Letting Go Of Outcomes Quotes

If we can just let go and trust that things will work out they way they're supposed to, without trying to control the outcome, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully. The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself.

Before you can live a part of you has to die. You have to let go of what could have been, how you should have acted and what you wish you would have said differently. You have to accept that you can’t change the past experiences, opinions of others at that moment in time or outcomes from their choices or yours. When you finally recognize that truth then you will understand the true meaning of forgiveness of yourself and others. From this point you will finally be free.

The more you go with the flow of life and surrender the outcome to God, and the less you seek constant clarity, the more you will find that fabulous things start to show up in your life.

Don’t always consider all your options. Don’t necessarily go for the outcome that seems best every time. Make a mess on occasion. Travel light. Let things wait. Trust your instincts and don’t think too long. Relax. Toss a coin. Forgive, but don’t forget. To thine own self be true.

The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome. The ride is a lot more fun that way.

The only sure path is to live consciously, moment to moment, as you let go of the outcome.

When we surrender, we allow the universe to work its magic; we say yes to infinite possibilities; we trust that things will work out as they are meant to; and we give ourselves permission to let go of the outcome. This can be liberating, intimidating, blissful, scary, and a swirl of so many other emotions. But in the end, if we are true to our heart, life unfolds with magnificence…and we get to celebrate

Healing is that place where we step into 20 seconds of insane courage because we need to either close that door or hold it open. Regardless of the outcome, the truth is what sets you free never the fear of not knowing.

Fear represents our need to hang on to the riverbank, to control outcomes, results, our lives; it swims upstream. Truth is about releasing that hold, letting go of results, and trusting the direction of Life’s current.

Through the whole ordeal, I don't think we ever said to each other: "This isn't fair." We just kept going. We recognized that there were things we could do that might help the outcome in a positive ways...and we did them. Without saying it in words, our attitude was, "Let's saddle up and ride.

Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don’t. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment.

• I’ll remember that everyone is responsible for their own feelings and for expressing their needs clearly. Beyond common courtesy, it isn’t up to me to guess what others want. Communicating Clearly and Actively Seeking the Outcomes I Want • I won’t expect people to know what I need unless I tell them. Caring about me doesn’t mean they automatically know what I’m feeling. • If people close to me upset me, I’ll use my pain to identify my underlying need. Then I’ll use clear, intimate communication to provide guidance on how they could give it to me. • When my feelings are hurt, I’ll try to understand my reaction first. Did something trigger feelings from my past, or did the person really treat me insensitively? If someone was insensitive, I’ll ask him or her to hear me out. • I’ll be thoughtful to other people, and if they aren’t thoughtful in return, I’ll ask them to be more considerate and then let it go. • I’ll ask for something as many times as it takes to get a clear answer. • When I get tired of interacting, I’ll politely speak up, asking if we can continue our contact at another time. I’ll explain kindly that I’m just out of gas at the moment.

What is the one thing that gets you up every morning? The one thing that keeps you going every day, every month, every year? Let me get you started. My one thing is this, ‘I'm one day closer...’ One day closer to a goal, an outcome, or the results I'm after in my life. This is my way of remembering the importance of focusing on the life I desire and living a life of gratitude! So, what’s your one thing…?

We all have a role in life. Maybe we’re someone’s sibling or spouse, a teacher or a parent, a ruler or a warrior. And with that comes a duty to show up for the situations life throws at you! After that, you do your best and let everything else go. The outcome? Pfft. Not your problem. People’s opinions? Not the point! When you go home and look in the mirror, it’s your face you’ve got to look at. No one else’s.

We all have certain desires and undesired outcomes related to whatever possible course and attitude we take in life, whether it be at the larger macro scale (what shall I do with the rest of my life?) or at the micro level (as in, what route shall I take to work this morning). These include all the myriad choices we make each hour and each day. These choices determine our karma and our destiny. It's no accident, nor any great mystery, how this evolves; although one would have to utterly omniscient to understand all the many gross and subtle interconnections and causative links that determine happenings and outcomes.

If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize, who you are and what you want to become in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape your journey by default. Your silence makes you reactive vs. proactive. God will bring people in your life that can take you on many different journeys that will bring about different outcomes to your life mission. However, if you are not proactive and define your dreams you will never know where “you” need to be and who needs to be with you to fulfill what God is asking you to do. Your life is your own. You must define your dreams, not live someone else’s vision of a good life. What is it that God is asking you to do with the talents and hobbies you enjoy? What were you blessed with a desire for? A good life is one spent in the service of helping others. Find a life partner that will help you reach God’s highest potential—service to humanity, service to his Kingdom, service to building others up. Also, begin any choice with the end in mind. This means to begin each day with a clear vision of your desired direction. It is not enough to live a passive life of religious devotion. God asked you to do more than worship. He has called you to serve, not to be a servant to other people’s dreams. You and only you know where your heart must travel. God brings you storms in life to wake you up. Don’t see it as his disappointment, but as his parental love for you. Life was not meant to stay the same. If someone truly loves you they will never take you away from God’s plan, they will only magnify it.

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.

8. And finally, of course, the very central teaching of the Gita: “Let go of the outcome.” Let go of any clinging to how this all comes out. You cannot measure your actions at this point by the conventional wisdom about success and failure.

Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome.

Because I knew I'd regret it forever if I didn't, regardless of the outcome. And when March comes, if I have to let you go I will, because I want you to be happy.

Gratitude” is about letting go of desired outcomes and fully embracing the privilege and process of pursuing goals and dreams. “Believe” refers to the confidence that arises naturally through this process, a self-trust that is the antithesis of the doubt-fueled fixation on goals and dreams expressed in Siri’s nightly fantasy of having the perfect race at the 2000 Olympics. Siri

I’m at my strongest when I’m able to let go, when I suspend my beliefs as well as disbeliefs, and leave myself open to all possibilities. That also seems to be when I’m able to experience the most internal clarity and synchronicities. My sense is that the very act of needing certainty is a hindrance to experiencing greater levels of awareness. In contrast, the process of letting go and releasing all attachment to any belief or outcome is cathartic and healing. The dichotomy is that for true healing to occur, I must let go of the need to be healed and just enjoy and trust in the ride that is life.

Surrender does not mean to sit and do nothing; nor does surrender mean to give up or relinquish your power. Surrender means you relax into acceptance of where you are and what is happening around you. You let your body release the tension and angst of you trying to control the outcome of how you think things should be. It is letting go, and letting it be so that whatever the situation or circumstance is trying to reveal to you can be shown to you.

Work, chained to its outcome, is misery. Do what you can, do it better than you’re able, and let things happen as they may. The action, not its fruit, is your business. The outcome is not your concern. If God is going to show himself to you in the work that you shoulder, he will only do so if you’ve stopped craving an approving audience and, instead, work out your own salvation.

Turning something over to the Holy Spirit is a leap of faith that lets go of attempting to control outcomes. The core of alcoholism, anorexia, bulimia, smoking and a host of things the world calls addictions is control. The little willingness the Holy Spirit asks is the key to letting go of the attempt to manage the body and the world, which is the insane attempt to maintain a self-concept image that God did not create. An idea to contemplate from the Course is this: "Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world." The requirement is to change your thinking, not to focus on behavior and form. Behavior flows from thought, and transformation of the mind is synonymous with changing thought patterns from ego-based to Spirit-based.

It was like a trapeze act: How could you really tell at what second the acrobat pushed away, at what moment the anchor let go? You couldn't, and that was that. You and your deductions from the outcomeL a successful landing or a spiraling fall.

That,” she says, “is an irreversible outcome. Divorce may or may not be. Broken relationships may or may not be. You may never repair those completely, but you’re still here to try. Do you recognize what an amazing gift that is? To still be here to try?

The probability of achieving the outcome you want increases when you let go of the need to have it.

Praying only for God’s will for us may be difficult. It means we must be willing to let go of others and trust the outcome for their lives and ours to God.

We become attached to each pleasant thought, feeling, taste, smell, and sound. But because everything is impermanent, we’re craving and clinging to fleeting experiences. Pleasure never lasts long enough; we can never sustain enough pleasure to satisfy the cravings. Suffering is the inevitable outcome of clinging to experiences that are unsustainable. Each moment of attachment or clinging creates some level of suffering in our lives as we grieve the loss of pleasure. What we often forget is that we have the power and ability simply to let go, and each moment of letting go is an act of mercy. The subversive act of nonclinging is an internal coup d’état.

Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you. 1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master’s whims. He is often cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on. 2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time. 3. The master has a group of slave, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on. 4. The master allows the slave four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own. 5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking. 6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what use to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on. 7. Though still not having the vote, you are at liberty (and are given the right) to enter into discussion of the 10,000, to try to persuade them to adopt various policies and to treat you and themselves in a certain way. They then go off to vote to decide upon policies covering the vast range of their powers. 8. In appreciation of your useful contributions to discussion, the 10,000 allow you to vote if they are deadlocked; they commit themselve3s to this procedure. After the discussion you mark your vote on a slip of paper, and they go off and vote. In the eventuality that they divide evenly on some issue, 5,000 for and 5,000 against, they look at your ballot and count it in. This has never yet happened; they have never yet had occasion to open your ballot. (A single master may also might commit himself to letting his slave decide any issue concerning him about which he, the master, was absolutely indifferent.) 9. They throw your vote in with theirs. If they are exactly tied your vote carries the issue. Otherwise it makes no difference to the electoral outcome. The question is: which transition from case 1 to case 9 made it no longer the tale of the slave?

