Maintaining Good Relationship Quotes

The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum?

But keeping secrets is a discipline. I never use to think of myself as a good liar, but after having had some practice I had adopted the prevaricator's credo that one doesn't so much fabricate a lie as marry it. A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help. By contrast, my lie needed me as much as I needed it, and so demanded the constancy of wedlock: Till death do us part.

Eden is a conversation. It is the conversation of the human with the Divine. And it is the reverberations of that conversation that create a sense of place. It is not a thing, Eden, but a pattern of relationships, made visible in conversation. To live in Eden is to live in the midst of good relations, of just relations scrupulously attended to, imaginatively maintained through time. Altogether we call this beauty.

Like the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that in closed energy systems things tend to run down and get less orderly, the same seems to be true of closed relationships like marriages. My guess is that if you do nothing to make things get better in your marriage but do not do anything wrong, the marriage will still tend to get worse over time. To maintain a balanced emotional ecology you need to make an effort—think about your spouse during the day, think about how to make a good thing even better, and act.

the art of maintaining good relationships and cultivating self-compassion. I

Ironically, girls who don't think so much about their family and are a little bit self-centred are not only happier themselves but also maintain good relationships with their families.

I wonder why we find it so uncomfortable to maintain relationships with those who have sauntered to goodness elsewhere and found it.

Leaders create and maintain good interpersonal relationships with people they meet and work with. People who lead better relate better.

as partners become better able to self-confront and self-soothe, they have less need to control each other. They can maintain their own emotional stability and worry less about what their partner is doing. They stop expecting their partner to understand them and focus more on understanding themselves, which, in turn, reduces defensiveness and combativeness, and encourages good will and growth rather than resistance and stagnation.

You shouldn’t hold on to things, to neuroses. People-artists-think they have to hold on to their neuroses, their pains, or they won’t be a good actor anymore or a good artist. That’s the Liar. The Liar tells you that. You hold on to them, you’ll just wind up a lonely person. People become lonely with them, and the fame has moved on to someone else. You have to heal, you have to maintain relationships... That’s why we say the Our Father: ‘Deliver us from evil

Even people who consider themselves sex-positive and sexually liberated often fall into a different trap—the trap of rationalizing sex. Releasing physical tension, relieving menstrual cramps, maintaining mental health, preventing prostate problems, making babies, cementing relationships, and so on are all admirable goals, and wonderful side benefits of sex. But they are not what sex is for. People have sex because it feels very good, and then they feel good about themselves. Pleasure is a complete and worthwhile goal in and of itself: the worthiness of pleasure is one of the core values of ethical sluthood.

The colonialist's existence is so closely aligned with that of the colonized that he will never be able to overcome the argument which states that misfortune is good for something. With all his power he must disown the colonized while their existence is indispensable to his own. Having chosen to maintain the colonial system, he must contribute more vigor to its defense than would have been needed to dissolve it completely. Having become aware of the unjust relationship which ties him to the colonized, he must continually attempt to absolve himself. He never forgets to make a public show of his own virtues, and will argue with vehemence to appear heroic and great. At the same time his privileges arise just as much from his glory as from degrading the colonized.

Many men who are naturally good with women only talk nonsense to them in a flirtatious way, because that is enough to get many women into bed and even to maintain a sexual relationship. This does not require any impressive skill, and that is exactly the point.

Human-level AI refers to AI systems that are designed not just to do complex automatic tasks but to solve complex life issues such as caring, nourishing, inspiring, guiding, motivating, negotiating, maintaining good relationships, and disease control at a level comparable to that of humans.

Here is part of the problem, girls: we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Back in the day, women didn’t run themselves ragged trying to achieve some impressively developed life in eight different categories. No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for “self care,” served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior. You can’t balance that job description. Listen to me: No one can pull this off. No one is pulling this off. The women who seem to ride this unicorn only display the best parts of their stories. Trust me. No one can fragment her time and attention into this many segments.

The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call “his own,” and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.

instead of friends and family. Your inner circle typically wants you to succeed and wants to maintain a good relationship with you, so it’s likely that they’ll

Firmly speaking the truth in love and maintaining healthy boundaries in relationships will teach most people to treat you respectfully.

Similarly, in attempting to understand the misogyny paradox, we might ask how it is that so many women are investing in straight relationships, when these relationships so often cause them damage? The queer theorist Lauren Berlant’s analysis of “cruel optimism”—the term she uses to describe “the condition of maintaining an attachment to a significantly problematic object”—may be useful here. Berlant asks, “Why do people stay attached to conventional good-life fantasies . . . when the evidence of their instability [and] fragility . . . abound?” People persist in these attachments, Berlant explains, because the fantasy object provides a “sense of what it means to keep on living and looking forward to being in the world.

It is not easy for students to realize that to ask, as they often do, whether God exists and is merciful, just, good, or wrathful, is simply to project anthropomorphic concepts into a sphere to which they do not pertain. As the Upaniṣads declare: 'There, words do not reach.' Such queries fall short of the question. And yet—as the student must also understand—although that mystery is regarded in the Orient as transcendent of all thought and naming, it is also to be recognized as the reality of one’s own being and mystery. That which is transcendent is also immanent. And the ultimate function of Oriental myths, philosophies, and social forms, therefore, is to guide the individual to an actual experience of his identity with that; tat tvam asi ('Thou art that') is the ultimate word in this connection. By contrast, in the Western sphere—in terms of the orthodox traditions, at any rate, in which our students have been raised—God is a person, the person who has created this world. God and his creation are not of the same substance. Ontologically, they are separate and apart. We, therefore, do not find in the religions of the West, as we do in those of the East, mythologies and cult disciplines devoted to the yielding of an experience of one’s identity with divinity. That, in fact, is heresy. Our myths and religions are concerned, rather, with establishing and maintaining an experience of relationship—and this is quite a different affair. Hence it is, that though the same mythological images can appear in a Western context and an Eastern, it will always be with a totally different sense. This point I regard as fundamental.

In the face of such contradictions and obscurities must we conclude that there is no relationship between the opinion one has about life and the act one commits to leave it. Let us not exaggerate in this direction. In a man’s attachment to life there is something stronger than all the ills in the world. The body’s judgement is as good as the mind’s and the body shrinks from annihilation. We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.

I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum? Think how these truths would manifest. We would have happy people who feel good about themselves. We would have people who are comfortable financially and who enrich the economy by investing their money wisely. They would have good relationships with everyone and would be comfortable with the role of parenthood and then go on to create another generation of children who feel good about themselves. Yet within all this, each person would remain an individual expressing his or her own creativity.

Good interviewers share three features. They . . . obtain the greatest amount of accurate information relevant to diagnosis and management, in the shortest period of time, consistent with creating and maintaining a good working relationship (rapport) with the patient.

Find someone with discipline. Look for characteristics of discipline in your friends. They wake up early, can maintain a workout routine or regimen, they’re a self-starter, etc. No one’s perfect but if you see a few of these signs you’ve probably found a disciplined person.

30. *Appropriate actions are largely set by our social relationships. In the case of one’s father, this involves looking after him, letting him have his way in everything, and not making a fuss if he is abusive or violent. “But what if he’s a bad father? ” Do you think you have a *natural affinity only to a good father? “No, just to a father.” Suppose your brother treats you badly. In that case, maintain your fraternal relationship to him. Don’t think about why he behaves that way but about what you need to do to keep your will in harmony with nature. No one else, in fact, will harm you without your consent; you will be harmed only when you think you are being harmed. So make a habit of studying your social relationships – with neighbors, citizens, or army officers – and then you will discover the appropriate thing to do.

Then how is it that not a single one of you can maintain a long-term relationship? Did your father and I not set a good example to you? Of a good marriage?’ Her children all dropped their heads as if she’d called for volunteers for an unpleasant task. ‘So your dad and I weren’t

Dump the toxic people out of your life. Get them gone. Kick them to the curb. Stop maintaining relationships with people that make you feel guilty about things that you like, that make you feel shitty about yourself, that put you down, that don’t fucking support you, that are mean. You just get those people and shove them out of your life. Delete them off of Facebook, break it down easily. Just kind of fizzle out with the contact. Let it be like almost as if it might be growing apart. Just get rid of those people, because instead of just maintaining these “relationships” with people for the sake of just being polite or civil, you can be civil without having people that you can’t stand in your life and you’ll be so much happier. You need to stop maintaining relationships with toxic people because it’s just not good for you and it’s not worth any of your time.

