Odds Not In Your Favor Quotes

Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Alec isn’t happy,” said Magnus, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Of course he isn’t,” Isabelle snapped. “Jace—” “Jace,” said Magnus, and his hands made fists at his sides. Isabelle stared at him. She had always thought that he didn’t mind Jace; liked him, even, once the question of Alec’s affections had been settled. Out loud, she said: “I thought you were friends.” “It’s not that,” said Magnus. “There are some people — people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we’re all drawn toward what’s beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it’s only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver.” Isabelle shook her head slowly. “You’ve lost me. Jace is our brother, but for Alec — he’s Jace’s parabatai too —” “I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, his voice rising in pitch. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left—” “Stop it!” Isabelle clapped her hands over her ears, then lowered them slowly. “How dare you, Magnus Bane,” she said. “How dare you make this worse than it is —” “Isabelle.” Magnus’ hands loosened; he looked a little wide-eyed, as if his outburst had startled even him. “I am sorry. I forget, sometimes . . . that with all your self-control and strength, you possess the same vulnerability that Alec does.” “There is nothing weak about Alec,” said Isabelle. “No,” said Magnus. “To love as you choose, that takes strength. The thing is, I wanted you here for him. There are things I can’t do for him, can’t give him . . .” For a moment Magnus looked oddly vulnerable. “You have known Jace as long as he has. You can give him understanding I can’t. And he loves you.” “Of course he loves me. I’m his sister.” “Blood isn’t love,” said Magnus, and his voice was bitter. “Just ask Clary.

And may the odds -" He tosses a berry in a high arc toward me. I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. "- be ever in your favor!" I finish with equal verve.

Loving people, and allowing yourself to be loved, was only worth the risk if the odds were in your favor, but they quite clearly weren't. There were about seventy-nine squillion people in the world, and if you were very lucky, you would end up being loved by fifteen or twenty of them. So how smart did you have to be to work out that it just wasn't worth the risk?

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

I need your help.” Royce looked up as if his head weighed a hundred pounds, his eyes red, his face ashen. He waited. “One last job,” Hadrian told him, then added, “I promise.” “Is it dangerous?” “Very.” “Is there a good chance I’ll get killed?” “Odds are definitely in favor of that.” Royce nodded, looked down at the scarf in his lap, and replied, “Okay.

On the other hand, investing is a unique kind of casino—one where you cannot lose in the end, so long as you play only by the rules that put the odds squarely in your favor.

Greeting to the final contestants of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed," he says. "Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Dropping in and out of your own life (for psychotic breaks, or treatment in a hospital) isn’t like getting off a train at one stop and later getting back on at another. Even if you can get back on (and the odds are not in your favor), you’re lonely there. The people you boarded with originally are far, far ahead of you, and now you’re stuck playing catch-up.

In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, "what you can do for your country" implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshiped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive.

Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favor of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff. Don’t be like the ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking the gift horse in the mouth—remember that you are a Black Swan.

Before we go further we should define what optimism is. Real optimists don’t believe that everything will be great. That’s complacency. Optimism is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favor over time, even when there will be setbacks along the way.

Sometimes you just need to know when a fight is best saved for another day when the odds are more in your favour.

Good ideas are rare—when the odds are greatly in your favor, bet (allocate) heavily.

She had realized something over the recent months: it didn’t matter who you were or what you’d accomplished in life; none of that mattered when tragedy struck. You had no pull; no power. You had no choice. There was nothing to gamble with; nothing to do to put the odds in your favor. You were there and then you were gone, leaving those around you to realize how insignificant they all really were; leaving them to try to pick up the destroyed pieces.

Life is one big fat gamble, and the odds are never in your favor. So you either go for it anyway and toss the dice or you don't play. But not playing?" She jabbed him in the bare chest with her finger. "That's the coward's way out. And I hadn't pegged you for a coward. Figure your shit out.

The line between gambling and investing is artificial and thin. The soundest investment has the defining trait of a bet (you losing all of your money in hopes of making a bit more), and the wildest speculation has the salient characteristic of an investment (you might get your money back with interest). Maybe the best definition of “investing” is “gambling with the odds in your favor.

If something is important enough, you do it even if the odds aren't in your favor.

Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.

More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte—my old friends—with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me.

I am sometimes taken aback by how people can have a miserable day or get angry because they feel cheated by a bad meal, cold coffee, a social rebuff or a rude reception. We are quick to forget that just being alive is an extraordinary piece of good luck, a remote event, a chance of occurrence of monstrous proportions. Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favor of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff. Don’t be like the ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking at the gift horse in the mouth – remember you are a Black Swan.

The trick when dealing with failure is arranging your financial life in a way that a bad investment here and a missed financial goal there won’t wipe you out so you can keep playing until the odds fall in your favor. But more important is that as much as we recognize the role of luck in success, the role of risk means we should forgive ourselves and leave room for understanding when judging failures.

Hope was a funny thing. It kept you dangling by a thread until the last possible moment, even when the odds weren't in your favor.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

When something is important enough. you do it. even if the odds are not in your favor.

It’s one thing to have a support system in your life to cheer you on during the instances when everyone is rooting for you. However, it’s another thing entirely to look back in your darkest moments and still see them standing in your corner, encouraging you to stay in the ring and FIGHT, when the odds aren’t in your favor and all you want to do is throw in the towel. Not many people in this life will be on your side even when they aren’t on your side. Even less who momentarily will slam doors out of frustration but never actually lock you out. Unconditional love; the definition of sister.

Faith in technique is the religion of the dangerous trades. To go up against an armed felon in a gunfight or to fight him in the dirt you have to believe perfect technique, hard training, will guarantee that you are invincible. This is not true, particularly in firefights. You can stack the odds in your favor, but if you get into enough gunfights, you will be killed in one.

May be odds be always in your favor

May the odds be ever in your favor

If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.

