’s also worth noting that gun control laws are notoriously ineffective. Facts matter, and cities with the strictest gun control regularly have among the highest murder rates. Thus, D.C. and Chicago have for decades had horrendous crime rates, even though both have been at the extreme vanguard of taking away their residents’ gun rights. In contrast, Texas cities like Dallas and Houston and El Paso—where citizens are often armed and able to protect themselves—have murder rates that are a fraction of Chicago’s and Washington’s.

The science shows that . . . typical twentieth-century carrot-and-stick motivators—things we consider somehow a “natural” part of human enterprise—can sometimes work. But they’re effective in only a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. The science shows that “if-then” rewards . . . are not only ineffective in many situations, but can also crush the high-level, creative, conceptual abilities that are central to current and future economic and social progress. The science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive (our survival needs) or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to fill our life with purpose.

It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone’s malignity. When prices rise, it is due to the profiteer; when wages fall, it is due to the capitalist. Why the capitalist is ineffective when wages rise, and the profiteer when prices fall, the man in the street does not inquire. Nor does he notice that wages and prices rise and fall together. If he is a capitalist, he wants wages to fall and prices to rise; if he is a wage earner, he wants the opposite. When a currency expert tries to explain that profiteers and trade unions and ordinary employers have very little to do with the matter, he irritates everybody, like the man who threw doubt on German atrocities. (In World War I) We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to have when we suffer. It is so depressing to think taht we suffer because we are fools; yet taking mankind in mass, that is the truth. For this reason, no political party can acquire any driving force except through hatred; it must hold someone to obloquy. If so-and-so’s wickedness is the sole cause of our misery, let us punish so-and-so and we shall be happy. The supreme example of this kind of political thought was the Treaty of Versailles. Yet most people are only seeking some new scapegoat to replace the Germans.

Professor Smith has kindly submitted his book to me before publication. After reading it thoroughly and with intense interest I am glad to comply with his request to give him my impression. The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations. It relates the impact of these phantasmagorias on human destiny and the causal relationships by which they have become crystallized into organized religion. This is a biologist speaking, whose scientific training has disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian. This objectivity has not, however, hindered him from emphasizing the boundless suffering which, in its end results, this mythic thought has brought upon man. Professor Smith envisages as a redeeming force, training in objective observation of all that is available for immediate perception and in the interpretation of facts without preconceived ideas. In his view, only if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective. His historical picture closes with the end of the nineteenth century, and with good reason. By that time it seemed that the influence of these mythic, authoritatively anchored forces which can be denoted as religious, had been reduced to a tolerable level in spite of all the persisting inertia and hypocrisy. Even then, a new branch of mythic thought had already grown strong, one not religious in nature but no less perilous to mankind -- exaggerated nationalism. Half a century has shown that this new adversary is so strong that it places in question man's very survival. It is too early for the present-day historian to write about this problem, but it is to be hoped that one will survive who can undertake the task at a later date.

Hence, it's obvious to see why in AA the community is so important; we are powerless over ourselves. Since we don't have immediate awareness of the Higher Power and how it works, we need to be constantly reminded of our commitment to freedom and liberation. The old patterns are so seductive that as they go off, they set off the association of ideas and the desire to give in to our addiction with an enormous force that we can't handle. The renewal of defeat often leads to despair. At the same time, it's a source of hope for those who have a spiritual view of the process. Because it reminds us that we have to renew once again our total dependence on the Higher Power. This is not just a notional acknowledgment of our need. We feel it from the very depths of our being. Something in us causes our whole being to cry out, “Help!” That's when the steps begin to work. And that, I might add, is when the spiritual journey begins to work. A lot of activities that people in that category regard as spiritual are not communicating to them experientially their profound dependence on the grace of God to go anywhere with their spiritual practices or observances. That's why religious practice can be so ineffective. The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging—cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse.

People also often face prejudice as a result of other characteristics, such as age, class and religious belief. The principle of intersectionality is actually pretty simple: if all these different kinds of prejudice stem from the same root, then it is arbitrary and ineffective to attempt to eradicate one of them without acknowledging its intersection with others and trying to work together to tackle all forms of inequality. Or, from a feminist perspective, if we are to tackle the fact that women have been historically oppressed because of characteristics that are seen to be ‘different’ from the male norm, how can we protest such treatment while simultaneously excluding from our own movement the needs and agendas of those with other stigmatized characteristics? (This is particularly true in the case of our trans sisters, who some feminists believe should be excluded from some areas of the movement by virtue of not fulfilling required ‘characteristics’ of womanhood – a deep irony for a group fighting for equality regardless of sex.) And on

