It Doesn't Get Easier Quotes

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.

It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and than make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.

All marriages have a time limit if you enter them for the wrong reasons. Marriage doesn't get easier...it only gets harder. If you marry someone hoping it will improve things, you might as well set your timer the second you say, 'I do.

Pain doesn’t get easier. You just have to get stronger.

You'd think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn't work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.

The good times and the bad times both will pass. It will pass. It will get easier. But the fact that it will get easier does not mean that it doesn’t hurt now. And when people try to minimize your pain they are doing you a disservice. And when you try to minimize your own pain you’re doing yourself a disservice. Don’t do that. The truth is that it hurts because it’s real. It hurts because it mattered. And that’s an important thing to acknowledge to yourself. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t end, that it won’t get better. Because it will.

But I think it must be easier for a girl to marry someone she doesn’t know, because the more you get to know men, the harder it is to love them.

You act young," he said, "because you are young. But you know things, Roza. Things people older than you don't even know. That day...." I knew instantly which day he referred to. The one up against the wall. "You were right, about how I fight to stay in control. No one else has ever figured that out- and it scared me. You scare me." "Why? Don't you want anyone to know?" He shrugged. "Whether they know that fact or not doesn't matter. What matters is that someone- that you- know me that well. When a person can see into your soul, it's hard. It forces you to be open. Vulnerable. It's much easier being with someone who's just more of a casual friend." "Like Tasha." "Tasha Ozera is an amazing woman. She's beautiful and she's brave. But she doesn't-" "She doesn't get you," I finished. He nodded. "I knew that. But I still wanted the relationship. I knew it would be easy and that she could take me away from you. I thought she could make me forget you." I'd thought the same thing about Mason. "But she couldn't." "Yes. And, so.....that's a problem.

Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense. To make this all go away. And disappear. I know that's wrong, because it's my responsibilty, and I know things have to get worse before they get better. I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why their here. If they like their jobs. Or us. I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day. And how they cope with having three quizes and a book report. On top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why. Especially since I know that if they went to another school, the person who had their heart broken would have had their heart broken by somebody else, so why does it have to be personal? It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especiall me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and than make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.

Because i always say that. I always say that i don't care what other people think. I say it doesn't bother me, that i don't give a shit about the opinions of assholes but it's not true. It's not true, because it huts every time, and that means i still care. It means i'm still not strong enough because every time someone says something rude, it hurts. it never stops hurting. It only gets easier to recover

Technology is a big destroyer of emotion and truth. Auto-tuning doesn’t do anything for creativity. Yeah, it makes it easier and you can get home sooner; but it doesn’t make you a more creative person. That’s the disease we have to fight in any creative field: ease of use.

Right now I feel guilty to be alive. Why? Because I’m wasting it. I’ve been given this life and all I do is mope it away. What’s worse is, I am totally aware of how ridiculous I am. It would be a lot easier if I believed I was the center of the universe, because then I wouldn’t know any better NOT to make a big deal out of everything. I know how small my problems are, yet that doesn’t stop me from obsessing about them. I have to stop doing this. How do other people get happy? I look at people laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves and try to get inside their heads. How do Bridget, Manda, and Sara do it? Or Pepe? Or EVERYONE but me? Why does everything I see bother me? Why can’t I just get over these daily wrongdoings? Why can’t I just move on and make the best of what I’ve got? I wish I knew.

Writing doesn’t get easier with experience. The more you know, the harder it is to write.