You want to choose a path that puts the odds of winning in your favor; in poker, it’s called game selection. What determines if you win in any game (or business) isn’t how good you are; it’s how good you are relative to your competition. That’s why it’s so important to know your own strengths and weaknesses and find a market in which you have an inherent advantage.

So imagine two scenarios. Let’s say it’s the holidays, and two different neighbors invite you to their parties in the same week. You accept both invitations. In one case, you do the irrational thing and give Neighbor X a bottle of Bordeaux; for the second party you adopt the rational approach and give Neighbor Z $50 in cash. The following week, you need some help moving a sofa. How comfortable would you be approaching each of your neighbors, and how do you think each would react to your request for a favor? The odds are that Neighbor X will step in to help. And Neighbor Z? Since you have already paid him once (to make and share dinner with you), his logical response to your request for help might be, “Fine. How much will you pay me this time?” Again, the prospect of acting rationally, financially speaking, sounds deeply irrational in terms of social norms. The point is that while gifts are financially inefficient, they are an important social lubricant. They help us make friends and create long-term relationships that can sustain us through the ups and downs of life. Sometimes, it turns out, a waste of money can be worth a lot.

Smalls, my parents' house is pretty big. The odds are more in favor of a burglar sneaking around than your boy-boy. I can't let you take that risk alone. If you're gonna get murdered, then I'm gonna get murdered with you." She shrugged. "It's what any good friend would do.

Conservative is avoiding a certain level of risk. Margin of safety is raising the odds of success at a given level of risk by increasing your chances of survival. Its magic is that the higher your margin of safety, the smaller your edge needs to be to have a favorable outcome.

Each decision we make, no matter how mundane, involves an element of chance. Everything from the food we eat, to the relationships we enter into, to the jobs we pursue- we all calculate the pros and cons and then make the best choice we can, using the information we have. It's the same with medicine. You can weigh the benefits and risks all you want, but at some point, you have to dive in and hope that the odds are in your favor.

May the odds be ever in your favor ~ Effie Trinket

Alone, you're vastly outnumbered; but in the company of another, by some weird miracle of human math, the odds seem wonderfully improved in your favor.

The tendency to make poor decisions and ignore odds in favor of your gut feelings is called the affect heuristic.

When something is is important enough, you do it anyway even if the odds are not in your favor.

And may the odds be ever in your favor.

Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!

And May The Odds Ever Be In Your Favor!

it didn’t matter who you were or what you’d accomplished in life; none of that mattered when tragedy struck. You had no pull; no power. You had no choice. There was nothing to gamble with; nothing to do to put the odds in your favor. You were there and then you were gone, leaving those around you to realize how insignificant they all really were; leaving them to try to pick up the destroyed pieces.

Soldiers and comrades in this adventure,” he said. “I hope that none of you in our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the better.

At the signing of the Declaration of Independence only 5 percent of us were urbanites. By 1876, that number was still just 25 percent. But roughly 100 years ago we tipped to favor city living. Today, 84 percent of Americans live in cities and more are moving in. It’s an odd trend.

You cannot remove randomness from the universe. You can, however, use your 168 hours to stack the odds in your favor. To do this, you have to place many bets, and leave nothing you can control to chance. In other words, you have to be open to possibilities, and plan for opportunities.

best definition of “investing” is “gambling with the odds in your favor.” The people on the short side of the subprime mortgage market had gambled with the odds in their favor. The people on the other side—the entire financial system, essentially—had gambled with the odds against them.

there is a difference between gambling in business and gambling in a casino. In a casino, the odds are stacked against you. With skill, you can improve them, but never beat them. In contrast, in business, you can improve your skills to shift the odds in your favor. Simply stated, with enough skill, you can become the house.

WHY 20 MILE MARCHERS WIN 20 Mile Marching helps turn the odds in your favor for three reasons: 1. It builds confidence in your ability to perform well in adverse circumstances. 2. It reduces the likelihood of catastrophe when you’re hit by turbulent disruption. 3. It helps you exert self-control in an out-of-control environment.

. . . I bet I'm beginning to make some parents nervous - here I am, bragging of being a dropout, and unemployable, and about to make a pitch for you to follow your creative dreams, when what parents want is for their children to do well in their field, to make them look good, and maybe also to assemble a tasteful fortune . . . But that is not your problem. Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to live it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are . . . I do know you are not what you look like, or how much you weigh, or how you did in school, or whether you start a job next Monday or not. Spirit isn't what you do, it's . . . well, again, I don't actually know. They probably taught this junior year at Goucher; I should've stuck around. But I know that you feel best when you're not doing much - when you're in nature, when you're very quiet or, paradoxically, listening to music . . . We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another, especially when it's a really busy person, like you, taking care of the needy, annoying, neurotic person, like you. In fact, that's often when we see Spirit most brightly . . . In my twenties I devised a school of relaxation that has unfortunately fallen out of favor in the ensuing years - it was called Prone Yoga. You just lay around as much as possible. You could read, listen to music, you could space out or sleep. But you had to be lying down. Maintaining the prone. You've graduated. You have nothing left to prove, and besides, it's a fool's game. If you agree to play, you've already lost. It's Charlie Brown and Lucy, with the football. If you keep getting back on the field, they win. There are so many great things to do right now. Write. Sing. Rest. Eat cherries. Register voters. And - oh my God - I nearly forgot the most important thing: refuse to wear uncomfortable pants, even if they make you look really thin. Promise me you'll never wear pants that bind or tug or hurt, pants that have an opinion about how much you've just eaten. The pants may be lying! There is way too much lying and scolding going on politically right now without having your pants get in on the act, too. So bless you. You've done an amazing thing. And you are loved; you're capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It's what you are made of. And it's what you're here for. Take care of yourselves; take care of one another. And give thanks, like this: Thank you.

