Me Vs Life Quotes

No problem," Gale replies. "I wake up ten times a night anyway." "To make sure Katniss is still here?" asks Peeta. "Something like that,"... "That was funny, what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her." "Well, WE never have,"... "She loves you, you know," says Peeta. "She as good as told me after they whipped you." "Don't believe it,"Gale answers. "The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell...well she never kissed me like that." "It was just part of the show," Peeta tells him, although there's an edge of doubt in his voice. "No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that's the only way to convince her you love her." There's a long pause. "I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then." "You couldn't," says Peeta. "She'd never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life." ... "I wonder how she'll make up her mind." "Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without

Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.

And what would happen if we never read the classics? There comes a point in life, it seems to me, where you have to decide whether you're a Person of Letters or merely someone who loves books, and I'm beginning to see that the book lovers have more fun.

Marginalia Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote "Don't be a ninny" alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of "Irony" fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. Absolutely," they shout to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin. Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!" Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points rain down along the sidelines. And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written "Man vs. Nature" in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take one step forward. We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; we pressed a thought into the wayside, planted an impression along the verge. Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria jotted along the borders of the Gospels brief asides about the pains of copying, a bird singing near their window, or the sunlight that illuminated their page- anonymous men catching a ride into the future on a vessel more lasting than themselves. And you have not read Joshua Reynolds, they say, until you have read him enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling. Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.

Your Catfish Friend If I were to live my life in catfish forms in scaffolds of skin and whiskers at the bottom of a pond and you were to come by one evening when the moon was shining down into my dark home and stand there at the edge of my affection and think, “It's beautiful here by this pond. I wish somebody loved me,” I'd love you and be your catfish friend and drive such lonely thoughts from your mind and suddenly you would be at peace, and ask yourself, “I wonder if there are any catfish in this pond? It seems like a perfect place for them.

Why then you're as mad as me. No, madder. For I distrust 'reality' and its moron mother, the universe, while you fasten your innocence to fallible devices which pretend at happy endings.

Clint: I couldn't tell if Black Cat used her bad luck powers on me or not. Deadpool: What a sad indictment of your life.

Even though its common knowledge these days, it never ceases to amaze me that all the richness of our mental life - all our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions, our love life, our religious sentiments and even what each of us regards us his own intimate private self - is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly in your head, in your brain. There is nothing else.

I’m still in love with you,” he repeated walking closer to me. “I’ve tried to stop it. I tried to ignore it. I tried to wish it away, but it won’t leave. Whenever you’re near me, I want you closer. Whenever you laugh, I want the sound to never fade. Whenever you’re sad, I want to kiss your tears away. I know all of the reasons that I shouldn’t want to be with you. I know that I can never be forgiven for what happened all those years ago, but I also know that I still love you. You’re still the fire that keeps me warm when life becomes cold. You’re still the voice that keeps the darkness at bay. You’re still the reason my heart beats. You’re still the air in my lungs. You’re still my greatest high. And I am still truly, madly, painfully in love with you. And I don’t think I’ll ever know how to stop.

Before we get to this, let me explain something about myself. I’ve been many things in my life. Student. Spy. Sacrifice. Potted plant. However, at this point, I’m something completely different from all of those—something more frightening than any of them. I’m a writer.

The things I’ve seen," he continues easily, "have shown me that the only constant is change. Too much power in one place is a fool’s errand. Eventually, and inevitably, no matter how good the intentions, or how long the life, power always wins out, and everyone suffers for it. The only true path of rational existence is balance; a constant re-assessment of the burdens of power, if you will.

I have a tendency to break rules and shake things up. I would say that with me people never know what is real and what is fiction. And I like that because reality is relative.

V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part of this. First the glimpse. Then the glimpse gives life, turned into something that illuminates the moment and may, if we're lucky -- that word again -- have even further ranging consequences and meaning. The short story writer's task is to invest the glimpse with all that is in his power. He'll bring his intelligence and literary skill to bear (his talent), his sense of proportion and sense of the fitness of things: of how things out there really are and how he sees those things -- like no one else sees them. And this is done through the use of clear and specific language, language used so as to bring to life the details that will light up the story for the reader. For the details to be concrete and convey meaning, the language must be accurate and precisely given. The words can be so precise they may even sound flat, but they can still carry; if used right they can hit all the notes.

TODAY I THINK MY RELATIONSHIP WITH HELL IS OVER. It was hell, the ancient hell. Hell: I believed that if I loved V enough, we would love each other. All I know is that I’ve been returned to earth violently; I’ve a duty to myself to survive and to see what is. I have to deal with the truth, with nothing else. Did V’s charity to me almost cause my death? I, starving, fed on the dream that V loved me and I lived a lie. So forgive me, You who knows that only truth matters. Yes—this dawn is at best difficult. The blood he let out of my skin, now dried and stiff, hurts me and there’s nothing else in my life but memories of him. Mental war is constant. Nonetheless, this is the eve before the morning. May I accept the influxes of vigor and whatever real tenderness floats by in these barren waters. And when dawn comes, armed with my patience which burns, I shall see the cities of humans which are splendid. The imagination is nothing unless it is made actual.

Is Lisa going to the prom?" I shelved my worries for the moment. "I don't know, Mom. We don't talk about the You-Know-What. We made a pact." "You could go together, if you didn't want to mess with dates and things." "I don't want to mess with the prom at all, Mom." She ignored me, placidly eating popcorn, piece by piece. "Some girls in my high school class did that and had a wonderful time. They weren't lesbians or anything. Not that it would matter if they were." "That's nice, Mom. I'm glad you're so open-minded." I grabbed my Coke and the popcorn bowl and headed for the stairs, because I could go my whole life without ever hearing my mother talk about lesbians again. "Maybe you could take Justin to the prom," she called after me, laughter in her voice. "He is such a hottie." Shoot me now.