Jesus Christ is not a cosmic errand boy. I mean no disrespect or irreverence in so saying, but I do intend to convey the idea that while he loves us deeply and dearly, Christ the Lord is not perched on the edge of heaven, anxiously anticipating our next wish. When we speak of God being good to us, we generally mean that he is kind to us. In the words of the inimitable C. S. Lewis, "What would really satisfy us would be a god who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?' We want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves,' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.'" You know and I know that our Lord is much, much more than that. One writer observed: "When we so emphasize Christ's benefits that he becomes nothing more than what his significance is 'for me' we are in danger. . . . Evangelism that says 'come on, it's good for you'; discipleship that concentrates on the benefits package; sermons that 'use' Jesus as the means to a better life or marriage or job or attitude--these all turn Jesus into an expression of that nice god who always meets my spiritual needs. And this is why I am increasingly hesitant to speak of Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. As Ken Woodward put it in a 1994 essay, 'Now I think we all need to be converted--over and over again, but having a personal Savior has always struck me as, well, elitist, like having a personal tailor. I'm satisfied to have the same Lord and Savior as everyone else.' Jesus is not a personal Savior who only seeks to meet my needs. He is the risen, crucified Lord of all creation who seeks to guide me back into the truth." . . . His infinity does not preclude either his immediacy or his intimacy. One man stated that "I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone." . . . Christ is not "my buddy." There is a natural tendency, and it is a dangerous one, to seek to bring Jesus down to our level in an effort to draw closer to him. This is a problem among people both in and outside the LDS faith. Of course we should seek with all our hearts to draw near to him. Of course we should strive to set aside all barriers that would prevent us from closer fellowship with him. And of course we should pray and labor and serve in an effort to close the gap between what we are and what we should be. But drawing close to the Lord is serious business; we nudge our way into intimacy at the peril of our souls. . . . Another gospel irony is that the way to get close to the Lord is not by attempting in any way to shrink the distance between us, to emphasize more of his humanity than his divinity, or to speak to him or of him in casual, colloquial language. . . . Those who have come to know the Lord best--the prophets or covenant spokesmen--are also those who speak of him in reverent tones, who, like Isaiah, find themselves crying out, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). Coming into the presence of the Almighty is no light thing; we feel to respond soberly to God's command to Moses: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained, "Those who truly love the Lord and who worship the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit, according to the approved patterns, maintain a reverential barrier between themselves and all the members of the Godhead.

I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth.

Since we began with a felt sense of safety this day, several neural streams are initially supporting the renewal of our connection. In our midbrain, the energies of the SEEKING system are animating the CARE system, which can both foster the good feelings between us and support offers of repair should we have a rupture (Panksepp & Biven, 2012). Once in connection, our ventral vagal parasympathetic system is affecting the prosody of our voices, our facial mobility, and the attentiveness of our listening, maintaining social engagement (Porges, 2011). Since ventral lateralizes to the right hemisphere, we more easily stay rooted in the right-centric way of attending that keeps us in connection with this moment and with each other (McGilchrist, 2009). In this intimacy, our brains are coupling in many regions, so there is an experience of social emotional engagement and embodied communication as we become a single system in two bodies (Hasson, 2010). Because we are trustworthy partners in this healing process, social baseline theory tells us that our amygdalae are calming just because we are together (Beckes & Coan, 2011). All of this is happening without doing anything, even without saying anything, in microseconds below conscious awareness because of the safe space we have cultivated over time. We can more clearly understand why Porges says, "Safety IS the treatment".

People who create successful strategic relationships demonstrate 10 essential character traits:    1. Authentic. They are genuine, honest, and transparent. They are cognizant of (and willing to admit to) their strengths and weaknesses.    2. Trustworthy. They build relationships on mutual trust. They have a good reputation based on real results. They have integrity: their word is their bond. People must know, like, and trust you before sharing their valuable social capital.    3. Respectful. They are appreciative of the time and efforts of others. They treat subordinates with the same level of respect as they do supervisors.    4. Caring. They like to help others succeed. They’re a source of mutual support and encouragement. They pay attention to the feelings of others and have good hearts.    5. Listening. They ask good questions, and they are eager to learn about others—what’s important to them, what they’re working on, what they’re looking for, and what they need—so they can be of help.    6. Engaged. They are active participants in life. They are interesting and passionate about what they do. They are solution minded, and they have great “gut” instincts.    7. Patient. They recognize that relationships need to be cultivated over time. They invest time in maintaining their relationships with others.    8. Intelligent. They are intelligent in the help they offer. They pass along opportunities at every chance possible, and they make thoughtful, useful introductions. They’re not ego driven. They don’t criticize others or burn bridges in relationships.    9. Sociable. They are nice, likeable, and helpful. They enjoy being with people, and they are happy to connect with others from all walks of life, social strata, political persuasions, religions, and diverse backgrounds. They are sources of positive energy.   10. Connected. They are part of their own network of excellent strategic relationships.

Mona´s Law apparently states that everyone wants three things - that happiness is made up on three - piece jigsaw: a good relationship, a nice place to live, and a good job. And Mona´s law states that it is mathematically impossible to maintain more than two out of the three. Thus, if you have a good job and a nice flat and you meet a lovely guy, bam-you lose your job. So you change jobs and find the perfect undreamt-of work opportunity, and wham, your landlord kicks you out on the street.

We are so impressed by honesty, we have forgotten the virtues of politeness, this word defined not as a cynical withholding of important information for the sake of harm, but as a dedication to not rubbing someone else up against the true, hurtful aspects of our nature. It is ultimately no great sign of kindness to insist on showing someone our entire selves at all times. A dedication to maintaining boundaries and editing our pronouncements belongs to love as much as a capacity to show ourselves as we really are. And if one suspects (and one should, rather regularly, if the relationship is a good one) that one’s partner might be lying too (about what they are thinking about, about how they judge one’s work, about where they were last night …), it is perhaps best not to take up arms and lay into them like a sharp, relentless inquisitor, however intensely one yearns to do just that. It may be kinder, wiser and perhaps more in the true spirit of love to pretend one simply didn’t notice.

1. Live (or work) in the moment. Instead of always thinking about what’s next on your to-do list, focus on the task or conversation at hand. You will become not only more productive but also more charismatic. 2. Tap into your resilience. Instead of living in overdrive, train your nervous system to bounce back from setbacks. You will naturally reduce stress and thrive in the face of difficulties and challenges. 3. Manage your energy. Instead of engaging in exhausting thoughts and emotions, learn to manage your stamina by remaining calm and centered. You’ll be able to save precious mental energy for the tasks that need it most. 4. Do nothing. Instead of spending all your time focused intently on your field, make time for idleness, fun, and irrelevant interests. You will become more creative and innovative and will be more likely to come up with breakthrough ideas. 5. Be good to yourself. Instead of only playing to your strengths and being self-critical, be compassionate with yourself and understand that your brain is built to learn new things. You will improve your ability to excel in the face of challenge and learn from mistakes. 6. Show compassion to others. Instead of remaining focused on yourself, express compassion to and show interest in those around you and maintain supportive relationships with your co-workers, boss, and employees. You will dramatically increase the loyalty and commitment of your colleagues and employees, thereby improving productivity, performance, and influence. These

Restitution is recommended particularly for believers. As followers of Christ, we are a close-knit fraternity. We are not expected to hold grudges amongst ourselves. Rather, we must always maintain cordial relationships. This is only possible if we each work to ensure that nothing becomes an obstacle in our relations. Nevertheless, sometimes, our relationships can be breached. This is where restitution comes in. Good relationships are maintained when an offender acknowledges their wrongs and makes amends.

Next I want to try living apart together, live in the same country, the same city, even the same building as whomever I'm in a relationship with, yet in a different apartment than him. Then it would be possible to pay him visits and still invite good friends over to my place. Do you think you have that it takes to maintain such a French arrangement? he asked. Well, no, probably not...but then again...? Maybe it would be better in the long run to stay in a more lasting relationship and not need to move so often.

Musonius goes on to suggest that we would also be better off if, instead of working hard to become wealthy, we trained ourselves to be satisfied with what we have; if, instead of seeking fame, we overcame our craving for the admiration of others; if, instead of spending time scheming to harm someone we envy, we spent that time overcoming our feelings of envy; and if, instead of knocking ourselves out trying to become popular, we worked to maintain and improve our relationships with those we knew to be true friends.1

Today we are all doing penance every day. We’re working hard, trying to make money to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, trying to maintain a good relationship or marriage, trying to keep our children safe and happy and educated, trying to keep the world from blowing itself up. We don’t need any more penance. We need some joy, an ideal, encouragement, a philosophy worthy of us, a real community, neighbors to keep us from having to go it alone. We need our own religion: our sources of inspiration, hope, and healing.

The art of maintaining a good relationship can be compared to sitting by a fireplace. If we sit too close for too long, we become hot and possibly burned. If we sit too far away, we cannot feel the warmth. Similarly, no matter how well we get along with someone, if we stick too close without building in some personal space, we soon feel trapped and burned out. It is easy to take the relationship for granted and feel resentful about not having enough privacy and independence. On the other hand, if we put in too little effort to stay in touch with friends and family, we can’t feel the warmth of their love. Striking a balance is key.

God desired to reveal himself in and through His creatures by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this communication was not meant to give created beings something they could possess in themselves, having full charge and access apart from Him. Rather, God as the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One, who upholds all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, meant that the relationship of His creatures to himself would be one of unceasing, absolute dependence. As truly as God by His power once created all things, so by that same power must God every moment maintain all things.

For instance, when reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too great, either. Parents who scold their children too much become mentally very distant. When this happens, the child can no longer even consult the parents, and the parents can no longer give the proper assistance. One should be ready to lend a hand when needed but not encroach on the person’s territory. It is important to maintain this kind of moderate distance.

