Life Throws Punches Quotes

Life is going to beat you up, it wouldn't be fair if you didn't throw some punches back at it

I realized for the first time that I had been feeling like I'd been in a fight. For months, I'd had my guard up, waiting for the next punch life could throw

Apologize," I ordered, striding in her direction once again. "What for?"Her gaze shifted, and she looked like she was about to throw a punch at me. "For not kissing me back when you clearly wanted to, you little liar. For fucking one of my best friends. For making that year the worst year of my life since I was nine. Apologize for not being mine when you should've been. Because Emilia, baby..." I tilted my head sideways. "It was always fucking us and you know it.

Life is like a boxing match, keep on throwing those punches and one of them will land. Kevin Lane - The Shawshank Prevention

Life throws punches. It's not about punching back... It's about taking 'em, and still standing.

Life, Rose well knew, could throw some hard punches at you, but nothing hurt as much as losing a child, or seeing one of your children hurt and suffering. Becoming a parent changed you forever, as nothing else could. Not good or bad fortune. Not friendships. Not even a man or a woman.

A #GIRLBOSS is someone who's in charge of her own life. She gets what she wants because she works for it. As a #GIRLBOSS, you take control and accept responsibility. You're a fighter- you know when to throw punches and when to roll with them. Sometimes you break the rules, sometimes you follow them, but always on your terms. You know where you're going, but can't do it without having some fun along the way. You value honesty over perfection. You ask questions. You take your life seriously, but you don't take yourself too seriously. You're going to take over the world, and change it in the process. You're a badass.

You may never shoot a sniper rifle. You may never serve as part of an assault team, or stand security in combat, or board a hostile ship at midnight on the high seas. You may never wear a uniform; hell, you may never even throw a punch in the name of freedom. I’ll tell you what, though. Whatever it is that you do, you are making a stand, either for excellence or for mediocrity. This is what I learned about being a Navy SEAL: it is all about excellence, and about never giving up on yourself. And that is the red circle I will continue to hold, no matter what.

[excerpt] The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set ‘em up. What’ll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. I say git that in ya. Then a quick one. Then a nightcap. Then throw one back. Then knock one down. Fast & furious I say. Could savage a drink I say. Chug. Chug-a-lug. Gulp. Sauce. Mother’s milk. Everclear. Moonshine. White lightning. Firewater. Hootch. Relief. Now you’re talking I say. Live a little I say. Drain it I say. Kill it I say. Feeling it I say. Wobbly. Breakfast of champions I say. I say candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I say Houston, we have a drinking problem. I say the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. I say god only knows what I’d be without you. I say thirsty. I say parched. I say wet my whistle. Dying of thirst. Lap it up. Hook me up. Watering hole. Knock a few back. Pound a few down. My office. Out with the boys I say. Unwind I say. Nurse one I say. Apply myself I say. Toasted. Glow. A cold one a tall one a frosty I say. One for the road I say. Two-fisted I say. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink I say. Drink any man under the table I say. Then a binge then a spree then a jag then a bout. Coming home on all fours. Could use a drink I say. A shot of confidence I say. Steady my nerves I say. Drown my sorrows. I say kill for a drink. I say keep ‘em comin’. I say a stiff one. Drink deep drink hard hit the bottle. Two sheets to the wind then. Knackered then. Under the influence then. Half in the bag then. Out of my skull I say. Liquored up. Rip-roaring. Slammed. Fucking jacked. The booze talking. The room spinning. Feeling no pain. Buzzed. Giddy. Silly. Impaired. Intoxicated. Stewed. Juiced. Plotzed. Inebriated. Laminated. Swimming. Elated. Exalted. Debauched. Rock on. Drunk on. Bring it on. Pissed. Then bleary. Then bloodshot. Glassy-eyed. Red-nosed. Dizzy then. Groggy. On a bender I say. On a spree. I say off the wagon. I say on a slip. I say the drink. I say the bottle. I say drinkie-poo. A drink a drunk a drunkard. Swill. Swig. Shitfaced. Fucked up. Stupefied. Incapacitated. Raging. Seeing double. Shitty. Take the edge off I say. That’s better I say. Loaded I say. Wasted. Off my ass. Befuddled. Reeling. Tanked. Punch-drunk. Mean drunk. Maintenance drunk. Sloppy drunk happy drunk weepy drunk blind drunk dead drunk. Serious drinker. Hard drinker. Lush. Drink like a fish. Boozer. Booze hound. Alkie. Sponge. Then muddled. Then woozy. Then clouded. What day is it? Do you know me? Have you seen me? When did I start? Did I ever stop? Slurring. Reeling. Staggering. Overserved they say. Drunk as a skunk they say. Falling down drunk. Crawling down drunk. Drunk & disorderly. I say high tolerance. I say high capacity. They say protective custody. Blitzed. Shattered. Zonked. Annihilated. Blotto. Smashed. Soaked. Screwed. Pickled. Bombed. Stiff. Frazzled. Blasted. Plastered. Hammered. Tore up. Ripped up. Destroyed. Whittled. Plowed. Overcome. Overtaken. Comatose. Dead to the world. The old K.O. The horrors I say. The heebie-jeebies I say. The beast I say. The dt’s. B’jesus & pink elephants. A mindbender. Hittin’ it kinda hard they say. Go easy they say. Last call they say. Quitting time they say. They say shut off. They say dry out. Pass out. Lights out. Blackout. The bottom. The walking wounded. Cross-eyed & painless. Gone to the world. Gone. Gonzo. Wrecked. Sleep it off. Wake up on the floor. End up in the gutter. Off the stuff. Dry. Dry heaves. Gag. White knuckle. Lightweight I say. Hair of the dog I say. Eye-opener I say. A drop I say. A slug. A taste. A swallow. Down the hatch I say. I wouldn’t say no I say. I say whatever he’s having. I say next one’s on me. I say bottoms up. Put it on my tab. I say one more. I say same again