It is this cultural dilemma that now drives the debate between Democrats and Republicans, the one wanting more law and the other more freedom. Would it be inappropriate to suggest that both parties are partly wrong and partly right? Republicans, I believe, are right that government regulation is burdensome and sometimes ineffective, but they are slow to see the consequences of having less law in a culture whose moral character is worn, where "obedience to the unenforceable" is tepid. Democrats are right to fear what will happen in such a society where the heavy hand of the law is lifted, but they rarely see that the law cannot restore what we have lost, which is our sense of "obedience to the unenforceable." The law is no substitute for what we have lost. We can, for example, pass laws against murder, but not against hatred; against adultery, but not against lust; against fraud, but not against lying; against violence, but not against the emotional neglect of children. We can condemn abuse, but we cannot command kindness. We can condemn bigotry, but we cannot require civility. Republicans ask for more freedom, Democrats for more law, but freedom in the absence of public virtue is as disastrous as more law because of the absence of public virtue.57

First, they illustrate clearly that what we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. Before marriage, we are carried along by the force of the in-love obsession. After marriage, we revert to being the people we were before we “fell in love.” Our actions are influenced by the model of our parents; our own personality; our perceptions of love; our emotions, needs, and desires. Only one thing is certain about our behavior: It will not be the same behavior we exhibited when we were caught up in being “in love.” That leads me to the second truth: Love is a choice and cannot be coerced. Dave and Mary were criticizing each other’s behavior and getting nowhere. Once they decided to make requests of each other rather than demands, their marriage began to turn around. Criticism and demands tend to drive wedges. With enough criticism, you may get acquiescence from your spouse. He may do what you want, but probably it will not be an expression of love. You can give guidance to love by making requests: “I wish you would wash the car, change the baby’s diaper, mow the grass,” but you cannot create the will to love. Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally. There is a third truth, which only the mature lover will be able to hear. My spouse’s criticisms about my behavior provide me with the clearest clue to her primary love language. People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need. Their criticism is an ineffective way of pleading for love. If we understand that, it may help us process their criticism in a more productive manner.

CONSENSUS PROPOSED CRITERIA FOR DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA DISORDER A. Exposure. The child or adolescent has experienced or witnessed multiple or prolonged adverse events over a period of at least one year beginning in childhood or early adolescence, including: A. 1. Direct experience or witnessing of repeated and severe episodes of interpersonal violence; and A. 2. Significant disruptions of protective caregiving as the result of repeated changes in primary caregiver; repeated separation from the primary caregiver; or exposure to severe and persistent emotional abuse B. Affective and Physiological Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to arousal regulation, including at least two of the following: B. 1. Inability to modulate, tolerate, or recover from extreme affect states (e.g., fear, anger, shame), including prolonged and extreme tantrums, or immobilization B. 2. Disturbances in regulation in bodily functions (e.g. persistent disturbances in sleeping, eating, and elimination; over-reactivity or under-reactivity to touch and sounds; disorganization during routine transitions) B. 3. Diminished awareness/dissociation of sensations, emotions and bodily states B. 4. Impaired capacity to describe emotions or bodily states C. Attentional and Behavioral Dysregulation: The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies related to sustained attention, learning, or coping with stress, including at least three of the following: C. 1. Preoccupation with threat, or impaired capacity to perceive threat, including misreading of safety and danger cues C. 2. Impaired capacity for self-protection, including extreme risk-taking or thrill-seeking C. 3. Maladaptive attempts at self-soothing (e.g., rocking and other rhythmical movements, compulsive masturbation) C. 4. Habitual (intentional or automatic) or reactive self-harm C. 5. Inability to initiate or sustain goal-directed behavior D. Self and Relational Dysregulation. The child exhibits impaired normative developmental competencies in their sense of personal identity and involvement in relationships, including at least three of the following: D. 1. Intense preoccupation with safety of the caregiver or other loved ones (including precocious caregiving) or difficulty tolerating reunion with them after separation D. 2. Persistent negative sense of self, including self-loathing, helplessness, worthlessness, ineffectiveness, or defectiveness D. 3. Extreme and persistent distrust, defiance or lack of reciprocal behavior in close relationships with adults or peers D. 4. Reactive physical or verbal aggression toward peers, caregivers, or other adults D. 5. Inappropriate (excessive or promiscuous) attempts to get intimate contact (including but not limited to sexual or physical intimacy) or excessive reliance on peers or adults for safety and reassurance D. 6. Impaired capacity to regulate empathic arousal as evidenced by lack of empathy for, or intolerance of, expressions of distress of others, or excessive responsiveness to the distress of others E. Posttraumatic Spectrum Symptoms. The child exhibits at least one symptom in at least two of the three PTSD symptom clusters B, C, & D. F. Duration of disturbance (symptoms in DTD Criteria B, C, D, and E) at least 6 months. G. Functional Impairment. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in at least two of the following areas of functioning: Scholastic Familial Peer Group Legal Health Vocational (for youth involved in, seeking or referred for employment, volunteer work or job training)