Appendix 1 Seven Points and Fifty-Nine Slogans for Generating Compassion and Resilience POINT ONE Resolve to Begin 1. Train in the preliminaries. POINT TWO Train in Empathy and Compassion: Absolute Compassion 2. See everything as a dream. 3. Examine the nature of awareness. 4. Don’t get stuck on peace. 5. Rest in the openness of mind. 6. In Postmeditation be a child of illusion. POINT TWO Train in Empathy and Compassion: Relative Compassion 7. Practice sending and receiving alternately on the breath. 8. Begin sending and receiving practice with yourself. 9. Turn things around (Three objects, three poisons, three virtues). 10. Always train with the slogans. POINT THREE Transform Bad Circumstances into the Path 11. Turn all mishaps into the path. 12. Drive all blames into one. 13. Be grateful to everyone. 14. See confusion as Buddha and practice emptiness. 15. Do good, avoid evil, appreciate your lunacy, pray for help. 16. Whatever you meet is the path. POINT FOUR Make Practice Your Whole Life 17. Cultivate a serious attitude (Practice the five strengths). 18. Practice for death as well as for life. POINT FIVE Assess and Extend 19. There’s only one point. 20. Trust your own eyes. 21. Maintain joy (and don’t lose your sense of humor). 22. Practice when you’re distracted. POINT SIX The Discipline of Relationship 23. Come back to basics. 24. Don’t be a phony. 25. Don’t talk about faults. 26. Don’t figure others out. 27. Work with your biggest problems first. 28. Abandon hope. 29. Don’t poison yourself. 30. Don’t be so predictable. 31. Don’t malign others. 32. Don’t wait in ambush. 33. Don’t make everything so painful. 34. Don’t unload on everyone. 35. Don’t go so fast. 36. Don’t be tricky. 37. Don’t make gods into demons. 38. Don’t rejoice at others’ pain. POINT SEVEN Living with Ease in a Crazy World 39. Keep a single intention. 40. Correct all wrongs with one intention. 41. Begin at the beginning, end at the end. 42. Be patient either way. 43. Observe, even if it costs you everything. 44. Train in three difficulties. 45. Take on the three causes. 46. Don’t lose track. 47. Keep the three inseparable. 48. Train wholeheartedly, openly, and constantly. 49. Stay close to your resentment. 50. Don’t be swayed by circumstances. 51. This time get it right! 52. Don’t misinterpret. 53. Don’t vacillate. 54. Be wholehearted. 55. Examine and analyze. 56. Don’t wallow. 57. Don’t be jealous. 58. Don’t be frivolous. 59. Don’t expect applause.

The point is this: we all must give a fuck about something, in order to value something. And to value something, we must reject what is not that something. To value X, we must reject non-X. That rejection is an inherent and necessary part of maintaining our values, and therefore our identity. We are defined by what we choose to reject. And if we reject nothing (perhaps in fear of being rejected by something ourselves), we essentially have no identity at all. The desire to avoid rejection at all costs, to avoid confrontation and conflict, the desire to attempt to accept everything equally and to make everything cohere and harmonize, is a deep and subtle form of entitlement. Entitled people, because they feel as though they deserve to feel great all the time, avoid rejecting anything because doing so might make them or someone else feel bad. And because they refuse to reject anything, they live a valueless, pleasure-driven, and self-absorbed life. All they give a fuck about is sustaining the high a little bit longer, to avoid the inevitable failures of their life, to pretend the suffering away. Rejection is an important and crucial life skill. Nobody wants to be stuck in a relationship that isn’t making them happy. Nobody wants to be stuck in a business doing work they hate and don’t believe in. Nobody wants to feel that they can’t say what they really mean. Yet people choose these things. All the time. Honesty is a natural human craving. But part of having honesty in our lives is becoming comfortable with saying and hearing the word “no.” In this way, rejection actually makes our relationships better and our emotional lives healthier.

Monotheistic peoples have prayed to the Creator of all things for millennia without ever knowing the Second Testament claim that Jesus Christ is the historic Creator. Put simply, if indigenous people have been praying the Creator and the Creator is Christ, to whom have the been praying? Asked in another way, since there exist among indigenous peoples numerous testimonies of the creator's intervention and blessing in their lives, with whom have they been in relationship? Certainly a broader missional view would have been good news to such people. Instead, indigenous peoples were most often told by Euro-western missionaries that they worshiped another god. One also wonders what has been the effect of a theology that separates the Creator-Son and Savior/Restorer of all things? Such an imbalance has prevented western theologians from understanding a broader view of salvation that has helped maintain a dualism that prevents people from understanding that all creation, together, comes under the covering of Christ's universal restoration. Based on the past missional perspectives, the result of such an imbalanced theology is apparent -- a weak salvation theology equals a weak god. A weak god is not great enough to reach all peoples everywhere or able to restore all creation. The god of western mission has too often been capricious, carrying with him an exceptionalist theology that favors the categories and conclusions of the Euro-western world. Perhaps God is greater than the west has presumed. There is nowhere that we can travel, including the depths of the ocean or outer space, where Christ is not active in creation. It would seem that part of our job on earth is to discover what Christ is up to, and to join him in it!

Heed the words of Gautama Buddha, spoken 2,600 years ago: “Do not believe in what you have heard; do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations; do not believe anything because it is rumored and spoken of by many; do not believe merely because the written statements of some old sage are produced; do not believe in conjectures; do not believe in that as a truth to which you have become attached by habit; do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. After observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”1 Remember, nothing within the spirit realm can harm you as long as you maintain control and authority over your life. You should use your relationship with the spirit realm only to supplement—not substitute—your life. In

This is a small book about a very important subject. A lot has been written about trust: about what it is and what it can do for people, families, companies, communities and countries. As an executive coach and consultant I often find myself engaged by companies where good work is being sabotaged by interpersonal conflict, political infighting, paralysis, stagnation, apathy, or cynicism. I almost always trace these problems to a breakdown in trust. It not only kills good work, it also inevitably creates some degree of misery, annoyance, fear, anger, frustration, resentment, and resignation. By contrast, in successful companies where people are innovative, engage in productive conflict and debate about ideas, and have fun working together, I find strong trusting relationships. As a result, I’ve come to believe having the trust of those you work with is too important not to be intentional about building and maintaining it.

Loneliness A recent study showed that 13.5 percent of college students are severely lonely. Overall, they felt that they were to blame for their loneliness. Characteristics of social anxiety, such as shyness, fear of rejection, and lack of social knowledge and experience, often were listed as reasons. Loneliness is not the same thing as being alone. Many people enjoy solitude and find it a good time to be creative. They use time alone to write, read, listen to music, work on a hobby, or exercise. Often, sensitive people feel recharged after spending time alone. They make private time part of their schedules. Loneliness is a problem when you find it unpleasant and distressing. Social bonds are considered necessary to psychological well-being. When it is difficult to develop and maintain relationships, you may find yourself vulnerable to increased stress, depression, other emotional disorders, and impaired physical health.

What content types best meet the needs of our target audience and their changing, multiple contexts? What content types best fit the skills of our copywriters? What content types do we already have? What contexts are appropriate for the delivery of our content, and how will we translate our information into multiple content types appropriate for different screens, resolutions, locations, and contexts? Is existing content still good? Is it still current, relevant, and brand-appropriate for our needs, our users’ needs, and the context in which we want to deliver it? How will we get more content to bridge the gaps between what we have and what we need? What is the workflow that already supports that, and do we need to refine it? How will we make the case for these new content types to other team members who help shape the user experience? Who will do this for launch? Who will maintain content on an ongoing basis? Who will train them? How will we help people find the answers, definitions, and other information they need? What are the relationships within our content?

This particular orchid gets all its energy from fungi, sometimes from different kinds of fungi simultaneously. It never even begins to turn to the sun. No photosynthesis here. It relies utterly on its underground friends: the unseen, unsung fungi. Forgive me if this is a romantic vision. Orchids seem to have that effect on people. But since finding out that they are essentially reliant on fungi, I have a new perspective. They are not lone, rising, random gifts, like treasure. They are weak and desperate, and they are gamblers, hoping their luck holds and a good strong friend can be found close by to give them everything they lack. What do the fungi get out of the deal? The relationship of the orchid to the fungus is described as myco-heterotrophic, with the plant sometimes viewed as a sort of parasite, taking the carbon it needs and giving nothing back. Perhaps there’s more we need to learn here, to understand it fully. But, for now, I’ll anthropomorphise and romanticise it further by maintaining that a fungus can make a really good friend, especially if you’re a rare, weak seed with no energy of your own.

To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (production) and the health and welfare of the goose (production capability) is often a difficult judgment call. But I suggest it is the very essence of effectiveness. It balances short term with long term. It balances going for the grade and paying the price to get an education. It balances the desire to have a room clean and the building of a relationship in which the child is internally committed to do it—cheerfully, willingly, without external supervision. It’s a principle you can see validated in your own life when you burn the candle at both ends to get more golden eggs and wind up sick or exhausted, unable to produce any at all; or when you get a good night’s sleep and wake up ready to produce throughout the day. You can see it when you press to get your own way with someone and somehow feel an emptiness in the relationship; or when you really take time to invest in a relationship and you find the desire and ability to work together, to communicate, takes a quantum leap. The P/PC Balance is the very essence of effectiveness. It’s validated in every arena of life. We can work with it or against it, but it’s there.