As you look back on your life, you will often realize that many of the times you thought you were being rejected from something good, you were in fact being redirected to something better. You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith things will work out. Let go and just let life happen the way it’s supposed to. Sometimes the outcomes you can’t change end up changing you and helping you grow mentally, emotionally or spiritually. When things fall apart, consider the possibility that life knocked them down for a reason. It was not to punish you, but to prompt you to build something better to fit your personality and your purpose. Sometimes things fall apart so better things can fall together.

the words of writer Daphne Rose Kingma came to mind: “Surrender is a beautiful movement in which you gracefully, willingly, languidly fall, only to find midway that you have been gathered into some unimaginable embrace. Surrender is letting go, whether or not you believe the embrace will occur. It’s trust to the hundredth power—not sticking to your idea of the outcome, but letting go in the faith that even the absence of an outcome will be the perfect solution.

The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome.

The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome. The ride is a lot more fun that way

Plans are best-case scenarios. Let’s avoid anchoring on plans when we forecast actual outcomes. Thinking about ways the plan could go wrong is one way to do it.

Are you going to be someone who takes charge of her feelings and her actions, even if the outcome might hurt, or someone who lets herself be unhappy simply because she won’t ask for what she wants?

Are you going to be someone who takes charge of her feelings and her actions, even if the outcome might hurt, or someone who lets herself be unhappy simply because she won’t ask for what she wants?

I had to let go first. Trying to control the timing and outcome was a terrible waste of energy. My intentions were already out there and I had taken what action I could. My only job now was to get out of the way.

Developing your spirituality, no matter what your religious orientation, basically means letting go of self-will, of the determination to make things happen the way you think they should. Instead, you must accept the fact that you may not know what is best in a given situation either for yourself or for another person. There may be outcomes and solutions that you have never considered, or perhaps the ones you’ve most feared and tried hardest to forestall may be exactly what is necessary in order for things to begin to improve. Self-will means believing that you alone have all the answers. Letting go of self-will means becoming willing to hold still, be open, and wait for guidance for yourself. It means learning to let go of fear (all of the “what ifs”) and despair (all of the “if onlys”) and replacing them with positive thoughts and statements about your life.

If you want to remain calm and peaceful as you go through life, you have to have high intention and low attachment. You do everything you can to create your desired outcomes, and then you let it go. Sometimes you don’t get the intended result by the date that you want. That is life. You just keep moving in the direction of your goal until you get there. Sometimes the universe has other plans, and often they are better than the ones you had in mind. That is why I recommend adding the phrase “this or something better” to the end of your affirmations.

Today I decide to let go. I let go of my grasp on people, things, thoughts, feelings, expectations and outcomes. And though I acknowledge my desires, I acknowledge I do not control anything. Letting go activates my faith and allows God to send what is meant for me. Letting go helps me because holding on does not. Holding on will not change the situation, the person, the problem or the thing. But letting go sets me free to accept that life is just as it is meant to be. An experience full of open spaces for new outcomes, new opportunities and new possibilities.

Let them go to school and not be anxious about the grade they get, realizing that when we are overly invested in grades or how well they do at a certain hobby, they begin to lose interest in the learning and focus only on the perfection of the outcome. Let them fly in their imagination

If you think about it, the real reason we seek revenge is so that we can let go and recreate or restore balance in our life If we can restore it by choosing to let go then the balance is automatically restored. Also, that eliminates the need for revenge or to focus on the outcome of THEIR life.

I lost my second judo tournament. I finished second, losing to a girl named Anastasia. Afterward, her coach congratulated me. "You did a great job. Don't feel bad, Anastasia is a junior national champion." I felt consoled for about a second, until I noticed the look of disgust on Mom's face. I nodded at the coach and walked away. Once we were out of earshot she lit into me. "I hope you know better than to believe what he said. You could have won that match. You had every chance to beat that girl. The fact that she is a junior national champion doesn't mean anything. That's why they have tournaments, so you can see who is better. They don't award medals based on what you won before. If you did your absolute best, if you were capable of doing nothing more, then that's enough. Then you can be content with the outcome. But if you could have done better, if you could have done more, then you should be disappointed. You should be upset you didn't win. You should go home and think about what you could have done differently and then next time do it differently. Don't you ever let anyone tell you that not doing your absolute best is good enough. You are a skinny blonde girl who lives by the beach, and unless you absolutely force them to, no one is ever going to expect anything from you in this sport. You prove them wrong.

know that being fixated on winning (or more likely, not losing) is counterproductive, especially when it causes you to lose control of your emotions. What’s more, obsessing about winning is a loser’s game: The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome. The ride is a lot more fun that way.

Embrace Reality and Deal with It 1.1 Be a hyperrealist. a. Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life. 1.2 Truth—or, more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality—is the essential foundation for any good outcome. 1.3 Be radically open-minded and radically transparent. a. Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. b. Don’t let fears of what others think of you stand in your way. c. Embracing radical truth and radical transparency will bring more meaningful work and more meaningful relationships. 1.4 Look to nature to learn how reality works. a. Don’t get hung up on your views of how things “should” be because you will miss out on learning how they really are. b. To be “good,” something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded. c. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything. d. Evolve or die. 1.5 Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward. a. The individual’s incentives must be aligned with the group’s goals. b. Reality is optimizing for the whole—not for you. c. Adaptation through rapid trial and error is invaluable. d. Realize that you are simultaneously everything and nothing—and decide what you want to be. e. What you will be will depend on the perspective you have. 1.6 Understand nature’s practical lessons. a. Maximize your evolution. b. Remember “no pain, no gain.” c. It is a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one’s limits, which is painful. 1.7 Pain + Reflection = Progress. a. Go to the pain rather than avoid it. b. Embrace tough love. 1.8 Weigh second- and third-order consequences. 1.9 Own your outcomes. 1.10 Look at the machine from the higher level. a. Think of yourself as a machine operating within a machine and know that you have the ability to alter your machines to produce better outcomes. b. By comparing your outcomes with your goals, you can determine how to modify

When we seem led to pray for others, asking for God’s love, will and the highest good is usually sufficient. Our lives become much simpler when we emotionally and spiritually let go, pray only for God’s will for us, the power to carry that out, ask God to guide us and direct us throughout our day, and trust the outcome of ours and others’ circumstances to our Higher Power’s care.

I think having faith and believing that things are ultimately in God’s hands is very close to trusting your ability in sports such as golf. When a golfer is in the right frame of mind, he’s confident that he can produce the shot he sees with his mind’s eye. He trusts that the skills he has ingrained through practice are going to work for him if he just lets them and doesn’t try to guide or steer the ball. But at the same time, part of his thinking is acceptance of whatever happens to the golf ball once he hits it. He knows that because he’s a human being, not every shot will come off the way he intends it. He knows that because golf can be a capricious game, his ball is sometimes going to take a weird hop into the woods. He knows he can only do his best and wait to see what the outcome is.

Setting a goal and working to achieve it doesn’t ensure success, no matter how diligently we try, and that leads to disappointment, one of the most depressing emotions. Disappointment can make us feel powerless, and psychologists actually talk about two different types: outcome-related disappointment (when things didn’t go as we’d hoped) and person-related disappointment (when people let us down).

If you want different results, you must go out and create them yourself. Accepting full responsibility for your life means being willing to do what’s necessary to create the outcome you want. You must be willing to pay the price to meet your needs and fulfill your desires. You must actively make your life happen instead of passively letting it play out. You’ll surely make mistakes along the way, but you must never give up on yourself

First: Discern your dharma. “Look to your own duty,” says Krishna in Chapter Two. “Do not tremble before it.” Discern, name, and then embrace your own dharma. Then: Do it full out! Knowing your dharma, do it with every fiber of your being. Bring everything you’ve got to it. Commit yourself utterly. In this way you can live an authentically passionate life, and you can transform desire itself into a bonfire of light. Next: Let go of the outcome. “Relinquish the fruits of your actions,” says Krishna. Success and failure in the eyes of the world are not your concern. “It is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of someone else,” he says. Finally: Turn your actions over to God. “Dedicate your actions to me,” says Krishna. All true vocation arises in the stream of love that flows between the individual soul and the divine soul. All true dharma is a movement of the soul back to its Ground.