If you're only thinking, It's evangelism time! —you might become one of those insensitive doctrine-nerds that overcomplicates things while firing off apologetics to "win" people.  But you're a real human being with a story, dealing with other real human beings who have stories. So, what's your story? How did God save you? Maybe you went to church your whole life, and then suddenly God knocked you out of the pew into His total grace and you started feeding the homeless and reading to blind kids. Or maybe you were doing black tar heroin, punching cops in the face while throwing puppies out of a moving vehicle, and Jesus uppercut you in your soul. Either way, you were saved. You have a testimony.

For the first time in my life, I realized that a man doesn’t need to yell to be heard. A man doesn’t have to throw a punch to make a point. And a man who is comfortable in his own skin doesn’t need to constantly prove his worth to the world.

(They) have killed off that part of themselves which feels, Which cannot look away, which brings them trembling to their knees, at the wet-faced beauty of each instant,,, They deftly slip the punches that life throws at their head as it screams "Look at me! Feel me! Why did you even come here?

Fight the Fight and Never Accept Defeat... Life is like a three minute round. Step into that ring, feel the adrenaline,throw your punches and take them, respect your opposition; and win or lose, remember you went in fighting and came out a winner!

It’s hands that kill—hands reach for knives or guns and throw punches.

Having only four guiding principles: one, do as little harm to others as possible; two, be there always for your friends; three, be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; four, grab all the fun you can. Put no stock in the opinions of anyone but those closest to you. Forget about leaving a mark on the world. Ignore the great issues of your time and thereby improve your digestion. Don’t dwell in the past. Don’t worry about the future. Live in the moment. Trust in the purpose of your existence and let meaning come to you instead of straining to discover it. When life throws a hard punch, roll with it—but roll with laughter. Catch the wave, dude.

A #GIRLBOSS is someone who's in charge of her own life. She gets what she wants because she works for it. As a #GIRLBOSS, you take control and accept responsibility. You're a fighter-you know when to throw punches and when to roll with them.

Don’t dwell in the past. Don’t worry about the future. Live in the moment. Trust in the purpose of your existence and let meaning come to you instead of straining to discover it. When life throws a hard punch, roll with it—but roll with laughter.

You make plans and decisions assuming randomness and chaos are for chumps. The illusion of control is a peculiar thing because it often leads to high self-esteem and a belief your destiny is yours for the making more than it really is. This over-optimistic view can translate into actual action, rolling with the punches and moving ahead no matter what. Often, this attitude helps lead to success. Eventually, though, most people get punched in the stomach by life. Sometimes, the gut-punch doesn’t come until after a long chain of wins, until you’ve accumulated enough power to do some serious damage. This is when wars go awry, stock markets crash, and political scandals spill out into the media. Power breeds certainty, and certainty has no clout against the unpredictable, whether you are playing poker or running a country. Psychologists point out these findings do not suggest you should throw up your hands and give up. Those who are not grounded in reality, oddly enough, often achieve a lot in life simply because they believe they can and try harder than others. If you focus too long on your lack of power, you can slip into a state of learned helplessness that will whirl you into a negative feedback loop of depression. Some control is necessary or else you give up altogether. Langer proved this when studying nursing homes where some patients were allowed to arrange their furniture and water plants—they lived longer than those who had had those tasks performed by others. Knowing about the illusion of control shouldn’t discourage you from attempting to carve a space for yourself out of whatever field you want to tackle. After all, doing nothing guarantees no results. But as you do so, remember most of the future is unforeseeable. Learn to coexist with chaos. Factor it into your plans. Accept that failure is always a possibility, even if you are one of the good guys; those who believe failure is not an option never plan for it. Some things are predictable and manageable, but the farther away in time an event occurs, the less power you have over it. The farther away from your body and the more people involved, the less agency you wield. Like a billion rolls of a trillion dice, the factors at play are too complex, too random to truly manage. You can no more predict the course of your life than you could the shape of a cloud. So seek to control the small things, the things that matter, and let them pile up into a heap of happiness. In the bigger picture, control is an illusion anyway.

He held no illusions. Lazarevo was not going to come again, neither for him nor for her. Tatiana held those illusions. And he thought—it was better to have them. Look at him. And look at her. Tatiana so ceaselessly and happily did for him, so constantly smiled and touched him and laughed—even as their twenty-nine moon-cycle days spun faster around the loop of grief—that Alexander had to wonder if she ever even thought about the future. He knew she sometimes thought about the past. He knew she thought about Leningrad. She had a stony sadness around her edges that she had not had before. But for the future, Tatiana seemed to harbor a rosy hope, or at the very least a sense of humming unconcern. What are you doing? she would ask him when he was sitting on the bench and smoking. Nothing, Alexander would reply. Nothing but growing my pain. He smoked and wished for her. It was like wishing for America when he was a few years younger. Wishing for a life with her, a life that was full of nothing else but her, a simple, long, married life of being able to smell her and taste her, to hear the lyre of her voice and see the honey of her hair. To feel her staggering comfort. All of it, every day. Could he find a way to turn his back on Tatiana and have her faithful face free him? Would she forgive him? For leaving her, for dying, for killing her? He felt punched in the gut when he watched her skip stark naked out of the cabin in the morning, and throw herself squealing into the river, and then get out and head across the clearing to him, sitting on his stump of a heart. Watching her nipples hard from the cold, her flawless body trembling to be held by him, Alexander gritted his teeth and smiled and thanked God that when he pressed her to him, she could not see his contorted face. Alexander smoked and watched her from his tree stump bench. What are you doing? she would ask him. Nothing, he would reply. Nothing but growing my pain into madness.