Psychologists who study peer influence ask what it is about teenage girls that makes them so susceptible to peer contagion and so good at spreading it. Many believe it has something to do with the way girls tend to socialize.35 “When we listen to girls versus boys talk to each other, girls are much more likely to reply with statements that are validating and supportive than questioning,” Amanda Rose, professor of psychology at the University of Missouri, told me. “They’re willing to suspend reality to get into their friends’ worlds more. For this reason, adolescent girls are more likely to take on, for instance, the depression their friends are going through and become depressed themselves.” This female tendency to meet our friends where they are and share in their pain can be a productive and valuable social skill. Co-rumination (excessive discussion of a hardship) “does make the relationship between girls stronger,” Professor Rose told me. But it also leads friends to take on each other’s ailments. Teenage girls spread psychic illness because of features natural to their modes of friendship: co-rumination; excessive reassurance seeking; and negative-feedback seeking, in which someone maintains a feeling of control by angling for confirmation of her low self-concept from others.36 It isn’t hard to see why the 24/7 forum of social media intensifies and increases the incidence of each.

This section of our study is a most solemn one. So many disciples in name have ceased to be taught of Jesus, and we are all in such perpetual danger of slipping out of the real circle of discipleship, that we ought to ask ourselves the questions suggested by these three points on the subject of advancement. These questions should be asked regularly and always in the hour of loneliness with the Master. I. Am I in right relationship with the Teacher today? Do I still live at the Cross and know the power of its cleansing moment by moment, and so am I walking in the light, without which all the words of Jesus are dark sayings, and His testings crosses, burdens out of which I can only gather reasons for murmuring? II. If I am not in this place of maintained fellowship, where did I depart therefrom? What word of His have I disobeyed? To that point let me return, whether it be but an hour ago, or years, and there let me absolutely surrender, at whatever cost, and do what He requires, however small, or however irksome it appears to be. III. Am I content to wait when His voice does not speak—and I cannot find the reason in myself—until He has accomplished His present purpose in me, even though I understand it not just now? With matchless patience and pity, and tender love beyond all attempts at explanation, this Teacher waits, and stoops, and woos us, and ever for our highest good and deepest peace. Let us then, by consecrated watching, maintain the attitude of advancement, and so, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, as we are able to bear, He will lead us on, until we come to the perfect light and life and love of God.

To speak of a communication failure implies a breakdown of some sort. Yet this does not accurately portray what occurs. In truth, communication difficulties arise not from breakdown but from the characteristics of the system itself. Despite promising beginnings in our intimate relationships, we tend over time to evolve a system of communication that suppresses rather than reveals information. Life is complicated, and confirming or disconfirming the well-being of a relationship takes effort. Once we are comfortably coupled, the intense, energy-consuming monitoring of courtship days is replaced by a simpler, more efficient method. Unable to witness our partners’ every activity or verify every nuance of meaning, we evolve a communication system based on trust. We gradually cease our attentive probing, relying instead on familiar cues and signals to stand as testament to the strength of the bond: the words “I love you,” holidays with the family, good sex, special times with shared friends, the routine exchange, “How was your day?” We take these signals as representative of the relationship and turn our monitoring energies elsewhere. ... Not only do the initiator’s negative signals tend to become incorporated into the existing routine, but, paradoxically, the initiator actively contributes to the impression that life goes on as usual. Even as they express their unhappiness, initiators work at emphasizing and maintaining the routine aspects of life with the other person, simultaneously giving signals that all is well. Unwilling to leave the relationship yet, they need to privately explore and evaluate the situation. The initiator thus contrives an appearance of participation,7 creating a protective cover that allows them to “return” if their alternative resources do not work out. Our ability to do this—to perform a role we are no longer enthusiastically committed to—is one of our acquired talents. In all our encounters, we present ourselves to others in much the same way as actors do, tailoring our performance to the role we are assigned in a particular setting.8 Thus, communication is always distorted. We only give up fragments of what really occurs within us during that specific moment of communication.9 Such fragments are always selected and arranged so that there is seldom a faithful presentation of our inner reality. It is transformed, reduced, redirected, recomposed.10 Once we get the role perfected, we are able to play it whether we are in the mood to go on stage or not, simply by reproducing the signals. What is true of all our encounters is, of course, true of intimate relationships. The nature of the intimate bond is especially hard to confirm or disconfirm.11 The signals produced by each partner, while acting out the partner role, tend to be interpreted by the other as the relationship.12 Because the costs of constantly checking out what the other person is feeling and doing are high, each partner is in a position to be duped and misled by the other.13 Thus, the initiator is able to keep up appearances that all is well by falsifying, tailoring, and manipulating signals to that effect. The normal routine can be used to attest to the presence of something that is not there. For example, initiators can continue the habit of saying, “I love you,” though the passion is gone. They can say, “I love you” and cover the fact that they feel disappointment or anger, or that they feel nothing at all. Or, they can say, “I love you” and mean, “I like you,” or, “We have been through a lot together,” or even “Today was a good day.

My rights are that part of my power which others have not merely conceded me, but which they wish me to preserve. How do these others arrive at that? First: through their prudence and fear and caution: whether in that they expect something similar from us in return (protection of their own rights); or in that they consider that a struggle with us would be perilous or to no purpose; or in that they see in any diminution of our force a disadvantage to themselves, since we would then be unsuited to forming an alliance with them in opposition to a hostile third power. Then: by donation and cession. In this case, others have enough and more than enough power to be able to dispose of some of it and to guarantee to him they have given it to the portion of it they have given: in doing so they presuppose a feeble sense of power in him who lets himself be thus donated to. That is how rights originate: recognised and guaranteed degrees of power. If power-relationships undergo any material alteration, rights disappear and new ones are created as is demonstrated in the continual disappearance and reformation of rights between nations. If our power is materially diminished, the feeling of those who have hitherto guaranteed our rights changes: they consider whether they can restore us to the full possession we formerly enjoyed if they feel unable to do so, they henceforth deny our 'rights'. Likewise, if our power is materially increased, the feeling of those who have hitherto recognised it but whose recognition is no longer needed changes: they no doubt attempt to suppress it to its former level, they will try to intervene and in doing so will allude to their 'duty' but this is only a useless playing with words. Where rights prevail, a certain condition and degree of power is being maintained, a diminution and increment warded off. The rights of others constitute a concession on the part of our sense of power to the sense of power of those others. If our power appears to be deeply shaken and broken, our rights cease to exist: conversely, if we have grown very much more powerful, the rights of others, as we have previously conceded them, cease to exist for us. The 'man who wants to be fair' is in constant need of the subtle tact of a balance: he must be able to assess degrees of power and rights, which, given the transitory nature of human things, will never stay in equilibrium for very long but will usually be rising or sinking: being fair is consequently difficult and demands much practice and good will, and very much very good sense.

If one looks at modern society, it is obvious that in order to live, the great majority of people are forced to sell their labour power. All the physical and intellectual capacities existing in human beings, in their personalities, which must be set in motion to produce useful things, can only be used if they are sold in exchange for wages. Labour power is usually perceived as a commodity bought and sold nearly like all others. The existence of exchange and wage-labour seems normal, inevitable. Yet the introduction of wage-labour involved conflict, resistance, and bloodshed. The separation of the worker from the means of production, now an accepted fact of life, took a long time and was accomplished by force. In England, in the Netherlands, in France, from the sixteenth century on, economic and political violence expropriated craftsmen and peasants, repressed indigence and vagrancy, imposed wage-labour on the poor. Between 1930 and 1950, Russia decreed a labour code which included capital punishment in order to organise the transition of millions of peasants to industrial wage-labour in less than a few decades. Seemingly normal facts: that an individual has nothing but his labour power, that he must sell it to a business unit to be able to live, that everything is a commodity, that social relations revolve around market exchange… such facts now taken for granted result from a long, brutal process. By means of its school system and its ideological and political life, contemporary society hides the past and present violence on which this situation rests. It conceals both its origin and the mechanism which enables it to function. Everything appears as a free contract in which the individual, as a seller of labour power, encounters the factory, the shop or the office. The existence of the commodity seems to be an obvious and natural phenomenon, and the periodic major and minor disasters it causes are often regarded as quasi-natural calamities. Goods are destroyed to maintain their prices, existing capacities are left to rot, while elementary needs remain unfulfilled. Yet the main thing that the system hides is not the existence of exploitation or class (that is not too hard to see), nor its horrors (modern society is quite good at turning them into media show). It is not even that the wage labour/capital relationship causes unrest and rebellion (that also is fairly plain to see). The main thing it conceals is that insubordination and revolt could be large and deep enough to do away with this relationship and make another world possible.