Betrayal is too kind a word to describe a situation in which a father says he loves his daughter but claims he must teach her about the horrors of the world in order to make her a stronger person; a situation in which he watches or participates in rituals that make her feel like she is going to die. She experiences pain that is so intense that she cannot think; her head spins so fast she can't remember who she is or how she got there. All she knows is pain. All she feels is desperation. She tries to cry out for help, but soon learns that no one will listen. No matter how loud she cries, she can't stop or change what is happening. No matter what she does, the pain will not stop. Her father orders her to be tortured and tells her it is for her own good. He tells her that she needs the discipline, or that she has asked for it by her misbehavior. Betrayal is too simple a word to describe the overwhelming pain, the overwhelming loneliness and isolation this child experiences. As if the abuse during the rituals were not enough, this child experiences similar abuse at home on a daily basis. When she tries to talk about her pain, she is told that she must be crazy. "Nothing bad has happened to you;' her family tells her Each day she begins to feel more and more like she doesn't know what is real. She stops trusting her own feelings because no one else acknowledges them or hears her agony. Soon the pain becomes too great. She learns not to feel at all. This strong, lonely, desperate child learns to give up the senses that make all people feel alive. She begins to feel dead. She wishes she were dead. For her there is no way out. She soon learns there is no hope. As she grows older she gets stronger. She learns to do what she is told with the utmost compliance. She forgets everything she has ever wanted. The pain still lurks, but it's easier to pretend it's not there than to acknowledge the horrors she has buried in the deepest parts of her mind. Her relationships are overwhelmed by the power of her emotions. She reaches out for help, but never seems to find what she is looking for The pain gets worse. The loneliness sets in. When the feelings return, she is overcome with panic, pain, and desperation. She is convinced she is going to die. Yet, when she looks around her she sees nothing that should make her feel so bad. Deep inside she knows something is very, very wrong, but she doesn't remember anything. She thinks, "Maybe I am crazy.

You feel like quitting, like giving up. You can’t understand why the road doesn’t get easier, why God doesn’t remove the stones and straighten the path. If God did that, you might never get to the top, because the bumps are what you can climb on.

I don’t belong here,” I said. “I don’t even believe in gods.” “Yeah,” he said. “That’s how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn’t get any easier.

Once you know a habit exists, you have the responsibility to change it . . . others have done so . . . That, in some ways, is the point of this book. Perhaps a sleep-walking murderer can plausibly argue that he wasn’t aware of his habit, and so he doesn’t bear responsibility for his crime, but almost all of the other patterns that exist in most people’s lives — how we eat and sleep and talk to our kids, how we unthinkingly spend our time, attention and money — those are habits that we know exist. And once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and the responsibility to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp and the only option left is to get to work.

I knew it was loads easier to crumble under the weight of grief than it was to stand up with it on your back, but every day you carry it forward you get stronger and stronger, and eventually it doesn’t feel as heavy as it once did.

Dear, be kind to the mothers of Night Vale. Have pity on us. It’ll be no easier for Diane. Things go strange here. Your children forget you, and the courses of their lives get frozen. Or they change shapes every day, and they think that just because they look completely different you won’t be able to recognize them. But you always will. You always know your child, even when your child doesn’t know you.

You're an abnormality. People get scared when they come across something that doesn't behave the way they expect it to. People like labels and categories and things that they can predict. When people can't explain something, they assume it's because there's something wrong with it. They try to fix it or change it. They mess with it until it's translatable and they bring it down to their level. Trying to change someone is easier than trying to accept them. It's how they were programmed

Kevin: 'Hey, Dad. How do you stop people from being stupid?' Dad: 'You don't.' Kevin: 'Really?' Dad: 'I've tried to explain to people when they're being stupid, but then I realized something: Most people like being stupid.' Kevin: 'I don't get it.' Dad: 'Some people just prefer it. It makes their lives easier if they let other people think for them.' Kevin: 'But that doesn't make sense. That's just stu...Oh...

She doesnt want your dark embrace. She'll let you hold her for a short time but she won’t submit to that kind of weakness and she'll only let you get so close. In the past it was easier pushing you into the arms of another rather than face what was or what could be. She doesn't want to love; not now, so she'll close the door and toss the key.

Thank you.” Okay, sincerity was not what I had come to expect from this man. I shook it off. “It’s easier for me to get information if you’re alive.” The corner of his mouth twitched as he sat up. Jesus, abs like that should be illegal. He caught his breath and shook his head. “Either way, I’m grateful.” He glanced my way, his dark eyes full of secrets. “And for me, that doesn’t happen very often.” I raised a brow. “You’re usually an ungrateful bastard?” “No.” He chuckled, sucking in a pained breath before lifting his gaze to meet mine. “I rarely have anything to be thankful for.