In the last round I was so wiped-out that for the first time in my life I tried to get disqualified. He was throwing punches non-stop and he was dangerous with those shots and becoming a little bit too cute for my liking. I backed to the ropes and catapulted off them and nutted him.

But I wouldn’t be alive. Not really. I would be wasting oxygen, space, and resources, going back to not-so-secretly wishing I’d die. The realization dawned on me like a cold shower. I didn’t want to die when I was with Grace. I wanted to live. To laugh. To love. To date her and nibble on her neck and listen to her talking about plays and nineties movies and defending fanny packs vehemently. I’d been relishing life—actively enjoying it, even—for months, and I didn’t even realize it. I didn’t want to die anymore. Somewhere along the road, the idea of veering my bike off the road when I picked up speed stopped appealing to me. I no longer imagined what it would feel like to hurl myself off a cliff. I stopped walking into the ring wanting the asshole in front of me to throw a punch that would send me into cardiac arrest. And it was all because of Grace ‘Texas’ Shaw.

It was raining and I had to walk on the grass. I’ve got mud all over my shoes. They’re brand-new, too.” “I’ll carry you across the grass on the return trip, if you like,” Colby offered with twinkling eyes. “It would have to be over one shoulder, of course,” he added with a wry glance at his artificial arm. She frowned at the bitterness in his tone. He was a little fuzzy because she needed glasses to see at distances. “Listen, nobody in her right mind would ever take you for a cripple,” she said gently and with a warm smile. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “Anyway,” she added with a wicked grin, “I’ve already given the news media enough to gossip about just recently. I don’t need any more complications in my life. I’ve only just gotten rid of one big one.” Colby studied her with an amused smile. She was the only woman he’d ever known that he genuinely liked. He was about to speak when he happened to glance over her shoulder at a man approaching them. “About that big complication, Cecily?” “What about it?” she asked. “I’d say it’s just reappeared with a vengeance. No, don’t turn around,” he said, suddenly jerking her close to him with the artificial arm that looked so real, a souvenir of one of his foreign assignments. “Just keep looking at me and pretend to be fascinated with my nose, and we’ll give him something to think about.” She laughed in spite of the racing pulse that always accompanied Tate’s appearances in her life. She studied Colby’s lean, scarred face. He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a pinup, but he had style and guts and if it hadn’t been for Tate, she would have found him very attractive. “Your nose has been broken twice, I see,” she told Colby. “Three times, but who’s counting?” He lifted his eyes and his eyebrows at someone behind her. “Well, hi, Tate! I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.” “Obviously,” came a deep, gruff voice that cut like a knife. Colby loosened his grip on Cecily and moved back a little. “I thought you weren’t coming,” he said. Tate moved into Cecily’s line of view, half a head taller than Colby Lane. He was wearing evening clothes, like the other men present, but he had an elegance that made him stand apart. She never tired of gazing into his large black eyes which were deep-set in a dark, handsome face with a straight nose, and a wide, narrow, sexy mouth and faintly cleft chin. He was the most beautiful man. He looked as if all he needed was a breastplate and feathers in his hair to bring back the heyday of the Lakota warrior in the nineteenth century. Cecily remembered him that way from the ceremonial gatherings at Wapiti Ridge, and the image stuck stubbornly in her mind. “Audrey likes to rub elbows with the rich and famous,” Tate returned. His dark eyes met Cecily’s fierce green ones. “I see you’re still in Holden’s good graces. Has he bought you a ring yet?” “What’s the matter with you, Tate?” Cecily asked with a cold smile. “Feeling…crabby?” His eyes smoldered as he glared at her. “What did you give Holden to get that job at the museum?” he asked with pure malice. Anger at the vicious insinuation caused her to draw back her hand holding the half-full coffee cup, and Colby caught her wrist smoothly before she could sling the contents at the man towering over her. Tate ignored Colby. “Don’t make that mistake again,” he said in a voice so quiet it was barely audible. He looked as if all his latent hostilities were waiting for an excuse to turn on her. “If you throw that cup at me, so help me, I’ll carry you over and put you down in the punch bowl!” “You and the CIA, maybe!” Cecily hissed. “Go ahead and try…!” Tate actually took a step toward her just as Colby managed to get between them. “Now, now,” he cautioned. Cecily wasn’t backing down an inch. Neither was Tate.

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

Pierce Hutton gave him a highly amused smile as they went over updated security information from the oil rig in the Caspian Sea. “So you’ve finally decided to do something about Cecily,” Peirce murmured. “It’s about time. I was beginning to get used to that permanent scowl.” Tate glanced at him wryly. “I thought I was doing a great job of keeping her at arm’s length. She’s pregnant, now, of course,” he volunteered. The older man chuckled helplessly. “So much for keeping her at arm’s length. When’s the wedding?” Tate’s smile faded. “That’s premature. She ran. I finally tracked her down, but now I have to convince her that I want to get married without having her think it’s only because of the baby.” “I don’t envy you the job,” Pierce replied, his black eyes twinkling. “I had my own rocky road to marriage, if you recall.” “How’s the baby these days?” he asked. Pierce laughed with wholehearted delight. “We watch him instead of television. I never expected fatherhood to make such changes in me, in my life.” He shook his head, with a faraway look claiming his eyes. “Sometimes I’m afraid it’s all a dream and I’ll wake up alone.” He shifted, embarrassed. “You can have the time off. But who’s going to handle your job while you’re gone?” “I thought I’d get you to put Colby Lane on the payroll.” He held up his hand when Pierce looked thunderous. “He’s stopped drinking,” he hold him. “Cecily got him into therapy. He’s not the man he was.” “You’re sure of that?” Pierce wanted to know. Tate smiled. “I’m sure. “Okay. But if he ever throws a punch at me again, he’ll be smiling on the inside of his mouth!” Tate chuckled. “Fair enough. I’ll give him a call before I leave town.