It is like this: Some people care deeply but they don't know how to say it; then some people say words to make it seem like they care deeply, but in reality they don't. Some people care deeply only in the moment, like seeds which last in the soil for three days until dying out; and others can't see the moments, but their roots do run deep. Some people can imitate what it looks like to care deeply and they can fabricate that for a while though they never did feel anything on the inside of them; while others are incapable of showing outwardly how they feel on the inside, it is a monster they struggle with, their feelings so strong they cannot even let those beasts out of their cages, they fear their own creatures! Some people care deeply here, and over there, and all over the place, you never really know where they belong because they seem to belong to everyone and to everything; while others don't care about anybody but you can see where they belong, who they belong to, there is always this one person or those two people and small places. Some people belong to themselves only and if you want to be a part of their lives, you'll have to become a part of them and after you do, they will never leave you because you are inside of their bones now; while others don't even know who they are or where they're going and if you belong to someone like that, you could be here today and gone tomorrow! Some people don't care and don't act like they care and we don't believe them until they make us believe them; while others care and they act like they care and we don't believe them until it's too late. We are often wounded and torn, because we never know which kind of a person they are until we are either wounded and torn, or until we have found a home. It's either or, always either or, and neither of these outcomes are easy ones because either one will change your life.

Whatever the final cost of HS2, all those tens of billions could clearly buy lots of things more generally useful to society than a quicker ride to Birmingham. Then there is all the destruction of the countryside. A high-speed rail line offers nothing in the way of charm. It is a motorway for trains. It would create a permanent very noisy, hyper-visible scar across a great deal of classic British countryside, and disrupt and make miserable the lives of hundreds of thousands of people throughout its years of construction. If the outcome were something truly marvellous, then perhaps that would be a justifiable price to pay, but a fast train to Birmingham is never going to be marvellous. The best it can ever be is a fast train to Birmingham. Remarkably, the new line doesn’t hook up to most of the places people might reasonably want to go to. Passengers from the north who need to get to Heathrow will have to change trains at Old Oak Common, with all their luggage, and travel the last twelve miles on another service. Getting to Gatwick will be even harder. If they want to catch a train to Europe, they will have to get off at Euston station and make their way half a mile along the Euston Road to St Pancras. It has actually been suggested that travelators could be installed for that journey. Can you imagine travelling half a mile on travelators? Somebody find me the person who came up with that notion. I’ll get the horsewhip. Now here’s my idea. Why not keep the journey times the same but make the trains so comfortable and relaxing that people won’t want the trip to end? Instead, they could pass the time staring out the window at all the gleaming hospitals, schools, playing fields and gorgeously maintained countryside that the billions of saved pounds had paid for. Alternatively, you could just put a steam locomotive in front of the train, make all the seats inside wooden and have it run entirely by volunteers. People would come from all over the country to ride on it. In either case, if any money was left over, perhaps a little of it could be used to fit trains with toilets that don’t flush directly on to the tracks, so that when I sit on a platform at a place like Cambridge or Oxford glumly eating a WH Smith sandwich I don’t have to watch blackbirds fighting over tattered fragments of human waste and toilet paper. It is, let’s face it, hard enough to eat a WH Smith sandwich as it is.

the Partizan: disappointed in this outcome, knowing that eventually Lottie would need to step down from her Portman role and return to a regular life so Ellie could make the transition to queen and let Lottie go. This was the version he was clinging to, not wanting to give the other a moment of consideration, because the other was selfish: a demonic, confused version of him that wanted to wrap his arms round Lottie and pull her in so close that the rest of the world couldn’t touch her.

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 are delayed. This is one of the core reasons why it is so hard to build habits that last. People make a few small changes, fail to see a tangible result, and decide to stop. You think, “I’ve been running every day for a month, so why can’t I see any change in my body?” Once this kind of thinking takes over, it’s easy to let good habits fall by the wayside. But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the Plateau of Latent Potential.

The same question might be asked about the educational system. In 2016, an American professor and Fulbright scholar named William Doyle, just returned from a semester-long appointment at the University of Eastern Finland, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that for those five months, his family “experienced a stunningly stress-free, and stunningly good, school system.” His seven-year-old son was placed in the youngest class—not because of some developmental delay, but because children younger than seven “don’t receive formal academic training . . . Many are in day care and learn through play, songs, games and conversation.” Once in school, children get a mandated fifteen-minute outdoor recess break for every forty-five minutes of in-class instruction. The educational mantras Doyle remembers hearing the most while there: “‘Let children be children,’ ‘The work of a child is to play,’ and ‘Children learn best through play.’” And as far as outcomes go? Finland consistently ranks at or near the top of educational test score results in the Western world and has been ranked the most literate nation on Earth.[17] “The message that competition is appropriate, desirable, required, and even unavoidable is drummed into us from nursery school to graduate school; it is the subtext of every lesson,” writes educational consultant Alfie Kohn in his excellent book No Contest: The Case Against Competition: Why We Lose in Our Race to Win, which documents the negative impact of competition on genuine learning, and how

Pastor Jon was silent for a couple of minutes. Then he stood and walked closer to The Last Supper. He pointed to Jesus. " Think about what happened after this moment. " What do you mean? Well, Jesus is God, right? He knew before he ever created the earth that the plan would be for him to go to the cross not long after this scene, the Last Supper in the upper room, right? I nodded. Yes, but I still--- Okay he knew what the plan was, what God's decision was, but did he go straight from the supper to the cross? I thought through the story, No, he went to the garden to pray. And what did he pray? That's when he said, Let this cup pass from me and Thy will be done. Exactly, Jesus who is God and who already knew the plan, still prayed that it could be different. He still asked God to change it, to spare him, even though he knew the answer before he said the prayer. The reason Jesus stopped in the garden to pray, to ask for a different outcome, even though he knew the answer already, was because the purpose of prayer isn't to bend God's will to ours. The purpose of prayer is to bend us to God's will.

There are two types of people in the world. Nonjudgmental people, who aren’t ever going to think badly of you for anything you do regardless of the outcome, and judgmental people, who are jerks. These jerks are probably working through their own issues and we’ll pray for them, but, at the end of the day, judgmental people are going to judge you no matter what! If they’re going to judge you either way, then you may as well go for it. You may as well live your life. You may as well be true to who you are and what you value and let go of how it will be received.

She stared at him, at his face. Simply stared as the scales fell from her eyes. "Oh, my God," she whispered, the exclamation so quiet not even he would hear. She suddenly saw-saw it all-all that she'd simply taken for granted. Men like him protected those they loved, selflessly, unswervingly, even unto death. The realization rocked her. Pieces of the jigsaw of her understanding of him fell into place. He was hanging to consciousness by a thread. She had to be sure-and his shields, his defenses were at their weakest now. Looking down at her hands, pressed over the nearly saturated pad, she hunted for the words, the right tone. Softly said, "My death, even my serious injury, would have freed you from any obligation to marry me. Society would have accepted that outcome, too." He shifted, clearly in pain. She sucked in a breath-feeling his pain as her own-then he clamped the long fingers of his right hand about her wrist, held tight. So tight she felt he was using her as an anchor to consciousness, to the world. His tone, when he spoke, was harsh. "Oh, yes-after I'd expended so much effort keeping you safe all these years, safe even from me, I was suddenly going to stand by and let you be gored by some mangy bull." He snorted, soft, low. Weakly. He drew in a slow, shallow breath, lips thin with pain, but determined, went on, "You think I'd let you get injured when finally after all these long years I at last understand that the reason you've always made me itch is because you are the only woman I actually want to marry? And you think I would stand back and let you be harmed?" A peevish frown crossed his face. "I ask you, is that likely? Is it even vaguely rational?" He went on, his words increasingly slurred, his tongue tripping over some, his voice fading. She listened, strained to catch every word as he slid into semi delirium, into rambling, disjointed sentences that she drank in, held to her heart. He gave her dreams back to her, reshaped and refined. "Not French Imperial-good, sound, English oak. You can use whatever colors you like, but no gilt-I forbid it." Eventually he ventured further than she had. "And I want at least three children-not just an heir and a spare. At least three-if you're agreeable. We'll have to have two boys, of course-my evil ugly sisters will found us to make good on that. But thereafter...as many girls as you like...as long as they look like you. Or perhaps Cordelia-she's the handsomer of the two uglies." He loved his sisters, his evil ugly sisters. Heather listened with tears in her eyes as his mind drifted and his voice gradually faded, weakened. She'd finally got her declaration, not in anything like the words she'd expected, but in a stronger, impossible-to-doubt exposition. He'd been her protector, unswerving, unflinching, always there; from a man like him, focused on a lady like her, such actions were tantamount to a declaration from the rooftops. The love she'd wanted him to admit to had been there all along, demonstrated daily right before her eyes, but she hadn't seen. Hadn't seen because she'd been focusing elsewhere, and because, conditioned as she was to resisting the same style of possessive protectiveness from her brothers, from her cousins, she hadn't appreciated his, hadn't realized that that quality had to be an expression of his feelings for her. Until now. Until now that he'd all but given his life for hers. He loved her-he'd always loved her. She saw that now, looking back down the years. He'd loved her from the time she'd fallen in love with him-the instant they'd laid eyes on each other at Michael and Caro's wedding in Hampshire four years ago. He'd held aloof, held away-held her at bay, too-believing, wrongly, that he wasn't an appropriate husband for her. In that, he'd been wrong, too. She saw it all. And as the tears overflowed and tracked down her cheeks, she knew to her soul how right he was for her. Knew, embraced, and rejoiced.