When We Want to See Answers to Our Prayers If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. JOHN 15:7 WE ALL DESPERATELY NEED answers to our prayers—especially when we are married. It’s hard to imagine how people maintain a successful marriage without help from God. But we don’t automatically receive answers to our prayers just because we prayed them. God doesn’t say, “Ask Me for anything and I’ll see that you get it.” He says, “Walk with Me and let My Word live in you, and then ask.” In other words, we have to live God’s way, spend time with Him, and read His Word so often that it is alive in us. When we do that, then we can ask what we desire and it will be done. Walking with God and living in His Word changes your heart and causes you to become more like Him. That means what you will be asking for in prayer is going to be more in line with God’s will. The way to see answers to your prayers is to first ask God to deepen both your husband’s and your own relationship with Him. Ask God to grow His Word daily in both of you. Pray that the desires of your heart line up with the desires of God’s, and pray the same for your husband. Then you will be living according to God’s ways, and you will have aligned yourself with the flow of God’s blessings in answer to prayer. My Prayer to God LORD, my husband and I long to see answers to our prayers. We cannot live successfully without You working powerfully in our lives, but I know that answers to our prayers come only as we walk with You and let Your Word live in us. I pray You would draw my husband and me so close to You that we will not take a step without Your guidance. Help us to truly abide in Your presence day by day. Enable us to understand Your Word and be transformed by it as we read it and learn it. Weave it in our hearts so that it becomes part of the fabric of our lives that grows stronger every day. Enable my husband and me to pray according to Your will, so that the desires of our hearts line up with the desires of Yours. Lord, You know how much we need to see answers to our prayers, so I pray You will help us do all that is necessary to keep our prayers from being hindered in any way. Teach us to pray in power so that we will see powerful answers. Help us to frequently pray together, as well as alone. Above all, we want Your will to be done in our lives, so guide us to pray accordingly, trusting that Your answers will be for our greatest good. We praise You and thank You in advance for hearing our prayers and for answering them in Your way and Your time. In Jesus’ name I pray.

A mine is anonymous, a crude weapon. Partisans like using mines because of the peculiar nature of their struggle, which makes the landscape uncertain. The anarch is not tempted by them, if only because he is oriented to facts, not ideas. He fights alone, as a free man, and would never dream of sacrificing himself to having one inadequacy supplant another and a new regime triumph over the old one. In this sense, he is closer to the philistine; the baker whose chief concern is to bake good bread; the peasant, who works his plough while armies march across his fields. The anarch is a forest rebel, the partisans are a collective. I have observed their quarrels as both a historian and a contemporary. Stuffy air, unclear ideas, lethal energy, which ultimately puts abdicated monarchs and retired generals back in the saddle – and they then show their gratitude by liquidating those selfsame partisans. I had to love certain ones, because they loved freedom, even though the cause did not deserve their sacrifice; this made me sad. If I love freedom above all else, then any commitment becomes a metaphor, a symbol. This touches on the difference between the forest rebel and the partisan: this distinction is not qualitative but essential in nature. The anarch is closer to Being. The partisan moves within the social or national party structure, the anarch is outside of it. Of course, the anarch cannot elude the party structure, since he lives in society. The difference will be obvious when I go to my forest shack while my Lebanese joins the partisans. I will then not only hold on to my essential freedom, but also gain its full and visible enjoyment. The Lebanese, by contrast, will shift only within society; he will become dependent on a different group, which will get an even tighter hold on him. Naturally, I could just as well or just as badly serve the partisans rather than the Condor – a notion I have toyed with. Either way, I remain the same, inwardly untouched. It makes no difference that it is more dangerous siding with the partisans than with the tyrant; I love danger. But as a historian, I want danger to stand out sharply. Murder and treason, pillage and fire, and vendetta are of scant interest for the historian; they render long stretches of history – say, Corsican – unfruitful. Tribal history becomes significant only when, as in the Teutoburger Wald, it manifests itself as world history. Then names and dates shine. The partisan operates on the margins; he serves the great powers, which arm him with weapons and slogans. Soon after the victory, he becomes a nuisance. Should he decide to maintain the role of idealist, he is made to see reason. In Eumeswil, where ideas vegetate, the process is even more wretched. As soon as a group has coalesced, ‘one of Twelve’ is bound to consider betrayal. He is then killed, often merely on suspicion. At the night bar, I heard the Domo mention such a case to the Condor. ‘He could have gotten off more cheaply with us,’ he commented. ‘Muddle heads – I’ll take the gangsters anytime: they know their business.’ I entered this in my notebook. In conclusion, I would like to repeat that I do not fancy myself as anything special for being an anarch. My emotions are no different from those of the average man. Perhaps I have pondered this relationship a bit more carefully and am conscious of a freedom to which ‘basically’ everybody is entitled – a freedom that more or less dictates his actions.

Whites enact racism while maintaining a positive self-image in many ways: • Rationalizing racial segregation as unfortunate but necessary to access “good schools” • Rationalizing that our workplaces are virtually all white because people of color just don’t apply • Avoiding direct racial language and using racially coded terms such as urban, underprivileged, diverse, sketchy, and good neighborhoods • Denying that we have few cross-racial relationships by proclaiming how diverse our community or workplace is • Attributing inequality between whites and people of color to causes other than racism

The story and the storyteller are never far apart, in my experience. Authors and their books maintain a relationship that is the best and worst of us. Once a book is out in the world, the author pretends to let go. Stories, after all, are for the people who need to hear them. We have to let go of a story, give up the reins, when we ask it to be read. We pretend it's like making any other product, bread for the hungry or coats for the cold. But what no author admits is that it's not like that at all. Stories are not made of flour or wool. Stories, real stories, are made with a sliver of yourself. The purpose for stories is what readers will make of them. But the reason, the desperate need, is a splinter in the author alone. A good story gets under your skin, because that's where all good stories start.

This means I can call up a client and say, “The bad news is that your buyer backed out because he decided to join a competitive curling team in Moscow. But! The good news is I got you another offer!” The bad news is instantly replaced by the good news. For people who sell other things, this could mean that a product won’t be ready on time or an order was placed incorrectly. Instead of calling up your customer and dropping the bad news, take time to think about what little surprise you can add to remedy the situation and maintain the relationship. “I’m so sorry that your order won’t be received on time. Please know that I’ve reduced my commission to make this a better deal for you, you get free shipping, and 20 percent off your next order.” Sometimes surprise comes in the simple form of exceeded expectations.

In his book-length review of the executive functions, Dr. Russell Barkley (2012) explored the reasons that these skills evolved in humans in the first place. He makes the compelling case that it was the selection pressures associated with humans living in larger groups of genetically unrelated individuals, which made it selectively advantageous to have good self-regulation skills. That is, these abilities became more important to survival as humans became more interdependent with and reliant on dealings with people who were not family. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and executive dysfunction continue to have effects on the myriad relationships and social interactions in daily life. These connections include romantic and committed relationships/marriage, relationships with parents, siblings, children, and other relatives, friendships, and interactions with employers, coworkers, and customers. The executive functions in relationships also figure in the capacity for empathy and tracking social debt, that is, the balance of favors you owe others and favors owed to you. The ability to effectively organize behavior across time in goal-directed activities gains you “social collateral.” That is, the more you deliver on promises and projects, the more that you will be sought out by others and maintain bonds with them. Some of the common manifestations of ADHD and executive dysfunction that may create problems in relationships include: • Distractibility during conversations • Forgetfulness about matters relevant to another person • Verbal impulsivity—talking over someone else • Verbal impulsivity—saying the “wrong thing” • Breaking promises (acts of commission, e.g., making an expensive purchase despite agreeing to stay within a household budget) • Poor follow-through on promises (acts of omission, e.g., forget to pick up dry cleaning) • Disregarding the effects of one’s behavior on others (e.g., building up excessive debt on a shared credit card account) • Poor frustration tolerance, anger (e.g., overreacting to children’s behavior) • Lying to cover up mistakes • Impulsive behaviors that reduce trust (e.g., romantic infidelity)

It turns out, switching our parenting mindset from “consequences” to “connection” does not have to mean ceding family control to our children. While I resist time-outs, punishments, consequences, and ignoring, there’s nothing about my parenting style that’s permissive or fragile. My approach promotes firm boundaries, parental authority, and sturdy leadership, all while maintaining positive relationships, trust, and respect.

stillness is the river and the railroad junction through which so much depends. It is the key . . . To thinking clearly. To seeing the whole chessboard. To making tough decisions. To managing our emotions. To identifying the right goals. To handling high-pressure situations. To maintaining relationships. To building good habits. To being productive. To physical excellence. To feeling fulfilled. To capturing moments of laughter and joy. Stillness is the key to, well, just about everything.

The supervisory relationship provides the context and the environment wherein the learning process takes place and lays the foundation for the work that will occur in supervision. The quality of the working relationship between the supervisee and supervisor is one of the key components determining the outcomes of clinical supervision. The effectiveness of these relational interactions largely depends on the kind of person the supervisor is and his or her ability to establish and maintain a good connection with the supervisee.

Your best defense is to slow the pace of any relationship that begins with such idealization and intensity. Easier said than done when you believe you’ve met your soul mate. Keep it in mind anyway. Remember, it takes time to get to know another person’s true character. Some people are very different than who they first appear to be. We all believe we are good judges of character, but in truth we’re not. There is no shortcut; it takes time and observation. Take plenty of time—at least a year, preferably more—to observe a potential partner in a variety of situations. Judge them by their actions, never by their words. Maintain your goals, boundaries, activities, interests, and relationships with family and friends. If the person really loves you (and respects you), they won’t go anywhere.