In every classic comedy duo, from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to Martin and Lewis, in order for the exchange to work, the quality of the straight man had to be as dynamic as that of the funny guy. Carl was the best at this. I could use a single question as a springboard to unplanned exposition and tangents that would be as much of a surprise to Carl as they were to the audience. Carl was a gifted partner: While he deferred the punch lines to me, he knew me well enough to follow along and cross paths enough to set me up for more opportunities. He also knew he could throw me a complete curveball and I’d swing for the fences. We were a great ad-libbed high-wire act, and like the best high-wire acts, ours was dependent upon complete trust and respect for each other. Carl once said, “A brilliant mind in panic is a wonderful thing to behold.

Theseus Within the Labyrinth pt.1 The lives of Greeks in the old days were deep, mysterious and often lead to questions like just what was wrong with Ariadne anyway, that’s what I’d like to know? She would have done anything for that rascally Theseus, and what did he do but sneak out in the night and row back to his ship with black sails. Let’s get the heck out of here, he muttered to his crew and they leaned on their oars as he went whack- whack on the whacking board—a human metronome of adventure and ill-fortune. She was King Minos’s daughter and had helped Theseus kill the king’s pet monster, her half-brother, so possibly he didn’t like feeling beholden—people might think he wasn’t tough. But certainly he’d spent his life knocking chips off shoulders and flattening any fellow reckless enough to step across a line drawn in the dust. If you wanted a punch thrown, Theseus was just the cowboy to throw it. I’m only happy when hitting and scratching, he’d told Ariadne that first night. So he’d been the logical choice to sail down from Athens to Crete to stop this nonsense of a tribute of virgins for some monster to eat. Those Cretans called it eating but Theseus thought himself no fool and liked a virgin as well as the next man. Not that he could have got into the Labyrinth without Ariadne’s help or out either for that matter. As for the Minotaur, lounging on his couch, nibbling grapes and sipping wine, while a troop of ex-virgins fluttered to his beck and call, Theseus must have scared the horns right off him, slamming back the door and standing there in his lion skin suit and waving that ugly club. The poor beast might have had a stroke had there been time before Theseus pummelled him into the earth. Then, with Ariadne’s help, Theseus escaped, and soon after he ditched her on an island and sailed off in his ship with black sails, which returns us to the question: Just what was wrong with Ariadne anyway?

45. No Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy No matter how well you have prepared for something in advance - whether it’s an expedition, an exam, a marriage or a race - when you find yourself in the thick of the action, however good your plan, things happen. Adventure is unpredictable, and you had better learn to be flexible and to swing with the punches, or you will get beaten - it’s as simple as that. Mike Tyson famously once said: ‘Everyone has a plan…until they get punched in the face!’ If the adventure is an exciting one, you can bet your bottom dollar you will get hit by the occasional punch in the face. So prepare for the unexpected, and remember that forewarned is forearmed. Knowing that things will and do go wrong in the heat of battle is actually half the battle. It means that when it happens you are ready for it - you can react fast, stay nimble and you can survive the barrage. We used to say in the military that when things took a turn for the worse you have to ‘improvise, adapt and overcome.’ IAO. It is a good one to remember. It gives us a road map to deal with the unexpected. Being caught out, being caught off guard often makes people freeze - it is a human reaction to shock. But freezing can cost you the edge. So learn to anticipate the unexpected, and when it happens, smile to yourself and treat it as a solid marker that you are doing something right on your road to success. If nothing ever goes wrong then you haven’t been ambitious enough! I also like to say that the real adventure begins in earnest when things go a little bit wrong. It is only then that you get to pit yourself against the worst the wild has to throw at you. When all is going to plan, with all the kit working perfectly and the weather benign, then it isn’t really a test of character. It is easy to be the hero when all is going your way. But when it all goes wrong and life feels like a battle, it is then that we can see what sort of people we have around us. It is only through the hardships that our character becomes forged. Without struggle there can be no growth - physically or emotionally. So embrace the unexpected, feed off it, train yourself to be a master of the curve ball, and you will have built yourself another solid ‘character’ rung on the ladder to success.