I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people. It's a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn't require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can't see me. And, and, they're there for me, and I can, I can receive from the TV, I can receive entertainment and stimulation. Without having to give anything back but the most tangential kind of attention. And that is very seductive. The problem is it's also very empty. Because one of the differences about having a real person there is that number one, I've gotta do some work. Like, he pays attention to me, I gotta pay attention to him. You know: I watch him, he watches me. The stress level goes up. But there's also, there's something nourishing about it, because I think like as creatures, we've all got to figure out how to be together in the same room. And so TV is like candy in that it's more pleasurable and easier than the real food. But it also doesn't have any of the nourishment of real food. And the thing, what the book is supposed to be about is, What has happened to us, that I'm now willing--and I do this too--that I'm willing to derive enormous amounts of my sense of community and awareness of other people, from television? But I'm not willing to undergo the stress and awkwardness and potential shit of dealing with real people. And that as the Internet grows, and as our ability to be linked up, like--I mean, you and I coulda done this through e-mail, and I never woulda had to meet you, and that woulda been easier for me. Right? Like, at a certain point, we're gonna have to build some machinery, inside our guts, to help us deal with this. Because the technology is just gonna get better and better and better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. Which is all right. In low doses, right? But if that's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die. In a meaningful way, you're going to die.

Grief, especially when it's still raw, is like having a thirst that no amount of water quenches. It can't be consoled; it can't be alleviated. It's unrelenting and constant. I wish I could tell her that it will get easier with time. But if I told her that I'd also have to tell her that easier doesn't mean it ever goes away.

Money burns fast. Knowing that doesn't get easier with age and it's worse when you learn it young. The beauty of childhood is not entirely grasping the cost of living; food just appears in the fridge, you have a roof over your head because everyone does and electricity must be some kind of sorcery, like right out of Harry Potter or something, because who could ever put a price on light? Its that you never really had to think about any of it before. Then one day you find out you've have been walking the razor's edge all along.

I've been trying to get through this damn book again". Ardee slapped at heavy volume lying open, face down, on a chair. "The Fall of the Master Maker", muttered Glokta. "That rubbish? All magic and valor, no ? I couldn't get through the first one". "I sympathize. I'm onto the third and it doesn't get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It's all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again. If so much as glimpse another map I swear I kill myself

We deny more than we confess. We hide more than we reveal. We assume because it makes us feel exposed if we have to ask. It's easier to say "I feel nothing" than to admit "I feel something." It takes no courage to say, "I hate you" but it takes a great deal of moxie to declare its opposite. Masks are elaborate and everyone has one. It takes a while to get to know people. This doesn't make them special, it makes them like everyone else. Sometimes our hearts scream yes while our heads say run; and only one can be obeyed.

Life is hard. It’s cruel sometimes. It’s merciless and unfair, but we all go through difficult times, one way or another. You’ve had more than your share of knocks lately, I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t mean you get to quit. No one gets to quit. You keep fighting, every day, and sooner or later, the grief fades a little. You grow stronger, find joy again, and everything gets easier. You come out of it more equipped to handle the next wave, which will come eventually. There will always be waves.

Life is like the big wheel at Luna Park. You pay five francs and go into a room with tiers of seats all around, and in the centre the floor is made of a great disc of polished wood that revolves quickly. At first you sit down and watch the others. They are all trying to sit in the wheel, and they keep getting flung off, and that makes them laugh too. It's great fun. You see, the nearer you can get to the hub of the wheel the slower it is moving and the easier it is to stay on. There's generally someone in the centre who stands up and sometimes does a sort of dance. Often he's paid by the management, though, or, at any rate, he's allowed in free. Of course at the very centre there's a point completely at rest, if one could only find it; I'm not very near that point myself. Of course the professional men get in the way. Lots of people just enjoy scrambling on and being whisked off and scrambling on again. How they all shriek and giggle! Then there are others, like Margot, who sit as far out as they can and hold on for dear life and enjoy that. But the whole point about the wheel is that you needn't get on it at all, if you don't want to. People get hold of ideas about life, and that makes them think they've got to join in the game, even if they don't enjoy it. It doesn't suit everyone. People don't see that when they say "life" they mean two different things. They can mean simply existence, with its physiological implications of growth and organic change. They can't escape that - even by death, but because that's inevitable they think the other idea of life is too - the scrambling and excitement and bumps and the effort to get to the middle, and when we do get to the middle, it's just as if we never started. It's so odd. Now you're a person who was clearly meant to stay in the seats and sit still and if you get bored watch the others. Somehow you got on to the wheel, and you got thrown off again at once with a hard bump. It's all right for Margot, who can cling on, and for me, at the centre, but you're static. Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic. There's a real distinction there, though I can't tell you how it comes. I think we're probably two quite different species spiritually.