You frequently state, and in your letter you imply, that I have developed a completely one-sided outlook and look at everything in terms of science. Obviously my method of thought and reasoning is influenced by a scientific training – if that were not so my scientific training will have been a waste and a failure. But you look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralizing invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment. Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they leaf to a pleasanter view of life (and an exaggerated idea of our own importance)... I agree that faith is essential to success in life (success of any sort) but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining. Anyone able to believe in all that religion implies obviously must have such faith, but I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world… It has just occurred to me that you may raise the question of the creator. A creator of what? ... I see no reason to believe that a creator of protoplasm or primeval matter, if such there be, has any reason to be interested in our significant race in a tiny corner of the universe, and still less in us, as still more significant individuals. Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith – as I have defined it.

I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living in me and now I enjoy ever bit of my life and hope best for rest... something beyond love lines from Love Vs Destiny...

Though it was a comfort on occasion to play with the idea that outside this place a whole life waited for me, all the relationships that bind a man to the earth and give him a feeling of having a place.

I knew there was something that separated me from Ferdinand and the life of the bush about me. And it was because I had no means in my day-to-day life of asserting this difference, of exhibiting my true self, that I fell into the stupidity of exhibiting my things.

I'm a serious sort of fella. But don't tell me your pal up in the sky exists, and mine does not. Then, my middle finger gets offended! For, my buddy up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, too insists without proof, that he is. Same as your god. Is Mr. NOT nuts? If he is, are you not?

I always believed that once you take a decision, you have to give it your all. However, by doing so you will eventually miss a piece of your heart, or should I say, you will miss a wagon of your locomotive; like a locomotive that switches tracks and heads in a new direction, taking the rest of the train, but leaving one (or five) behind, and within it, some of your behavior, actions, habits and dreams — right along with it. Well, that's what the consequences of our decisions are all about. So every now and then, when I randomly think about my next step, goal or dream, I end up thinking about the old me Vs. me now.

The forces of blind life that work across this hilltop are as irresistible as she said they were, they work by a principle more potent than fission. But I can’t look upon them as just life, impartial and eternal and in flux, an unceasing interchange of protein. And I can’t find proofs of the crawl toward perfection that she believed in. Maybe what we call evil is only as she told me that first day we met, what conflicts with our interests; but maybe there are such realities as ignorance, selfishness, jealousy, malice, criminal carelessness, and maybe these things are evil no mater whose interests they serve or conflict with.

Just say, dakhilak.” Without hesitation, “Dakhilak.” He nodded. Her accent was getting no better. “Now, you can never take it back.” “Well, what does it mean? Thank you?” She should have asked sooner. He didn’t turn to meet the gaze he felt on him, his voice full of sand, his stomach sick. “It gives me charge of your life.

I don’t need all the fuss, all the details, all the trimmings. All, essentially, that we do here. Emma does, and Parker will, and God knows Mac’s gotten into it.” “She has, and I think it’s been a surprise to her.” “But I don’t. I don’t need a ring or a license, or a spectacular white dress. It’s not marriage so much, or at all really, that matters. It’s the promise. It’s the knowing someone wants me to be part of his life. Someone loves me, that I’m the one for him. That’s not just enough, it’s everything.

It's your smile that haunts me, the one you gave me when you said goodbye.

I shall tell you about God once you've reached your imaginary heaven. Then, give me a call.

The comfort of certainty and perfection vs. the fear of uncertainty and being suboptimal. This is the struggle. Let me let you in on a secret: no one is free from this struggle.

It seems to me that if humans are capable of sacrificing this much collective benefit in the name of stabilizing an economic system that makes daily life so much more expensive and precarious, then surely humans should be capable of making some important lifestyle changes in the interest of stabilizing the physical systems upon which all of life depends. Especially because many of the changes that need to be made to dramatically cut emissions would also materially improve the quality of life for the majority of people on the planet—from

I stole you, among others, from the streets of God’s birthplace. I forced you to work as a slave. Imprisoned, mistreated and starved you and your companion. To top it off, I am in the process of selling your life to the highest bidder. Why would you trust me?

Science IS life, dear cousin. It is the lens through which I see and experience the and make sense of the world around me, and it is my way of giving back. In solving crucial scientific mysteries at King's, I became closer and closer to the understanding of life itself. And I wouldn't undo that for anything. That IS my faith.

To follow Jesus means learning to arrange my life around those practices that will enable me to stay connected to him and live more and more like him. In short, this is just another way of defining a spiritual discipline. A spiritual discipline is any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it.

you pick up new habits and let go of anxiety, you’re going to start to realize that instead of being so tightly knit with yourself there’s more to life than just you. The amazing thing is, this takes lots of pressure and tension off. Once you understand this, you’ll find that not only do you have enormous momentum towards the goal you want to get to, but you’re also becoming much more conscious of your surroundings. Not only that, you might even start to help other people in need which will give you such a feeling of accomplishment that it will become addicting and next thing you know you will have turned into a caring outgoing person rather than a grumpy anxious ogre afraid to go out into the world.

Faith and fear both involve belief, and they both involve believing things we cannot see. We all have to choose which side to land on, and my tattoo says to me every day, ‘Sadie, no more thinking something bad is going to happen. You’re no longer on the side of fear; you’re on the side of faith, and you can spend every day of the rest of your life believing God has good things in store for you!

The law of the Spirit is the liberating force of life in Christ. This leaves me with no further obligation to the law of sin and death. Spirit has superseded the sin enslaved senses as the principle law of our lives. (The law of the spirit is righteousness by faith vs the law of personal effort and self righteousness which produces condemnation and spiritual death which is the fruit of the DIY tree.)

Neither my father nor grandfather could put dates to their stories. Not because they had forgotten or were confused; the past was simply the past. I remember hearing from my grandfather that he had once shipped a boatful of slaves as a cargo of rubber. He couldn’t tell me when he had done this. It was just there in his memory, floating around, without date or other association, as an unusual event in an uneventful life.

So meaning is only a moment and a transition from absurdity to absurdity, and absurdity only a moment and a transition from meaning to meaning. Oh, that Siegfried, blond and blue-eyed, the German hero, had to fall by my hand, the most loyal and courageous! He had everything in himself that I treasured as the greater and more beautiful; he was my power, my boldness, my pride. I would have gone under in the same battle, and so only assassination was left to me. If I wanted to go on living, it could only be through trickery and cunning. Judge not! Think of the blond savage of the German forests, who had to betray the hammer-brandishing thunder to the pale Near Eastern god who was nailed to the wood like a chicken marten. The courageous were overcome by a certain contempt for themselves. But their life force bade them to go on living, and they betrayed their beautiful wild Gods, their holy trees and their awe of the German forests.

Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are common themes in the American culture today. Folks sometimes mistake my meaning when I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, because they all too often rush to drop everything that is weighing them down. They quit the job, ditch the unhappy marriage, cut out negative friends and family, get out of Dodge, etc. I do not advocate such hastiness; in fact, I believe that rash decision-making leads to more problems further down the road. Another unsatisfying job manifests; another unhappy relationship results. These people want a new environment, yet the same negative energy always seems to occupy it. This is because transformation is all about the internal shift, not the external. Any blame placed on outside sources for our unhappiness will forever perpetuate that unhappiness. Pointing the finger is giving away your power of choice and the ability to create our best life. We choose: “That person is making me unhappy” vs. “I make myself happy.” When you are in unhappy times of lack and feelings of separation – great! Sit there and be with it. Find ways to be content with little. Find ways to be happy with your Self. As we reflect on the lives of mystics past and present, it is not the things they possess or the relationships they share that bring them enlightenment – their light is within. The same light can bring us unwavering happiness (joy). Love, Peace, Joy – these three things all come from within and have an unwavering flame – life source – that is not dependent on the conditions of the outside world. This knowing is the power and wisdom that the mystics teach us that we are all capable of achieving. When I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, I am not referring to external conditions; I am referring to the choice you have to look inward and discover the ability to transform the lead of the soul into gold. Transformation is an inner journey of the soul. Why? Because, as we mentioned above, wherever we go, ourselves go with us. Thus, quitting the job, dumping relationships, etc. will not make us happy because we have forgotten the key factor that makes or breaks our happiness: ourselves. When we find, create, and maintain peace, joy, and love within ourselves, we then gain the ability to embrace the external world with the same emotions, perspective, and vibration. This ability is a form of enlightenment. It is the modern man’s enlightenment that transforms an unsatisfying life into one of fulfillment.

Cruelty, yes: it was in the nature of Indian family life. The clan that gave protection and identity, and saved people from the void, was itself a little state, and it could be a hard place, full of politics, full of hatreds and changing alliances and moran denunciations. It was the kind of family life I had known for much of my childhood: an early introduction to the ways of the world, and to the nature of cruelty. It had given me, as I suspected it had given Kala, a taste for the other kind of life, the solitary or less corwded life...

You wanna buy some death sticks?” the man asked, conspiratorially. “Um... what are death sticks?” asked Jack, struggling to get his brain to focus. “It's an incredibly addictive drug that'll dramatically shorten your lifespan each time you take it.” “So… it'll kill me?” “Oh, most definitely.” “Why in the world would I want to buy something like that?” The dealer blinked at Jack as though that thought had never occurred to him before.  “Hmmmm... maybe that's why I don't sell many of them,” mumbled the dealer.  “I'm gonna go home and rethink my life.” The

Marissa,” he mumbled, taking her hand. “Don’t want to see you drink so much.” Wait, not really what he’d been going for. “Ah . . . don’t want you to see me drink so much . . . want.” Whatever. God . . . he was so confused. V smiled a little, but it was the kind of falsey number doctors gave to patients who were about to throw up. “He’s going to need something with sugar in it. Rhage, you got a lollipop on you?” Butch looked over as a wicked handsome blond guy knelt down. “I know you,” Butch said. “Hey . . . buddy.” “Hey, my man.” Rhage reached into the pocket of his fleece and pulled out a Tootsie Pop. After ripping the wrapper off, he put the thing into Butch’s mouth. Butch groaned. Goddamn, that was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his whole life. Grape. Sweet. Ahhhh . . . “Is he seizing again?” Marissa asked. “I think he likes it,” Rhage murmured. “That right, cop?” Butch nodded and nearly lost the lollipop, so Rhage took control of the stick, holding it in place. Man, they were so good to him. Marissa stroking his hair and holding his hand. V’s palm a warm weight on his leg. Rhage making sure the Toosie Pop stayed where it needed to be—

All I ask of you (this is something you can and should do very easily) is that you advise me where I can spend my life without being overwhelmed by the fear and terror I have of being discovered by those who are searching for me; although I know the great love my parents have for me guarantees that I shall be welcomed by them, I am filled with so much shame when I think that I must appear before them in a state different from the one they had counted upon that it seems better to exile myself forever from their sight rather than see their faces and think that they are looking at mine when it is far removed from the chastity they had a right to expect of me.

I know that in every age, in every place, love is certain to be present, anonymous to be found and concrete to be held onto, so there is no reason to tremble because life on earth is nothing but one brief moment, a moment truly worth living for, which becomes even wealthier when it is for someone like you. I have found that out by being with you. Having you in my life has brought me more happiness than a lifetime could bring. You've touched my life and my soul, so deeply in your own way that you’ve helped me laugh and become my true self. I feel like I've searched my whole life and I have finally found the one meant for me and even though our time together was short, it will not be forgotten but remembered forever and ever. I pray to the almighty that everything in future comes out perfect for us.

Here's why I'm afraid of life after death: What if there is no nicotine gum? I must have access to my nicotine gum at all times. I kiss with the gum. I sleep with the gum. Anything you can do without the gum I must do with the gum. I am chewing the gum right now. I chew the gum, because I don’t trust the universe to fill me up on its own. I can’t count on the universe to sate my many holes: physical, emotional, spiritual. So I take matters into my own hands. I give myself little “doggy treats” for being alive. Each time I unwrap a new piece of nicotine gum and put it in my mouth (roughly every thirty minutes), I generate a sense of synthetic hope and potentiality. I am self-soothing. I am “being my own mommy.” I am saying, Here you go, my darling. I know life hurts. I know reality is itchy. But open your mouth. A fresh chance at happiness has arrived! I’ve been chewing nicotine gum for twelve years. I haven’t had a cigarette in ten years. So you might say the gum works, except now I have a gum problem. I am so addicted to the gum that I have to order it from special “dealers” in bulk on eBay. I get gum on all the bedding. There are many reasons why I don’t think I will have children, but the necessity of getting off the gum during pregnancy is one of them. When it comes down to anything vs. the gum, I always choose the gum. Now let me just say, before we go any further, that if you’re thinking of using nicotine gum to quit smoking you should not let my experience scare you. I am the addict’s addict. Everything I touch turns to dopamine. I can even turn people into dopamine (ask me how!).

Once you pay attention to those feelings, you can turn them around and begin to improve your overall outlook. Knowing what causes your negative feelings can work a great deal towards ending the cycle of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and panic attacks. What drove me to the ER were one of the two different kinds of anxiety symptoms I experienced throughout a day―there were the lingering kind such as a lump in the throat feeling, more commonly known as Globus Hystericus, or the dizzy feeling of literally feeling like you’re walking in a dream and no one can really see or hear you. Or there were the sudden symptoms in the form of a heart palpitation that seemed to rise from nowhere and scared the life out of me, or the numbness/tingling in my arms that led me to always think a stroke was right around the corner, but as always I was wrong again...thankfully.

TODAY I THINK MY RELATIONSHIP WITH HELL IS OVER. It was hell, the ancient hell. Hell: I believed that if I loved V enough, we would love each other. All I know is that I’ve been returned to earth violently; I’ve a duty to myself to survive and to see what is. I have to deal with the truth, with nothing else. Did V’s charity to me almost cause my death? I, starving, fed on the dream that V loved me and I lived a lie. So forgive me, You who knows that only truth matters. Yes—this dawn is at best difficult. The blood he let out of my skin, now dried and stiff, hurts me and there’s nothing else in my life but memories of him. Mental war is constant. Nonetheless, this is the eve before the morning. May I accept the influxes of vigor and whatever real tenderness floats by in these barren waters. And when dawn comes, armed with my patience which burns, I shall see the cities of humans which are splendid. The imagination is nothing unless it is made actual.

Look for a wave shaped like an A. An A. Hmm. I saw Zs and H's and Vs. I saw the Hindi alphabet and the Thai alphabet. I saw Arabic script. I saw no As. Finally I gave up, and chose the next wave that would have me, which turned out to be a poor move. There is a moment, shortly after one accepts the imminence of one's demise, when it occurs that you could be elsewhere: that if you simply left the house a little later, or lingered over a Mai Tai, you would not be here now confronting your mortality. This moment occurred just as I encountered a very large (from my perspective), rare and surprising wave. A wave that was pitching and howling, and it really had no business being where it was - underneath me. The demon wave picked me up, and after that I have only a a vague recollection of spinning limbs, a weaponized surf board, and chaotic white water, churning together over a reef. I decided surfing was not for me. I generally no longer engage in adrenaline rush activities that carry with them a strong likely hood of life-altering injury. (p. 138)

It is the purpose of both God and the devil to provide you with the answers to these key questions.  If Satan is able to establish his images of identity and destiny in your life, he then has set up a system of governing your life that more or less runs itself and requires very little maintenance or service on his part. It is an effective scheme of destruction in your life. I believe that it has always been God’s intention to impart, especially at specific junctures in life, His message of identity and destiny.  He has appointed special agents on this earth to ensure that His message of identity and destiny is revealed.  These agents are called PARENTS.  Their primary job is to make sure that children receive God’s message of identity and destiny throughout their growing-up years. Satan’s purpose is to access these very agents of God, the parents, and to impart his message of identity and destiny.  Many times parents are unwittingly used to impart the devil’s message rather than God’s. SATAN’S MESSAGE VS. GOD’S MESSAGE What type of message does the devil want to reveal regarding identity and destiny?  His message is something along these lines.  IDENTITY: “You are worthless.  You aren’t even supposed to be here.  You are a mistake.  Something is drastically wrong with you.  You are a ‘nobody.’” DESTINY: “You have no purpose.  You are a total failure.  You’ll never be a success.  You are inadequate.  You are not equipped to accomplish the job.  Nothing ever works out for you, etc..” I once heard a woman say, “It’s as if someone dropped me off on the planet forty some years ago, and I’ve been trying to make my way the best I could ever since.  But deep inside, I don’t feel as though I belong here, and I’ve been waiting for that someone to come back and pick me up.”  God never intended for anyone to feel that he doesn’t belong.  That is Satan’s message. God's message of identity and destiny is something like this:  IDENTITY:  “To Me you are very valuable and are worth the life of Jesus Christ.  You are a `somebody.’  You do belong here.  Before the foundation of the earth, I planned for you.  You were no mistake.” DESTINY:  “You are destined to a great purpose on this earth.  I placed you here for a purpose.  You are a success as a person and are completely adequate and suited to carry out My purpose.  Set your vision high, and allow Me to complete great accomplishments in your life.” JOE’S STORY Joe was a well dressed, successful business man in his late thirties when I first met him.  He had come to a weekend “FROM CURSE TO BLESSING” seminar.  As we moved into the small-group ministry time, Joe began to share, somewhat sheepishly, about the tremendous problem that anger had caused him in his life.  “Anger causes me to embarrass myself, and

Another dangerous neoliberal word circulating everywhere that is worth zooming in on is the word ‘resilience’. On the surface, I think many people won’t object to the idea that it is good and beneficial for us to be resilient to withstand the difficulties and challenges of life. As a person who lived through the atrocities of wars and sanctions in Iraq, I’ve learnt that life is not about being happy or sad, not about laughing or crying, leaving or staying. Life is about endurance. Since most feelings, moods, and states of being are fleeting, endurance, for me, is the common denominator that helps me go through the darkest and most beautiful moments of life knowing that they are fleeing. In that sense, I believe it is good for us to master the art of resilience and endurance. Yet, how should we think about the meaning of ‘resilience’ when used by ruling classes that push for wars and occupations, and that contribute to producing millions of deaths and refugees to profit from plundering the planet? What does it mean when these same warmongers fund humanitarian organizations asking them to go to war-torn countries to teach people the value of ‘resilience’? What happens to the meaning of ‘resilience’ when they create frighteningly precarious economic structures, uncertain employment, and lay off people without accountability? All this while also asking us to be ‘resilient’… As such, we must not let the word ‘resilience’ circulate or get planted in the heads of our youth uncritically. Instead, we should raise questions about what it really means. Does it mean the same thing for a poor young man or woman from Ghana, Ecuador, Afghanistan vs a privileged member from the upper management of a U.S. corporation? Resilience towards what? What is the root of the challenges for which we are expected to be resilient? Does our resilience solve the cause or the root of the problem or does it maintain the status quo while we wait for the next disaster? Are individuals always to blame if their resilience doesn’t yield any results, or should we equally examine the social contract and the entire structure in which individuals live that might be designed in such a way that one’s resilience may not prevail no matter how much perseverance and sacrifice one demonstrates? There is no doubt that resilience, according to its neoliberal corporate meaning, is used in a way that places the sole responsibility of failure on the shoulders of individuals rather than equally holding accountable the structure in which these individuals exist, and the precarious circumstances that require work and commitment way beyond individual capabilities and resources. I find it more effective not to simply aspire to be resilient, but to distinguish between situations in which individual resilience can do, and those for which the depth, awareness, and work of an entire community or society is needed for any real and sustainable change to occur. But none of this can happen if we don’t first agree upon what each of us mean when we say ‘resilience,’ and if we have different definitions of what it means, then we should ask: how shall we merge and reconcile our definitions of the word so that we complement not undermine what we do individually and collectively as people. Resilience should not become a synonym for surrender. It is great to be resilient when facing a flood or an earthquake, but that is not the same when having to endure wars and economic crises caused by the ruling class and warmongers. [From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]

Sometimes I worry that the TV series I watch are more real to me than my own life. That the love life, family, and work problems of Meredith from Grey's Anatomy are more tangible than my own.

There is a taboo in the psychology world, to ask a therapist what their cure rate is. Though the therapist knows what the person means in asking, and could give an answer, they typically dislike the question, because it is a way of measuring the psychologist on something that depends ultimately on their patients. To add to that the therapist doesn’t typically see a struggle in their patient’s life not being a struggle, but that a person gets better at not letting it get to them. I would say that our experience in life will always be in reference to our weaknesses, but that isn’t a bad thing. Our weaknesses plague us until we decide to really face them, and then they become strengths as we change them. I think it is a matter of maturing, and not curing in psychopathology, we’re naïve not broken. Alcoholism for instance, once it is overcome, the person doesn’t forget all the intricacies of the cost-benefit of alcohol once they become sober. They still know exactly what problems alcohol seemed to solve, and when faced with those problems, they cannot completely exclude it as a possible remedy. Why? For example, I personally don’t drink alcohol, but I know many people who see it as a normal part of their life, and have set what they feel are appropriate bounds for its use. It is a lot easier for me, who has not experienced any benefits, but knows several disadvantages, to not see alcohol as worth it. However, similarly in my life, fully knowing both the advantages of things like soda, fast food, sleeping in, not exercising and whatever else, in the cost benefit analysis, they sometimes still win. Every asset has associated risks, and when making a decision, while trying to optimize value, we are not picking between correct or incorrect, or right or wrong, but cost vs benefit in safe bet vs the risky bet. Whether I can study or write better while drinking a caffeinated soda has yielded inconsistent results, but sometimes the gamble seems worth it, however drinking a soda before going to the gym has yielded consistently negative results. This is the process of maturity, and the only way to help someone mature faster, is to help them remember and process the data they have already gathered or are currently gathering. One thing that slows down this process is false information. Many cases of grave disability due to psychopathology are caused because of the burden of an overwhelming amount of counterproductive information, and limited resources of productive information.

Nonsensical people of I-me-my-one-godism blaspheme against the god of every other religion but at the same time expect the latter to respect the former's touted god! Makes perfect sense, eh?

Religious fundamentalists make me scratch my nuts. Makes me wonder. Are my nuts religious, or are the religious nuts? Or what?

My pal up there, Mr. NOT, has anointed me as the latest messiah. Yeah, just like that! So, don't you dare utter a word against your newest boss, or I'm gonna whup your fat ass.

7. To Be Brave, You First Must Be Afraid Being brave isn’t about not feeling scared. Real courage is all about overcoming your fears. There is little courage involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return. While I was serving in the military, I suffered a free-fall parachuting accident in Southern Africa, where I broke my back in three places. I then spent 18 months back in the UK, in and out of military rehabilitation, desperately trying to recover. It was the hardest, darkest, most frightening time I had ever known. Nothing was certain, every movement was agony and my future hung in the balance. No one could tell me whether I would even walk properly again. It had been a jump that had cost me my career, my movement and almost my life. The idea of ever jumping again was almost impossible for me to face. Yet over seven seasons of Born Survivor and Man Vs Wild, I have since had to jump out of almost every aircraft imaginable: hot-air balloons, military C-130 cargo planes, helicopters, bi-planes, old World War Two Dakotas. You name it: the list is long. And each time it is still hard for me. I never sleep much the night before, and I have recurring nightmares from my accident, which predictably surface just before a jump. It is a real mountain in my mind, one that induces a dep gnawing fear. Heart racing, sweaty palms, dry throat. But I have to force myself to feel that fear and do it anyway. It is my work. The crew on the adventure TV shows I have done know that skydiving is hard for me. And I know there will always be a hand that reaches across to my shoulder during the few moments before that plane door opens. The team know I am busy facing demons every time we go up, but it is the job, and I don’t ever want to let my demons win. Bravery is about facing up to the things we fear the most, and overcoming and conquering those fears…or at least quelling them for a while. And the greater the fear, the greater the bravery. But one thing I know for sure: it is only by doing what we fear that we can ever truly learn to be brave.

I love religious nuts. They make me remember I have them too. So, being a health nut, I scratch them religiously. Just as I do my butt.

Also a good B complex vitamin taken with food can help support neurotransmitters in the brain that are responsible for stress management, and have worked well along with the new changes in my day to day life. Herbs are also a good way to fight mild to moderate Anxiety levels. Unfortunately my anxiety levels were so high that herbs didn’t do much for me, but they are definitely worth experimenting with. Kava Kava is a fast acting de-stressor that also acts as a joint pain reliever. Valerian Root is a good remedy for moderate anxiety and can be used to treat nervousness, insomnia, and high blood pressure. Finally, Chamomile, which is best used in tea form and is great for its calming influence on the mind, especially for people who have trouble sleeping.

I LOVED it. The characters in this novel struggle with love, friendship, dealing with right vs. wrong, figuring out who they REALLY are and deciding what they're meant to do in life. The complex characters are truly fascinating...Additionally, the plot is just so intricate and organized...it's seriously interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I would definitely recommend this book.

Santa, himself, was sitting behind his desk when I walked in. "Hello," he greeted me. He looked exactly as one would expect. Long white beard and a thick head of white hair. His cheeks were rosy and he truly did look jolly when he smiled at me. "You're the new Karma." "Yes," I smiled back all the while waiting for the scolding. "Would you care for a cookie?" He motioned to the heaped plate on the corner of his desk. "No thanks." I didn't want to get thrown out mid-bite. He was Santa. He knew everything. Any second, he'd tell me to get the hell out of his office, throwing coal at me as I ran. He stood up from his chair and walked around to the fireplace that blazed in the corner, lending the space a warm light. "Would you like to sit?" He motioned to the two well-stuffed chairs in front of it. "I don't want to take up too much of your time. I can see you're busy." I made a step backward toward the door. "I got time for you." Guess I was going to have to see this thing out until the coal started flying. I watched as he sat. He was still smiling. I took the seat across from him. Maybe he didn't know. "I know why you're nervous." Well, there went that. "Karma, sometimes there are gray areas in life. Things that don't fit neatly into wrong vs right.

Regret vs. Good Times "If I had to regret the good times I spent with every lover who eventually disillusioned me, my love life would be reduced to ten seconds.

There has been one further element to Man vs. Wild’s success, and that is its underlying message. I believe it is actually the biggest factor. If you think about it, at heart, there is such a strong link between survival and life. I mean, we are all in a battle of some sort, aren’t we? Surviving. It feels like day by day sometimes. But talent, skill, and luck are only a part of what carries people through. A small part. There is a bigger element that separates the real survivors. It is heart, hope, and doggedness. Those are the qualities that really matter. Ditto in life. A young kid came up to me in the street a few days ago. He looked me square in the eye and asked me: “If you could tell me one survival message, what would it be?” I thought about it for a moment. I wanted to give him a decent answer. Then I saw it very clearly. “Smile when it’s raining, and when you’re going through hell--keep going.” The boy thought for a moment. Then he looked up at me and said: “It rains a lot where I live.” We all know the feeling. Maybe he’ll remember the message one day--when he really needs it.

I am proud to say to you that, I am a scientist and I accept all religions to be biologically true and equal. My pursuit of understanding the human mind has taught me universal tolerance.

Thus speaks Christ our Lord to us: You call me Eternal, then do not seek me. You call me Fair, then do not love me. You call me Gracious, then to not trust me. You call me Just, then do not fear me. You call me Life, then do not choose me. You call me Light, then do not see me.

To take control of your thoughts, then to have those new empowering thoughts turn into positive action in your life is extremely important. It may be one of the biggest tools I’ve used to conquer my anxiety.

As you pick up new habits and let go of anxiety, you’re going to start to realize that instead of being so tightly knit with yourself there’s more to life than just you. The amazing thing is, this takes lots of pressure and tension off. Once you understand this, you’ll find that not only do you have enormous momentum towards the goal you want to get to, but you’re also becoming much more conscious of your surroundings. Not only that, you might even start to help other people in need which will give you such a feeling of accomplishment that it will become addicting and next thing you know you will have turned into a caring outgoing person rather than a grumpy anxious ogre afraid to go out into the world.

How will you know when you have fully recovered? When your body has had enough rest and nourishment that your energy is back and chronic fatigue is not an issue anymore. When your fearful thoughts (which may continue to creep in) don’t send you into the anxious cycle, and you can brush them off knowing that your past has given you enough information that the thing you fear most will not come true. This is just another false alarm. When you stop giving attention to those false alarms, then the many faces of anxiety will recede. When you begin to stop just THINKING positive, thinking that this alone will turn things around. Action is the main element that will turn your anxiety disorder around, in my struggles I was the most anxious positive person ever, but I kept telling myself lies such as things are getting better, things are getting better...THINGS ARE NOT GETTING BETTER, telling yourself the truth that things are not ok and this is not all there is to life, will get you to take massive action and celebrate the smallest victories. When you start taking responsibility for your anxiety disorder. Certain factors such as your childhood environment may actually be a reason for your anxiety disorder that you are experiencing right now, but in the end when you begin to take responsibility for your issues you instantly stop playing the blame game and stop being the victim. Once you take the power back into your own hands, you will begin to recognize that you ALWAYS have a choice in the matter, it just takes time to recondition yourself until desensitization begins. When your thoughts, emotions and physical body are in sync. It may seem that at the moment your thoughts are running out of control, you’re emotionally unstable and you may feel completely fatigued or scared to partake in a daily exercise routine because of fear due to your heart. Once these three things are aligned and the daily struggle to have clear thoughts, to try so hard to be upbeat and the fear of exercising is gone, days feel enjoyable and easy for you again. No more fight or flight out of the blue and no more sweating the small stuff.

My mind was like a sharp knife, cutting with cold effectiveness, I paid no attention to the astonishment of the teachers, the admiration or envy of my schoolmates... I was busy with this wonderful machine with which I had been endowed. I was cold as a field of ice, nothing in the world could shake me... After three years the headmaster – who was an Englishman – said to me, "This country hasn't got the scope for that brain of yours, so take yourself off..." This is a fact in my life: the way chance has placed in my path people who gave me a helping hand at every stage, people for whom I had no feelings of gratitude; I used to take their help as though it were some duty they were performing for me.

I left him an exact fifteen percent," he said simply. "He was probably expecting nothing. Instead I wanted to let him know he was just the help, and nothing more to us." His smoldering fire eyes met mine, and it rattled me. "I've never done that to anyone in my life.

The rich won't win. They are pampered blokes. We have daily struggles. They don't even know what struggle is in life. We face adversities on a daily basis. They lead a life of luxury. We have to make choices for our survival. They don't know that they have to make any kind of choices. We have to take care of our families. They don't know what they want. We have to fight on a daily basis to earn our pennies. They squander their money on stupid luxuries. We fight for survival. They give a damn to us and the world. ~ Call me the Professor or Poet or Avijeet or Musafir

This is how we make all lives matter (The Sonnet) Wherever a black life is shot of suspicion, I am that black life that didn't matter. Wherever a woman is forced to remain pregnant, I am that woman who doesn't matter. Wherever a muslim is presumed terrorist, I am that muslim who doesn't matter. Wherever a queer life is persecuted, I am that queer who doesn't matter. Standing up to cannibalism requires, No exclusive background and identity. All that matters is that you are human, Only requirement of justice is humanity. This is how we make all lives matter, all lives free. Injustice on anyone anywhere is injustice on me.

I reached that point in my musings when it suddenly struck me that the present-day Communists were worse than Nietzsche. He claimed God was dead - intimating, at least, that He had lived; but to the Reds, He is not only now non-existent, but never had existence. That is a worse blasphemy. From it everything else in their regime follows quite logically: without God, no real authority; without real authority, no law and order; without law and order, no genuine freedom; without genuine freedom, no true human life or being. To such people, nothing is sacred; hence, nothing is truly human - for man is a sacred being. I shuddered as these truths seemed to grow out of one another. With God non-existent, the future life a myth, religion only a hoax, where can there be moral law? With no moral law why not lie, murder, rap, starve people, torture? Why not deceive?

Holly implored him. "Juan, I had a miscarriage. Obviously, God doesn't want me to carry our baby. But now, you, you can. This is a miracle! This is our second chance. God is good, all the time! Can I get an Amen?" She punctuated her words with a little celebratory dance. “I have to call Pastor Pete with the exciting miracle. Oh wait, I wonder if he is pregnant, too?” She laughed. “Can you imagine all the men at church, pregnant? We have to go next Sunday, I have got to see this.” But Juan, determined to make his stance clear, was unyielding. "Holly! I get to have a choice here." "Choice.” She snickered. “Welcome to life as a woman!” Holly spun around to see him. “Our entire existence is doing things we don't want to do, starting with our first period to having the great portal between our legs that brings humans into this world…and then you men dictating what we can and can’t do. Choice. Please.