It’s not a tangible thing. There won’t be one defining moment that you classify as happiness. It’s little moments, accumulated over time. It’s choosing each other, and knowing the person you chose to spend your life with will always fight for you, even when it’s tough, even when the odds aren’t in their favor. It’s doing all you can, giving her all you have, and accepting that it’s enough.

fingers encircle a blackberry and pluck it from its stem. I roll it gently between my thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, I turn to him and toss it in his direction. “And may the odds —” I say. I throw it high so he has plenty of time to decide whether to knock it aside or accept it. Gale’s eyes train on me, not the berry, but at the last moment, he opens his mouth and catches it. He chews, swallows, and there’s a long pause before he says “— be ever in your favor.

The chances of having a successful career in fashion journalism are so slim, but you don’t let that dissuade you. You know the odds aren’t in your favor, but you’re giving it your best shot anyway. The other interns have wealth, status, connections, trust funds. I mean, even I have those things—they’re practically table stakes for a career in journalism. Most people in your situation wouldn’t even bother, but you’re still giving it your all. I admire that. I wish I had your kind of courage.

Stop! Stop!” Sophie shrieked with laughter as she ran down the stone steps that led to the garden behind Bridgerton House. After three children and seven years of marriage, Benedict could still make her smile, still make her laugh . . . and he still chased her around the house any chance he could get. “Where are the children?” she gasped, once he’d caught her at the base of the steps. “Francesca is watching them.” “And your mother?” He grinned. “I daresay Francesca is watching her, too.” “Anyone could stumble upon us out here,” she said, looking this way and that. His smile turned wicked. “Maybe,” he said, catching hold of her green-velvet skirt and reeling her in, “we should adjourn to the private terrace.” The words were oh-so-familiar, and it was only a second before she was transported back nine years to the masquerade ball. “The private terrace, you say?” she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes. “And how, pray tell, would you know of a private terrace?” His lips brushed against hers. “I have my ways,” he murmured. “And I,” she returned, smiling slyly, “have my secrets.” He drew back. “Oh? And will you share?” “We five,” she said with a nod, “are about to be six.” He looked at her face, then looked at her belly. “Are you sure?” “As sure as I was last time.” He took her hand and raised it to lips. “This one will be a girl.” “That’s what you said last time.” “I know, but—” “And the time before.” “All the more reason for the odds to favor me this time.” She shook her head. “I’m glad you’re not a gambler.” He smiled at that. “Let’s not tell anyone yet.” “I think a few people already suspect,” Sophie admitted. “I want to see how long it takes that Whistledown woman to figure it out,” Benedict said. “Are you serious?” “The blasted woman knew about Charles, and she knew about Alexander, and she knew about William.” Sophie smiled as she let him pull her into the shadows. “Do you realize that I have been mentioned in Whistledown two hundred and thirty-two times?” That stopped him cold. “You’ve been counting?” “Two hundred and thirty-three if you include the time after the masquerade.” “I can’t believe you’ve been counting.” She gave him a nonchalant shrug. “It’s exciting to be mentioned.” Benedict thought it was a bloody nuisance to be mentioned, but he wasn’t about to spoil her delight, so instead he just said, “At least she always writes nice things about you. If she didn’t, I might have to hunt her down and run her out of the country.” Sophie couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, please. I hardly think you could discover her identity when no one else in the ton has managed it.” He raised one arrogant brow. “That doesn’t sound like wifely devotion and confidence to me.” She pretended to examine her glove. “You needn’t expend the energy. She’s obviously very good at what she does.” “Well, she won’t know about Violet,” Benedict vowed. “At least not until it’s obvious to the world.” “Violet?” Sophie asked softly. “It’s time my mother had a grandchild named after her, don’t you think?” Sophie leaned against him, letting her cheek rest against the crisp linen of his shirt. “I think Violet is a lovely name,” she murmured, nestling deeper into the shelter of his arms. “I just hope it’s a girl. Because if it’s a boy, he’s never going to forgive us . . .

Saturday evening, on a quiet lazy afternoon, I went to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas, one of Madrid's most famous bullrings. I went there out of curiosity. I had long been haunted by the image of the matador with its custom made torero suit, embroidered with golden threads, looking spectacular in his "suit of light" or traje de luces as they call it in Spain. I was curious to see the dance of death unfold in front of me, to test my humanity in the midst of blood and gold, and to see in which state my soul will come out of the arena, whether it will be shaken and stirred, furious and angry, or a little bit aware of the life embedded in every death. Being an avid fan of Hemingway, and a proponent of his famous sentence "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after,” I went there willingly to test myself. I had heard atrocities about bullfighting yet I had this immense desire to be part of what I partially had an inclination to call a bloody piece of cultural experience. As I sat there, in front of the empty arena, I felt a grandiose feeling of belonging to something bigger than anything I experienced during my stay in Spain. Few minutes and I'll be witnessing a painting being carefully drawn in front of me, few minutes and I will be part of an art form deeply entrenched in the Spanish cultural heritage: the art of defying death. But to sit there, and to watch the bull enter the arena… To watch one bull surrounded by a matador and his six assistants. To watch the matador confronting the bull with the capote, performing a series of passes, just before the picador on a horse stabs the bull's neck, weakening the neck muscles and leading to the animal's first loss of blood... Starting a game with only one side having decided fully to engage in while making sure all the odds will be in the favor of him being a predetermined winner. It was this moment precisely that made me feel part of something immoral. The unfair rules of the game. The indifferent bull being begged to react, being pushed to the edge of fury. The bull, tired and peaceful. The bull, being teased relentlessly. The bull being pushed to a game he isn't interested in. And the matador getting credits for an unfair game he set. As I left the arena, people looked at me with mocking eyes. Yes, I went to watch a bull fight and yes the play of colors is marvelous. The matador’s costume is breathtaking and to be sitting in an arena fills your lungs with the sands of time. But to see the amount of claps the spill of blood is getting was beyond what I can endure. To hear the amount of claps injustice brings is astonishing. You understand a lot about human nature, about the wars taking place every day, about poverty and starvation. You understand a lot about racial discrimination and abuse (verbal and physical), sex trafficking, and everything that stirs the wounds of this world wide open. You understand a lot about humans’ thirst for injustice and violence as a way to empower hidden insecurities. Replace the bull and replace the matador. And the arena will still be there. And you'll hear the claps. You've been hearing them ever since you opened your eyes.