There were four principles governing Gareth St. Clair’s relationship with his father that he relied upon to maintain his good humor and general sanity. One: They did not converse unless absolutely necessary. Two: All absolutely necessary conversations were to be kept as brief as possible. Three: In the event that more than the simplest of salutations was to be spoken, it was always best to have a third party present. And finally, four: For the purpose of achieving points one, two, and three, Gareth was to conduct himself in a manner so as to garner as many invitations as possible to spend school holidays with friends. In other words, not at home. In more precise words, away from his father.

Starting when we are very young, we are presented with either a reward or a punishment for adopting the beliefs and behaviors of others in the Dream. This system of reward and punishment, or domestication, is used to control our behavior. The result of domestication is that many of us give up who we really are in exchange for who we think we should be, and consequently we end up living a life that is not our own. Learning how to spot and release our domestication, and reclaiming who we really are in the process, is a hallmark of a Master of Self. When you become so domesticated by or attached to a belief or idea that you can't let go of it, your choices narrow until any notion of choice is really an illusion. Your beliefs now define you, and they will dictate your choice. You are no longer the master of your own self, as your domestication and attachments are controlling you. As a result, you will engage with others and yourself in a way that does not serve your highest good. You have joined into the drama of the party, and it now shapes your Personal Dream. The Dream of the Planet is full of traps to lure you back into the drama of the party, and falling into one of them can happen in the blink of an eye. If you choose to engage with the world, avoiding all traps is virtually impossible. However, when you become aware that you are falling into a trap, the simple act of noticing it allows you to begin to regain control. As you get better at spotting the traps and understanding your own underlying emotions and beliefs that make them traps for you in the first place, you are far less likely to take the bait. And even when you do, you can let go of whatever you are attached too as quickly as your will dictates. It may seem counterintuitive, but you choose to let go in order to be in control. Doing so is the Mastery of Self in action. As a Master of Self, you can have relationships with others, even those who disagree with you, while still being grounded in your Authentic Self. You are able to maintain your free will and respect the free will of others. Knowing that others see you in a specific way gives you choices when you engage with them. You shape-shift only in their perception, and your awareness of that allows you to stay true to yourself and not give in to the temptation to take on others' definitions of who you are. You realize that you don't have to put on any image that others project onto you because you know it is not your reality. With this awareness, you will be better able to co-create harmoniously with others, making the relationships that matter most to you more fulfilling and rewarding. Most importantly, when you become a Master of Self, you know how to stay grounded in your Authentic Self regardless of what's happening around you. You also have the awareness to realize quickly when you are acting in a way that isn't helpful to yourself or others

Dualism is the idea that mind and matter are completely different domains of reality. Mind is subjective, nonphysical, ethereal consciousness-related stuff, and matter is objective, hard physical stuff. This insight was promoted by French philosopher René Descartes. It exists in a slightly different form as Sankhya philosophy, which is regarded by many Indian scholars as the philosophical basis of yoga. In Sankhya there are two fundamental aspects of reality: prakrti and purusa. Prakrti is the evolving, changeable physical world familiar to science, whereas purusa is permanent, unchanging, pure consciousness-as-such. Unlike Descartes’s version of dualism, Sankhya maintains a tripartite model: matter, mind, and pure consciousness. Both matter and mind are considered prakrti, or part of the physical world. This is similar to the models developed by the modern neurosciences—the mind is a brain-mediated information processing machine. But the mind also enjoys awareness and consciousness. Thus in Sankhya philosophy the mind is the missing link between inanimate matter and conscious awareness. It is inseparably both at the same time. Yoga seeks to purify that link so the relationship between the physical world and consciousness becomes clearer. In the process of clarification, the undistracted mind begins to see the true relationships between matter and consciousness, and as a side effect of that insight, the siddhis arise. When the link is completely clear, enlightenment is said to occur. That’s the whole story of yoga in a nutshell. The problem with both dualistic or tripartite philosophies is this: How can radically different domains interact at all? This is why philosopher Christian De Quincey calls dualism a miracle. At least within Sankhya the mind is regarded as consisting of both matter and consciousness, but that too doesn’t cleanly solve the interaction problem. The next major idea about mind and matter is materialism, which asserts that everything that exists, including mind and consciousness, consists of matter and energy. This is the dominant philosophy of science today, and it asserts that there is nothing special about consciousness because it is simply due to activity in the brain. The problem with materialism is that no one has any (good) idea how the mindless physical brain can give rise to subjective experience. This impasse has led some philosophers to sidestep the problem by simply denying that subjective experience exists. Within that rather odd view, we’re all just zombies.

Stories can be incredibly powerful and beautiful devices that form and assist our perception and understanding of the world. However, according to twentieth-century American author Kurt Vonnegut, stories rarely tell the truth. After studying stories from an anthropological standpoint, examining the relationships with various cultures, Vonnegut found that stories and myths across many cultures share consistent similar shapes that can typically be broken down into just a few main categories. These shapes can be found graphing the course of a protagonist’s journey through a story along an axis of good and ill fortune. In all stories, someone or something starts somewhere, either in a good place, bad place, or neutral place. Then things happen related to that person which is conveyed as good or bad, bringing the character up and down the axis of fortune as they traverse forward through the story. Then, the story ends and its shape reveals itself. Vonnegut discovered that many popular stories follow common, consistent curves and spikes up and down the good/ill axis and that most end with the protagonist higher on the axis than where they started. However, what’s perhaps most interesting about Vonnegut’s analysis is this argument that these shapes, and consequently most stories, lie. Vonnegut proposed that a more honest, realistic story shape is simply a straight line. In a story of this shape, things still happen and characters still change, but the story maintains ambiguity around whether or not the events that occur are conclusively good or bad. According to Vonnegut, Hamlet is the closest literary representation of real life. “We are so seldom told the truth. In Hamlet-Shakespeare tells us that we don’t know enough about life to know what the good news is and the bad news is and we respond to that.” One story medium that seems to inadvertently coincide with this idea, is the medium of the television series. The goal of TV series is to keep viewers watching as long as possible. Each episode must be an engaging enough story to keep the viewer watching until the end, but each episode must also be left unresolved enough so the larger season-long and series-long stories continue and the viewer is interested in watching all the following episodes. In order to keep the whole thing going, none of the stories can reach a conclusion, and thus, the main characters can’t find ultimate peace or freedom from the uncertainty between good and ill-fortune. Of course, most shows don’t qualify as the straight-line shape in Vonnegut’s analysis, because most shows attempt to convey conclusively good and bad fortunes within them. However merely by the requirements of the medium TV series are forced to self-impose the same sort of universal truth that Vonnegut suggests. That neither the viewer nor the characters in a series can ever know what anything that’s so-called “good” or “bad” in one episode might cause in the next. And that on a fundamental level, the changes in each episode are futile because they are a part of a never-ending cycle of change through conflict and resolution, for the mere sake of its continuation, with no aim of a final resolution or reveal of what’s ultimately good or bad. Of course, eventually, a show reaches its series end when it stops working or runs its natural course. But the show fights its whole life to stay away from this moment. A good TV series, a series that we don’t want to end, is only a series that we don’t want to end because it can’t seem to resolve itself. In this, the format of Tv series also shows us that there is meaning, engagement, and entertainment within the endless cycle of change, regardless of its potential universal futility. And that perhaps change in life can exist not for the sake of some conclusion or ultimate state of peace, but a continuation of itself for the sake of itself. And perhaps the ability to be in this cycle of continued change for the sake of change is the actual good fortune.

The Fearful-Avoidant is often a very present and charming partner in the early stages of a relationship. They are dialed into human behavior and know what their partner is looking for. It is not uncommon for the Fearful-Avoidant to morph into what they believe their partner wants as a strategy to feel accepted and worthy of love. As discussed in chapter 1, it is quite common for a Fearful-Avoidant to have grown up in a home where they experienced significant distress. To adapt, this individual is a keen observer and becomes hypervigilant, especially about human behavior. They will quickly and without trying notice microexpressions, body language, and changes in intonation. The Fearful-Avoidant learns this hyperawareness to protect themselves from potential conflict. The highs are that a Secure and Fearful-Avoidant can share a great capacity for seeing, hearing, and understanding one another. They have a need for deep conversation and discussing their fears, concerns, and secrets. The lows for the Secure partner are that when a Fearful-Avoidant begins to develop stronger feelings, they will tend to push their partner away. They believe that this relationship is too good to be true and don’t trust such a stable and safe partnership. In a friendship or family relationship, the same patterns are maintained. However, the Fearful-Avoidant will usually be less emotionally volatile and less vulnerable at the root level. The fear of powerlessness is not as strong, and therefore the Fearful-Avoidant experiences less of a roller coaster in their nonromantic relationships.