Our analyses of the FDA data showed relatively little difference between the effects of antidepressants and the effects of placebos. Indeed, the effects were so small that they did not qualify as clinically significant. The drug companies knew how small the effect of their medications were compared to placebos, and so did the FDA and other regulatory agencies. The companies found various ways to make the data seem more favorable to their products, and the FDA helped them keep their negative data secret. In fact, in some instances, the FDA urged the companies to keep negative data hidden, even when the companies wanted to reveal them. My colleagues and I hadn't really discovered anything new. We had merely revealed their 'dirty little secret'.

In other words, for your personal reality to be created purposefully, rather than haphazardly, you must understand your mind. But the kind of understanding required isn’t just intellectual, which is ineffective by itself. Like a naturalist studying an organism in its habitat, we need to develop an intuitive understanding of our mind. This only comes from direct observation and experience. For life to become a consciously created work of art and beauty, we must first realize our innate capacity to become a more fully conscious being. Then, through appropriately directed conscious activity, we can develop an intuitive understanding of the true nature of reality. It’s only through this kind of Insight that you can accomplish the highest purpose of meditative practice: Awakening. This should be the goal of your practice. When life is lived in a fully conscious way, with wisdom, we can eventually overcome all harmful emotions and behavior. We won’t experience greed, even in the face of lack. Nor will we have ill will, even when confronted by aggression and hostility. When our speech and action comes from a place of wisdom and compassion, they will always produce better results than when driven by greed and anger. All this is possible because true happiness comes from within, which means we can always find joy, in both good times and bad. Although pain and pleasure are an inevitable part of human life, suffering and happiness are entirely optional. The choice is ours. A fully Awake, fully conscious human being has the love, compassion, and energy to make change for the better whenever it’s possible, the equanimity to accept what can’t be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. Therefore, make the aim of your meditation the cultivation of a mind capable of this type of Awakening.

Certainty is an unrealistic and unattainable ideal. We need to have pastors who are schooled in apologetics and engaged intellectually with our culture so as to shepherd their flock amidst the wolves. People who simply ride the roller coaster of emotional experience are cheating themselves out of a deeper and richer Christian faith by neglecting the intellectual side of that faith. They know little of the riches of deep understanding of Christian truth, of the confidence inspired by the discovery that one’s faith is logical and fits the facts of experience, and of the stability brought to one’s life by the conviction that one’s faith is objectively true. God could not possibly have intended that reason should be the faculty to lead us to faith, for faith cannot hang indefinitely in suspense while reason cautiously weighs and reweighs arguments. The Scriptures teach, on the contrary, that the way to God is by means of the heart, not by means of the intellect. When a person refuses to come to Christ, it is never just because of lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God’s Spirit on his heart. unbelief is at root a spiritual, not an intellectual, problem. Sometimes an unbeliever will throw up an intellectual smoke screen so that he can avoid personal, existential involvement with the gospel. In such a case, further argumentation may be futile and counterproductive, and we need to be sensitive to moments when apologetics is and is not appropriate. A person who knows that Christianity is true on the basis of the witness of the Spirit may also have a sound apologetic which reinforces or confirms for him the Spirit’s witness, but it does not serve as the basis of his belief. As long as reason is a minister of the Christian faith, Christians should employ it. It should not surprise us if most people find our apologetic unconvincing. But that does not mean that our apologetic is ineffective; it may only mean that many people are closed-minded. Without a divine lawgiver, there can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments. This means that it is impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, and love as good. For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say that you are right and I am wrong. No atheist or agnostic really lives consistently with his worldview. In some way he affirms meaning, value, or purpose without an adequate basis. It is our job to discover those areas and lovingly show him where those beliefs are groundless. We are witnesses to a mighty struggle for the mind and soul of America in our day, and Christians cannot be indifferent to it. If moral values are gradually discovered, not invented, then our gradual and fallible apprehension of the moral realm no more undermines the objective reality of that realm than our gradual, fallible apprehension of the physical world undermines the objectivity of that realm. God has given evidence sufficiently clear for those with an open heart, but sufficiently vague so as not to compel those whose hearts are closed. Because of the need for instruction and personal devotion, these writings must have been copied many times, which increases the chances of preserving the original text. In fact, no other ancient work is available in so many copies and languages, and yet all these various versions agree in content. The text has also remained unmarred by heretical additions. The abundance of manuscripts over a wide geographical distribution demonstrates that the text has been transmitted with only trifling discrepancies.