You have to realize that you are not average. You never have been. You are one of one. You have always had what it took to defy the odds. If you don’t believe that, might you be reminded that your very existence is perhaps the least likely thing to ever happen? The odds of you being born, some scientists have estimated, are in the realm of one in four hundred trillion—but in truth this understates it. Consider everything that had to happen for your parents to meet, for you to survive, for you to find yourself here at this moment, thinking about what you may embark on. You are more than a miracle, you are a miracle on the spectrum of unlikely miracles. Yet here you are.

The gnarled pine, I would have said, touch it. This is China. Horticulturalists around the world have come to study it. Yet no one has ever been able to explain why it grows like a corkscrew, just as no one can adequately explain China. But like that tree, there it is, old, resilient, and oddly magnificent. Within that tree are the elements in nature that have inspired Chinese artists for centuries: gesture over geometry, subtlety over symmetry, constant flow over static form. And the temples, walk and touch them. This is China. Don't merely stare at these murals and statues. Fly up to the crossbeams, get down on your hands and knees, and press your head to the floor tiles. Hide behind that pillar and come eye to eye with its flecks of paint. Imagine that you are the interior decorator who is a thousand years in age. Start with a bit of Tibetan Buddhism, plus a dash each of animism and Taoism. A hodgepodge, you say? No, what is in those temples is an amalgam that is pure Chinese, a lovely shabby elegance, a glorious new motley that makes China infinitely intriguing. Nothing is ever completely thrown away and replaced. If one period of influence falls out of favor, it is patched over. The old views still exist, one chipped layer beneath, ready to pop through with the slightest abrasion. That is the Chinese aesthetic and also its spirit. Those are the traces that have affected all who have traveled along China's roads.

Well, I'd like to know how it's possible to make your living gambling, because at the table, the odds are .493." "You're right," he said, "and I'll explain to you. I don't bet on the table, or things like that. I only bet when the odds are in my favor." "Huh? When are the odds ever in your favor?" I asked incredulously. "It's really quite easy," he said. "I'm standing around a table, when some guy says, 'It's comin' out nine! It's gotta be a nine!' The guy's excited; he things it's going to be a nine, and he wants to bet. Now I know the odds for all the numbers inside out, so I say to him, 'I'll bet you four to three it's not a nine', and I win in the long run. I don't bet on the table; instead, I bet with people around the table who have prejudices--superstitious ideas about lucky numbers.

Many potential readers will skip the shopping cart or cash-out clerk because they have seen so many disasters reported in the news that they’ve acquired a panic mentality when they think of them. “Disasters scare me to death!” they cry. “I don’t want to read about them!” But really, how can a picture hurt you? Better that each serve as a Hallmark card that greets your fitful fevers with reason and uncurtains your valor. Then, so gospeled, you may see that defeating a disaster is as innocently easy as deciding to go out to dinner. Remove the dread that bars your doors of perception, and you will enjoy a banquet of treats that will make the difference between suffering and safety. You will enter a brave new world that will erase your panic, and release you from the grip of terror, and relieve you of the deadening effects of indifference —and you will find that switch of initiative that will energize your intelligence, empower your imagination, and rouse your sense of vigilance in ways that will tilt the odds of danger from being forever against you to being always in your favor. Indeed, just thinking about a disaster is one of the best things you can do —because it allows you to imagine how you would respond in a way that is free of pain and destruction. Another reason why disasters seem so scary is that many victims tend to see them as a whole rather than divide them into much smaller and more manageable problems. A disaster can seem overwhelming when confronted with everything at once —but if you dice it into its tiny parts and knock them off one at a time, the whole thing can seem as easy as eating a lavish dinner one bite at a time. In a disaster you must also plan for disruption as well as destruction. Death and damage may make the news, but in almost every disaster far more lives are disrupted than destroyed. Wit­ness the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 and killed 158 people. The path of death and destruction was less than a mile wide and only 22 miles long —but within thirty miles 160,000 citizens whose property didn’t suffer a dime of damage were profoundly disrupted by the carnage, loss of power and water, suspension of civic services, and inability to buy food, gas, and other necessities. You may rightfully believe your chances of dying in a disaster in your lifetime may be nearly nil, but the chances of your life being disrupted by a disaster in the next decade is nearly a sure thing. Not only should you prepare for disasters, you should learn to premeditate them. Prepare concerns the body; premeditate concerns the mind. Everywhere you go, think what could happen and how you might/could/would/should respond. Use your imagination. Fill your brain with these visualizations —run mind-movies in your head —develop a repertoire —until when you walk into a building/room/situation you’ll automatically know what to do. If a disaster does ambush you —sure you’re apt to panic, but in seconds your memory will load the proper video into your mobile disk drive and you’ll feel like you’re watching a scary movie for the second time and you’ll know what to expect and how to react. That’s why this book is important: its manner of vivifying disasters kickstarts and streamlines your acquiring these premeditations, which lays the foundation for satisfying your needs when a disaster catches you by surprise.