I was barely ever bad-tempered with Marcel, and my tone made him press his lips together to keep from smiling. When I parked in front of Mr. Anderson’s house, he stretched over to take my face in his hands. He handled me very thoroughly, touching just the tips of his fingers softly against my temples, my cheekbones, my jawline. Like I was exceptionally breakable. Which was specifically the case-compared with him, at most limited. ‘You should be in a good mood, today of all days,’ he muttered. His unseasoned breath crossed my face. ‘Moreover, if I don't want to be in a good mood?’ I asked, my breathing irregular. His golden eyes smoldered. ‘Too bad.’ My head was already spinning by the time he leaned closer and pressed his icy lips against mine. As he intended, no doubt, I forgot all about my worries and concentrated on remembering how to inhale and exhale. His mouth lingered on mine, cold and smooth and gentle until I wrapped my arms around his neck and threw myself into the kiss with a little too much enthusiasm. I could feel his lips curve upward as he let go of my face and reached back to unlock my grip on him. Marcel had drawn many careful lines for our physical relationship, with the intent being to keep me alive. Though I respected the need for maintaining a safe distance between my skin and his razor-sharp, venom-coated teeth, I tended to forget about trivial things like that when he was kissing me. ‘Be good, please,’ he breathed against my cheek. He pressed his lips gently to mine one more time and then pulled away, folding my arms across my stomach. My pulse was thudding in my ears. I put one hand over my heart. It drummed hyperactivity under my palm. ‘Do you think I'll ever get better at this?’ I wondered, mostly to myself. ‘That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?’ ‘I hope not,’ he said, a bit smug. I rolled my eyes. ‘Let's go watch the Capulets and Montagues hack each other up, all right?’ ‘Your wish, my command.’ Marcel sprawled on the couch while I started the movie, fast-forwarding through the opening credits.

But speaking of science, solid research shows all sorts of links between living in harmony with our truth and maintaining good health. There’s a whole field of medicine, psychoneuroimmunology, that focuses on the way psychological stress, including the stress of lying or keeping secrets, contributes to illness. Studies have linked deception and secret-keeping to elevated heart rate and blood pressure, increased stress hormones, higher bad-cholesterol and glucose levels, and reduced immune responses. The more significant our deceptive behavior, the worse the effect on health. For example, in one study of gay men with HIV, researchers discovered that the more closeted the men were about their sexuality, the faster their disease progressed. There was a dose-response relationship between the level of concealment and immune status—in other words, the greater the concealment, the higher the rates of disease and death. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” sounds benign, but living in even tacit separation from our real identity can literally hasten our death.

British traders, but Astor wanted more.23 He gave lip service to the company’s stated goal—to the United States government, anyway—of maintaining good trading relationships with Indigenous people to smooth the path of settlement in the West. But, in truth, his aim was single-minded: he wanted to make money. And he wanted to do it without competition from Canada or the U.S. government. Under Presidents Washington and Jefferson, the federal government had established trading posts to protect Indigenous populations.

They Apologize and Make Amends Emotionally mature people want to be responsible for their own behavior and are willing to apologize when needed. This kind of basic respect and reciprocity mends injured trust and hurt feelings and helps maintain good relationships. Although emotionally immature people may also offer apologies, these are often nothing more than lip service, designed to placate others without a real intent to change (Cloud and Townsend 1995). Such apologies have no heart in them and typically feel more like an evasion than relationship repair. People who are sincere, on the other hand, won’t just apologize; they’ll also make a clear statement about how they intend to do things differently. When you tell people that they’ve hurt or disappointed you, observe their response. Do they just defend themselves, or do they try to change? Do they apologize just to appease you, or do they understand and care about what you felt?

In some ways, this paradox bears resemblance to the one examined by the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in her 2016 book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Hochschild traveled to rural Louisiana—where waterways are among the most polluted in the nation—to ask how it is that poor southern whites whose land, water, and bodies have been devastated by industrial toxicity continue to vote for probusiness conservatives committed to deregulation and, hence, environmental destruction.74 In other words, why do poor southern whites undermine their own best interests? Hochschild finds the answer in a complex mix of rural whites’ gratitude for their industrial jobs, their Christian belief that God will ultimately restore any human damage done to the Earth and to their own bodies, and their belief that the government cannot be trusted to help them. Similarly, in attempting to understand the misogyny paradox, we might ask how it is that so many women are investing in straight relationships, when these relationships so often cause them damage? The queer theorist Lauren Berlant’s analysis of “cruel optimism”—the term she uses to describe “the condition of maintaining an attachment to a significantly problematic object”—may be useful here. Berlant asks, “Why do people stay attached to conventional good-life fantasies . . . when the evidence of their instability [and] fragility . . . abound?” People persist in these attachments, Berlant explains, because the fantasy object provides a “sense of what it means to keep on living and looking forward to being in the world.”75

around. For a human being, this has two distinct aspects. The unity of what we may call your “acting self”—a unity that we also call “integrity”—enables you to pursue your ends effectively and maintain your projects, commitments, relationships, and values over time.14 The unity of what we may call your “knowing self” involves the formation of an integrated conception of your environment, one that enables you to identify relations between the different parts of your environment well enough to find your way around in it. Those relations are temporal, spacial, causal, and for many animals social. By forming a unified conception of your environment, you also unify yourself as the subject of that conception. The fact that I identify with my self—with the agent of my projects and commitments and the subject of my conception of the world—means that there may be things about my body, such as its tendency to senescence, that are not good for me, even if perhaps they are good for my species or my genes. They are not good, that is, for the thing that I experience, and identify, as “me.” My functional good is what maintains the aspects of me that support my having a self.

Many people in the world make no distinction between a human realm, which might be called ‘culture’, and the rest of the world, which we could term ‘nature’. If kinship between people and other entities is emphasized, a quality of cousinhood or a familial relationship with the world generally emerges, and maintaining good social relations requires a normal degree of effort.

When you’re at odds with someone, you have three choices: you can maintain the status quo, you can end the relationship, or you can work to make the relationship better.

But now I have a new question for you: How are you going to make the relationship better? You can: Wait for the other person to change. Try to change the person you’re not getting along with. Focus on changing yourself. Lots of people patiently wait for the other person to change. If you choose this option, you may be in for a long wait. Although we all have the capacity to learn and grow, it can take years for people to become more loving and open, and it may never happen. Waiting for someone to change is essentially the same as choosing to maintain the status quo.

We live in a bit of a dog-eat-dog world, and instead of supporting one another to the top, we are trampled on by the over-ambitious.

Conflict with our spouse, one study finds, makes us secrete an unhealthy pattern of stress hormones, but only if we lack quality friendship outside the marriage. Studies have found that even for men who feel as if they have found their romantic soul mates, good friendship is still linked to better self-esteem. This research, combined with another study that finds that people are more resilient to negative events within their romantic relationship when they have friends (particularly for women who tend to have stronger friendships), suggests that maintaining friendships while in a romantic relationship is a part of what healthy romance looks like, one that isn’t crushed by the weight of each partner having to be everything to the other.

We don't fortunately need those we love to be sane (or we would be forever alone). We merely need them to be able in their calmer moments - to admit to their strangeness with a degree of grace and good humour. They would ideally be able to tell us, before they have hurt us too badly, some of what is likely to be most difficult about living close to them. They will warn us about their bad moods after work, their awkwardness around their mother or their tendency to panic at airports. Their confessions won't magically remove every problem, but they will hugely attenuate their impact. We are infinitely more likely to forgive someone who has a good sense of what they need to be forgiven for than someone who maintains their innocence against all odds.

We had to maintain a good relationship with Nico because he would bring tourists from his grow shop on Ample Street to our club, Adam said. At the same time, I noticed that Nico had too many friends around town in too many coffeeshops for us to meddle with him in any way, so I had to bow to him being the local; however, it never really happened. I was just respectful to Nico as I was to anyone. Although I didn't tell Adam, I thought he knew that Nico had too many connections for us to try to take away from his store in an underhanded way. Adam had apparently been trying to do this not only recently, as if he wanted to buy Nico's grow shop by the time we opened the coffeeshop near it. At least, that was my thought, or what Adam attempted to make me believe. I knew that Adam would eventually have problems with Nico, or by trusting Nico, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I have thought to myself, “Okay, boss buddy, The Prince of Israel, let's see how you're going to burn yourself again with Nico Preson. Let's see how much money you're going to lose this time around trusting this Spaniard or Mallorcan crook again.

I left Martina alone with Nico in that club, trusting her, although I'm still not sure today how she got there. Adam and I drove back to Urgell in an odd silence. I wanted to slap him so badly, but he had a point. Adam knew how to defuse tense situations by instinct, out of fear of getting caught in a lie or cheat and getting slapped. We had to maintain a good relationship with Nico because he would bring tourists from his grow shop on Ample Street to our club, Adam said. At the same time, I noticed that Nico had too many friends around town in too many coffeeshops for us to meddle with him in any way, so I had to bow to him being the local; however, it never really happened. I was just respectful to Nico as I was to anyone. Although I didn't tell Adam, I thought he knew that Nico had too many connections for us to try to take over his store in an underhanded way. Adam had apparently been trying to do this not only recently, as if he wanted to buy Nico's grow shop by the time we opened the coffeeshop near it. At least, that was my thought, or what Adam attempted to make me believe. I knew that Adam would eventually have problems with Nico, or by trusting Nico, and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I have thought to myself, “Okay, boss buddy, The Prince of Israel, let's see how you're going to burn yourself again with Nico Preson. Let's see how much money you're going to lose this time around trusting this Spaniard or Mallorcan crook again.