Dylan’s birth was a reminder to me of the roles we get to play in our destinies. Jai and I could have made things worse by falling into pieces. She could have gotten so hysterical that she’d thrown herself into shock. I could have been so stricken that I’d have been no help in the operating room. Through the whole ordeal, I don’t think we ever said to each other: “This isn’t fair.” We just kept going. We recognized that there were things we could do that might help the outcome in positive ways...and we did them. Without saying it in words, our attitude was, “Let’s saddle up and ride.

He broke away a little to murmur, ‘You’re sure about this?’ ‘I need to feel alive, Mac,’ said Simone ‘I have to know it . . . I don’t need flowers . . . I don’t need dinner . . . I don’t need romance . . . I need fucked.’ The word had an electric effect on Macandrew, who despite now wanting Simone so badly, still had reservations about the situation – mainly the fear that he was taking advantage of it. He felt the last of them wash away as she uttered the word. He pinned her to the wall and freed himself before reaching under her skirt to push her panties to one side and enter her hard and long. He cupped his hands round her backside and pulled her on to him, matching the thrust of his hips and being exhorted to ever greater efforts by Simone’s moans in his ear. ‘Christ, I want you,’ he gasped. ‘Then have me . . .’ The all too brief outcome of such passion left Macandrew holding Simone to him and resting his forehead on the wall as his breathing subsided. Simone broke the silence. ‘Tell me how you feel?’ she murmured. ‘After a moment’s thought, Macandrew said, ‘Embarrassed. Dare I ask about you?’ ‘Fucked,’ replied Simone. Macandrew smiled, feeling such a surge of relief when he saw that Simone was smiling too. She ran the tips of her fingers softly down his cheek. ‘Let’s go shower,’ she said. Showering together was as gentle an experience as their love-making had been passionate. They took lingering pleasure in tracing the contours of each other with soap and sponge and found it deliciously sensual. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do now?’ murmured Simone. ‘Tell me,’ said Macandrew drowsily as he closed his eyes and put his head back on the shower wall. Simone reached up and yanked the regulator over to COLD, causing Macandrew to let out a yelp of surprise. ‘Make an omelette,’ she said.

The best and most convincing disguise for fear is virtue itself, or godliness. Then it never looks like fear. For fear to survive, it must look like reason, prudence, common-sense, intelligence, the need for social order, morality, religion, obedience, justice or even spirituality. It always works. What better way to veil vengeance than to call it justice? What better way to cover greed than to call it responsible stewardship? Only people who have moved beyond ego and controlling of all outcomes, only those practiced at letting go, see fear for the impostor that it is. To be trapped inside of your small ego is always to be afraid.

As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room. His parents. The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside. His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears. "I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking. Evie's gentle hands patted his back. "I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion. Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?" "That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?" "It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?" Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head. "Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me." "Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery." "You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement. "I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover." "I agree," Evie said firmly. Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her. After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit." "A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.

However much we love, however long we love, eventually we come to a fork. Conventional wisdom says, if we have loved well and without regret, our loss at that fork will be immense, but we will let go and walk our future path in peace. If we have not loved well, we will be forever tethered to that fork with "what ifs", unable to make peace with our mistakes, hoarding the past, fearing the outcome might have changed had we done something differently. We can't change what is not ours to change, and those forks are unpredictable, but until we reach them our task is simple. Cut our hair, sell our watch, and love too much. (From A SCHOOL OF DAUGHTERS)

There is something else I must confess about Tata Boanda: he's a sinner. Right in the plain sight of God he has two wives, a young and an old one. Why, they all come to church! Father says we're to pray for all three of them, but when you get down to the particulars it's hard to know exactly what outcome to pray for. He should drop one wife, I guess, but for sure he'd drop the older one, and she already looks sad enough as it is. The younger one has all the kids, and you can't just pray for a daddy to flat-out dump his babies, can you? I always believed any sin was easily rectified if only you let Jesus Christ into your heart, but here it gets complicated. Mama Boanda Number Two doesn't seem fazed by her situation. In fact, she looks like she's fixing to explode with satisfaction. She and her little girls all wear their hair in short spikes bursting out all over their heads, giving an effect similar to a pincushion (Rachel calls it the "haywire hairdo.") And Mama Boanda always wraps her pagne just so, with a huge pink starburst radiating across her wide rump. The women's long cloth skirts are printed so gaily with the oddest things: there is no telling when a raft of yellow umbrellas, or the calico cat and gingham dog, or an upside-down image of the Catholic Pope might just go sauntering across our yard.

Seeing the possibilities: It would be much easier to let go of outcomes if every choice turned out well. And why shouldn’t it? In the one reality there are no wrong turns, only new turns. But the ego personality likes things to be connected. Coming in second today is better than coming in third yesterday, and tomorrow I want to come in first. This kind of linear thinking reflects a crude conception of progress. Real growth happens in many dimensions. What happens to you can affect how you think, feel, relate to others, behave in a given situation, fit into your surroundings, perceive the future, or perceive yourself. All these dimensions must evolve in order for you to evolve. Try to see the possibilities in whatever happens.

Being Willing to Ask for Help • I’ll ask for help whenever I need to. • I’ll remind myself that if I need something, most people will be glad to help if they can. • I’ll use clear, intimate communication to ask for what I want, explaining my feelings and the reasons for my request. • I’ll trust that most people will listen if I ask them to. Being Myself, Whether People Accept Me or Not • When I state my thoughts clearly and politely, without malice, I won’t try to control how people take it. • I won’t give more energy than I really have. • Instead of trying to please, I’ll give other people a true indication of how I feel. • I won’t volunteer for something if I think I’ll resent it later. • If someone says something I find offensive, I’ll offer an alternative viewpoint. I won’t try to change the other person’s mind; I just won’t let the statement go unremarked upon. Sustaining and Appreciating Emotional Connections • I’ll make a point of keeping in touch with special people I care about and returning their calls or electronic messages. • I’ll think of myself as a strong person who deserves to give and receive help from my community of friends. • Even when people aren’t saying the “right” thing, I’ll tune in to whether they’re trying to help me. If their effort makes me feel emotionally nurtured, I’ll express my gratitude. • When I’m irritated with someone, I’ll think about what I want to say that could improve our relationship. I’ll wait until I cool off and then ask if the other person is willing to listen to my feelings. Having Reasonable Expectations for Myself • I’ll keep in mind that being perfect isn’t always necessary. I’ll get stuff done rather than obsess over getting things done perfectly. • When I get tired, I’ll rest or do something different. My level of physical energy will tell me when I’ve been doing too much. I won’t wait for an accident or illness to make me stop. • When I make a mistake, I’ll chalk it up to being human. Even if I think I’ve anticipated everything, there will be outcomes I don’t expect. • I’ll remember that everyone is responsible for their own feelings and for expressing their needs clearly. Beyond common courtesy, it isn’t up to me to guess what others want.

LEADING LESSONS Let them see you sweat. That’s what dancing is about. That’s what life is about. Basically, you get out what you put in to any situation. If you’re lazy, cynical, negative--like that gas station mechanic--it’s going to show in anything you do. But if you focus, prepare, give 110 percent, you’re a winner no matter what the outcome. Any area of your life that you give attention to--career, relationships, health--will be better. I’m not saying that we should all go out there and become workaholics. I’m saying that you should commit yourself fully; give your whole self to the effort. You can’t blame others for your circumstances or your failures. When you ask yourself, “What am I prepared to do?” the answer should always be, “Whatever it takes.

So let us be clear once and for all that Jesus is not suggesting that certain classes of people are to be viewed as pigs or dogs. Nor is he saying that we should not give good things and do good deeds to people who might reject or misuse them. In fact, his teaching is precisely the opposite. We are to be like the Father in the heavens, “who is kind to the unthankful and the evil” (Luke 6:35). The problem with pearls for pigs is not that the pigs are not worthy. It is not worthiness that is in question here at all, but helpfulness. Pigs cannot digest pearls, cannot nourish themselves upon them. Likewise for a dog with a Bible or a crucifix. The dog cannot eat it. The reason these animals will finally “turn and rend you,” when you one day step up to them with another load of Bibles or pearls, is that you at least are edible. Anyone who has ever had serious responsibilities of caring for animals will understand immediately what Jesus is saying. And what a picture this is of our efforts to correct and control others by pouring our good things, often truly precious things, upon them—things that they nevertheless simply cannot ingest and use to nourish themselves. Often we do not even listen to them. We “know” without listening. Jesus saw it going on around him all the time, as we do today. And the outcome is usually exactly the same as with the pig and the dog. Our good intentions make little difference. The needy person will finally become angry and attack us. The point is not the waste of the “pearl” but that the person given the pearl is not helped.