Do you do that on purpose? The unfinished thought as a way to drive me mad?” “I don’t know if I can explain it right.” “Please try.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re claiming I don’t bore you and you aren’t thinking of moving on to Jeremy anytime soon.” She nodded, fighting a grin. “But last night… it was like…” She was anxious now. The rest came out in a rush. “Like you were already looking for a way to say goodbye.” “Perceptive,” she whispered. And there was the anguish again, leaving. Well, they are related, but inversely.” The necessity of leaving. My stomach plunged. “I don’t understand.” She stared into my eyes again, and hers burned, mesmerizing. Her voice was barely audible. “The more I care about you, the more crucial it is that I find a way to… keep you safe. From me. Leaving would be the right thing to do.” I shook my head. “No.” She took a deep breath, and her eyes seemed to darken in an odd way. “Well, I wasn’t very good at leaving you alone when I tried. I don’t know how to do it.” “Will you do me a favor? Stop trying to figure that one out.” She half-smiled. “I suppose, given the frequency of your near-death experiences, it’s actually safer for me to stay close.” “True story. You never know when another rogue van might attack.

I think it’s helpful to take an organized approach to what I call the “twin risks.” What I’m talking about here is the fact that investors have to deal daily with two possible sources of error. The first is obvious: the risk of losing money. The second is a bit more subtle: the risk of missing opportunity. Investors can eliminate either one, but doing so will expose them entirely to the other. So most people balance the two. What should an investor’s normal stance be regarding the two risks: evenly balanced, or favoring one or the other? The answer depends mostly on one’s goals, circumstances, personality and ability to withstand risk (and on the same things with regard to one’s clients, if any). And separate and apart from his normal posture, should the investor alter the balance from time to time? And if so, how? I think investors should try to appropriately adjust their stance if they (a) feel they have the requisite insight and (b) are willing to expend effort and bear the risk of being wrong. They should do this based on where the market is in its cycle. In short, when the market is high in its cycle, they should emphasize limiting the potential for losing money, and when the market is low in its cycle, they should emphasize reducing the risk of missing opportunity.

A few years ago my friend Jon Brooks supplied this great illustration of skewed interpretation at work. Here’s how investors react to events when they’re feeling good about life (which usually means the market has been rising): Strong data: economy strengthening—stocks rally Weak data: Fed likely to ease—stocks rally Data as expected: low volatility—stocks rally Banks make $4 billion: business conditions favorable—stocks rally Banks lose $4 billion: bad news out of the way—stocks rally Oil spikes: growing global economy contributing to demand—stocks rally Oil drops: more purchasing power for the consumer—stocks rally Dollar plunges: great for exporters—stocks rally Dollar strengthens: great for companies that buy from abroad—stocks rally Inflation spikes: will cause assets to appreciate—stocks rally Inflation drops: improves quality of earnings—stocks rally Of course, the same behavior also applies in the opposite direction. When psychology is negative and markets have been falling for a while, everything is capable of being interpreted negatively. Strong economic data is seen as likely to make the Fed withdraw stimulus by raising interest rates, and weak data is taken to mean companies will have trouble meeting earnings forecasts. In other words, it’s not the data or events; it’s the interpretation. And that fluctuates with swings in psychology.

So, am I allowed to take you for dinner before I take you back to my place to fuck you?” he murmurs against my lips. “Show that pretty hair off that I got into trouble for paying for.” My eyes flutter. “I could eat,” I say, still feeling breathless from his kiss. “But I’m paying for dinner.” He tips his head back. “You are not paying for my dinner.” He looks appalled at the idea. I let out a sigh. “Okay, Caveman, how about we go dutch?” “How about I pay for it all, and you can just like it?” “How about I don’t? You wanna pull my hair while you fuck me from behind? Then, I’m buying dinner.” He laughs low and deep. “Fine. I won’t pull your hair. I’ll just fuck you the old-fashioned way and still buy you dinner.” “Ugh,” I grumble. “You’re impossible.” “I’m not impossible.” He chuckles. “I just know what I want. Okay, how about this? I’ll buy you dinner, and you can pay me back in sexual favors when we get back to my place.” “Um, you want me to hooker myself out for dinner?” I glare at him. A salacious look crosses his face, his lips tipping up into a grin. “I have always wanted to fuck a hooker.” “You ass!” I slap his chest with my hand. Chuckling, he wraps his arms around me and presses his nose to mine, staring into my eyes. “I’m not an ass. I’m hot. And you want me bad.” “That’s debatable since you just called me a hooker.” “I didn’t call you a hooker.” He frowns. “You asked me to pay for my dinner by giving you sexual favors.” “Ah, now, you’re just twisting my words all up. I said I’d always wanted to fuck a hooker—” “Not making me feel better.” “And I didn’t call you a hooker. Babe…” He brushes his nose down the side of mine, kissing my cheek and then the corner of my mouth. “How about you let me buy you dinner, and I’ll go down on you in thanks? How does that sound?” “You want to thank me with oral sex for you buying dinner? How does that make sense?” “It makes sense because I get to pay for dinner and not have you mad at me.” A sexy smile slowly creeps onto his lips. “You have a really weird idea about what constitutes winning, Hunter.” “And that’s why I’m so successful in business, Boston.” “Because you have no clue what winning means?” “No. Because people would rather be fucked by me than fucked over by me.” Laughing, I shake my head. “You are a strange man, Liam Hunter.” “And aren’t you just glad you met me?” I stare up into his face. “Oddly, yeah, I am.

And may the odds be ever in your favor!

Life is like a game of texas hold them. the odds might be in your favor to be happy and succeed, but you just never know what the future is holding

The odds may be against you, but the Most High God is for you. His favor on your life will cause you to go where you could not go on your own. If you’re going to be a barrier breaker, you have to get rid of excuses. If you’re going to be a barrier breaker, you have to get rid of excuses.

Zero Line Spender, Saver, Wealth Creator Your financial personality type determines your financial position in life. Let’s say there is a zero financial line that represents a position where you owe nothing and have nothing. Perhaps you can remember those days getting started on your own. So, let us assume you just graduated from college and you’re one of the lucky few who graduated at the zero line, you owe nothing. Pretty amazing considering that in 2013, the debt on student loans exceeded all credit card debt owed in America. But fortunately, you made it out free and clear to the zero line. You’re a “Spender” so you go to the showroom and pick one out. With your job and the car as collateral, you get a car loan and you drop below the zero line. You lifestyle gets more and more expensive and since you are a ‘Spender” you probably take on credit card debt to help finance your lifestyle desires. You are constantly working your way back to becoming a zero, financially speaking. Then, you get married and now there are two in debt working their way back to zero. Eventually, children come along, and the odds of being able to put away enough money to pay your debt and interest and live on the top side of the zero line are becoming virtually impossible. Unfortunately, many Americans live in this position with little or no chance of ever living debt free. When something comes along that requires their savings, they must deplete their funds in order to avoid paying interest and then they must start saving again for their next expense. They are constantly returning to the zero line. The money they have accumulated is compounding interest, giving them uninterrupted growth. Having access to capital allows them to negotiate more favorable loans by collateralizing against their accounts rather than depleting them. They make payments to the lending institution with dollars from their current cash flow, protecting the growth of the money they have saved and invested for their future. Saving and investing with uninterrupted compounding is an important wealth concept for moving further and further away from the zero line.

While the family and servants gathered reverently to view the magnificent creation, Kathleen took West’s arm and tugged him out of the room. “Something is going on here,” she said. “I want to know the real reason why the earl has invited Mr. Winterborne.” They stopped in the space beneath the grand staircase, behind the tree. “Can’t he show hospitality to a friend without an ulterior motive?” West parried. She shook her head. “Everything your brother does has an ulterior motive. Why has he invited Mr. Winterborne?” “Winterborne has his finger in many pies. I believe Devon hopes to benefit from his advice, and at some future date enter into a business deal with him.” That sounded reasonable enough. But her intuition still warned that there was something fishy about the situation. “How did they become acquainted?” “About three years ago, Winterborne was nominated for membership at two different London clubs, but was rejected by both of them. Winterborne is a commoner, his father was a Welsh grocer. So after hearing the sniggering about how Winterborne had been refused, Devon arranged to have our club, Brabbler’s, offer a membership to him. And Winterborne never forgets a favor.” “Brabbler’s?” Kathleen repeated. “What an odd name.” “It’s the word for a fellow who tends to argue over trifles.” West looked down and rubbed at a sticky spot of sap on the heel of his hand. “Brabbler’s is a second-tier club for those who aren’t allowed into White’s or Brooks’s, but it includes some of the most successful and clever men in London.” “Such as Mr. Winterborne.” “Just so.

Coughing from the smoke-glazed air, Devon ducked back into the carriage. He found Winterborne pulling shards of glass from his hair, his eyes still closed, his face scored with a mesh of bloody scratches. “I’m going to pull you outside and guide you to the river’s edge,” Devon said. “What’s your condition?” Winterborne asked, sounding remarkably lucid for a man who’d just been blinded and had his leg broken. “Better than yours.” “How far are we from solid ground?” “About twenty feet.” “And the current? How strong is it?” “It doesn’t bloody matter: We can’t stay here.” “Your odds are better without me,” came the calm observation. “I’m not going to leave you in here, you arse-witted bastard.” Devon gripped Winterborne’s wrist and pulled it across his shoulders. “If you’re afraid you’ll owe me a favor after saving your life…” With effort, he towed him toward the open doorway. “…you’re right. A huge favor.

Your odds are better without me,” came the calm observation. “I’m not going to leave you in here, you arse-witted bastard.” Devon gripped Winterborne’s wrist and pulled it across his shoulders. “If you’re afraid you’ll owe me a favor after saving your life…” With effort, he towed him toward the open doorway. “…you’re right. A huge favor.

But do you think he foresaw that Twelvetrees would call him out? Well, yes, I suppose he did,” Hal answered himself. “Twelvetrees couldn’t do otherwise. But does Fraser want this duel?” Grey saw what his brother was getting at and shook his head. “You mean that we might be doing him a favor by preventing his fighting. No.” He smiled affectionately at his brother and put down his cup. “It’s simple, Hal. Put yourself in his place, and think what you’d do. He may not be an Englishman, but his honor is equal to yours, and so is his determination. I could not pay him a greater compliment.” “Hmmph,” said Hal, and flushed a little. “Well. Had you better take him to the salle des armes tomorrow, then? Give him a bit of practice before he meets Twelvetrees? Supposing he does choose swords.” “I don’t think there will be time.” The feeling of calm was spreading; he felt almost as though he floated in the warm light of fire and candles, as though it bore him up. Hal was staring at him suspiciously. “What do you mean by that?” “I thought it out this afternoon, and reached the same conclusions that we have just come to. Then I sent a note to Edward Twelvetrees, demanding satisfaction for his insult to me at the club.” Hal’s jaw dropped. “You … what?” Grey reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out the crumpled note. “And he’s replied. Six o’clock tomorrow morning, in the gardens behind Lambeth Palace. Sabers. Odd, that. I should have thought he’d be a rapier man.

Contrarily, for those who invest and then drop out of the game and never pay a single unnecessary cost, the odds in favor of success are awesome. Why? Simply because they own businesses, and businesses as a group earn substantial returns on their capital and pay out dividends to their owners. Yes, many individual companies fail. Firms with flawed ideas and rigid strategies and weak managements ultimately fall victim to the creative destruction that is the hallmark of competitive capitalism, only to be succeeded by others.3 But in the aggregate, businesses grow with the long-term growth of our vibrant economy.

Optimism is usually defined as a belief that things will go well. But that’s incomplete. Sensible optimism is a belief that the odds are in your favor, and over time things will balance out to a good outcome even if what happens in between is filled with misery.

Once you are dead, the odds are never in your favor.

consider how, with as far as certainty can be certain, this is your only hope at life. And against all possible odds, you are here—at this distant, solitary planet amidst the cold dark of a seemingly unending, lifeless universe. And with every incoming ship, including your own, there is the potential to bring to the planet a compassion and love and the same unbelievably favorable odds of hope that got you here in the first place. ​You make what you believe is the obvious choice.

2. Planning is important, but the most important part of every plan is to plan on the plan not going according to plan. What’s the saying? You plan, God laughs. Financial and investment planning are critical, because they let you know whether your current actions are within the realm of reasonable. But few plans of any kind survive their first encounter with the real world. If you’re projecting your income, savings rate, and market returns over the next 20 years, think about all the big stuff that’s happened in the last 20 years that no one could have foreseen: September 11th, a housing boom and bust that caused nearly 10 million Americans to lose their homes, a financial crisis that caused almost nine million to lose their jobs, a record-breaking stock-market rally that ensued, and a coronavirus that shakes the world as I write this. A plan is only useful if it can survive reality. And a future filled with unknowns is everyone’s reality. A good plan doesn’t pretend this weren’t true; it embraces it and emphasizes room for error. The more you need specific elements of a plan to be true, the more fragile your financial life becomes. If there’s enough room for error in your savings rate that you can say, “It’d be great if the market returns 8% a year over the next 30 years, but if it only does 4% a year I’ll still be OK,” the more valuable your plan becomes. Many bets fail not because they were wrong, but because they were mostly right in a situation that required things to be exactly right. Room for error—often called margin of safety—is one of the most underappreciated forces in finance. It comes in many forms: A frugal budget, flexible thinking, and a loose timeline—anything that lets you live happily with a range of outcomes. It’s different from being conservative. Conservative is avoiding a certain level of risk. Margin of safety is raising the odds of success at a given level of risk by increasing your chances of survival. Its magic is that the higher your margin of safety, the smaller your edge needs to be to have a favorable outcome.

Optimism is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favor over time, even when there will be setbacks along the way. The simple idea that most people wake up in the morning trying to make things a little better and more productive than wake up looking to cause trouble is the foundation of optimism.

Sensible optimism is a belief that the odds are in your favor, and over time things will balance out to a good outcome even if what happens in between is filled with misery.

The idea is that you have to take risk to get ahead, but no risk that can wipe you out is ever worth taking. The odds are in your favor when playing Russian roulette. But the downside is not worth the potential upside.

IN A MUCH QUOTED PASSAGE in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic “what your country can do for you” implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, “what you can do for your country” implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive. The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather “What can I and my compatriots do through government” to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is

As for those forwards who remain on the ice for too long, we’ll pass the mic to venerable blogger Tyler Dellow: “Being on the ice after a minute is sort of like being in a bar after 1:00 am—there’s no guarantee that something bad will happen, it’s possible that something good will happen, but the odds are slanted heavily in favor of something bad.

Optimism is usually defined as a belief that things will go well. But that’s incomplete. Sensible optimism is a belief that the odds are in your favor, and over time things will balance out to a good outcome even if what happens in between is filled with misery. And in fact you know it will be filled with misery.

We aren’t going all-in for our kids because we are promised excellent results. We’re doing it because they mean more to us than anything in the world. When it comes right down to it, we want our children to live out the fullness of God’s vision for their lives, and we’re willing to do just about anything it takes to stack the odds in favor of that happening.

Time is compounding’s magic, and its importance can’t be minimized. But the odds of success fall deepest in your favor when you mix a long time horizon with a flexible end date—or an indefinite horizon.

I accepted the hard truth that hoping and wishing are like gambling on long shots, and if I wanted to be better, I had to start living every day with a sense of urgency. Because that is the only way to turn the odds in your favor.

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor

Alone, you’re vastly outnumbered; but in the company of another, by some weird miracle of human math, the odds seem wonderfully improved in your favor.

the odds be ever in your favor,

Instead, they count on three keys to success—keys that all influencers adhere to and that you can use to your own benefit: 1. Focus and measure. Influencers are crystal clear about the result they are trying to achieve and are zealous about measuring it. 2. Find vital behaviors. Influencers focus on high-leverage behaviors that drive results. More specifically, they focus on the two or three vital actions that produce the greatest amount of change. 3. Engage all six sources of influence. Finally, influencers break from the pack by overdetermining change. Where most of us apply a favorite influence tool or two to our important challenges, influencers identify all of the varied forces that are shaping the behavior they want to change and then get them working for rather than against them. And now for the really good news. According to our research, by getting six different sources of influence to work in their favor, influencers increase their odds of success tenfold.

year to read out the names at the leaping. “I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!” He plucks a few blackberries from the bushes around us. “And may the odds—” He tosses a berry in a high arc toward me. I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. “—be ever in your favor!

Achish of Gath did not have one champion to face this cowardly messiah king, wherever he was hiding. He had six. Six times the odds in his favor. “I will take your advice,” said Achish. “I will prepare for battle. Where do you think would be the optimum location for your victory? Somewhere to aid our invasion of Israelite territories.” Goliath said, “The Valley of the Terebinth, fifteen miles southwest of Bethlehem.” The Valley of the Terebinth, known to others as the Valley of Elah, marked a natural entry point for conquering from the Philistine homeland into the hill country of the Saulide kingdom. It would be the perfect spot to thrust a Philistine scimitar of war.