Remember you future counselors and bringers of relief: there will never be a cure for life's problems because so many of tomorrow's problems will be new. Good words, like good work and good thinking, help, even if good words are a lot like highway paint. They can keep plenty of heavy things moving at 70 MPH from going the wrong way. But that doesn't mean life won't cross over if it has to. Learn to avoid the collisions. Find other directions. Often a new yes is the best no. Life lived well doesn't get easier but it does get better. Learn to let things go by. And don't be reluctant: life is al[l]ways surpassing us by. Enjoy it.

It will get easier’ is probably the most offensive thing you can say to someone in the grip of pain. You are borrowing from a future that isn’t promised, a future that depends entirely on their endurance of the pain. You are taking for granted a well of strength within them that they may not possess, fast-forwarding through the ugly bits that you don’t want to watch but they must live through, nonetheless. ‘It will get easier’ is not a helpful thing to say to someone for whom only the present moment can exist, so vivid, so intense that it’s not possible to imagine a moment beyond it. The future doesn’t matter to someone enduring an unimaginable pain, so let’s not entertain that childish fantasy. All that matters is the pain that is consuming you in this moment, that you grit your teeth and try to survive it. You invalidate the pain and the damage it inflicts when you hasten to skip past it to a brighter tomorrow. Sometimes things are just unremittingly shit and the only respectful thing to do is to stand next to the person going through it and scream along with them.

Just start somewhere," Dr. Marshall had said to me as I ground a banana-pineapple one to bits between my teeth. "It doesn't have to be at the beginning." She'd pulled her legs up, Indian-style, letting the legal pad she'd been holding drop to the floor. "I thought everything always had to start at the beginning," I said. "Not in this room," she said easily. "Go ahead, Caitlin. Just tell me one thing. It gets easier, I promise. The first thing is always the hardest." I looked down at my hands, stained mildly red from the particularly sticky watermelon Rancher. "Okay," I said, reaching forward to take another one out of the bowl, just in case. She was already sitting back in her chair, readying herself for whatever glimpse I would give her into the mess I'd become. "What was the name of Pygmalion's sister?" She blinked, twice, obviously surprised. "Ummm," she said, keeping her eyes on me. "I don't know." "Rogerson did," I told her. "Rogerson knew everything.

It's moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. I'm told there's no going back. So I’m choosing forward The exhaustion of living was just too much for me to talk any longer It still might be a shock. To realize you are just one story walking among millions Why is it so much easier to talk to a stranger? Why do we feel we need that disconnect in order to connect? I had done it. I had embraced danger. The experience might have been an epic disaster, but it was still…an experience We are reading the story of our lives/ as though we were in it, /as though we had written it Like dogs and lions, small children can sense fear. The slightest flinch, the slightest disinclination, and they will jump atop you and devour you I might have liked to share a dance with you. If I may be so bold to say In a field, I am the absence of field. In a crowd, I am the absence of crowd. In a dream, I am the absence of dream. But I don’t want to live as an absence. I move to keep things whole. Because sometimes I feel drunk on positivity. Sometimes I feel amazement at the tangle of words and lives, and I want to be a part of that tangle…It’s only a game if there is an absence of meaning. And we’ve already gone too far for that You restore my faith in humanity Do you want to go get coffee or something tomorrow and discuss and analyze the situation at length? Let’s just wander and see what happens It was rather awkward, insofar as we were both teetering between the possibility of something and the possibility of nothing. Fate has a strange way of making plans I love a man who doesn’t let go of the leash, even when it leads him to ruin

Bouncing hurt. Our ego is the part of us that cares about our status and what people think, about always being better than and always being right. I think of my ego as my inner hustler. It’s always telling me to compare, prove, please, perfect, outperform, and compete. Our inner hustlers have very little tolerance for discomfort or self-reflection. The ego doesn’t own stories or want to write new endings; it denies emotion and hates curiosity. Instead, the ego uses stories as armor and alibis. The ego has a shame-based fear of being ordinary (which is how I define narcissism). The ego says, “Feelings are for losers and weaklings.” Avoiding truth and vulnerability are critical parts of the hustle. Like all good hustlers, our egos employ crews of ruffians in case we don’t comply with their demands. Anger, blame, and avoidance are the ego’s bouncers. When we get too close to recognizing an experience as an emotional one, these three spring into action. It’s much easier to say, “I don’t give a damn,” than it is to say, “I’m hurt.” The ego likes blaming, finding fault, making excuses, inflicting payback, and lashing out, all of which are ultimate forms of self-protection. The ego is also a fan of avoidance—assuring the offender that we’re fine, pretending that it doesn’t matter, that we’re impervious. We adopt a pose of indifference or stoicism, or we deflect with humor and cynicism. Whatever. Who cares?