Suppose he really is in love. What about her? She never has anything good to say about him.” “Yet she blushes whenever he enters a room. And she stares at him a good deal. Or hadn’t you noticed that, either?” “As a matter of fact, I have.” Gazing up at him, she softened her tone. “But I do not want her hurt, Isaac. I must be sure she is desired for herself and not her fortune. Her siblings had a chance of not gaining their inheritance unless the others married, so I always knew that their mates loved them, but she…” She shook her head. “I had to find a way to remove her fortune from the equation.” “I still say you’re taking a big risk.” He glanced beyond her to where Celia was talking to the duke. “Do yo really think she’d be better off with Lyons?” But she doesn’t love him…If you’d just give her a chance- “I do not know,” Hetty said with a sigh. “I do not know anything anymore.” “Then you shouldn’t meddle. Because there’s another outcome you haven’t considered. If you try to manipulate matters to your satisfaction, she may balk entirely. Then you’ll find yourself in the sticky position of having to choose between disinheriting them all or backing down on your ultimatum. Personally, I think you should have given up that nonsense long ago, but I know only too well how stubborn you can be when you’ve got the bit between your teeth.” “Oh?” she said archly. “Have I been stubborn with you?” He gazed down at her. “You haven’t agreed to marry me yet.” Her heart flipped over in her chest. It was not the first time he had mentioned marriage, but she had refused to take him seriously. Until now. It was clear he would not be put off any longer. He looked solemnly in earnest. “Isaac…” “Are you worried that I am a fortune hunter?” “Do not be absurd.” “Because I’ve already told you that I’ll sign any marriage settlement you have your solicitor draw up. I don’t want your brewery or your vast fortune. I know it’s going to your grandchildren. I only want you.” The tender words made her sigh like a foolish girl. “I realize that. But why not merely continue as we have been?” His voice lowered. “Because I want to make you mine in every way.” A sweet shiver swept along her spine. “We do not need to marry for that.” “So all you want from me is an affair?” “No! But-“ “I want more than that. I want to go to sleep with you in my arms and wake with you in my bed. I want the right to be with you whenever I please, night or day.” His tone deepened. “I love you, Hetty. And when a man loves a woman, he wants to spend his life with her.” “But at our age, people will say-“ “Our age is an argument for marriage. We might not have much time left. Why not live it to the fullest, together, while we’re still in good health? Who cares about what people say? Life is too short to let other people dictate one’s choices.” She leaned heavily on his arm as they reached the steps leading up to the dais at the front of the ballroom. He did have a point. She had been balking at marrying him because she was sure people would think her a silly old fool. But then, she had always been out of step with everyone else. Why should this be any different? “I shall think about it,” she murmured as they headed to the center of the dais, where the family was gathering. “I suppose I’ll have to settle for that. For now.” He cast her a heated glance. “But later this evening, once we have the chance to be alone, I shall try more effective methods to persuade you. Because I’m not giving up on this. I can be as stubborn as you, my dear.” She bit back a smile. Thank God for that.

A lot of girls think they're ready to have sex, but then change their mind, after the fact." It took Daniel a minute to find his voice. "Are you saying that my daughter's lying?" "No. But I want you to understand that even if Trixie is willing to testify, you might not get the outcome you're hoping for." "She's fourteen, for God's sake," Daniel said. "Kids younger than that are having sex. And according to the medical report, there wasn't significant internal trauma." "She wasn't hurt enough?" "I'm just saying that given the details-the alcohol, the strip poker, the former relationship with Jason-rape could be a hard sell to a jury. The boy's going to say it was consensual." Daniel clenched his jaw. "If a murder suspect told you he was innocent, would you just let him walk away?" "It's not quite the same-" "No, it's not. Because the murder victim's dead and can't give you any information about what really happened. As opposed to my daughter, the one who's inside there telling you exactly how she was raped, while you aren't fucking listening to her.

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. JAMES 1:5 SEPTEMBER 20 All preaching should have practical applications, for Christianity is a way of life that really works—when it’s lived properly. This includes making right decisions. In the long run, you determine what your life will be by your decisions. You can decide yourself into failure or into success, into mental turmoil or into mental peace, into unhappiness or into happiness. A man remarked to me, “Let’s face it: life goes the way the ball bounces.” I don’t go for any such idea as that at all. There is a deeper reality. We can control the bouncing of life’s circumstances and outcomes as we learn the art of making right decisions. And how do we learn it? I repeat: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, . . . and it will be given to him.” Believe, really believe, that there is an answer for you and that God will give you the wisdom to find that answer. People who have become great people have been those who have discovered that God will guide them through the problems of their

But do you think our futures are already determined for us?” “Why are you asking all of this? What’s going on?” I let out a small laugh. “Remember when we were in the hallway?” He nodded. “Well, Thirteen tried telling me that I couldn’t escape my fate and that there was no point in fighting the inevitable.” “Do you think it is inevitable?” he asked. “Me?” I scoffed. “No. Nothing is ever guaranteed. One minor adjustment can alter everything. Nothing is ever set in stone. As of right now, we’re all on one path: we’re all stuck inside of this hell that we’re trying to escape, and it may seem like the outcome has already been determined for us, but it hasn’t. The smallest of things could change everything. A death. Deception. Anything could force us to follow another path, and you know what? We determine that path, not fate.” “What path do you see yourself on?” Colton hopped up onto the computer desk, tucking his hands underneath his thighs. “I see us starting new lives outside of this place, far from McVeigh and his men,” I answered honestly. “But I know not all of us will make it out of here. There is still more pain to come our way, but there is also happiness if we allow for it.

So let’s say you wake up in the morning and have a list of people to call, a list of errands to run, 35 texts to respond to, and all these e-mails to answer. If the first thing you do every morning is start thinking about all of those things that you have to do, your body is already in the future. When you sit down to meditate, your mind may naturally want to go in that direction. And if you allowed it, then your brain and body would be in that same predictable future, because you’d be anticipating an outcome based on your same past experience from yesterday. So the moment you start to notice your mind wanting to go in that direction, you just pull the reins in, settle your body down, and bring it back to the present moment—just as I do when I ride my stallion. And then, in the next moment, if you start thinking, Yeah, but you have to do this, you forgot about that, and you need to do the thing you didn’t get to yesterday, just bring your mind back to the present moment again. And if it keeps happening and that brings up the emotions of frustration, impatience, worry, and so on, just remember that whatever emotion you’re experiencing is merely part of the past. So you just notice it; you become aware: Ah, my body-mind wants to go to the past. All right. Let’s settle down and relax back into the present.

August 8th START WITH WHERE THE WORLD IS “Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that’s in your power. Don’t look around to see if people will know about it. Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.29.(4) Have you ever heard the expression “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough”? The idea is not to settle or compromise your standards, but rather not to become trapped by idealism. The community organizer Saul Alinsky opens his book Rules for Radicals with a pragmatic but inspiring articulation of that idea: “As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.” There is plenty that you could do right now, today, that would make the world a better place. There are plenty of small steps that, were you to take them, would help move things forward. Don’t excuse yourself from doing them because the conditions aren’t right or because a better opportunity might come along soon. Do what you can, now. And when you’ve done it, keep it in perspective, don’t overblow the results. Shun both ego and excuse, before and after.

MINERAL RIGHTS: A SIMPLIFIED VERSION 1. What is the most important thing you and I should be talking about? 2. Describe the issue. What’s going on relative to _________? 3. How is this currently impacting you? Who or what else is being impacted? The emphasis is on the word “current,” so keep your partner focused on current impact and results. Ask, “What else?” at least three times. Probe feelings. When you consider these impacts, what do you feel? Let’s say they respond, “I feel frustrated.” Say, “Frustrated. Say more about that.” 4. If nothing changes, what are the implications? You could say, “Imagine it is a year later and nothing has changed. What is likely to happen?” Ask, “What else?” “What’s likely to happen for you?” Probe feelings. When you consider those possible outcomes, what do you feel? 5. How have you helped create this issue or situation? If someone says, “I don’t know,” then ask the question with which you’ve become familiar by now, “What would it be if you did know?” Don’t comment on the response other than to say, “That’s useful to recognize.” Don’t agree with them and pile on criticism. Move on. 6. What is the ideal outcome? When this is resolved, what difference will that make? Ask, “What else?” Probe feelings. When you contemplate these possibilities, what do you feel? 7. What’s the most potent step you can take to begin to resolve this issue? What exactly are you committed to do and when? When should I follow up with you?