In my two memos to Bojia I explained that there is no set formula for writing a column, no class you attend, and that everyone does it differently to some degree. But there were some general guidelines I could offer. When you are a reporter, your focus is on digging up facts to explain the visible and the complex and to unearth and expose the impenetrable and the hidden—wherever that takes you. You are there to inform, without fear or favor. Straight news often has enormous influence, but it’s always in direct proportion to how much it informs, exposes, and explains. Opinion writing is different. When you are a columnist, or a blogger in Bojia’s case, your purpose is to influence or provoke a reaction and not just to inform—to argue for a certain perspective so compellingly that you persuade your readers to think or feel differently or more strongly or afresh about an issue. That is why, I explained to Bojia, as a columnist, “I am either in the heating business or the lighting business.” Every column or blog has to either turn on a lightbulb in your reader’s head—illuminate an issue in a way that will inspire them to look at it anew—or stoke an emotion in your reader’s heart that prompts them to feel or act more intensely or differently about an issue. The ideal column does both. But how do you go about generating heat or light? Where do opinions come from? I am sure every opinion writer would offer a different answer. My short one is that a column idea can spring from anywhere: a newspaper headline that strikes you as odd, a simple gesture by a stranger, the moving speech of a leader, the naïve question of a child, the cruelty of a school shooter, the wrenching tale of a refugee.

Don’t bother trying to tell me you’re unbribable. You are a Greek, after all.” “Do I look like I need money?” he asked. “I’ve already paid for my funeral, and I’ve bought a very decent tomb for my family out on the Via Tiburtina.” “Everybody needs money!” Hermes protested. “Not necessarily,” I said. “However, I shall be praetor next year, and very few men never need a favor, if not for themselves, then for some family member. How about it, Polyneices? I am sure you are all very respectable people, but surely you have the odd scapegrace, the inevitable ne’er-do-well, among your kin? My own father has bailed me out of the lockup more than once in my young and foolish days.” He thought, stroking his jaw in that odd Greek fashion.

Daily: Think positive. Read positive. Listen positive. Talk positive. Affirm positive. Watch positive. Practice positive. Make yourself positive. To ensure your beingness and attitude are at their best, I suggest you read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Hal emphasizes the importance of a morning routine that sets you up for success each and every day. Left to chance, perhaps you will have a good day, perhaps not. By creating a morning routine, you can set the odds heavily in your favor of having an epically fabulous day. Why not increase the odds you will have a fantastic day, full of energy, hope and enthusiasm? Success starts with attitude.

In the movies, they always make sure the hero kills only in self-defense, typically in the instant before the bad guy gets the drop on him. Even in that film Miyamoto had mentioned, Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood blows away a guy who had kidnapped, tortured, and killed a teenage girl only when the guy goes for a gun. To me, that’s all bullshit. More than anything else, killing is about survival. About doing everything you can to deceive, and cheat, and stack the odds in your own favor. You don’t wait for the other guy to go for his gun; you shoot him before he has a chance. If he has his back to you, that’s even better. If you can call in an air strike, that’s better still. You don’t just do everything you possibly can to prevent a fight from being fair—preventing the fight from being fair is the entire point. Do you want the enemy to have as good a chance of killing you as you have of killing him? Or do you want to make sure he gets no chance at all? As far as I’m concerned, the people who think a fair fight is desirable can go ahead and die in one.

You can shift the odds in your favor by differentiating yourself from others, because a good strategy seeks uniqueness. Rather than a plan, a strategy is a framework for decision making. It is an original choice about direction, which enables subsequent choices about action. It prepares the organization to make those choices. Without a strategy, the actions taken by an organization degenerate into arbitrary sets of activity. A strategy enables people to reflect on the activity and gives them a rationale for deciding what to do next. A robust strategy is not dependent on competitors doing any single thing. It does not seek to control an independent will. Instead, it should be a “system of expedients” – with the emphasis on system.

Be confident because the odds are in your favor.' He clears his throat, like talking this much hurts him. 'Not because you're a special snowflake.

How is Single-Person CQB Different? Single-person CQB tactics are different from tactics developed for teams and multiple teams. The reason for this is the increased risk associated with operating alone. Even if you are very experienced in team-level operations, it may still take time for you to master the specific skills and movements needed for single-person operations. Team-level CQB is generally divided into “immediate entry” and “delayed entry” tactics. Immediate entry methods call for offensive, aggressive movement and were developed by elite military special operations forces for hostage rescue situations. Delayed entry tactics are more common in the law enforcement community and are designed to minimize your exposure and maximize the benefits of cover and concealment. For single-person operations, delayed entry is generally a safer option than immediate entry. If you have a team behind you, it is possible to aggressively rush through a door to dominate a room. However, if you are operating alone with no support, it is dangerous to rush into a fight when the odds might not be in your favor. By employing delayed entry tactics you clear as much of a room or hallway as possible from the outside, before you actually make entry. The tactics in this book are primarily delayed entry tactics. Team-level CQB can also be divided into “deliberate” tactics and “emergency” tactics. The difference has less to do with speed and more to do with the level of care and attention applied to the clearing process. It is possible to execute deliberate tactics very quickly, as long as you are careful to clear each room and danger area completely. Essentially, when conducting a deliberate clear, you will not take any shortcuts.

Bloom where you’re planted. Don’t make excuses. Don’t go through life thinking, I’ve got a disadvantage. I’ve got too many obstacles. I’m the wrong nationality. I come from the wrong family. I don’t have the connections. I could never get out of this environment. You may not see how you will rise above, but God sees. He already has a way. Your destiny is not determined by how you were raised, or by your circumstances, or by how many odds are against you; your destiny is determined by the Creator of the universe. And if you take what God has given you and make the most of it, like Chi Chi did, God will open doors. He will give you good breaks, and He will place the right people across your path. Get rid of your excuses. Quit waiting for things to change. Sow a seed and be happy right now. When you’re in difficult times, remember: Either God is doing a work in you or He’s using you to do a work in someone else. As long as you’re in faith, where you are is where you’re supposed to be. Quit fighting to go somewhere else. Be the best you can be right where you are. If you make this decision to bloom where you’re planted, you pass the test. God promises He will pour out His blessings and favor. You’ll not only live happy, but also God will take you places you’ve never even dreamed of.