THE GREAT GULON INCIDENT: [JUST GONNA LEAVE THIS ONE WITH: REDACTED] [NOT THAT I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS!] THE VACKER CONNECTION: [UH, FITZY’S MY BEST FRIEND—NOT A “CONNECTION.” AND ALDEN AND DELLA ARE WAY NICER TO ME THAN MY OWN PARENTS ARE. BIANA’S SUPER AWESOME TOO. ALVAR… NOT SO MUCH. I PROBABLY SHOULD’VE SEEN THAT ONE COMING. BUT WHATEVER, MY POINT IS: I DIDN’T TRY TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE VACKERS—NO MATTER WHAT WEIRD STUFF WAS IN ONE OF MY ERASED MEMORIES. SO DON’T GO THINKING THERE’S MORE TO IT THAN THAT.] [AND HOW DO YOU GUYS EVEN KNOW ABOUT THAT MEMORY? THAT KINDA MAKES ME WANT TO RIP THIS REGISTRY PENDANT OFF MY NECK AND THROW IT FAR, FAR AWAY!] INSTANT RIVALRY: [YOU THINK BANGS BOY AND ME ARE “RIVALS”? HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU, BUT NOPE! I MEAN, YEAH, HE’S SUPER ANNOYING WITH ALL THE “LOOK AT ME, I’M A MOODY SHADE” NONSENSE—AND HIS HAIR IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS. BUT THERE’S NO RIVALRY. JUST DON’T EXPECT US TO BE BESTIES, AND WE’LL BE GOOD.] UNWITTING ERRAND BOY: [OKAY, THAT SUBHEADING MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH WHOEVER WROTE IT IN THE MOUTH. BUT… I GUESS IT’S ALSO KIND OF TRUE. MY MOM DID HAVE ME DO STUFF AND THEN ERASE MY MEMORIES SO I WOULDN’T KNOW ABOUT IT. MOM OF THE YEAR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. TRY NOT TO BE JEALOUS.] [AND I’M WORKING ON GETTING THOSE MEMORIES BACK, BY THE WAY. I’VE BEEN FILLING JOURNALS WITH DRAWINGS AND EVERYTHING. IT’S JUST TAKING A WHILE BECAUSE I’VE BEEN A LITTLE BUSY ALMOST DYING AND STUFF.] TEAM FOSTER-KEEFE: [WOO-HOO, TEAM FOSTER-KEEFE IS OFFICIALLY A THING!] [BUT THE REST OF THE STUFF IN THIS SECTION IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GETTING REDACTED. SERIOUSLY—BOUNDARIES, PEOPLE! FOSTER’S AMAZING—AND OBVIOUSLY WORKING WITH ME MAKES HER EVEN MORE AMAZING. BUT YOU GUYS NEED TO STOP WITH ALL OF YOUR WEIRDO SPECULATING.] ONE PART OF A TRIANGLE: [OKAY, THAT’S IT. I’M DEEEEEEEEEEFINITELY DITCHING THIS PENDANT THING. WHY IS THE COUNCIL PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS STUFF???????????] [ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW WHAT? IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, BUT I’M GOING TO ADD ONE THING: FOSTER GETS TO DO WHATEVER SHE WANTS, OKAY? SHE CAN LIKE WHOEVER SHE WANTS. OR BE CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT SHE’S FEELING. SHE CAN EVEN BE OBLIVIOUS—IT’S HER LIFE. HER CHOICE. AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO STAY OUT OF IT.] [EVEN ME.] [ESPECIALLY ME. I WOULD NEVER WANT TO…] [NEVER MIND. MY POINT IS, LET THE POOR GIRL FIGURE THIS OUT ON HER OWN. AND SERIOUSLY, STAY OUT OF OUR LIVES!!!!]

How’s fake almost-married life treating you?” “I kissed her.” He chugged down a quarter of the mug. “Yeah, so? Engaged people do that sometimes.” “I kissed her after Cat left the room. I didn’t kiss her because we were pretending. I kissed her because…Hell, I don’t need to draw you a map.” “When did that happen?” Sean looked at his watch. “About a half hour ago.” Kevin gave a low whistle. “She still sleeping on the couch?” “Yes. And she’s staying there, too, goddammit.” “Did she punch you in the face? Knee you in the balls?” “No.” Kevin grinned. “So what’s the problem? You want her. She can at least tolerate you. Get it out of your system.” He was afraid sleeping with Emma wouldn’t get her out of his system, but get her a little further under his skin, instead. “Bad idea.” “Call it a fringe benefit.” “She’s already pretending she’s in love with me. Throwing real sex on top of that could get it all mixed up in her head.” “You worried about her mixing it up…or you?” That was ridiculous, so he snorted and swallowed some more beer. He had no interest in settling down—signing his life over to somebody else so soon after getting it back from Uncle Sam—and he sure as hell wasn’t planting flowers until retirement age. Assuming he didn’t lose his mind and suffocate himself in a mound of mulch before then.

Shannon was so sweet and tender. Like you. He couldn’t throw a punch or fight to save his life. He hated fighting. He was beautiful and kind. A skinny thing, but adorable.

REACTIVE ABUSE Reactive abuse occurs when a husband or wife or both are unable to manage their negative moods, the frustrations of life, or their tempers in a mature way. As a result, when situations are provocative or there is stress, an eruption occurs. In reactive abuse, a person doesn’t stop to think about the wisest way to handle a difficult or irritating situation; he or she just reacts. We criticize, curse, yell, threaten, throw things, belittle, punch, slap, and even murder. The Bible warns us, “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26, NIV).

This sort of thing has to be worldwide. It’s not surprising, the amount of rubbish we pump into the atmosphere and dump into the sea, the animals we’ve driven to extinction and forests we’ve destroyed. It’s not surprising the planet would want to get rid of us. The Ice Age did a good job of it before, but we crept back, surviving epidemics and pandemics, multiplying and spreading across the surface of the planet. Punching holes in the atmosphere and throwing bombs at each other so we can become richer. Human beings are the most selfish race this planet has ever known, and it’s all because we’ve outsmarted everything else. Still, we couldn’t stop this thing, that’s how smart we really are. We’re nothing in the grand scheme of things,” he said, pointing to the stars that shone through the window. “Human life is but a twinkle in the eye of the universe. Our lives can be snatched away as easily as they’re given.