In a physician's office in Kearny Street three men sat about a table, drinking punch and smoking. It was late in the evening, almost midnight, indeed, and there had been no lack of punch. The gravest of the three, Dr. Helberson, was the host—it was in his rooms they sat. He was about thirty years of age; the others were even younger; all were physicians. "The superstitious awe with which the living regard the dead," said Dr. Helberson, "is hereditary and incurable. One needs no more be ashamed of it than of the fact that he inherits, for example, an incapacity for mathematics, or a tendency to lie." The others laughed. "Oughtn't a man to be ashamed to lie?" asked the youngest of the three, who was in fact a medical student not yet graduated. "My dear Harper, I said nothing about that. The tendency to lie is one thing; lying is another." "But do you think," said the third man, "that this superstitious feeling, this fear of the dead, reasonless as we know it to be, is universal? I am myself not conscious of it." "Oh, but it is 'in your system' for all that," replied Helberson; "it needs only the right conditions—what Shakespeare calls the 'confederate season'—to manifest itself in some very disagreeable way that will open your eyes. Physicians and soldiers are of course more nearly free from it than others." "Physicians and soldiers!—why don't you add hangmen and headsmen? Let us have in all the assassin classes." "No, my dear Mancher; the juries will not let the public executioners acquire sufficient familiarity with death to be altogether unmoved by it." Young Harper, who had been helping himself to a fresh cigar at the sideboard, resumed his seat. "What would you consider conditions under which any man of woman born would become insupportably conscious of his share of our common weakness in this regard?" he asked, rather verbosely. "Well, I should say that if a man were locked up all night with a corpse—alone—in a dark room—of a vacant house—with no bed covers to pull over his head—and lived through it without going altogether mad, he might justly boast himself not of woman born, nor yet, like Macduff, a product of Cæsarean section." "I thought you never would finish piling up conditions," said Harper, "but I know a man who is neither a physician nor a soldier who will accept them all, for any stake you like to name." "Who is he?" "His name is Jarette—a stranger here; comes from my town in New York. I have no money to back him, but he will back himself with loads of it." "How do you know that?" "He would rather bet than eat. As for fear—I dare say he thinks it some cutaneous disorder, or possibly a particular kind of religious heresy." "What does he look like?" Helberson was evidently becoming interested. "Like Mancher, here—might be his twin brother." "I accept the challenge," said Helberson, promptly. "Awfully obliged to you for the compliment, I'm sure," drawled Mancher, who was growing sleepy. "Can't I get into this?" "Not against me," Helberson said. "I don't want your money." "All right," said Mancher; "I'll be the corpse." The others laughed. The outcome of this crazy conversation we have seen.

Correct Overestimated Feedback Fears One of the reasons anxious people fear feedback is that they tend to judge their performance more harshly than others judge them. If you’re feeling anxious, you’ll probably overestimate the likelihood that any feedback you’ll get will be negative—the negative predictions thinking error. Let’s say you need to get feedback on your delivery of an upcoming presentation. You fear that you’ll get crucified, that people will say your presentation style is horrible and won’t say anything nice. How likely does this feared outcome feel? You might say, “It feels 99% likely.” How likely is it in reality? You think, “Objectively, maybe 50%?” Your answer of 50% may still be an overestimate, but at least it jump-starts the shift in your thinking. It alters you that your anxious feelings are, to some extent, clouding your perceptions. Although it seems strange that people can shift their thinking just based on whether they are asked to think with their anxious mind or their objective mind, this isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. There’s lots of research evidence that people’s thinking changes based on how they’re asked to think about something. For example, my own doctoral research asked people in relationships how their judgments of their romantic partner compared to reality. People recognized that they tended to view their partners more positively than warranted by reality. Experiment: Think of a current area in your life where feedback would be useful to you, but you’re avoiding it. Ask yourself two questions (answer using a percentage, as shown in the example): --How likely does it feel that I’m going to get very negative feedback? --How likely is it in reality?

[Nero] castrated the boy Sporus and actually tried to make a woman of him; and he married him with all the usual ceremonies, including a dowry and a bridal veil, took him to his house attended by a great throng, and treated him as his wife. This Sporus, decked out with the finery of the empresses and riding in a litter, he took with him to the assizes and marts of Greece, and later at Rome through the Street of the Images,​ fondly kissing him from time to time. That he even desired illicit relations with his own mother, and was kept from it by her enemies, who feared that such a help might give the reckless and insolent woman too great influence, was notorious, especially after he added to his concubines a courtesan who was said to look very like Agrippina. Even before that, so they say, whenever he rode in a litter with his mother, he had incestuous relations with her, which were betrayed by the stains on his clothing. He so prostituted his own chastity that after defiling almost every part of his body, he at last devised a kind of game, in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes, and when he had sated his mad lust, was dispatched​ by his freedman Doryphorus; for he was even married to this man in the same way that he himself had married Sporus, going so far as to imitate the cries and lamentations of a maiden being deflowered. He made a palace extending all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which at first he called the House of Passage, but when it was burned shortly after its completion and rebuilt, the Golden House. Its size and splendour will be sufficiently indicated by the following details. Its vestibule was large enough to contain a colossal statue of the emperor a hundred and twenty feet high; and it was so extensive that it had a triple colonnade​ a mile long. There was a pond too, like a sea, surrounded with buildings to represent cities,​ besides tracts of country, varied by tilled fields, vineyards, pastures and woods, with great numbers of wild and domestic animals. In the rest of the house all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of‑pearl. There were dining-rooms with fretted ceils of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes. The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens. His mother offended him by too strict surveillance and criticism of his words and acts. At last terrified by her violence and threats, he determined to have her life, and after thrice attempting it by poison and finding that she had made herself immune by antidotes, he tampered with the ceiling of her bedroom, contriving a mechanical device for loosening its panels and dropping them upon her while she slept. When this leaked out through some of those connected with the plot, he devised a collapsible boat,​ to destroy her by shipwreck or by the falling in of its cabin. ...[He] offered her his contrivance, escorting her to it in high spirits and even kissing her breasts as they parted. The rest of the night he passed sleepless in intense anxiety, awaiting the outcome of his design. On learning that everything had gone wrong and that she had escaped by swimming, driven to desperation he secretly had a dagger thrown down beside her freedman Lucius Agermus, when he joyfully brought word that she was safe and sound, and then ordered that the freedman be seized and bound, on the charge of being hired to kill the emperor; that his mother be put to death, and the pretence made that she had escaped the consequences of her detected guilt by suicide.

If you choose to push through this often painful process of personal evolution, you will naturally “ascend” to higher and higher levels. As you climb above the blizzard of things that surrounds you, you will realize that they seem bigger than they really are when you are seeing them up close; that most things in life are just “another one of those.” The higher you ascend, the more effective you become at working with reality to shape outcomes toward your goals. What once seemed impossibly complex becomes simple. a. Go to the pain rather than avoid it. If you don’t let up on yourself and instead become comfortable always operating with some level of pain, you will evolve at a faster pace. That’s just the way it is. Every time you confront something painful, you are at a potentially important juncture in your life—you have the opportunity to choose healthy and painful truth or unhealthy but comfortable delusion. The irony is that if you choose the healthy route, the pain will soon turn into pleasure. The pain is the signal! Like switching from not exercising to exercising, developing the habit of embracing the pain and learning from it will “get you to the other side.” By “getting to the other side,” I mean that you will become hooked on: • Identifying, accepting, and learning how to deal with your weaknesses, • Preferring that the people around you be honest with you rather than keep their negative thoughts about you to themselves, and • Being yourself rather than having to pretend to be strong where you are weak. b. Embrace tough love. In my own life, what I want to give to people, most importantly to people I love, is the power to deal with reality to get what they want. In pursuit of my goal to give them strength, I will often deny them what they “want” because that will give them the opportunity to struggle so that they can develop the strength to get what they want on their own. This can be difficult for people emotionally, even if they understand intellectually that having difficulties is the exercise they need to grow strong and that just giving them what they want will weaken them and ultimately lead to them needing more help.23 Of course most people would prefer not to have weaknesses. Our upbringings and our experiences in the world have conditioned us to be embarrassed by our weaknesses and hide them. But people are happiest when they can be themselves. If you can be open with your weaknesses it will make you freer and will help you deal with them better. I urge you to not be embarrassed about your problems, recognizing that everyone has them. Bringing them to the surface will help you break your bad habits and develop good ones, and you will acquire real strengths and justifiable optimism. This evolutionary process of productive adaptation and ascent—the process of seeking, obtaining, and pursuing more and more ambitious

that everything that had ever happened to me had been a loving step in that process of my progression. every person, every circumstance, and every incident was custom created for me. It was as if the entire universe existed for my higher good and development. I felt so loved, so cherished, and so honored. I realized that not only was I being embraced by deity, but also that I myself was divine, and that we all are. I knew that there are no accidents in this life. That everything happens for a reason. yet we always get to choose how we will experience what happens to us here. I could exercise my will in everything, even in how I felt about the wreck and the death of my family members. God didn't want me to hurt and feel put upon as if my son and wife had been taken from me. He was simply there assisting me to decide how I was going to experience it. He was providing me with the opportunity, in perfect love, to exercise my personal agency in this entire situation. I knew my wife and son were gone. They had died months earlier, but time didn't exist where I was at that moment. rather than having them ripped away from me, I was being given the opportunity to actually hand them over to God. To let them go in peace, love, and gratitude. Everything suddenly made sense. Everything had divine order. I could give my son to God and not have him taken away from me. I felt my power as a creator and cocreator with God to literally let go of all that had happened to me. I held my baby son as God himself held me. I experienced the oneness of all of it. Time did not matter. Only love and order existed. Tamara and Griffin had come into my life as perfect teachers. And in leaving me in such a way, they continued as perfect teachers to bring me to that point of remembering who I was. remembering that I was created in God's image and actually came from Him. I was aware now that I could actually walk with God, empowered by what I was learning in my life. I felt the divine energy of the being behind me inviting me to let it all go and give Griffin to Him. In all that peace and knowledge, I hugged my little boy tightly one last time, kissed him on the cheek, and gently laid him back down in the crib. I willingly gave him up. No one would ever take him away from me again. He was mine. We were one, and I was one with God. As soon as I breathed in all that peace, I awoke, back into the pain and darkness of my hospital bed, but with greater perspective. I marveled at what I had just experienced. It was not just a dream. It felt too real. It was real to me, far more real than the pain, the grief, and my hospital bed. Griffin was alive in a place more real than anything here. And Tamara was there with him. I knew it. As the years have passed, I've often wondered how I could have put my son back in the crib the way I did. Maybe I should have held on and never let go. But in that place, it all made sense. I realized that no one ever really dies. We always live on. I had experienced a God as real and tangible as we are. He knows our every heartache, yet allows us to experience and endure them for our growth. His is the highest form of love; He allows us to become what we will. He watches as we create who we are. He allows us to experience life in a way that makes us more like Him, divine creators of our own destiny. My experience showed me purpose and order. I knew there was a master plan far greater than my limited earthly vision. I also learned that my choices were mine alone to make. I got to decide how I felt, and that made all the difference in the universe. even in this tragedy, I got to determine the outcome. I could choose to be a victim of what had happened or create something far greater.