The differences between religions are reflected very clearly in the different forms of sacred art: compared with Gothic art, above all in its “flamboyant” style, Islamic art is contemplative rather than volitive: it is “intellectual” and not “dramatic”, and it opposes the cold beauty of geometrical design to the mystical heroism of cathedrals. Islam is the perspective of “omnipresence” (“God is everywhere”), which coincides with that of “simultaneity” (“Truth has always been”); it aims at avoiding any “particularization” or “condensation”, any “unique fact” in time and space, although as a religion it necessarily includes an aspect of “unique fact”, without which it would be ineffective or even absurd. In other words Islam aims at what is “everywhere center”, and this is why, symbolically speaking, it replaces the cross with the cube or the woven fabric: it “decentralizes” and “universalizes” to the greatest possible extent, in the realm of art as in that of doctrine; it is opposed to any individualist mode and hence to any “personalist” mysticism. To express ourselves in geometrical terms, we could say that a point which seeks to be unique, and which thus becomes an absolute center, appears to Islam—in art as in theology—as a usurpation of the divine absoluteness and therefore as an “association” (shirk); there is only one single center, God, whence the prohibition against “centralizing” images, especially statues; even the Prophet, the human center of the tradition, has no right to a “Christic uniqueness” and is “decentralized” by the series of other Prophets; the same is true of Islam—or the Koran—which is similarly integrated in a universal “fabric” and a cosmic “rhythm”, having been preceded by other religions—or other “Books”—which it merely restores. The Kaaba, center of the Muslim world, becomes space as soon as one is inside the building: the ritual direction of prayer is then projected toward the four cardinal points. If Christianity is like a central fire, Islam on the contrary resembles a blanket of snow, at once unifying and leveling and having its center everywhere.

What do you do when your greatest accomplishments lead you straight down the path of an even greater fear? Instead of summoning his faith and standing firm to see the deliverance of his God, Elijah retreats. And in his escape from his geographical surroundings, he begins to back down from the boldness that has characterized his whole ministry up to this point. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. (1 Kings 19:3–5) Now I’m confused. Verse 3 says he was running for his life. Yet verse 4 says he asked God to kill him. Which one is it? Are you looking for life support, Elijah? Or shall God send the angels of euthanasia? One of these things is not like the other. The more I studied this text, though, and considered the context of Elijah’s despair and compared it to similar feelings I’ve experienced under much less duress, the more I got it. Although the text says Elijah ran for his life—and I’m sure that’s how it appeared—it seems like something deeper is going on. In fact, I’m not sure Elijah was running for his life at all, at least not in the sense we would use that phrase. I believe Elijah was actually running from his life. You see, it had been a long, lonely three years for Elijah. Did he survive the drought? Undoubtedly. And through him God won the battle with a unanimous decision. But winning can be as exhausting as losing. Sometimes the pressure of success can drain you at an even deeper level than the frustration of failure. Elijah knows Queen Jezebel doesn’t have the power to call on her gods and end his life. If she had, he’d have been buried beside his bull back on the mountain. So it’s safe to assume that his greatest fear at this point isn’t dying. His greatest fear is living—and having to fight yet another agonizing battle. Jezebel’s threat is ultimately impotent, yes. But that doesn’t make it ineffective. Because fear often finds its power, not in our actual situation, but in what we tell ourselves about our situation.