Basically, action is, and always will be, faster than reaction. Thus, the attacker is the one that dictates the fight. They are forcing the encounter with technique after technique that are designed to overcome any defensive techniques initiated by the defender. Much of this exchange, and determining which of the adversaries is victorious, is all a matter of split seconds. That is the gap between action and reaction. That attacker acts; the defender reacts. Military history is saturated with an uneven amount of victorious attackers compared to victorious defenders. It is common to observe the same phenomenon in popular sports, fighting competitions, in the corporate world of big business. The list goes on and on. So, how do we effectively defend ourselves when we can easily arrive at the conclusion that the defender statistically loses? It is by developing the mentality that once attacked that you immediately counter-attack. That counter-attack has to be ferocious and unrelenting. If someone throws a punch, or otherwise initiates battle with you, putting you, for a split second, on the wrong side of the action versus reaction gap. Your best chance of victory is to deflect, smoother, parry, or otherwise negate their attack and then immediately launch into a vicious counter-attack. Done properly, this forces your adversary into a reactive state, rather than an action one. You turn the table on them and become the aggressor. That is how to effectively conceptualizes being in a defensive situation. Utilizing this method will place you in a greater position to be victorious. Dempsey, Sun Tzu and General Patton would agree. Humans are very violent animals. As a species, we are capable of high levels of extreme violence. In fact, approaching the subject of unarmed combatives, or any form of combatives, involves the immersion into a field that is inherently violent to the extreme of those extremes. It is one thing to find yourself facing an opponent across a field, or ring, during a sporting match. Those contests still pit skill verses skill, but lack the survival aspects of an unarmed combative encounter. The average person rarely, if ever, ponders any of this and many consider various sporting contests as the apex of human competition. It is not. Finding yourself in a life-or-death struggle against an opponent that is completely intent on ending your life is the greatest of all human competitions. Understanding that and acknowledging that takes some degree of courage in today’s society.

Never wait to figure out which hand he is going to use. Deflect the hand that is the easiest for him to use in the fastest manner to reach you. You should execute your defense on his front hand and simultaneously execute a counterattack. To make your life easier, consider the following scenarios and their solutions: Consider you are standing where your left leg and left shoulder are closer to the opponent, and your opponent is standing with his left leg and left shoulder forward. You should always block or deflect his front hand, which is his left hand in this scenario, and simultaneously counterattack with your free hand. To block his hand, use your right hand, your back hand, to block while you counter strike with your front hand. 1.     The attacker and defender are standing in front of each other with the left sides of the body in front. 2.     As the attacker lunges with a left punch, defender deflects it with his right palm and counterattacks with a left punch. If, however, he is standing with his right leg and shoulder in front while you stand with your left leg and shoulder in front, you should block his right hand with your front hand (left hand), and counterattack with your back hand (right hand). In this scenario, you would need to cover the additional gap as you are using your rear hand to attack. From that distance, it would be more comfortable to attack the opponent’s rib area first. A second attack might be needed to finish the defense. Common sense should tell you to follow reversed instructions for reversed scenarios. 1.     The attacker is standing with his right side in front, while the defender remains in his previous position with left leg in front. 2. The attacker throws a right hand punch with his front hand. 3.     The defender blocks with his left hand and delivers a right punch to the opponent’s floating ribs.

The thing about lipstick, the reason it’s so powerful, is that it is distracting. Men don’t see the flashes of anger in your eyes or your clenched fists when you wear it. They see a woman, not a warrior, and that gives me the advantage. I cannot throw a decent punch or carry a grown man across a battlefield, but I can wear red lipstick as though my life depends on it. And the truth is, these days, it often does.

Jack and Caleb stood in the driveway, the cars’ engines revving, and talked about their new toys. The lights from the porch spilled down to them. Jenna stood, leaning against the post, watching, enjoying seeing their bond and appreciation of the cars. “Boys with toys.” She smiled from the top step. “You guys look happy.” “What’s not to be happy about? These are the coolest cars ever,” Caleb said with the exuberance of a teen with his very own custom hot rod. “You owe me a ride, Jack.” “Honey, I aim to give you the ride of your life as soon as this one goes home to his wife.” Jack gave her a wicked grin and closed the hood of his car. Jenna laughed and smiled. “You have a one-track mind.” When was the last time she felt this light? “Honey, my mind hasn’t been off you since I saw you in the diner.” “I got the hint. I’m going.” Caleb closed the hood of his car, still purring like a really big kitten. He walked over to Jenna as she came down the porch steps to the gravel drive. He wrapped his arms around her, careful of her healing back, and she wrapped hers around him. So easy to do now that she’d opened herself to him, the whole family. He bent and whispered into her ear, “Thank you. Thank you for what you gave to my wife, my children, and me. I’ll never be able to repay you. If you ever need me, I’ll be there for you, no matter what. You can count on me. You’re an angel, an absolute angel.” “Get your hands off my woman. You have one of your own at home.” Jack watched his brother-in-law with Jenna. They’d created a close bond, the same as with his sister. She didn’t shy away from him when he embraced her; instead she held him and drew on his strength. Caleb would be like a big brother to her. He would protect her. Caleb drew Jenna away just enough to look into her eyes. He put his hand to her cheek, his other arm still wrapped around her. “Thank you.” “You’re welcome, Caleb. You’re a good man.” “You make me want to be a better one.” “I just want you and your family to have a happy life.” “We will, thanks in part to you and Jack. You’re part of that family now, too. Don’t ever forget that.” “Thank you.” “Don’t thank me. You’re a wonderful person. The best I’ve ever met.” He kissed her cheek and released her, turning back toward Jack. “I already punched you for kissing my sister. I guess I have to punch you for kissing her now, too,” Jack teased. Caleb didn’t rise to the bait. “You hurt her, and I’ll be the one throwing the punches.” He smiled back at Jack, then walked over and gave him a big bear hug. “Thanks for what you did for me, Summer, and the kids. It means everything to us. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He smacked Jack on the back before getting into his car. Caleb revved the engine, beamed them an excited smile, and took off like a rocket toward home. “You going to hurt me, Jack?” “Not if I can help it. I’ll spend the rest of my life and yours trying to make you happy. How’s that sound?” “Like heaven. Take me for a ride.” -Jenna, Caleb, & Jack