Dealing with a substantive problem and maintaining a good working relationship need not be conflicting goals if the parties are committed and psychologically prepared to treat each separately on its own legitimate merits. Base the relationship on mutually understood perceptions, clear two-way communication, expressing emotions without blame, and a forward-looking, purposive outlook. Deal with people problems by changing how you treat people; don’t try to solve them with substantive concessions.

Love in itself is always not enough, you need some good interpersonal skills to effectively maintain a relationship.

Experts and researchers do agree on two very basic factors that have significant impact on children’s well-being. These two factors can be said to be the foundation for a child’s true best interests: Children benefit from maintaining the familial relationships in their life that were important and meaningful to them prior to the divorce. That usually means not only parents but also extended family, such as grandparents. Children benefit when the relationship between their parents—whether married or divorced—is generally supportive and cooperative. These two factors have shown up over and over in many different studies with many different populations and measures, even those in other countries. These two factors differentiate between the children who are and are not damaged by divorce. It’s this simple: if you and your exspouse are able to cooperate sufficiently well in allowing each other to love and nurture your children, unobstructed by loyalty conflicts, you will be doing what’s in the best interests of your children. You will be allowing your children to grow, to come through your divorce with no long-term disturbances. It’s not that your kids won’t be upset or distressed. Of course they’ll react. But once you and your exspouse can set up a working limited partnership, your family will regain a certain equilibrium and your children will most probably come through it fine.

Almost all modern governments are highly conscious of what journalism calls ‘world opinion.’ For sound reasons, mostly of an economic nature, they cannot afford to be condemned in the United Nations, they do not like to be visited by Human Rights Commissions or Freedom of the Press Committees; their need of foreign investment, foreign loans, foreign markets, satisfactory trade relationships, and so on, requires that they be members in more or less good standing of a larger community of interests. Often, too, they are members of military alliances. Consequently, they must maintain some appearance of stability, in order to assure the other members of the community or of the alliance that contracts will continue to be honored, that treaties will be upheld, that loans will be repaid with interest, that investments will continue to produce profits and be safe. “Protracted internal war threatens all of this ... no ally wishes to treat with a government that is on the point of eviction.

Most people think that money and love aren’t related topics. But allow me explain this to you in a realistic way. When someone criticizes you but doesn’t see your value, this person is trying to bargain your happiness. When someone doesn’t invest in a relationship, but instead complains about her needs and wants, this person is overpricing herself. When a woman invests more in her outer beautify than inner beauty, she is focusing on her brand, and not quality. When the cost of a relationship exceeds the quality of what you get, you are being cheated. And there’s no such thing as cost for quality, because very often the nicest people you find are also the easiest to hang out with, and the kindest. They make you feel like your life is easy despite any challenges along the way, and that you haven’t lost anything but instead gained a lot. When someone adds value to your life, well then, that person proves to be a great investment. And great investments are worth a lifetime. They require little to be maintained but give you plenty in return. You should never let go a good opportunity, in love and wealth. And if you’re smart enough to understand this, you can be in a fantastic relationship and wealthy at the same time. If you can’t, you probably undervalued yourself.

Both of these attitudes -- unrelenting listlessness and dogged good cheer -- have to yield to the realities of prayer and life if the relationship with God is to grow and spiritual direction be helpful. Pointing repeatedly to discordant notes that sound in prayer will usually be the most valuable assistance directors can give. But sometimes people's defenses will be so entrenched that only a forthright confrontation will capture their attention. Such a confrontation would have to be focused clearly on the main issue: Are they willing to notice what is happening in prayer and in life, or are they screening out material that conflicts with a mood they feel they must maintain?" (Ch.5, p. 75)

is my deep desire that the topic “How Your Thoughts Work” would be the very first subject taught in school. I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can

In 1966, American anthropologist Edward T. Hall specified four distinct distance zones to describe the perception of physical space around us. Understanding these zones and honoring their invisible boundaries will give you a sixth sense about another person’s “space” as well as your own. Intimate Zone (less than 2’) —This zone represents our personal space and is reserved for the most trusted and loved people in our lives. Touching, hugging, standing side by side, and engaging in private conversations is common and encouraged. When an interloper violates this personal space, great discomfort and awkwardness can be created. What to do? Take a step back or sideways. Personal Zone (2’-4’) —This is the distance for interaction with good friends, family, social gatherings, or parties. It's an easy and relaxed space for talking, shaking hands, gesturing, laughing and making faces. Social Zone (4’-12') —This zone seems to be an appropriate distance for casual friends, colleagues, and acquaintances to interact. It is the comfortable distance we maintain while interacting or addressing large groups of people. Public Zone (over 12’) —This is the distance we keep from strangers or persons with little acquaintance. It provides the greatest distance between people. This is a safe space that still allows us to experience community and belonging with new people.

Here is why the wellbeing economy comes at the right time. At the international level there have been some openings, which can be exploited to turn the wellbeing economy into a political roadmap. The first was the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs are a loose list of 17 goals, ranging from good health and personal wellbeing to sustainable cities and communities as well as responsible production and consumption. They are a bit scattered and inconsistent, like most outcomes of international negotiations, but they at least open up space for policy reforms. For the first time in more than a century, the international community has accepted that the simple pursuit of growth presents serious problems. Even when it comes at high speed, its quality is often debatable, producing social inequalities, lack of decent work, environmental destruction, climate change and conflict. Through the SDGs, the UN is calling for a different approach to progress and prosperity. This was made clear in a 2012 speech by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who explicitly connected the three pillars of sustainable development: ‘Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.’82 Unlike in the previous century, we now have a host of instruments and indicators that can help politicians devise different policies and monitor results and impacts throughout society. Even in South Africa, a country still plagued by centuries of oppression, colonialism, extractive economic systems and rampant inequality, the debate is shifting. The country’s new National Development Plan has been widely criticised because of the neoliberal character of the main chapters on economic development. Like the SDGs, it was the outcome of negotiations and bargaining, which resulted in inconsistencies and vagueness. Yet, its opening ‘vision statement’ is inspired by a radical approach to transformation. What should South Africa look like in 2030? The language is uplifting: We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and the public institutions we have created. We feel understood. We feel needed. We feel trustful … We learn together. We talk to each other. We share our work … I have a space that I can call my own. This space I share. This space I cherish with others. I maintain it with others. I am not self-sufficient alone. We are self-sufficient in community … We are studious. We are gardeners. We feel a call to serve. We make things. Out of our homes we create objects of value … We are connected by the sounds we hear, the sights we see, the scents we smell, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the thoughts we think, the emotions we feel, the dreams we imagine. We are a web of relationships, fashioned in a web of histories, the stories of our lives inescapably shaped by stories of others … The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all … Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation … We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.83 I could have not found better words to describe the wellbeing economy: caring, sharing, compassion, love for place, human relationships and a profound appreciation of what nature does for us every day. This statement gives us an idea of sufficiency that is not about individualism, but integration; an approach to prosperity that is founded on collaboration rather than competition. Nowhere does the text mention growth. There’s no reference to scale; no pompous images of imposing infrastructure, bridges, stadiums, skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. We make the things we need. We, as people, become producers of our own destiny. The future is not about wealth accumulation, massive

Love and relationships. Moralism often turns relationships into a blame game. This occurs when a moralist is traumatized by severe criticism and in reaction maintains a self-image as a good person by blaming others. Moralism can also cause people to procure love as the way to earn salvation; gaining love convinces them they are worthy persons. This, in turn, often creates codependency — you must save yourself by saving others. On the other hand, much relativism reduces love to a negotiated partnership for mutual benefit. You relate only as long as it does not cost you anything. Without the gospel, the choice is to selfishly use others or to selfishly let yourself be used by others. The gospel leads us to do neither. We selflessly sacrifice and commit, but not out of a need to convince ourselves or others that we are acceptable. We can love a person enough to confront, yet stay with the person even when it does not benefit us.

Better spend time working hard to maintain your good habits because you may look for time to recover it but to no avail!

Many people in sales have never been forced to find new business. Taking care of existing customers has consistently been a reliable way to grow revenue. In good times, there was plenty of demand, and as long as we met the needs of existing customers and maintained a solid relationship we picked up business and everyone was happy.

It is my deep desire that the topic “How Your Thoughts Work” would be the very first subject taught in school. I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth.

If you're a company, my advice is to remember that you can't have it both ways. You can't treat your customers like family one moment and then treat them impersonally-or, even worse, as a nuisance or a competitor-a moment later when this becomes more convenient or profitable. This is not how social relationships work. If you want a social relationship, go for it, but remember that you have to maintain it under all circumstances. On the other hand, if you think you may have to play tough from time to time-charging extra for additional services or rapping knuckles swiftly to keep the consumers in line-you might not want to waste money in the first place on making your company the fuzzy feel-good choice. In that case, stick to a simple value proposition: state what you give and what you expect in return. Since you're not setting up any social norms or expectations, you also can't violate any-after all, it's just business.

Here is part of the problem, girls: we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Back in the day, women didn’t run themselves ragged trying to achieve some impressively developed life in eight different categories. No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for “self care,” served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior.