Nice Journey Quotes

An unfamiliar city is a fine thing. That's the time and place when you can suppose that all the people you meet are nice. It's dream time.

Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journey of exploration and discovery.

Advice to my younger self: 1 Start where you are with what you have 2 Try not to hurt other people 3 Take more chances 4 If you fail, keep trying

Bipolar illness, manic depression, manic-depressive illness, manic-depressive psychosis. That’s a nice way of saying you will feel so high that no street drug can compete and you will feel so low that you wish you had been hit by a Mack truck instead.

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.

The symbol of Goddess gives us permission. She teaches us to embrace the holiness of every natural, ordinary, sensual dying moment. Patriarchy may try to negate body and flee earth with its constant heartbeat of death, but Goddess forces us back to embrace them, to take our human life in our arms and clasp it for the divine life it is - the nice, sanitary, harmonious moment as well as the painful, dark, splintered ones. If such a consciousness truly is set loose in the world, nothing will be the same. It will free us to be in a sacred body, on a sacred planet, in sacred communion with all of it. It will infect the universe with holiness. We will discover the Divine deep within the earth and the cells of our bodies, and we will lover her there with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds.

I'm terrified that my journey won't tie up all the loose ends nicely. Because this is a life, not just a story, and life doesn't always go the way stories tell you.

Arms folded across his chest, Arin walked to the end of the pier. “Did you have to bring the tiger?” “I kept him hungry during the journey here, just for you,” Roshar said. “Go give him a nice snuggle, won’t you? He’s come all this way to see you. The least you could do is give him one of your arms to eat. Too much? What about a hand? At least some fingers. Arin, where’s your hospitality?

It's nice to think that picking uncertain paths may not necessarily alter their destination too drastically, simply the journey undertaken to reach it.

She would be quite bright, if she was ever put in a position to find out, but long ago found that being a scatterbrain, as she'd put it, give you an easier journey through life.

Traveling alone, you get to be whoever you want. I don't mean lie. I mean you get to be a blank slate. You can't leave behind your skin color, or your height, or the handsomeness or homeliness of your face. But you can leave your story behind. If you've broken hearts, the new place doesn't know. If you've lost trust in people and yourself, the new place doesn't know. If everyone thinks you love Jesus, but you never really have figured out what you believe, the new place doesn't care. It may assume you have it all tied nicely in a bow. All your thoughts and histories. Just feeling like your past isn't a vice to hold you in place can be very freeing. Feeling like your family and the expectations and the traditions and the judgments are absent... it can fill your veins with possibility and fire.

It's never ok to hit a girl. Never. Not even if she cheats on you. A girl is not your property. She's a human being. She is just as important as you. She is your equal. And her wishes and feelings are just as valid as yours. All you can do is treat her nice, and hope she wants to be with you. If she chooses to be with you, great! If not, or if she chooses to leave you at some point, you have to let her go. You have no right to stop her. You don't own her, and you don't have the right to tell her what to do. She's your partner. Not your servant, not your sex slave, and not your punching bag.

Like so many nice people who seek power, I wanted to force everyone else to be nice. It's called totalitarianism.

Women are afraid of the intensity of feeling that may surface as their eyes are opened to the wider reality of a woman’s life. A woman’s intensity makes everyone uncomfortable, including herself. We were taught to be nice, not angry, even when our own lives and sanity are at stake.

Clarity repositions you to quit nice activities that take you nowhere in order to pursue risky tasks that take you somewhere.

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.

It would be nice to begin the journey with who we are. But "who we are" is a house of mirrors, a tangled knot, a great and terrible Oz that in the final analysis may consist of nothing more than, well, nothing. The self, I am afraid, may be more of an onion than a fruit, and "who we are" is the skin we shed.

Ego focuses on one’s own survival, pleasure, and enhancement to the exclusion of others; ego is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in terms of threat or no threat, like little children who classify all people as “nice” or “mean.” Conscience, on the other hand, both democratizes and elevates ego to a larger sense of the group, the whole, the community, the greater good. It sees life in terms of service and contribution, in terms of others’ security and fulfillment.

Well, runhh it all to harr,” Rafe grumbled. “Why does bein’ the nice guys always cause us so much trouble?

People don’t follow you because you are nice, they follow you because they believe the place you are taking them is better than the place they are.

growth covers up a lot of sins.

Your spiritual journey won't be all nice and flowery. Your inner demons will come to the surface and make you feel terrible before leaving you permanently.

I like being alone when there's no one around. It's a nice freedom to be the only one there, humming and coping, following my impulse. Being by myself in a public place is different, though, and requires a certain sturdiness. It brings in the element of self-consciousness.

...Her boyfriend gives her a Mercedes, [her friends] say, 'Oh, that's nice.' But her boyfriend gives her a diamond, they say, 'Oh, he's serious.' It's not just the gift of love-it's the gift of commitment. She's not jumping up and down because she got a diamond ring but because she got a guy! There are those who say you don't need diamonds. I say they're right. Just like you don't need sex.

If it weren’t for public transportation,” Sam said, “my brother wouldn’t be getting married today. He and Maggie fell in love along the ferry route from Bellingham to Anacortes … which brings to mind the old saying that life is a journey. Some people have a natural sense of direction. You could put them in the middle of a foreign country and they could find their way around. My brother is not one of those people.” Sam paused as some of the guests started laughing, and his older brother gave him a mock-warning glance. “So when Mark by some miracle manages to end up where he was supposed to be, it’s a nice surprise for everyone, including Mark.” More laughter from the crowd. “Somehow, even with all the roadblocks and detours and one-way streets, Mark managed to find his way to Maggie.” Sam raised his glass. “To Mark and Maggie’s journey together. And to Holly, who is loved more than any girl in the whole wide world.

If you destroy the habitat of a species, if you kill off the food it depends on – milk parsley, in the case of the Swallowtail – then it is done for. William Burroughs had a nice phrase for it. It no longer has the ghost of a chance. Mind

But the modern Pharisees don’t see it that way. Instead, these critics put on their $100 blue jeans, leave their nice homes, drive their SUVs to the trendy coffee shop down the street, pull out their $1,000 MacBooks, sip their $8 coffees, and type blog posts about how wealth is evil.

It would be nice to think that the menacing aspects of North Korea were for display also, that the bombs and reactors were Potemkin showcases or bargaining chips. On the plane from Beijing I met a group of unsmiling Texan types wearing baseball caps. They were the 'in-country' team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, there to inspect and neutralize North Korea's plutonium rods. Not a nice job, but, as they say, someone has to do it. Speaking of the most controversial reactor at Yongbyon, one of the guys said, 'No sweat. She's shut down now.' Nice to know. But then, so is the rest of North Korean society shut down—animation suspended, all dead quiet on the set, endlessly awaiting not action (we hope) or even cameras, but light.

I thought of how many women told me dispiritedly about how their husbands waited for them to ask—or to make a list—and how demoralizing that was for them. I could not help thinking that there was some element of passive aggression in this recurrent theme of nice men, good, playful dads, full of initiative and motivation at work, who “waited to be asked” to do the more tedious baby-related work at home, until the asking was finally scaled back or stopped.

Later in the evening Misabel went for a solitary stroll by the sea. She saw the moon rise and start his lonesome journey through the night. "He's exactly like me," Misabel thought sadly. "So plump and lonely." At this thought she felt so forsaken and mild that she had to cry a little. "What are you crying for?" asked Whomper nearby. "I don't know, but it feels nice," replied Misabel. "But people cry because they feel sorry, don't they?" objected Whomper. "Well, yes--the moon," Misabel replied vaguely and blew her nose. "The moon and the night and all the sadness there is..." "Oh, yes," said Whomper.

It took 500 men just to pull each sarsen, plus 100 more to dash around positioning the rollers. Just think about it for a minute. Can you imagine trying to talk 600 people into helping you drag a 50-ton stone 18 miles across the countryside, muscle it into an upright position and then saying, ‘Right, lads! Another twenty like that, plus some lintels and maybe a couple of dozen nice bluestones from Wales, and we can party!’ Whoever was the person behind Stonehenge was one dickens of a motivator, I’ll tell you that.

I know better than most men that she is a conglomerate of skin, blood, tissue, bones, muscles and nerves, but only look how nicely arranged.

Jesus’ baptism is not a nice ceremony, a religious formality.  It was a radical declaration of Gods kingdom, His righteousness, and the upside-down order of things.

They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

My preferred method doesn’t involve fixating on an external outcome or destination, but instead emphasises the feel-good journey. It’s based on what I call NICE goals.

It was nice to have the boys noticing her for a little while, when she was trying to work out social interaction; boobs were like a cheat code for getting along.

I want you to have some nice stuff; I just don't want your nice stuff to have you.

Are you "too nice" or do you lack healthy boundaries?

They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional. I was the girl abandoned by her mother. I was the girl who kneeled on grits. What a special case I was.

Purpose, sir. It's nice to have purpose. It's not about the treasure—it's about the hunt." "That, Miss Rook, is an irresponsible and irrational sentiment, and one of your finest qualities.

In the novel Fight Club, the character Jack’s apartment is blown up. All of his possessions—“every stick of furniture,” which he pathetically loved—were lost. Later it turns out that Jack blew it up himself. He had multiple personalities, and “Tyler Durden” orchestrated the explosion to shock Jack from the sad stupor he was afraid to do anything about. The result was a journey into an entirely different and rather dark part of his life. In Greek mythology, characters often experience katabasis—or “a going down.” They’re forced to retreat, they experience a depression, or in some cases literally descend into the underworld. When they emerge, it’s with heightened knowledge and understanding. Today, we’d call that hell—and on occasion we all spend some time there. We surround ourselves with bullshit. With distractions. With lies about what makes us happy and what’s important. We become people we shouldn’t become and engage in destructive, awful behaviors. This unhealthy and ego-derived state hardens and becomes almost permanent. Until katabasis forces us to face it. Duris dura franguntur. Hard things are broken by hard things. The bigger the ego the harder the fall. It would be nice if it didn’t have to be that way. If we could nicely be nudged to correct our ways, if a quiet admonishment was what it took to shoo away illusions, if we could manage to circumvent ego on our own. But it is just not so. The Reverend William A. Sutton observed some 120 years ago that “we cannot be humble except by enduring humiliations.” How much better it would be to spare ourselves these experiences, but sometimes it’s the only way the blind can be made to see.

The river is the journey of your life. You find a good woman to ride the river with, and the journey will be right nice. Just be real sure that you’re listenin’ to your heart and not your head when you make your choice.

Yeah, probably.” She looked into my eyes a second longer, then pulled something out of her shirt pocket. It was a picture. A picture of a lady who looked an awful lot like Tammy. Friendly eyes. A big, warm smile. “That’s my sister,” Tammy said. Then she added, “Charlene,” and she added it soft. “She looks nice.” “She was.” I looked up at Tammy and she looked down at me and then she said, “Let’s get this ol’ girl back on the road.” I smiled big and she smiled

A woman in Deep Sleep is one who goes about in an unconscious state. She seems unaware or unfazed by the truth of her own female life, the truth about women in general, the way women and the feminine have been wounded, devalued, and limited within culture, churches, and families. She cannot see the wound or feel the pain. She has never acknowledged, much less confronted, sexism within the church, biblical interpretations, or Christian doctrine. Okay, so women have been largely missing from positions of church power, we’ve been silenced and relegated to positions of subordination by biblical interpretations and doctrine, and God has been represented to us as exclusively male. So what? The woman in Deep Sleep is oblivious to the psychological and spiritual impact this has had on her. Or maybe she has some awareness of it all but keeps it sequestered nicely in her head, rarely allowing it to move down into her heart or into the politics of her spirituality.

I want you to get out a nice note card or piece of stationery and write a letter to yourself. Yes. To yourself. In it, encourage yourself with what you have learned from this journey. What do you need to work on? Why do you need to work on it? What relationships are being damaged or precious time and memories lost because of how you interact with those in your life, whether they are family, friend, or even foe? Spend some time thinking about this and then let your pen and paper do the talking.

The morality of need. The pastor preaches to minds that believe bigger is better; the more spectacular the more important; the most important thing about life is that it is enjoyed; basic needs are a nice home, two cars, a three-week paid vacation, several weekends away; life has cheated you unless you have a Caribbean cruise, a DVD player, and an iPod. People have a corrupted sense of need. Needs become values, they take on their own morality. The language of need has replaced the language of greed.

Life is like a train going in circles, the train is comfortable - it has nice scenery, it provides warmth and food & for most a loving atmosphere. Most of the people stay on the train there entire lives, maybe every now and again they may peep out the door, some might even get off only to quickly realise they want back on. Then you have the rare ones who I aspire to be, those who are bored of the train - to them - the thought of living without it, is risky but the reward of tasting life outside of doors and walls excite them enough to try.

Any chance of a beverage?’ asked Ruby. ‘I’ll call for my house servant,’ said Clancy, picking up the phone. ‘Olive,’ he said dramatically, ‘do you want to know how it feels to have twenty cents in your pocket. . .? Very good, well, bring up two iced Coca-colas and the money will be yours.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘Nice going,’ said Ruby, nodding. Five-year-old Olive tottered into the room twenty minutes later with two less than full glasses of Coca-cola. It was clear that she had been sampling the drinks during the long journey to the third floor.

We will need to stay over two nights in a hotel on our trip home.” Momentarily alarmed, I glanced at Ren. “Okay. Umm, I was thinking that maybe this time if you don’t mind, we could check out one of those bigger hotels. You know, something that has more people around. With elevators and rooms that lock. Or even better, a nice high-rise hotel in a big city. Far, far, far away from the jungle?” Mr. Kadam chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.” I graced Mr. Kadam with a beatific smile. “Good! Could we please go now? I can’t wait to take a shower.” I opened the door to the passenger side then turned and hissed in a whisper aimed at Ren, “In my nice, upper-floor, inaccessible-to-tigers hotel room.” He just looked at me with his innocent, blue-eyed tiger face again. I smiled wickedly at him and hopped in the Jeep, slamming the door behind me. My tiger just calmly trotted over to the back where Mr. Kadam was loading the last of his supplies and leapt up into the back seat. He leaned in the front, and before I could push him away, he gave me a big, wet, slobbery tiger kiss right on my face. I sputtered, “Ren! That is so disgusting!” I used my T-shirt to swipe the tiger saliva from my nose and cheek and turned to yell at him some more. He was already lying down in the back seat with his mouth hanging open, as if he were laughing. Before I could really lay into him, Mr. Kadam, who was the happiest I’d ever seen him, got into the Jeep, and we started the bumpy journey back to a civilized road. Mr. Kadam wanted to ask me questions. I knew he was itching for information, but I was still fuming at Ren, so I lied. I asked him if he could hold off for a while so I could sleep. I yawned big for dramatic effect, and he immediately agreed to let me have some peace, which made me feel guilty. I really liked Mr. Kadam, and I hated lying to people. I excused my actions by mentally blaming Ren for this uncharacteristic behavior. Convincing myself that it was his fault was easy. I turned to the side and closed my eyes. I slept for a while, and when I woke up, Mr. Kadam handed me a soda, a sandwich, and a banana. I raised my eyebrow at the banana and thought of several good monkey jokes I could annoy Ren with, but I kept quiet for Mr. Kadam’s sake.

The first thing we offer a visitor is a tecito, an agüita, or a vinito, a “nice little drink” of tea, water, or wine. We always add the diminutive -ito to our words, almost as an apology for offering, in accord with our desire not to be noticed and our horror of putting on airs, even with words.

Allies tend to crowd out the space for anger with their demands that things be comfortable for them. They want to be educated, want someone to be kind to them whether they have earned that kindness or not. The process of becoming an ally requires a lot of emotional investment, and far too often the heavy lifting of that emotional labor is done by the marginalized, not the privileged. But part of that journey from being a would-be ally to becoming an ally to actually becoming an accomplice is anger. Anger doesn't have to be erudite to be valid. It doesn't have to be nice or calm in order to be heard. In fact, I would argue that despite narratives that present the anger of Black women as dangerous, that render being angry in public as a reason to tune out the voices of marginalized people, it is that anger and the expressing of it that saves communities. No one has ever freed themselves from oppression by asking nicely.

He said that a killer comes to hunting humans gradually. The appetite builds from a young boy’s undifferentiated anger and morbidity of mind to a search for ever more violent pornography, the visual and written material that Ted believed had shaped and focused his fantasy world. Then comes the window peeping, followed eventually by crudely conceived and unsuccessful assaults. In Ted’s case, these gave way, over time, to a sophisticated taste for the chase and its aftermath: the selection of what he called “worthy” victims, pretty and intelligent young daughters and sisters of the middle class, nice girls whom Ted desired to possess, he said, “as one would possess a potted plant, or a Porsche.

— I don’t know why people aren’t more curious, and why curiosity isn’t considered a more important leadership trait. A journalist once asked me if I was ever bored as a kid. I only had to think about it for a second: I never was, not even for a minute, because I was so curious. Every day I’d wake up excited by all the new things there were to learn about.

One woman, called Eva, used to visit my mother and sometimes we would call in next door to visit her. Sometimes Frau Eva gave me cakes and fruit drinks. I remember she was very kind. It was not until many years later that I understood just who she was. To me, at the time, she was just a very nice woman who lived next door sometimes, although she did tend to go away, and was often not seen for several months.

To my children three. Life is like a movie, it starts and it ends.If you are reading this probably i'm gone. but my presence is always with you. All wanted to say how much I loved you. and I wanted to share my life journey with all of you. When I Conceived each of you, I can feel the butterflies in my tummy and I already fail in love with you. When each of you were born, tears dropped of my eye, I know it that was a happy tears. When you said dada, I was excited and happy to hear you saying it over and over. I see you growing like a flower and flying like a bird in front of my eye, in front of the pales a colorful garden who always stay blooming. Slowly you gew wing and all you flew away from the nest. All i'm left with good memories an album full of beautiful of pictures.from you baby showers, 1st word, 1st birthdays,1st trip to Disney or Universal Studios, each of you got to meet your favored TV characters. Your smiley faces was telling me I was doing ok as a parent, although I been told I'm the worst mom. But I know you did not mean that, you meant to say I love you mom. and I love you to my children, It was a nice journey. If I have to go back on time to change the way I raised you, I won't change a thing, beside some of your friends, but you were old enough and free to make your own choices. You have to make your mistakes and i'm pretty sure you learned from them. But at the end I never worry about you, because I'm pretty sure I give 200% as a parent. I know I taught, I armed and I shield you with everything including knowledge you need to survive in world. Remember don't matter how old are you, you always will be my babies. and I always be your Angel ! "Toko - Lock " te ka nana sho. Love Mom & Grandma!

When in 1944 the Nazis failed to meet her as agreed in Madrid (a meeting at which she might have been interrogated about the whole Bay of Biscay incident), she wrote them the angriest, most spoiled entitled-girl letter that has likely ever been penned: “Absolutely livid about the uselessness of the journey which was expensive and disagreeable. You let me down.” To the Nazis! Who then apologized and asked very nicely to keep working with her! What a queen. After

What makes good bread? It is a question of good flour and slow fermentation. In the old days we used to leave the dough to ferment for at least three or four hours, and it wasn't necessary to put chemicals into the dough. Today the farmers get much bigger crops from the same piece of ground, but the wheat has lost its taste. And to make it look nice and white — comme un cadavre — the millers grind it up fine and sift it, so you are left with very little except starch.

In another couple of hours we can go on board.” He looked longingly at the lighted ship, ready for her start at dawn. She looked so clean, so nice, so British… Mr. Low came to stand beside him. “Decent bunks, decent food, people speaking English. You can’t believe it.” But in spite of the relief of being on the way home, the crows were broken men. Mr. Low was still feverish, Mr. Trapwood’s insect bites had spread in an infected mass over his face and neck, and neither of them could keep down their food.

The sad irony is that the moment we believe we “get it” is not the moment our journey to racial enlightenment comes to an end. “Getting it” should immediately engender humility in recognition of how much we don’t—and likely never will—completely know. Deepening our understanding, building our skills, and demonstrating anti-racist practice are ongoing. Awareness should add new dimensions to the continuing journey: humility and accountability. Awareness that does not lead to sustained engagement is not meaningful.

I’ve sat at the piano for hours already, looking for lyrics and melodies, but everything sounds the same and I feel as uninspired as ever. Does it mean I’m finished? A more sobering thought: if I’m finished, would I miss it? But the truth is, I’ve been here before. Many times. We all have. So how do we find the faith to press on? Remember. Remember, Hebrew children, who you once were in Egypt. Remember the altars set up along the way to remind yourselves that you made the journey and God rescued you from sword and famine, from chariots and pestilence, that once you were there, but now you are here. It happened. Our memories are fallible, residing in that most complex and mysterious organ in the human body (and therefore the known universe), capable of being suppressed, manipulated, altered, but also profoundly powerful and able to transport a person to a place fifty years ago all because of a whiff of your grandfather’s cologne or an old book or the salty air. As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. Remember with every sip of wine that we shared this meal, you and I. Remember. So I look at the last album, the last book, and am forced to admit that I didn’t know anymore then than I do now. Every song is an Ebenezer stone, evidence of God’s faithfulness. I just need to remember. Trust is crucial. So is self-forgetfulness and risk and a measure of audacity. And now that I think about it, there’s also wonder, insight, familiarity with Scripture, passion, a good night’s sleep, breakfast (preferably an egg sandwich), an encouraging voice, diligence, patience. I need silence. Privacy. Time—that’s what I need: more time. But first I need a vacation, because I’ve been really grinding away at this other stuff and my mental cache is full. A deadline would be great. I work best with deadlines, and maybe some bills piling up. Some new guitar strings would help, and a nice candle. And that’s all I need, in the words of Steve Martin’s The Jerk. This is the truth: all I really need is a guitar, some paper, and discipline. If only I would apply myself.

The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June, if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people, and couldn't invoke railways and motor-cars to part them." "That's more like Socialism," said Mrs. Munt suspiciously. "Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one's hand spread open on the table. I'm tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed--from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don't want to steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them and do steal them sometimes, and that what's a joke up here is down there reality.

You don’t know how the police work. If you get out of this car and start walking toward them, you’re going to cross a bunch of invisible lines they’ve drawn with their authority and their presence, and they’re not going to like it. You’re a pretty white woman, so you’ll probably make it to the motel without anyone shooting you, but then they’ll start telling you what to do, and they won’t be nice about it. They won’t let you see the bodies, if there are any. They won’t tell you where your sister went, or anything else you want to know. They won’t help you, Aven. They won’t make this any easier.

Mrs Davidson was saying she didn't know how they'd have got through the journey if it hadn't been for us," said Mrs Macphail, as she neatly brushed out her transformation. "She said we were really the only people on the ship they cared to know." "I shouldn't have thought a missionary was such a big bug that he could afford to put on frills." "It's not frills. I quite understand what she means. It wouldn't have been very nice for the Davidsons to have to mix with all that rough lot in the smoking-room." "The founder of their religion wasn't so exclusive," said Dr Macphail with a chuckle. William Somersert Maugham, "Rain

As for Maia, she was to go back to school. “She will be safe there for a few years till she is ready to go out into the world,” Mr. Murray had written to Miss Minton. So now Maia was collecting her memories. “We mustn’t only remember the good bits,” she said. “We must remember the bad bits, too, so that we know it was real.” But there weren’t really any bad bits once she had escaped from the twins. The fried termites which the Xanti had cooked for them hadn’t tasted very nice, and there had been a tame bush turkey which woke them up at an unearthly hour with its screeching. “But it was all part of it,” said Maia. “It belonged.

Maybe it's only a fool who will perilously journey out to what might not be there. And maybe it's only a fool who will ask about supertasks, about infinity. But if you want to solve problems, you don't just solve the ones that are there, you find more and make more and go after the impossible ones; fostering a love and obsession with problems is how you solve problems. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wasn't a mathematician, but his advice fits nicely here. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. And as always, thanks for watching.

Then she saw him walking from the barn to the bunkhouse. 
Hardworking Rob, who did so much for her and never asked for anything in return. Here she’d been indulging herself, enjoying the fancy soap, the nice nightgown and he was still working. Working to provide a place for them to stay. 
 He looked up and she raised her hand to wave to him, longing to tell him all she felt in her heart and didn’t know how to put into words. She wanted to say come look at the moon with me, let me wash your hands and your tired face, let me ease your boots off and rest. Rest here with me. He stopped and stared at her almost as if he’d read her thoughts. 
 - A Desperate Journey

Well, I guess I should say something as well,” said the creeper. “When I first met Dave, I was living in a nice dark cave with regular access to baked potatoes. Throughout our journey, I’ve eaten loads of great potatoes. Some were slightly overcooked, and some were slightly too soft, but all of them were good in their own special way. It’s not always easy to cook a baked potato completely right, but when you do, it’s a thing of beauty. So, I’m thankful for every baked potato that I’ve eaten. Yes, I may have run out of baked potatoes at the moment, but I have hope that one day I’ll be back home, eating baked potatoes again. Thank you.” Carl sat down. “That was beautiful, Carl,” said Alex, wiping her tears away.

Ten years ago, when I was living in a small flat above an off-licence in SW1, I learned that the big house next door had been bought by the wife of the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The street was obviously going down in the world, what with the murder of the nanny Sandra Rivett by that nice Lord Lucan at number 44, and I moved out a few months later. I never met Hope Somoza, but her house became notorious in the street for a burglar alarm that went off with surprising frequency, and for the occasional parties that would cause the street to be jammed solid with Rolls—Royce, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar limousines. Back in Managua, her husband 'Tacho' had taken a mistress, Dinorah, and Hope was no doubt trying to keep her spirits up.

Which philosophers would Alain suggest for practical living? Alain’s list overlaps nearly 100% with my own: Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. * Most-gifted or recommended books? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Essays of Michel de Montaigne. * Favorite documentary The Up series: This ongoing series is filmed in the UK, and revisits the same group of people every 7 years. It started with their 7th birthdays (Seven Up!) and continues up to present day, when they are in their 50s. Subjects were picked from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Alain calls these very undramatic and quietly powerful films “probably the best documentary that exists.” TF: This is also the favorite of Stephen Dubner on page 574. Stephen says, “If you are at all interested in any kind of science or sociology, or human decision-making, or nurture versus nature, it is the best thing ever.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would have said, ‘Appreciate what’s good about this moment. Don’t always think that you’re on a permanent journey. Stop and enjoy the view.’ . . . I always had this assumption that if you appreciate the moment, you’re weakening your resolve to improve your circumstances. That’s not true, but I think when you’re young, it’s sort of associated with that. . . . I had people around me who’d say things like, ‘Oh, a flower, nice.’ A little part of me was thinking, ‘You absolute loser. You’ve taken time to appreciate a flower? Do you not have bigger plans? I mean, this the limit of your ambition?’ and when life’s knocked you around a bit and when you’ve seen a few things, and time has happened and you’ve got some years under your belt, you start to think more highly of modest things like flowers and a pretty sky, or just a morning where nothing’s wrong and everyone’s been pretty nice to everyone else. . . . Fortune can do anything with us. We are very fragile creatures. You only need to tap us or hit us in slightly the wrong place. . . . You only have to push us a little bit, and we crack very easily, whether that’s the pressure of disgrace or physical illness, financial pressure, etc. It doesn’t take very much. So, we do have to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster.

They went on arguing, but Maia had forgotten them again, following Finn in her mind. Where was he? Did he have enough wood for the firebox? Were his maps accurate? Did he miss her at all? Finn did miss her--she would have been surprised to know how much. He had never sailed the Arabella alone for any distance and it wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. While she was under way he managed well, but when it came to anchoring in the evening or setting off at dawn, he would have given anything for another pair of hands. Not any pair of hands--Maia’s. She had obeyed his orders quickly but not blindly; he had learned to trust her completely. And she was nice. Fun. Quick to catch a joke and so interested in everything--asking about the birds, the plants. This morning he had found himself starting to say, “Look, Maia!” when he saw an umbrella bird strutting along a branch, and when he realized that she wasn’t there, the exotic creature, with its sunshade of feathers, had seemed somehow less exciting. After all, sharing was something everyone wanted to do. He could hear his father’s voice calling, “Look, Finn, over there!” a dozen times a day.

American Girl dolls are nice. But they aren’t amazing. In recent years Toys“ R” Us, Walmart, and even Disney have all tried to challenge American Girl’s success with similar dolls (Journey Girls, My Life, and Princess & Me)—at a fraction of the price—but to date, no one has made a dent. American Girl is able to command a premium price because it’s not really selling dolls. It’s selling an experience. When you see a company that has a product or service that no one has successfully copied, like American Girl, rarely is it the product itself that is the source of the long-term competitive advantage, something American Girl founder Pleasant Rowland understood. “You’re not trying to just get the product out there, you hope you are creating an experience that will do the job perfectly,” says Rowland. You’re creating experiences that, in effect, make up the product’s résumé: “Here’s why you should hire me.” That’s why American Girl has been so successful for so long, in spite of numerous attempts by competitors to elbow in. My wife, Christine, and I were willing to splurge on the dolls because we understood what they stood for. American Girl dolls are about connection and empowering self-belief—and the chance to savor childhood just a bit longer. I have found that creating the right set of experiences around a clearly defined job—and then organizing the company around delivering those experiences (which we’ll discuss in the next chapter)—almost inoculates you against disruption. Disruptive competitors almost never come with a better sense of the job. They don’t see beyond the product.

The journey up to battle camp started badly. “If you can’t even load a bloody truck with all your kit properly, then you’ve got no bloody chance of passing what’s ahead of you, I can assure you of that!” Taff, our squadron DS, barked at us in the barracks before leaving. I, for one, was more on edge than I had ever felt so far on Selection. I was carsick on the journey north, and I hadn’t felt that since I’d been a kid heading back to school. It was nerves. We also quizzed Taff for advice on what to expect and how to survive the “capture-initiation” phase. His advice to Trucker and me was simple: “You two toffs just keep your mouths shut--23 DS tend to hate recruits who’ve been to private school.” The 23 SAS were running the battle camp (it generally alternated between 21 and 23 SAS), and 23 were always regarded as tough, straight-talking, hard-drinking, fit-as-hell soldiers. We had last been with them at Test Week all those months earlier, and rumor was that “the 23 DS are going to make sure that any 21 recruits get it the worst.” Trucker and I hoped simply to try and stay “gray men” and not be noticed. To put our heads down and get on and quietly do the work. This didn’t exactly go according to plan. “Where are the lads who speak like Prince Charles?” The 23 DS shouted on the first parade when we arrived. “Would you both like newspapers with your morning tea, gents?” the DS sarcastically enquired. Part of me was tempted to answer how nice that would be, but I resisted. The DS continued: “I’ve got my eye on you two. Do I want to have to put my life one day in your posh, soft hands? Like fuck I do. If you are going to pass this course you are going to have to earn it and prove yourself the hard way. You both better be damned good.” Oh, great, I thought. I could tell the next fortnight was going to be a ball-buster.

Mrs Davidson was saying she didn’t know how they’d have got through the journey if it hadn’t been for us,’ said Mrs Macphail as she neatly brushed out her transformation. ‘She said we were really the only people on the ship they cared to know.’ ‘I shouldn’t have thought a missionary was such a big bug that he could afford to put on frills.’ ‘It’s not frills. I quite understand what she means. It wouldn’t have been very nice for the Davidsons to have to mix with all that rough lot in the smoking– room.’ ‘The founder of their religion wasn’t so exclusive,’ said Dr Macphail with a chuckle. ‘I’ve asked you over and over again not to joke about religion,’ answered his wife. ‘I shouldn’t like to have a nature like yours, Alec. You never look for the best in people.’ He gave her a sidelong glance with his pale, blue eyes, but did not reply. After many years of married life he had learned that it was more conducive to peace to leave his wife with the last word. He was undressed before she was, and climbing into the upper bunk he settled down to read himself to sleep. When he came on deck next morning they were close to land. He looked at it with greedy eyes. There was a thin strip of silver beach rising quickly to hills covered to the top with luxuriant vegetation. The coconut trees, thick and green, came nearly to the water’s edge, and among them you saw the grass houses of the Samoans; and here and there, gleaming white, a little church. Mrs Davidson came and stood beside him. She was dressed in black and wore round her neck a gold chain, from which dangled a small cross. She was a little woman, with brown, dull hair very elaborately arranged, and she had prominent blue eyes behind invisible pince–nez. Her face was long, like a sheep’s, but she gave no impression of foolishness, rather of extreme alertness; she had the quick movements of a bird. The most remarkable thing about her was her voice, high, metallic, and without inflexion; it

THE THING THAT ENTRANCED ME about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city’s willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world’s fair in the first place. The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions. The more I read about the fair, the more entranced I became. That George Ferris would attempt to build something so big and novel—and that he would succeed on his first try—seems, in this day of liability lawsuits, almost beyond comprehension. A rich seam of information exists about the fair and about Daniel Burnham in the beautifully run archives of the Chicago Historical Society and the Ryerson and Burnham libraries of the Art Institute of Chicago. I acquired a nice base of information from the University of Washington’s Suzallo Library, one of the finest and most efficient libraries I have encountered. I also visited the Library of Congress in Washington, where I spent a good many happy hours immersed in the papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, though my happiness was at times strained by trying to decipher Olmsted’s execrable handwriting. I read—and mined—dozens of books about Burnham, Chicago, the exposition, and the late Victorian era. Several proved consistently valuable: Thomas Hines’s Burnham of Chicago (1974); Laura Wood Roper’s FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (1973); and Witold Rybczynski’s A Clearing in the Distance (1999). One book in particular, City of the Century by Donald L. Miller (1996), became an invaluable companion in my journey through old Chicago. I found four guidebooks to be especially useful: Alice Sinkevitch’s AIA Guide to Chicago (1993); Matt Hucke and Ursula Bielski’s Graveyards of Chicago (1999); John Flinn’s Official Guide to the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893); and Rand, McNally & Co.’ s Handbook to the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893). Hucke and Bielski’s guide led me to pay a visit to Graceland Cemetery, an utterly charming haven where, paradoxically, history comes alive.

I rail a lot against passion, because I feel like passion can be very exclusionary, and very elitist, and it can leave a lot of people feeling like they don't belong... I'm much more interested in allowing people to follow curiosity, which is a much more gentle impulse that doesn't require that you sacrifice your entire life for something. It's more of kind of a scavenger hunt, where you're allowed to pick up these tiny beautiful little clues along the pathway. It's more of a tap on the shoulder that asks you to turn your attention one inch to the left. Oh that's a little bit mildly interesting - what is that? Okay now I'm going to take that clue... I'm going to take it another inch, and I'm going to take it another inch. Rather than this idea that the symphony is born whole, because you sit down and you're struck by lightening and then you start to create. Curiosity I think, is a far more friendly way to do creativity than passion." ...this is why I say the path of curiosity is the scavenger hunt, because it took my probably three years between "gee it would be nice to put some plants in my backyard" to here I am in the South Pacific exploring the history of moss and inventing this giant novel. You know I think everybody thinks that creativity comes in lightening strikes, but I think it comes with whispers. And then the whispers can grow thunderous over time if you are patient enough to explore it, almost in the way that a scientist would. Be open to - you don't need to know why you are interested in this, it will be revealed if you continue to investigate. That's all that curiosity asks of you. Passion asks you to throw it all in the bonfire. And curiosity is way more generous in that it just says - give me a little bit of your time and let's see what we can do. Fear is part of our make-up, it's something that's inherent in us, it's a protective device. My experience with fear is to permit it to exist and then to figure out how to work with it. And to me working with fear is what courage is. I've never started any project that I wasn't afraid... during the entire thing.And the conversation that I have with fear is not to say you are the death of creativity and I can't be creative because you exist, but rather to say: "You are part of the family of my consciousness. You are one of the emotions that I possess and I hear your complaint. I see your anxiety and I see everything you are putting before me about how this is going to be a disaster, and how I'm going to die and how everyone's going to mock me and how I'm going to fail... and I thank you so much for your contribution, but your sister creativity and I are going to go off on this journey now and do this thing but you are allowed to be in the car. We're going on a road trip, but I don't expect you to not come." And once you allow fear to just be present it seems to quiet down and go to sleep and then you can go about your work. But it's never out of the picture and I don't waste my energy trying to kick it out of the picture because that feels to me just like a colossal exhausting waste of energy. Whereas a radical kind of inclusive self acceptance seems to be a way to create a lot more.

Dear, What’s the Point of it All? What is the point of being nice? When you do not know what you are going to get from it? Knowing eventually sooner rather than later someone and maybe that person you are being nice to will turn their back on you. I always have to stay grounded and focused. When I am there for people, I feel like I am always punished for it. I am always treated as if I committed a crime. I was there for my mom; however, she was killing me slowly but surely. Like my mom, I noticed that when people get themselves in some shit, they get stuck in their own mess. They are confident that they do not have to deal with the consequences—because they know the ‘kind’ person will bail them out. What’s the point of being kind? Like my mom and the officer, there are so many people in the world who are judgmental and tainted because of their selfish needs. What’s the point of my life? Here I am in a library filled with many books. I can read them and go anywhere I want to in my mind, but after I close the book, I will have to snap out of my fantasy world and welcome the cruel cold world, which is reality. If I was a book, I would be better off left on the shelf. There is no excitement in my life—only struggles. What’s the point of living and loving life when the only thing I do is read between the lines and tread carefully? Come to think about it, I am a book that nobody can understand or read. They think they know what is best for me, but if they only take the time to listen, I would be so happy to tell them about me and my needs and wants. My actions scream for attention, but time after time, I am ignored. Sadly, without a care, they were quick to rip out the pages. Yet, once again, nobody noticed me. What’s the point of it all when I never had an opportunity to make a mistake? If I did one thing wrong, they would give up on me and send me to one home after another. I’ve always been fully exposed and had to walk in a line filled with sharp curves from disappointment to disappointment. Sorrow is my aura, and sadness hugs me tightly. It is hard to cry when my eyes are closed shut by the barbed wire fence of my eyelashes as they prohibit tears from falling. What’s the point of complicating my life? I am always back to where I started, and then ... I relive the same patterns, but on a more difficult journey. I believe when you put yourself in your own mess that you should clean it up and start over. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. However, when someone else puts you in their mess, you do not know how to clean up the mess they’ve made. You do not know how to start over because you do not know where to begin. I look at it this way; it is like telling a dead person he/she can start over. How so, when that person’s life no longer exists? I know my life isn’t over. However, I am lost in a maze my mom set up for herself—and she too is lost in her own maze. When a person gets lost in their own maze, they are really fucked up. However, this maze shouldn’t be left for me to figure out. Unfortunately, I am in it, and I have to find my way out one way or another. What’s the point of taking Kace from me? He was safe and in good hands. Now he is worse off with people who are abusing him. He didn’t ask for this—I didn’t either. He deserves so much better. Again, what is the point of it all? What’s the point of making me suffer? Do you get a kick out of it? What are you trying to accomplish? I am trying to understand; what is the point of it all? What is the point? I don’t know why I am here.

Christians often fail to get in touch with the shocking message that can lie at the heart of evangelism: “I am here to change you, and I’m going to change you so that you become like me.” There are some obvious dangers here once we think about all this. If we approach people in this way, we are not treating them as people. We are not respecting them. We are treating them as part of our own program, like an objective and a statistic, and this is self-centered as well as disrespectful. An obnoxious smell of superiority is apparent. Further, we are judging people as fundamentally inadequate. *We* are okay, of course. Missionary work conducted in this spirit is a well-intentioned but self-centered power-play… We can avoid this instrumentalizing of potential converts - a making of them into something like an instrument or tool that then does something for us - only by approaching them for their own sakes and hence not as potential converts at all. We must value our initial relationships with people for what they are and not in terms of what we want out of them. This means that we must want to become their friends. Moreover, it must be a friendship with no strings attached. We must seek out relationships because we are interested in and value other people for who they are, right where they are. Conversions would be nice, but they are not our main agenda. We hope and pray for the best for our new friends, but that is not our principal motivation for relating to them. In this way and only in this way do we avoid colonizing people as we convert them.

I found myself in- “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!” I found myself sliding down what I assume was the poop deck of a large boat. I don’t even know what part of the boat the poop deck is, but I’m just going to guess that’s where I was. As far as what waters we are sinking and spiraling around in a whirlpool over, I had a pretty good idea. “Hold onto something, Jeff!” shouted Jim. “I probably should have warned you first!” “No shit!” I cried. The urge to vomit rose up in my chest as I slid downward and grabbed onto the railing for dear life. “I think I’ve seen enough of this one, Jim!” “You know where we are?” “Yes, it’s the fucking Bermuda Triangle!” I bellowed as flying saucers emerged from the tremulous waters around us. “I get it! Very nice!” “Okay, sorry!

The man who best drew the contrast between Kiev and Ukraine was the novelist Mikhail Bulgakov. Son of a theology professor, he was brought up in a small house on Andriyivsky Uzviz, the steep cobbled lane that winds down from the High City to Podil. His Kiev, immortalised in The White Guard, is the middle-class city of the years just before the revolution – the Kiev of the La Marquise confectioner’s and the Fleurs de Nice flower shop, of chiming clocks and Dutch-tiled stoves, of sugar tongs and the green-shaded lamp in his father’s study. Writing from the inflation-wracked Moscow of the early 1920s, Bulgakov turned these vanished comforts into something rich and strange:

windfalls in the orchard; the boy told you he’d had the Sandersons’ permission, but you went on . . . well, you know what happened better than meself.’ By now they had reached the road and Scotty gave a bark of laughter. ‘They’ve fooled you nicely, I can see,’ he said derisively. ‘They’d say anything to keep Millie and me apart.’ ‘Shut up,’ Martin said brusquely. ‘You’ve told me a grosh o’ lies . . . just shut your mouth, d’you hear me?’ The journey back to Rhyl was largely conducted in silence, but when they were in the train once more Martin spoke, though coldly. ‘When we get home, you can find yourself different lodgings because there’s no point in even pretending that I want to be in your

The content of the gospel (that God has offered a path to escape His coming wrath) is the core issue to a missionary but irrelevant to one who is missional. To the missionary, those who repent and believe the gospel are reconciled to God and enter His kingdom. That message is unimportant, or at least not central, to one who is missional. Why? Because to the Emergent there is no impending judgment and if we do something nice on our journey nothing more is needed. To them, a focus on the content of the message is a distraction at best and harmful at worst.

The door slammed shut and her gaze made a leisurely journey up the denim. Long, lean legs with nicely muscled thighs led into lean hips and a narrow waist. Her breath caught as she moved upward to a chest barely contained in the black skinny fit t-shirt up to a face she’d have expected to find on set rather than in the ass-end of beyond. “Fuck me…” she breathed. She’d walked right into a jeans commercial.

One of the other interviewers, whose name I had forgotten, quickly picked up the ball and posed a question to Steve. He asked, 'Mr. Cranston, what do you think of euthanasia?' Steve got a confused look on his face and asked the doctor to repeat the question. He listened to the question again and still looked befuddled. He then, in a hesitating voice, said, 'Gosh, I never thought about it before, but I think they are probably just as nice as the youth in the United States.' Dr. Waxman was still sitting with his head down and his hand over his eyes. At this point I could see he was shaking all over and doing his best to keep from exploding into laughter.

It is illegal to portal anyone while they are under duress,I could lose my license if I were to do so." "You're going to lose a lot more than that if you don't tell me where my twin went," I said in a low, mean voice. "Mayling, please. I must insist that you allow me to be the bad cop," Gabriel said as I slid the dagger at my ankle out of its sheath. "I have never subscribed to the sexist belief that women have to be good cop," I said, twirling the dagger around one finger. "Nonetheless, you are far more suited to the good cop role," Gabriel insisted. "I'm going to have to go against popular opinion and side with Mei Ling on this," Savian said, watching us with a delighted twinkle in his eye. "She looks like she knows how to use that blade. What is that, a stiletto?" "Sicilian castrating knife," I said with a smile at the portal man. "She wins," Savian told Gabriel. "Er..." Jarilith said, his expression starting to slide into worry. "I am a wyvern! I can do far more to this man than merely remove his genitalia," Gabriel answered in an outraged tone, a little tendril of smoke emerging from between his lips as he spoke. "Eh..." Jarilith said, taking a step backward. "Hmm. He's a weaver," Savian said thoughtfully as he examined the portalist. "Those are immortal, aren't they? So he could survive a castration, but the question is would a dragon barbeque be enough to finish him off?" "Absolutely," Gabriel said. He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Threatening a weaver is strictly prohibited by law," Jarilith said indignantly, but the fight had gone out of him. His gaze was flickering back and forth from Gabriel to Savian to the dagger I held casually. "I could have the watch on you for what you're saying!" "Oh, please," I said with a dramatic roll of my eyes. "Just about every thief taker in this hemisphere is after me. I've already been sentenced to banishment to the Akasha. You think one little murder is going to make that any worse? Not likely." Jarilith's eyes widened. "It's true," Savian said. "The price on her head has already gone over six figures." The color washed out of the portalist's face. "Erm..." "Mate," Gabriel said sternly. "I must insist that you refrain from slicing and dicing this man." Jarilith nodded quickly. "Listen to the dragon." "It is my place to destroy those who stand in your way," Gabriel continued, the pupils in his eyes narrowing as he turned to the now hastily backing away Jarilith. "Let's not lose our heads, here," the latter said in a rush. "I don't think it's your head the lady has in mind," Savian said as he looked pointedly at the portalist's crotch. Jarilith's hands hovered protectively over his fly. "Such an atrocity would constitute torture. You wouldn't do that to an innocent man, would you?" "What makes you think I'd stop at the castration?" I twirled the knife around my fingers again. "This little jobby fillets, as well." "She went to Paris," Jarilith said quickly as he dashed for a door to a back room. "Your portal is ready in room number three. Have a pleasant journey..." His voice trailed off as he bolted. I turned a frown on Gabriel. "You really wouldn't have let me be bad cop? I'm very good at it, as you can see." "I'm sorry," he said, his dimples belying the grave look he was trying to maintain.."Wyverns have some standards to maintain with their mates, and one of them is always being the bad cop.Although I do admit that you have a particularly effective manner. Would you really have castrated him to get the information about your twin?" "Would you really have burnt him to acrisp for not answering?" "Such a bloodthirsty little bird," he said fondly, giving my butt a little pinch. Savian stood still for a moment, giving us an odddisbelieving look before shaking his head and following. "You two are the strangest couple I've ever met. And I have to tell you-I've met some real weirdos

And let’s be clear about this. Every single thing you own is a decision you’ve made and so getting rid of clutter is not about sourcing bags and boxes and arranging sales and giveaways or even making a room look nice, it is about making decisions. Lots and lots of decisions. That can be very stressful. The average wedding requires around a thousand decisions to be made and we all know how stressful arranging a wedding can be. So how much more stressful are the many more you’ll have to make on your decluttering journey?

75. Light Can Only Shine Through Broken Vessels I want the last chapter of this book to be about humanity and humility. In order to thrive and survive in the game of life, it is important to understand that we don’t have to have all parts of our life totally together - nicely sealed and wrapped - for it to be a success. In fact, the opposite is true. To live a life of adventure and impact we just need to have the will, and then to begin. There is power in that first simple step. The rest is then the process - hard and challenging, to be sure - but still a process. We are limited only by the extent of our courage, tenacity and vision. We can all push the boundaries, make a difference, empower, encourage, and better many lives. None of this requires us to be perfect and sorted first. Life is a journey and we are all learning every day. Embrace that. Growing pains are part of life! And finally, remember that light can only shine through broken vessels, and we are all a little broken. Sometimes it is the broken-ness that gives us the fire. But it is when we know our need to change that we can finally begin to grow. Here’s to your own great adventure…

And with a forty-five-year-old genuine grown-up and experienced entrepreneur as president and CFO, we now had access to all kinds of working-capital credit we couldn’t get before. Unlike the twenty-one-year-old CEO, Lee Walker could go to people like Frank Phillips at Texas Commerce Bank and say, “Look, Texaco, Exxon, Monsanto—all these companies, not to mention the US government—they all owe this company money. Give us a loan based on all these receivables.” And the bankers would say, “Okay, Lee, we don’t know about the kid, but we trust you.

And the Lazy Parrot Inn was the perfect setting in which to read a book about “one man’s journey to redemption.” It had been hard to tell from the photos on the website exactly what the hotel was going to be like. It had certainly looked nice (especially since I wasn’t paying for it), but people and places almost always look better online than they do in real life.

The way I describe this when talking with businesspeople is that the domain of technology is no longer in the IT department; the whole company is technology. I’m talking about all companies. If you’re trying to make cars or medical devices or any kind of product at all, and you want to have new customers, technology is the fulcrum of progress in everything you’re doing.

Take whatever job you can at one of those companies. Don’t worry too much about the title—focus on the work. If you get a foot in the door at a growing company, you’ll find opportunities to grow, too. Just whatever you do, don’t become a “management consultant” at a behemoth like McKinsey or Bain or one of the other eight consultancies that dominate the industry. They all have thousands upon thousands of employees and work almost exclusively with Fortune 5000 companies. These corporations, typically led by tentative, risk-averse CEOs, call in the management consultants to do a massive audit, find the flaws, and present leadership with a new plan that will magically “fix” everything. What a fairy tale—don’t get me started. But to many new grads, it sounds perfect: you get paid incredibly well to travel around the world, work with powerful companies and executives, and learn exactly how to make a business successful. It’s an alluring promise. Parts of it are even true. Yes, you get a nice paycheck. And yes, you get plenty of practice pitching important clients. But you don’t learn how to build or run a company. Not really. Steve Jobs once said of management consulting, “You do get a broad cut at companies but it’s very thin. It’s like a picture of a banana: you might get a very accurate picture but it’s only two dimensions, and without the experience of actually doing it you never get three dimensional. So you might have a lot of pictures on your walls, you can show it off to your friends—I’ve worked in bananas, I’ve worked in peaches, I’ve worked in grapes—but you never really taste it.” If you do choose to go that route and find yourself at one of the Big Four or the other top six firms, then that is of course your choice. Just know before you go what you want to learn and the experiences you need for your next chapter. Don’t get stuck. Management consulting should never be your endpoint—it should be a way station, a brief pause on your journey to actually doing something. Making something. To do great things, to really learn, you can’t shout suggestions from the rooftop then move on while someone else does the work. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to care about every step, lovingly craft every detail. You have to be there when it falls apart so you can put it back together. You have to actually do the job. You have to love the job.

How successful you are is really a function of how well you deal with failure—and how much you learn from it.

If you can't be nice to other living things, don't harm them either.

The best way to free yourself from this incessant chatter is to step back and view it objectively. Just view the voice as a vocalizing mechanism that is capable of making it appear like someone is in there talking to you. Don’t think about it; just notice it. No matter what the voice is saying, it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter if it’s saying nice things or mean things, worldly things or spiritual things. It doesn’t matter because it’s still just a voice talking inside your head. In fact, the only way to get your distance from this voice is to stop differentiating what it’s saying. Stop feeling that one thing it says is you and the other thing it says is not you. If you’re hearing it talk, it’s obviously not you. You are the one who hears the voice. You are the one who notices that it’s talking.

An article in this month’s National Geographic magazine quotes a scientist referring to the “undistractibility” of these animals on their journeys. “An arctic tern on its way from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, for instance, will ignore a nice smelly herring offered from a bird-watcher’s boat in Monterey Bay. Local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts, while the tern flies on. Why?” The article’s author, David Quammen, attempts an answer, saying “the arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven at that moment by an instinctive sense of something we humans find admirable: larger purpose.” In the same article, biologist Hugh Dingle notes that these migratory patterns reveal five shared characteristics: the journeys take the animals outside their natural habitat; they follow a straight path and do not zigzag; they involve advance preparation, such as overfeeding; they require careful allocations of energy; and finally, “migrating animals maintain a fervid attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other animals aside.” In other words, they are pilgrims with a purpose. In the case of the arctic tern, whose journey is 28,000 miles, “it senses it can eat later.” It can rest later. It can mate later. Its implacable focus is the journey; its singular intent is arrival. Elephants, snakes, sea snakes, sea turtles, myriad species of birds, butterflies, whales, dolphins, bison, bees, insects, antelopes, wildebeests, eels, great white sharks, tree frogs, dragon flies, crabs, Pacific blue tuna, bats, and even microorganisms – all of them have distinct migratory patterns, and all of them congregate in a special place, even if, as individuals, they have never been there before. -Hamza Yusuf on the Hajj of Community

I started weeping out loud as the scenes of my past replayed through my head. I’d always seen God’s interventions as freebies, as nice gestures from an all-powerful genie-like figure. I was finally beginning to see not only what it meant to have a clean slate, but also how much it cost Him to give me one.

It was nice that this type of peer pressure wasn’t going to get me arrested. I’d become so used to getting manipulated and talked into things, it took me a while to realize this was different. They weren’t pressing their ways on me at all. They were just grateful to live in God’s promises in the present and to be free from the binding ways of their own pasts. They cut time out each morning so they could slow down, be intentional, study an impactful life lesson, rest in God, and put on the right attitude before setting out on their day.

In an earthbound perspective that excludes all consideration of God, there will be no day of reckoning. The good will die young, nice guys will finish last, and the murderers, rapists, and warmongers will never be held accountable for their actions. Humans will continue to be free to act like animals, biting and devouring one another. If there is no God, or Creator (no one outside the cycle) all our greatest feats and accomplishments will disappear when we die. Like chasing the wind, whatever we gain, we will eventually lose. Not only will we be forgotten when everyone we know dies, but even the greatest legacies will equate to nothing on the day that the sun burns out and the human race is no more.

I tried to think and hope for the best, but it didn’t change who I was. It didn’t change my core, my desires, my actions, nor my life, for that matter. Did it matter how many nice thoughts I put out into the universe if I remained a self-centered prick? Did it matter how many “selfless” thoughts and deeds I had if the only reason I performed them was to benefit myself, or gain a better future for myself?

To determine our essentials, we need to start with this foundational question because, without it, we will continue living our lives by default. We can implement the Time-Blocking Method all we want, but without a sense of purpose and intentionality, we will only be achieving productivity for productivity’s sake. Not only that, but the sheer ability to get a lot of stuff done is not ultimately going to provide you with the motivation you need to keep moving forward. You need to answer the question for yourself, “Why am I even doing any of this?” so that at the end of your productivity journey, you can look back and see that it was all for something bigger than yourself. I recognize this is no small question, and for those who have never pondered it before, I wouldn’t expect you to have an answer now; but I hope you will start on a journey to learn your purpose. Often connected with this larger question, is the question of, What are the things that you value most? Right now, most of us could easily articulate that we value things like family, relationships, creativity, hard work, making money, self-care, God, religion, giving back, or enjoying life. But these concepts, unfortunately, are way too vague, and ultimately, unhelpful to provide any real direction in your life. These so-called “values” could be applied to anyone and everyone. They are not specific enough to you. For instance, if you say you value relationships, what do you mean? Relationships with whom? Everyone you meet on the street? Your coworkers? Your spouse? All of your Facebook friends? Your best friend? The truth is you don’t actually value all relationships. My guess is, when you say you value relationships, you have a select few people in mind. You know that trying to build a friendship with everyone you meet would be unrealistic. For the most outgoing person, it would be impossible, even if you tried. That’s because if you invested an equal amount of energy into every person you know, then all of your relationships—especially your closest ones—would suffer. By making every relationship in your life important, you make none of them important. So, you have to get specific about the thing in which you value. Again, you most likely already know, but I would encourage you take a moment to articulate those specifics and write them down. But let’s take it a step deeper. You may say that you value your relationship with your spouse or significant other. That’s great! But if you never go on dates with them, buy them gifts, or say nice things to them, one might question how much you really value that relationship.

Emotion and chocolate are a lot alike: Too much and you can get downright sick, too little and the world might as well end (that is, if you like chocolate as much as I do). We women are emotional creatures! Little girls may be made of "sugar and spice and everything nice"; but let enough time go by, and that recipe is sure to ferment into some sort of emotion.