Holly's voice was filled with exasperation as she continued, "All because of their extremism, I have to suffer—I might go to jail and lose my life.” She shook her head and looked at the baby booties. “It's not fair, Juan. I don't practice their version of Christianity. I love Jesus, always have, and am Pro-life unless the mother's in danger or it’s something like rape. But this, these laws, they get to force me into their weird, cruel version of Christianity---that Jesus himself would hate. I did nothing wrong, yet I mean, who do they think they are? This whole thing should be between the mother and God, not the mother, the government, and God! It’s like our government thinks that they need to play God and be the judge, and push him off his throne.” Her voice grew louder, and Juan walked in and sat on the bed, knowing she needed comfort. Her inner volcano was about to spew. “And by the way, how many children, babies, and unborn babies did God kill in the Old Testament? A lot! So I'm pretty sure he'd be okay with having common sense on the issue of abortion.

If you find your heart very desolated and afflicted at the loss of property, believe me, you love it too much. The strongest proof of love for a lost object is suffering over its loss... We must never allow money or possessions to have any place in our hearts. On Avarice vs. Generosity

The news about Eddoes and the shoes travelled round the street pretty quickly. My mother was annoyed. She said, ‘You see what sort of thing life is. Here I is, working my finger to the bone. Nobody flinging me a pair of shoes just like that, you know. And there you got that thin-arse little man, doing next to nothing, and look at all the things he does get.

Human AF isn't just about being authentic. It's not just about posting a photo with messy hair and #therealme. It's not about sharing a teeny bit of struggle on Facebook. "Guys, my creativity is blocked. See, even people like me have tough days." That still has a tone of I have my shit together. Being Human AF is about being authentic about where we're being inauthentic. Like saying "You know what guys? I've been saying that I'm totally on board this climate change thing. But behind the scenes, I've made zero changes in my life." Cos you're human AF. It's about recognizing the parts of us, thoughts, behaviours, or feelings that are so in opposition of who we think we are, that we barely even admit them to ourselves. Like how you're a spiritually sound lightworker who meditates wearing white in the mornings and practises reiki to heal others, but 10 minutes later pulls the finger at someone who cuts you off on the freeway yelling, "Fuck off dickhead!" Cos you're human AF. And because road rage is real. Human AF is being honest about where we are being hypocritical, where we're saying one thing and practising another, where we're still really struggling ourselves in an area we claim to have nailed. Like being a really powerful health and wellness coach and preaching healthy habits, yet in the evening you still eat 45g of sugar before bed cos you just haven't quite nailed the harmonious relationship with food you're teaching to others. These so called dualities — good vs. bad, positive vs. negative — are not dualities at all. The reiki and the road rage are equal parts magic and human.

Once male and female poles have bonded together, the undifferentiated energies of life can then circulate through us. Looking at the state of the earth, it's no surprise that we worship the patriarchal state of stillness and silence while disregarding the feminine artistic and biological forces. We exist in a patriarchal society where the feminine influence of production has been distorted and ignored. The profound feminine intelligence within us is our souls, the spirit world, the natural world, and our emotions. These were all stolen, killed, or demonized. The patriarchal axis forces us into stereotypical awareness. In somatic studies, the brain, the "working" force, and our rational minds are portrayed. We need that force to shed light on our ideas, to act upon our feminine intuition. There will always be two polarities of masculine forms of consciousness at odds with one another. The masculine vs. the feminine, me vs. someone else— what we see as opposite and inward and outwardly warring forces. There is a triple form of consciousness rooted in the feminine pole: the power to see two things but also what lies between them, to access liminal space, to continually create and re-create. In the end, this is the power from which we all emerge to separate into binary consciousness. Only by revering intensely the feminine force of existence, by linking the head with the body, the masculine with the feminine, may we push beyond the constraints of patriarchal truth and into awareness of the divine concept that gave birth to all of us. It is an incorrect assumption to state that awakening kundalini is purely feminine energy or energy of the goddess. The power of creation and evolution, which are profoundly feminine powers, certainly never stops being. Yet illumination arrives as the masculine and feminine powers within us intertwine and embrace each other rather than hinder each other. By merging these feminine and masculine principles, we move into wholeness beyond a state of separation and thus become fully realized. We become masculine and feminine, empty, and full. We can even go beyond those states and witness them, observe consciousness or energy waves that flow through our body. In kundalini awakenings, the completion state is not one of a single energy chain streaming from the genitals through the top of the head or into the brain, but of all energies merging and becoming one, and both flowing downwards, entangled, into the space of the heart. This is a state of being constantly at odds with each other within and without, between two forces— male and female, void and non-void, extension and contraction, fullness, and absence. This is a state of being both forces at the same time, as well as falling between them.

Next is the vegetative state (VS), which I wrote about in chapter 2. VS patients, in contrast to comatose ones, have irregular cycles of eye opening and closure. They can swallow, yawn, may move their eyes or head but not in an intentional manner. No willed actions are left—only activity that controls basic processes such as breathing, sleep–wake transitions, heart rate, eye movements, and pupillary responses. Bedside communication—“If you hear me, squeeze my hand or move your eyes”—meets with failure. With proper nursing care to avoid bedsores and infections, VS patients can live for years.