The intelligent want self-control; children want candy. —RUMI INTRODUCTION Welcome to Willpower 101 Whenever I mention that I teach a course on willpower, the nearly universal response is, “Oh, that’s what I need.” Now more than ever, people realize that willpower—the ability to control their attention, emotions, and desires—influences their physical health, financial security, relationships, and professional success. We all know this. We know we’re supposed to be in control of every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to what we do, say, and buy. And yet, most people feel like willpower failures—in control one moment but overwhelmed and out of control the next. According to the American Psychological Association, Americans name lack of willpower as the number-one reason they struggle to meet their goals. Many feel guilty about letting themselves and others down. Others feel at the mercy of their thoughts, emotions, and cravings, their lives dictated by impulses rather than conscious choices. Even the best-controlled feel a kind of exhaustion at keeping it all together and wonder if life is supposed to be such a struggle. As a health psychologist and educator for the Stanford School of Medicine’s Health Improvement Program, my job is to help people manage stress and make healthy choices. After years of watching people struggle to change their thoughts, emotions, bodies, and habits, I realized that much of what people believed about willpower was sabotaging their success and creating unnecessary stress. Although scientific research had much to say that could help them, it was clear that these insights had not yet become part of public understanding. Instead, people continued to rely on worn-out strategies for self-control. I saw again and again that the strategies most people use weren’t just ineffective—they actually backfired, leading to self-sabotage and losing control. This led me to create “The Science of Willpower,” a class offered to the public through Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program. The course brings together the newest insights about self-control from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine to explain how we can break old habits and create healthy habits, conquer procrastination, find our focus, and manage stress. It illuminates why we give in to temptation and how we can find the strength to resist. It demonstrates the importance of understanding the limits of self-control,

I have again been asked to explain how one can "become a Daoists..." with all of the sad things happening in our world today, Laozi and Zhuangzi give words of advice, tho not necessarily to become a Daoist priest or priestess... " So many foreigners who want to become “Religious Daoists” 道教的道师 （道士） do not realize that they must not only receive a transmission of a Lu 籙 register which identifies their Daoist school, and learn as well how to sing the ritual melodies, play the flute, stringed instruments, drums, and sacred dance steps, required to be an ordained and functioning Daoist priest or priestess. This process usually takes 10 years or more of daily discipleship and practice, to accomplish. There are 86 schools and genre of Daoist rituals listed in the Baiyun Guan Gazeteer, 白雲觀志, which was edited by Oyanagi Sensei, in Tokyo, 1928, and again in 1934, and re-published by Baiyun Guan in Beijing, available in their book shop to purchase. Some of the schools, such as the Quanzhen Longmen 全真龙门orders, allow their rituals and Lu registers to be learned by a number of worthy disciples or monks; others, such as the Zhengyi, Qingwei, Pole Star, and Shangqing 正一，清微，北极，上请 registers may only be taught in their fullness to one son and/or one disciple, each generation. Each of the schools also have an identifying poem, from 20 or 40 character in length, or in the case of monastic orders (who pass on the registers to many disciples), longer poems up to 100 characters, which identify the generation of transmission from master to disciple. The Daoist who receives a Lu register (給籙元科, pronounced "Ji Lu Yuanke"), must use the character from the poem given to him by his or her master, when composing biao 表 memorials, shuwen 梳文 rescripts, and other documents, sent to the spirits of the 3 realms (heaven, earth, water /underworld). The rituals and documents are ineffective unless the correct characters and talismanic signature are used. The registers are not given to those who simply practice martial artists, Chinese medicine, and especially never shown to scholars. The punishment for revealing them to the unworthy is quite severe, for those who take payment for Lu transmission, or teaching how to perform the Jinlu Jiao and Huanglu Zhai 金籙醮，黃籙齋 科儀 keyi rituals, music, drum, sacred dance steps. Tang dynasty Tangwen 唐文 pronunciation must also be used when addressing the highest Daoist spirits, i.e., the 3 Pure Ones and 5 Emperors 三请五帝. In order to learn the rituals and receive a Lu transmission, it requires at least 10 years of daily practice with a master, by taking part in the Jiao and Zhai rituals, as an acolyte, cantor, or procession leader. Note that a proper use of Daoist ritual also includes learning Inner Alchemy, ie inner contemplative Daoist meditation, the visualization of spirits, where to implant them in the body, and how to summon them forth during ritual. The woman Daoist master Wei Huacun’s Huangting Neijing, 黃庭內經 to learn the esoteric names of the internalized Daoist spirits. Readers must be warned never to go to Longhu Shan, where a huge sum is charged to foreigners ($5000 to $9000) to receive a falsified document, called a "license" to be a Daoist! The first steps to true Daoist practice, Daoist Master Zhuang insisted to his disciples, is to read and follow the Laozi Daode Jing and the Zhuangzi Neipian, on a daily basis. Laozi Ch 66, "the ocean is the greatest of all creatures because it is the lowest", and Ch 67, "my 3 most precious things: compassion for all, frugal living for myself, respect all others and never put anyone down" are the basis for all Daoist practice. The words of Zhuangzi, Ch 7, are also deeply meaningful: "Yin and Yang were 2 little children who loved to play inside Hundun (ie Taiji, gestating Dao). They felt sorry because Hundun did not have eyes, or eats, or other senses. So everyday they drilled one hole, ie 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, one mouth; and on the 7th day, Hundun died.