Take/Throw a Punch

When I got closer I heard Brandon’s warm animated voice and slowed, trying to hear whatever he was telling our son. I was already smiling to myself when I peeked around the slightly ajar door, he was talking to him about one of his surfing days. No … he was talking to him about one of Chase’s surfing days. And he had the scrapbook of Chase’s life on the dresser below them, pointing to one of the pictures. A soft gasp escaped my chest and I tried to slow my breathing so I could continue to listen without Brandon knowing I was here. “… he was always doing crazy stuff like that, it’s why everyone loved him, but it got him in trouble more times than not. No one else would have continued to surf after that, and we were all trying to get him to come in. Brad and I rode out to force him to, since he had this huge cut on his eyebrow from where that guy punched him, but by the time we got out there he was already catching another wave and riding it in. I swear he knew how to piss us off too, because those guys weren’t happy we started coming back out. Your dad could out-surf those guys, and I could fight them, but just a warning son, don’t ever try to fight someone while on your surfboard out in the ocean. It doesn’t really work out for anyone, and you look stupid trying to throw punches while treading water. We ended up laughing too hard and inviting them to the party that night, calling a truce.” Brandon flipped to the next page and chuckled lightly, pointing at one of the pictures again, “Like I said, he was crazy and always doing stupid crap,” flipping the page again he pointed to one and said softly, “but your mom changed that.” I froze and tilted my head in even further. “The day I met your mom, I knew she would be in my life forever. There was something about her and I knew I was already falling in love with her that first day. She made you want to be better, to attempt to be worthy of her love. Unfortunately your dad felt the same way; no one understood why he drastically changed, except for me. Even though she was with me, he stopped drinking, stopped sleeping with other girls, it’s like she made him instantly mature into the guy he eventually wanted to be so he could have an opportunity with her. I was always afraid I’d lose her to him someday, it’s like I knew it was a matter of when, not if. But your mom was different, I’d dated plenty of girls, but I hadn’t really cared if they were there or not. It was just someone to try to fill the ache of losing my dad. So when I met her and realized my feelings, I fought to keep her as long as I could. Don’t tell your momma, but Chase and I were constantly fighting over her when she wasn’t around. Hell, we even fought over her when she was around. We knew either of us could have any girl we wanted, but we both only wanted Harper. So of course, being us, words were used and fists flew whenever we were alone. I didn’t tell her this, but I already knew what had happened with your dad before she told me. When I got home from break, and Chase never bothered me again, I knew something had happened. I just didn’t know what yet. But you know what little man? I can’t even be mad about it anymore, because if it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here right now.” He gently kissed our three month old son who was completely enthralled in his stories and pointed to the last picture in the book. “And he loved you and your mom, so much. I’ll always remind you of that, but I wish you could have met him.” I

Howard Schultz, the man who built Starbucks into a colossus, isn’t so different from Travis in some ways.5.22 He grew up in a public housing project in Brooklyn, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with his parents and two siblings. When he was seven years old, Schultz’s father broke his ankle and lost his job driving a diaper truck. That was all it took to throw the family into crisis. His father, after his ankle healed, began cycling through a series of lower-paying jobs. “My dad never found his way,” Schultz told me. “I saw his self-esteem get battered. I felt like there was so much more he could have accomplished.” Schultz’s school was a wild, overcrowded place with asphalt playgrounds and kids playing football, basketball, softball, punch ball, slap ball, and any other game they could devise. If your team lost, it could take an hour to get another turn. So Schultz made sure his team always won, no matter the cost. He would come home with bloody scrapes on his elbows and knees, which his mother would gently rinse with a wet cloth. “You don’t quit,” she told him. His competitiveness earned him a college football scholarship (he broke his jaw and never played a game), a communications degree, and eventually a job as a Xerox salesman in New York City. He’d wake up every morning, go to a new midtown office building, take the elevator to the top floor, and go door-to-door, politely inquiring if anyone was interested in toner or copy machines. Then he’d ride the elevator down one floor and start all over again. By the early 1980s, Schultz was working for a plastics manufacturer when he noticed that a little-known retailer in Seattle was ordering an inordinate number of coffee drip cones. Schultz flew out and fell in love with the company. Two years later, when he heard that Starbucks, then just six stores, was for sale, he asked everyone he knew for money and bought it. That was 1987. Within three years, there were eighty-four stores; within six years, more than a thousand. Today, there are seventeen thousand stores in more than fifty countries.

she knew that pacifism was the superior way of life. The problem was that it was a lot like communism in that it was only perfect on paper. Put it in the real world and things fell apart fast because it depended on the good will and behavior of people for it to work. And people are an ugly sort at the best of times. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man was kind. In the land of pacifists, it was the man who was willing to throw a punch.

It's as if this girl was made for me. Whether she's throwing a punch at me, diving into her work, vibrating with anxiety, or deep throating me, it's undeniable this girl is larger than life. It's why she feels too much, because she is too much. She's everything. The world can't contain all her ferocity, her intensity, and desire.

Apologize,” I ordered, striding in her direction once again. “What for?” Her gaze shifted, and she looked like she was about to throw a punch at me. “For not kissing me back when you clearly wanted to, you little liar. For fucking one of my best friends. For making that year the worst year of my life since I was nine. Apologize for not being mine when you should’ve been. Because Emilia, baby…” I tilted my head sideways. “It was always fucking us and you know it.