Hanging on to it a little, are you? … There’s a trick to letting it go, in case you’re interested… You can’t try. Trying is a struggle and doing is an act. You can’t witness the act of trying, but you can see the results of doing. Trying brings on stress because not only do you have the problem, but now you have all this frustration with it not going away just because you want it to. It’s kind of like being told not to think of pink elephants- impossible. What you have to do is stop. You say to yourself, this is over for now. I’m done for now. Take your mind to another place and concentrate on that peaceful place. Deep breaths. Go limp. Put your mind in another state. It takes practice, but it gets easier, over time… My gramma used to say, you can only feel one feeling at a time. For example, you can’t feel trust and fear together. If you want to trust but you’re afraid, fear is still in charge. If you trusted, there wouldn’t be fear. She also used to say you have to listen to what you feel- feeling fear could be warning, right? ... Don’t make love to your problems- they’ll never give you back the satisfaction you give them. And, your troubles aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, but that doesn’t mean writing them down won’t help you get a fix on ‘em. And, God respects you when you work, but he loves you when you dance… she also used to say, ‘if Jesus walked the earth today, he wouldn’t be hanging out with Billy Graham. He’d be found with the drug addicts and prostitutes and the like.

Naturally, I said. You’re always the same person. You don’t change from one milieu to another. You’re honest and open. You could get along anywhere with any group or class or race. But most people aren’t that way. Most people are conscious of race, color, religion, nationality, and so on. To me all peoples are mysterious when I look at them closely. I can detect their differences much easier than their kinship. In fact, I like the distinctions which separate them just as much as I like what unites them. I think it’s foolish to pretend that we’re all pretty much the same. Only the great, the truly distinctive individuals, resemble one another. Brotherhood doesn’t start at the bottom, but at the top. The nearer we get to God the more we resemble one another. At the bottom it’s like a rubbish pile … that’s to say, from a distance it all seems like so much rubbish, but when you get nearer you perceive that this so-called rubbish is composed of a million-billion different particles. And yet, no matter how different one bit of rubbish is from another, the real difference only asserts itself when you look at something which is not rubbish. Even if the elements which compose the universe can be broken down into one vital substance … well, I don’t know what I was going to say exactly … maybe this … that as long as there is life there will be differentiation, values, hierarchies. Life is always making pyramidal structures, in every realm. If you’re at the bottom you stress the sameness of things; if you’re at the top, or near it, you become aware of the difference between things. And if something is obscure—especially a person—you’re attracted beyond all power of will. You may find that it was an empty chase, that there was nothing there, nothing more than a question mark, but just the same…

I was so struck by Flow’s negative implications for parents that I decided I wanted to speak to Csikszentmihalyi, just to make sure I wasn’t misreading him. And eventually I did, at a conference in Philadelphia where he was one of the marquee speakers. As we sat down to chat, the first thing I asked was why he talked so little about family life in Flow. He devotes only ten pages to it. “Let me tell you a couple of things that may be relevant to you,” he said. And then he told a personal story. When Csikszentmihalyi first developed the Experience Sampling Method, one of the first people he tried it out on was himself. “And at the end of the week,” he said, “I looked at my responses, and one thing that suddenly was very strange to me was that every time I was with my two sons, my moods were always very, very negative.” His sons weren’t toddlers at that point either. They were older. “And I said, ‘This doesn’t make any sense to me, because I’m very proud of them, and we have a good relationship.’ ” But then he started to look at what, specifically, he was doing with his sons that made his feelings so negative. “And what was I doing?” he asked. “I was saying, ‘It’s time to get up, or you will be late for school.’ Or, ‘You haven’t put away your cereal dish from breakfast.’ ” He was nagging, in other words, and nagging is not a flow activity. “I realized,” he said, “that being a parent consists, in large part, of correcting the growth pattern of a person who is not necessarily ready to live in a civilized society.” I asked if, in that same data set, he had any numbers about flow in family life. None were in his book. He said he did. “They were low. Family life is organized in a way that flow is very difficult to achieve, because we assume that family life is supposed to relax us and to make us happy. But instead of being happy, people get bored.” Or enervated, as he’d said before, when talking about disciplining his sons. And because children are constantly changing, the “rules” of handling them change too, which can further confound a family’s ability to flow. “And then we get into these spirals of conflict and so forth,” he continued. “That’s why I’m saying it’s easier to get into flow at work. Work is more structured. It’s structured more like a game. It has clear goals, you get feedback, you know what has to be done, there are limits.” He thought about this. “Partly, the lack of structure in family life, which seems to give people freedom, is actually a kind of an impediment.