DEONTOLOGY AND CONCEQUENTIALISM, A NOVEL APPROACH: Consequentialism and Deontology (Deontological Ethics) are two contrasting categories of Normative Ethics, the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental principles that determine the morality of human actions (or non-actions). Their supposed difference is that while Consequentialism determines if an action is morally right or wrong by examining its consequences, Deontology focuses on the action itself, regardless of its consequences. To the hypothetical question “Should I do this man a little injustice, if by this I could save the whole humanity from torture and demise?”, the philosopher Immanuel Kant, a pure deontologist (absolutist) answers: “Fiat justitia, pereat mundus” (Do justice even if the whole world would perish). Superficially, it seems that a decent deontologist don’t care about consequences whatsoever. His/her one and only duty is to invariably obey to pre-existing, universal moral rules without exceptions: “do not kill”, “do not lie”, “do not use another human as a means to an end”, and so on. At this point I would like to present my thesis on this subject. The central idea here is that deontological ethics only appears to be indifferent to the consequences of an action. In fact, it is only these very consequences that determine what our moral rules and ethical duties should be. For example, the moral law “do not kill”, has its origin to the dire consequences that the killing of another human being brings about; for the victim (death), the perpetrator (often imprisonment or death) and for the whole humanity (collapse of society and civilization). Let us discuss the well-worn thought experiment of the mad axeman asking a mother where their young children are, so he can kill them. We suppose that the mother knows with 100% certainty that she can mislead him by lying and she can save her children from certain death (once again: supposing that she surely knows that she can save her children ONLY by lying, not by telling the truth or by avoiding to answer). In this thought experiment the hard deontologist would insist that it is immoral to lie, even if that would lead to horrible consequences. But, I assert that this deontological inflexibility is not only inhuman and unethical, it is also outrightly hypocritical. Because if the mother knows that their children are going to be killed if she tells the truth (or does not answer) and they are going to be saved if she tells a harmless lie, then by telling the truth she disobeys the moral law “do not kill/do not cause the death of an innocent”, which is much worse than the moral rule “do not lie”. The fact that she does not kill her children with her own hands is completely irrelevant. She could have saved them without harming another human, yet she chose not to. So the absolutist deontologist chooses actively to disobey a much more important moral law, only because she is not the immediate cause, but a cause via a medium (the crazy axeman in this particular thought experiment). So here are the two important conclusions: Firstly, Deontology in normative ethics is in reality a “masked consequentialism”, because the origin of a moral law is to be found in its consequences e.g. stealing is generally morally wrong, because by stealing, someone is deprived of his property that may be crucial for his survival or prosperity. Thus, the Deontology–Consequentialism dichotomy is a false one. And secondly, the fact that we are not the immediate “vessel” by which a moral rule is broken, but we nevertheless create or sustain a “chain of events” that will almost certainly lead to the breaking of a moral law, does surely not absolve us and does not give us the right to choose the worst outcome. Mister Immanuel Kant would avoid doing an innocent man an injustice, yet he would choose to lead billions of innocent people to agonizing death.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging the outcome, but to allow others to affect their own destinies. To let go is not to be protective. It’s to permit another to face reality.

What’s more, obsessing about winning is a loser’s game: The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome.

Success and failure come and go but don’t let them define you. It’s who you are that matters. And if the outcome doesn’t match your desire, you won’t crash in the process. Instead, you’ll walk away with the lessons learned and go on to create far greater things.

Thank You, sweet Jesus.” Yes, thank You. He didn’t understand it, but as strange and seemingly reckless as his life had been over the past few months, the only explanation he could find in all of the madness was that there was some purpose to it all. He would just have to let go of thinking he could orchestrate the outcome.

So, here we have cases about cakes and contraception that could still eventually lead to what I consider a bizarre outcome: religious claims trump any and all laws some corporate owner doesn't agree with. Why not just let companies refuse to go along with civil rights laws based on religious objections. Some of us heard preachers in the early sixties actually argue that the words in book of Genesis, “God separated the light from the darkness,” should be interpreted to reject school integration.

The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome

Let us assume that the reader shared my opinion, that the market over the next week had a 70% probability of going up and 30% probability of going down. However, let us say that it would go up by 1% on average, while it could go down by an average of 10%. What would the reader do? Is the reader bullish or bearish? Table 6.2 Event                             Probability                             Outcome                             Expectation Market goes up                             70%                             Up 1%                             0.7 Market goes down                             30%                             Down 10%                             -3.00                                                                                                                                             Total                             -2.3 Accordingly, bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration. How frequent the profit is irrelevant; it is the magnitude of the outcome that counts. It is a pure accounting fact that, aside from the commentators, very few people take home a check linked to how often they are right or wrong. What they get is a profit or loss. As to the commentators, their success is linked to how often they are right or wrong. This category includes the “chief strategists” of major investment banks the public can see on TV, who are nothing better than entertainers. They are famous, seem reasoned in their speech, plow you with numbers, but, functionally, they are there to entertain—for their predictions to have any validity they would need a statistical testing framework. Their frame is not the result of some elaborate test but rather the result of their presentation skills.

Whenever you are stuck in life, unable to see the direction to go, use your passions as a guidepost. Even though there are over seven billion people on this planet, everyone has different likes and dislikes. One person might love nothing more than studying snakes, whereas another might run for the door. If you don’t know what your passions are, then it’s your responsibility to find them. Anything that makes you happy – that brings the good side out of you – is a good sign. When you find something that makes you happy, do more of that. Stop wasting energy wondering if something is possible, if you should really do it, and just do it regardless of the outcome. Clarification only comes through doing; it never comes through idle contemplation. You will never truly know if something is for you if you don’t try it. You might think you like something, then you do it for a few months and find out that you hate it. That’s perfectly okay, and that’s called being human. If you don’t make mistakes, how are you going to find the things that you really enjoy? The key is to keep doing things, to keep trying things until you find the one that you enjoy tremendously, especially if you can see yourself doing it for the rest of your life. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something, because another will never know what truly makes you happy. The only person that will know is you, never someone else.

Dress in something that boosts your confidence, believe in yourself. Focus on being positive about every outcome that day and act it out to the best of your ability, acting will lead to believing and believing leads to a positive outcome. Concentrate on what you do want rather than what you don’t. This is so important when acting positively. Crush any negative thoughts in their tracks with positive ones and whatever you do, don’t over analyze the situation. Work on your positive acting one step at a time. Take the time to smile as someone passes your desk, rather than your normal scorn. Don’t let yourself get flustered when things go wrong, but rather take a deep breath and find the positive in the situation. By acting positive, your self-confidence will begin to improve. With every improvement in your confidence the acting will fall away until you start believing in yourself again.

Detaching in Relationships: August 21 When we first become exposed to the concept of detachment, many of us find it objectionable and questionable. We may think that detaching means we don’t care. We may believe that by controlling, worrying, and trying to force things to happen, we’re showing how much we care. We may believe that controlling, worrying, and forcing will somehow affect the outcome we desire. Controlling, worrying, and forcing don’t work. Even when we’re right, controlling doesn’t work. In some cases, controlling may prevent the outcome we want from happening. As we practice the principle of detachment with the people in our life, we slowly begin to learn the truth. Detaching, preferably detaching with love, is a relationship behavior that works. We learn something else too. Detachment—letting go of our need to control people—enhances all our relationships. It opens the door to the best possible outcome. It reduces our frustration level, and frees us and others to live in peace and harmony. Detachment means we care, about ourselves and others. It frees us to make the best possible decisions. It enables us to set the boundaries we need to set with people. It allows us to have our feelings, to stop reacting and initiate a positive course of action. It encourages others to do the same. It allows our Higher Power to step in and work. Today, I will trust the process of detaching with love. I will understand that I am not just letting go; I am letting go and letting God. I’m loving others, but I’m loving myself too.

identifying something precious to us (our Isaac) • letting go of our control over the situation, event, or the person as an act of worship • embracing God's love in the process of the release • resting in the outcome, even if in this lifetime we are not allowed to understand the reason behind the need for the sacrifice and the pain involved