Temptation is the beckoning finger of our accuser luring us to walk into traps that are ultimately designed to hurt us. He will look for our weakness, then bite. Afterward, he attacks where we are wounded until the fight is drained out of us.

If you think that the body’s response to stress is always fight-or-flight, then the stress response begins to look like evolutionary baggage. [...] A stress response that supported only two survival strategies—throw a punch or run like hell—would truly be a mismatch for modern life. But the full picture of the human stress response turns out to be much more complex. [...] As with humans themselves, the stress response has evolved, adapting over time to better fit the world we live in now.

I stop thinking anything at all. I launch myself at Adrian. I throw myself at him, scratching and punching and hitting. ‘My daughter, my baby,’ I hear myself screaming over and over again. My nails pull away flesh on his cheeks, my fingers pull out a chunk of hair and the car swerves all over the road. The noise of other cars hooting fills my head and Adrian speeds up as he tries to lift his arms to fend off my attack. Blood trickles down the side of his face, thick and red. He turns to me, his eyes show real fear. He is looking at me as though he has discovered a wild animal inside his car. He’s right. I am all animal now, I am the mother lion and I am attacking the man who hurt my cub. He slams on the brake, veering the car sideways. The wheezing scream of his brakes invade my ears as they jolt the car to a full stop in the middle of the road. I take a deep breath because my lungs have run out of air and turn to look at him, just as another car comes straight for us, hitting us on the driver-side door. There is no slowing down of those last few moments, no watching of my life passing before my eyes. Instead the car hits us at exactly the same time our car stops. The smell of burning rubber seeps in through my window as smoke from desperate brakes fills the air. I catch a glance of the driver as his car hits us. His mouth is open as he screams, shock and despair written across his face. I feel, rather than hear, the crunch of metal and the shattering of glass. Then I hear noise everywhere. I think I am screaming and there are other screams and then lights and then I close my eyes. I need to get out of the car, I think, but I need a minute. I just need a minute.

Cut the bullshit. Your little ingénue act---it's pathetic." Her words sock me like a punch in the gut. As much as I hate lying to her face, as much as I've been dying to tell her the truth, to have it out once and for all in a big, messy fight, I'm not sure I'm ready for this. The steely look in her eyes, the tightness of her jaw---she'll crush me. "Okay. Fine," I say, the courage building inside me. I can do this. I have to. "Let's cut the bullshit, then." My eyes drift toward her cabinets. "Maybe we should talk over a glass of wine. Unless that would be bad for the baby." I wait for her to take the bait, but she just stares at me. "There is a baby, right? You wouldn't make something like that up. Only a crazy person would do that. Only someone who was truly horrible, all the way to her core." She clenches her jaw. "You have no idea what you're talking about." "Yes, I do. And you know it." "Watch yourself." "Why? So you can steamroll me like you steamroll everyone? You don't even love him." "You have no idea how I feel. About anything." "I know your marriage is one of convenience. That you sleep in separate bedrooms. That you're having an affair with a guy named Jacques." "And I suppose that makes you an expert on my love life." "No, but it means I know you don't have Hugh's interests at heart." "What do you know about his interests? You think you can parachute in, five years into our marriage, and decide you understand how or why any of this works? You think a month or two of screwing means you know more about him than I do?" "I know he doesn't love you. I know he never did." "Well, la-di-da. Here's a newsflash: It takes more than love to make a relationship work." "But you can't really make a relationship work without it, can you?" "You can if you want to." "Only if both people do. And Hugh doesn't. Not anymore." "Is that so? Then tell me, why did he just spend more than a week with me, discussing our future?" "Because you created a phantom pregnancy without consulting him? Because he's trying to do damage control?" "Ah, I see. Is that what you keep telling yourself?" My face grows hot. "It kills you that he'd choose me over you." She throws her head back and cackles. "Is that what you think? That he'd choose you? Christ, you're even more naive than I thought." "He loves me," I say. "He said so." "You know what else he loves? His career. And how do you think you fit in with that? Let me answer for you: You don't." My hands are shaking. "What about you? You're having an affair with some French guy named Jacques. How do you think that will play with Hugh's constituency? Let me answer for you: Not well.

Internet had been around for years at that point, but I’d been at school in Bumblefuck, Iowa, where I barely had phone service, let alone Internet, and as I stated above, I was not a computer nerd (just a regular nerd), so I didn’t know what the hell AOL was exactly. I read the description and decided I should try it. For someone like me, who really couldn’t comprehend the Internet, it sounded like the perfect introduction. I hooked up my computer, plugged it into a phone jack, and went online for the first time. These were the days of dial-up, so I’d log in and send AOL off to find an open line, and then I’d have time to get some dinner, put on my jammies, and maybe even throw in a load of laundry before I’d hear: “You’ve got mail!” AOL was so smart. Even the first time I logged in I had mail. It was just a welcome letter from them, but it was still mail and I loved to hear that voice announce every time I logged on. It was like crack for me. I was hooked. So long, social life! Ha! As if I really had a social life to lose! In those days, I was living on my own and working at a shitty job. Most of my friends were married at that point and I didn’t feel like being a third wheel. My life was pretty much: get up, go to work, come home, watch whatever crappy show was on TV (this was before DVRs, so you had to watch whatever was on plus the commercials—it totally sucked balls), and go to bed. Get up the next day and repeat. I quickly discovered that many people went on AOL to “chat.” There were tons of chat rooms to choose from based on your interests. Everything from dog grooming to knitting to S&M. You