I ask him if he tried to rape Nyla. “Laws are silent in times of war,” Tactus drawls. “Don’t quote Cicero to me,” I say. “You are held to a higher standard than a marauding centurion.” “In that, you’re hitting the mark at least. I am a superior creature descended from proud stock and glorious heritage. Might makes right, Darrow. If I can take, I may take. If I do take, I deserve to have. This is what Peerless believe.” “The measure of a man is what he does when he has power,” I say loudly. “Just come off it, Reaper,” Tactus drawls, confident in himself as all like him are. “She’s a spoil of war. My power took her. And before the strong, bend the weak.” “I’m stronger than you, Tactus,” I say. “So I can do with you as I wish. No?” He’s silent, realizing he’s fallen into a trap. “You are from a superior family to mine, Tactus. My parents are dead. I am the sole member of my family. But I am a superior creature to you.” He smirks at that. “Do you disagree?” I toss a knife at his feet and pull my own out. “I beg you to voice your concerns.” He does not pick his blade up. “So, by right of power, I can do with you as I like.” I announce that rape will never be permitted, and then I ask Nyla the punishment she would give. As she told me before, she says she wants no punishment. I make sure they know this, so there are no recriminations against her. Tactus and his armed supporters stare at her in surprise. They don’t understand why she would not take vengeance, but that doesn’t stop them from smiling wolfishly at one another, thinking their chief has dodged punishment. Then I speak. “But I say you get twenty lashes from a leather switch, Tactus. You tried to take something beyond the bounds of the game. You gave in to your pathetic animal instincts. Here that is less forgivable than murder; I hope you feel shame when you look back at this moment fifty years from now and realize your weakness. I hope you fear your sons and daughters knowing what you did to a fellow Gold. Until then, twenty lashes will serve.” Some of the Diana soldiers step forward in anger, but Pax hefts his axe on his shoulder and they shrink back, glaring at me. They gave me a fortress and I’m going to whip their favorite warrior. I see my army dying as Mustang pulls off Tactus’s shirt. He stares at me like a snake. I know what evil thoughts he’s thinking. I thought them of my floggers too. I whip him twenty brutal times, holding nothing back. Blood runs down his back. Pax nearly has to hack down one of the Diana soldiers to keep them from charging to stop the punishment. Tactus barely manages to stagger to his feet, wrath burning in his eyes. “A mistake,” he whispers to me. “Such a mistake.” Then I surprise him. I shove the switch into his hand and bring him close by cupping my hand around the back of his head. “You deserve to have your balls off, you selfish bastard,” I whisper to him. “This is my army,” I say more loudly. “This is my army. Its evils are mine as much as yours, as much as they are Tactus’s. Every time any of you commit a crime like this, something gratuitous and perverse, you will own it and I will own it with you, because when you do something wicked, it hurts all of us.” Tactus stands there like a fool. He’s confused. I shove him hard in the chest. He stumbles back. I follow him, shoving. “What were you going to do?” I push his hand holding the leather switch back toward his chest. “I don’t know what you mean …” he murmurs as I shove him. “Come on, man! You were going to shove your prick inside someone in my army. Why not whip me while you’re at it? Why not hurt me too? It’ll be easier. Milia won’t even try to stab you. I promise.” I shove him again. He looks around. No one speaks. I strip off my shirt and go to my knees. The air is cold. Knees on stone and snow. My eyes lock with Mustang’s. She winks at me and I feel like I can do anything.

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.