Imagine this for a moment, if you will (you can reject the premise later on, but please just go along with it for now): imagine a baseball game.  The Dodgers are playing the Giants.  If you don’t know much about baseball, you may not know the Dodgers and Giants are bitter rivals.  They both want to win, obviously.  And obviously it’s just a sport, so it’s ok that they both want to win. But suppose the score is 10-1, with the Dodgers leading, and it’s the ninth (last) inning.  Suppose after all those games, and all those years and decades (over a century) of this bitter rivalry, the players, managers, coaches and fans said, “Let’s do something different.  Just for this one game, let’s see if we can play to a tie.  It will be different.  I mean we’ve played hundreds of games the other way.  And that was fun.  But let’s just try something different for now.  I mean, all this sweating and fighting and yelling just to win a game—it’s not the only thing in the world.  It’s good, but why not try something new for a change?  So let’s just play the game differently the rest of the way out, this one game.  And how about the fans of the Dodgers and the fans of the Giants switch caps, or at least try to root for the other guys for a while?  I mean, it’s just this once—it can’t hurt, right?  This old game of baseball, it’s a wonderful game, but come on—do we have to play the same way over and over game after game for the rest of our lives?  Just once can we do things differently?” Well, i know some of you sports fans are laughing right now, if not vomiting.  I mean, this is kind of ridiculous—trying to lose, on purpose?  It’s a bit of a left-wing stereotype i’m living up to right now.  So go ahead, get it all out of your system.  Call me every name in the book.  Say the world will fall apart if one baseball game is played differently.  I mean competition is the basis of everything.  If we didn’t compete over everything in life, what sort of meaning would life have?  Our civilization would fall apart.  The Dodgers letting the Giants win would be the end of western civilization.  It would destroy all our western values.  It might even be un-Christ-like.  A lot of you may not be able to imagine such a ridiculous thing even being considered, much less actually happening. And i find this interesting.  I find it interesting that we are so wrapped up in the idea that there must be winners and losers, and that somehow the outcome of this competition (whether it’s a baseball game or the life of a nation) is fair because that’s simply the natural order of things.  The side that wins is supposed to win; the side that loses is supposed to lose.  To dispute this is to dispute the most basic assumptions of who we are. If winning is this important to us, and—by extension—competition is too, then we need to be completely certain that the rules are fair, that nobody is cheating.  That is, suppose the Dodgers were cheating and that’s how they scored 10 runs?  What would we do then?  They probably should forfeit the game, right?  Well, i say white amerika has been cheating.  We’re not all bad—we have talent, we played hard, we love our mothers, but the fact is we’ve been cheating.  White amerika should forfeit.

What do we do when things just don’t seem to be going the ways that we think they should, the ways that we want them to, the ways that we try to make them go?   It’s very frustrating sometimes to feel that the world is doing its own thing without considering our needs and wants—but sometimes, when we trust life, we start to see that our “failures” are simply life’s way of pushing us in new and exciting directions—not always gently, of course, but pushing us nonetheless.      The problem arises when we start to feel the need to know just what this larger plan is.  That’s not necessarily for us to know, though—sometimes it’s important just to trust, to let go of the need to try to control outcomes, and start to look for the hints that will tell us how to contribute to the world in the ways that come to us most naturally, the ways in which we’re the most strongly gifted.

I heard a noise from my bedroom and jumped, almost knocking over the goblet intended for Narian, and spilling some of the sleep-inducing drug London had given me. I brushed it over the mantel’s edge and into the barren fireplace where it would not be seen, reminding myself to behave normally. “Are you all right?” Narian had entered the parlor and was scrutinizing me from across the room. “Of course,” I said, forcing a cheerful tone. His eyes darted around the room’s perimeter. “You just…look pale.” “There’s hardly any light. So how can you tell--am I glowing?” He smiled, relaxing a little. “Sit down and have some wine with me,” I invited, moving to the sofa. He joined me, and I offered him the tainted drink, which he accepted with a puzzled expression. “You’re shaking, Alera.” “I’m cold.” “It’s quite warm.” “But the evening temperatures drop quickly now that summer’s sultriness has passed. The wine helps.” I took a sip from my goblet, deliberately stilling my hand. “So would a quilt,” he pointed out. “You detest wine.” I laughed uncomfortably, trying not to recoil at the flavor of the drink. Narian was taking his time. Did he suspect there was something wrong? He knew there was something wrong with me, yes, but perhaps the wine smelled off and it had alerted him. London had given me an abundance of the herb, whatever it was, and I had used it all. Narian let go of his reservations and lifted the goblet to his lips, and nausea hit me full force. London believed Narian to be nothing more than a dangerous weapon, one that would fight against us, and he was right that I was the only one around whom Narian would lower his guard. Would London, thinking of the greater good, be willing to use me to poison and kill his enemy? “Stop!” I cried, reaching out to grab the goblet and spilling wine all over the rug. Narian leaped to his feet, tensed for a fight, and I burst into tears. “Alera, what is it?” he asked, not sympathetic, but demanding and urgent. I was gasping, unable to catch my breath and feeling like I might vomit. “It’s London. He asked me to drug you. He said I had to do it, for Hytanica.” “Where is he?” “I don’t know. He left. He said their plan was to kill the sentries on the wall and close the city. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t sure to whom I was apologizing, or even for what exactly, but the guilt was close to unbearable. I put my hands over my face, my heart splintering at the thought of every one of the night’s possible outcomes. Narian ran to the door, and I summoned the strength to follow him. We flew down the Grand Staircase, where he snapped orders to the Cokyrian guards at the doors. “Rouse Rava and alert the soldiers on duty to monitor the city walls. There is a rebel party waiting to strike and I want them caught, now. Bring them here alive.” The guards left to carry out his instructions, and Narian turned to me. “Alera, I will do everything I can to protect the people you care about, you know that. But I will not be focused unless I know you are safe. Please, stay here.” I nodded, despite my desire to do anything except stay put, and he kissed me deeply right in the middle of the Grand Entry Hall, without a care for secrecy. “Be safe,” I murmured, watching him go.

Groupthink is the term Irving Janis coined for this phenomenon: the kind of flawed group dynamics that lets bad ideas go unchallenged by questions and disagreement and that can sometimes yield disastrous outcomes.

The Sprite Of Life Sonnets For You: By: Ninon de Vere De Rosa. As the light creeps in I wake up to another beautiful unknown day that is all mine to form into whatever I wish and make it happen. I can comply by the everyday rules or I can make up my own rules, do I have that right to do that, of course I do. If I am not in alignment with myself first then how on earth is anyone going to get through to me. Understand you are the light and what you want to achieve you will. Become radical and change your world, am I radical, of course I am, the unknown is the challenge, go for it you never know what the outcome will be until you try it, and only you can do that; did you forget. It is all about you first and then the outside world. Let go of all those inner insecurities, nobody knows what is going on inside of you until you tell them, and don’t forget, there are no mistakes, and you are the only one that thinks there are…

Before you know it, you are bound to Prakriti by her twisted, three-stranded rope; you begin to believe that what happens in Prakriti unconsciously – birth, death, pain, pleasure, desire, anger – is real, that it is all done by you, felt by you, made to happen by you. Or that they are all happening to you. Both are not true.’ ‘A three-stranded rope?’ Arjuna frowned. ‘What do You mean, Lord?’ ‘Know this, Mahabahu,’ said Krishna. ‘Goodness (Sattva), Rajas (passion) and Tamas (dullness) are the three strands of Nature’s rope, which bind down the soul. Rajas is part of Nature’s creative side – birth, energy, movement, change, action, the season of spring. Tamas is part of Nature’s destructive side – death, decay, inertia, heaviness, winter. Sattva is the state in between – harmony, wholesomeness, lucidity, stillness, summer. ‘Of these, Sattva, pure and good, can illuminate your soul in its shining light, but even Sattva is a golden shackle. Once you enjoy that happy state of Sattva – good health, knowledge, harmony and peace – you get attached to it, not willing to let it go, yearning for it when it is gone, as it will. ‘Rajas springs from desire, yearning, dissatisfaction with the way things are. It prompts you to action, and once you act, it attaches you to the result of your action, makes you want a particular outcome, makes you happy when you get it, unhappy when you don’t. Beware, Kaunteya, for Rajas binds your soul tight. ‘Tamas is born of ignorance - it confuses, deludes, makes you negligent. It binds your soul to indolence, sleep, sloth, laziness. ‘The power of goodness makes slaves of the happy, makes them constantly hunger for peace and harmony. Passion enslaves the doers, traps them in an unending cycle of wanting something and then acting to get it. Dullness enslaves the careless and negligent, who never want to leave that torpid state of ignorance and lethargy.’ Too true, mused Arjuna. No wonder human life was so full of torment. ‘Goodness, passion and dullness are present in all beings, Arjuna,’ Krishna went on, ‘combined in different ways, constantly in motion, rising and falling, one following the other. They are all present in you; they are your nature. Sometimes goodness prevails over the other two, making you feel calm, radiant, happy, at peace, fulfilled; sometimes passion prevails, making you feel restless, greedy, impatient, excited, excitable, full of energy. At other times, dullness prevails, which destroys clear thinking – anger, fear, grief, confusion arise in this state.