Often Underestimated Quotes

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Yes, I decided, a man can truly change. The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there's been a lifetime of disappointment between them.

The strongest weapon a woman has at her disposal is that she is often underestimated,

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Scent is often underestimated, when it can be the most evocative.

The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt.

Being underestimated always works to my advantage. But sometimes I find it offensive. That often makes me violent

Words were the most powerful tool. Simple and so often underestimated. They could heal. They could destroy." from Onyx

Words were the most powerful tool. Simple and so often underestimated. They could heal. They could destroy. And I needed to use my words now.

But fathers often underestimate their daughters, don’t they?

This explains why we often undercommunicate our ideas. They’re already so familiar to us that we underestimate how much exposure an audience needs to comprehend and buy into them. When

Peculiar I say, how so often the smallest, most seemingly insignificant details later unveil their faces as vital means for progression.

The strongest weapon a woman has at her disposal is that she is often underestimated,” I answer with a small smile. “And I wield that all the time.

Words were the most powerful tool. Simple and so often under-estimated. They could heal. They could destroy.

Ellen Adams was used to people underestimating her. Accomplished middle-aged women were often diminished by small men.

People often underestimate what a pregnant woman is capable of, but people always underestimate what a grieving pregnant woman is capable of.

It is always a mistake to underestimate the little people of the world, for it is often they who tip the balance.

The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder. In the first place, they underestimate the time for any one task. They always expect that everything will go right. Yet, as every executive knows, nothing ever goes right. The unexpected always happens—the unexpected is indeed the only thing one can confidently expect.

Never underestimate the empowered empath. Our kindness and compassion is too often mistaken for weakness or naivety, while we are in fact highly calibrated human lie detectors...and fearless warriors for truth and justice.

I have often been called insane by those who underestimate the power of poetry.

We are always immeasurably bigger than the little person we’ve too often doomed ourselves to be.

The truth is, we often underestimate by as much as 50 percent how much others are willing to help us when asked. As we talked about in chapter 2, being mistrustful or assuming others are selfish can be self-fulfilling prophecies.

Silence is often underestimated

Not only do you carry the side effects of others, but their side effects are contagious. This affects you mentally to the point where you lose yourself in the process of trying to fix a situation or a person that is beyond repair. You find yourself helping others who solely depend on you for their mental state and their ability to think for themselves. Foolishly, you do not see how often you carry their burdens. Their side effects begin to poison your life.

People often overestimate what they can accomplish in one year. But they greatly underestimate what they could accomplish in five years.

In the same way that individual women are often underestimated, a movement of women is also understimated, but the truth is that, if people realize someone is willing to talk about these deep and daily concerns, they show up.

Being underestimated always works to my advantage. But sometimes I find it offensive. That often makes me violent. It makes me question whether I should allow them to kill Riden, just so I can beat the hell out of all three of them without Riden watching.

A woman is always carrying other people’s burdens, kicked to the ground, scorned, and damaged to the core. When a woman is going along at a steady pace, someone comes along to knock her off balance. A woman falls more often than she likes to. That’s okay, give yourself a shake and dust it off. A woman can be bruised many times, but she is not broken, and she always rises above it.

Never underestimate the latent power of nature. Often when she is most beautiful she is also most dangerous to those who fail to pay attention.

…one lives and analyses data within a frame, unaware that the solution is most often just outside of that frame. Never underestimate the depth of your subjectivity.

We tend to underestimate the small things about ourselves that are often our most valuable attributes.

In the same way that individual women are often underestimated, a movement of women is also underestimated.

We like to hit all of the senses,” Lainie says. “Some more than others,” Tara adds. “True,” her sister agrees. “Scent is often underestimated, when it can be the most evocative.

It is natural to want to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is a harsh place, and your friends soften the harshness. Besides, you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand? Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. TACITUS, c. A.D. 55-120 The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not. When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities he or she has kept hidden. Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favor can become oppressive: It means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive. Ingratitude has a long and deep history. It has demonstrated its powers for so many centuries, that it is truly amazing that people continue to underestimate them. Better to be wary. If you never expect gratitude from a friend, you will be pleasantly surprised when they do prove grateful. The problem with using or hiring friends is that it will inevitably limit your power. The friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end, skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings.

Librarians are almost always very helpful and often almost absurdly knowledgeable. Their skills are probably underestimated and largely underemployed.

We often overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a year.

I think that if I have a special skill, it is that I am often overlooked. Is that the word? Underestimated, perhaps?

We must never underestimate the value of libraries, or the urgency of the need to protect them, in a world that often appears to forget the importance of stories.

A woman lives under pressure on a daily basis. Nearly every day a woman is being criticized for the way she looks, thinks, acts, how she raises her children and her role in the workplace. She is criticized by other women, her husband and/or significant other, her children, family, and friends. Goodness gracious, when will a woman’s love ever be good enough? She's constantly beaten down by being told what she’s doing wrong, and barely hears what she has done right. Needless to say, she isn’t praised for her accomplishments; often, all she hears is criticism. I would love to see the detractors walk in her shoes for a while.

Those we underestimate in life can often serve as guides to our lack of vision.

Entrepreneurs often underestimate costs and overestimate rewards. But the fact that they estimate & still take action sets them apart from peers.

People often underestimate their blessings and overestimate their challenges

People often underestimated the power of their own will. They let the weakness of their mind dictate how high they could rise. True strength came by finding your wall and overcoming it.

People often underestimate what a pregnant woman is capable of, but people always underestimate what a grieving pregnant woman is capable of. The man at the lumberyard eyed her curiously.

People underestimate the stars and the connectedness they bring between spirit and matter. More often than not, when lost, we seek solitude in staring into the darkness hoping something speaks back to us, usually through a feeling, a thought or a rare occurrence of a shooting star.

When forecasting the outcomes of risky projects, executives too easily fall victim to the planning fallacy. In its grip, they make decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on a rational weighting of gains, losses, and probabilities. They overestimate benefits and underestimate costs. They spin scenarios of success while overlooking the potential for mistakes and miscalculations. As a result, they pursue initiatives that are unlikely to come in on budget or on time or to deliver the expected returns—or even to be completed. In this view, people often (but not always) take on risky projects because they are overly optimistic about the odds they face. I will return to this idea several times in this book—it probably contributes to an explanation of why people litigate, why they start wars, and why they open small businesses.

Too often we fall into the trap of thinking that if we give employees the facts and explain why change needs to take place from an economic point of view, they’ll buy into the change. We overestimate the power of logic and underestimate the power of storytelling, an appeal to belonging and the positive emotions of belonging.

The miraculous power of love has often been underestimated just like we underestimate the power of sleep. Most of the herculean tasks performed by men were possible because they had been deeply in love and had slept well the night before.

I think that we often underestimate the significance we have to others. We don’t fully understand what we can accomplish for another person. What you do with the time you have available is what counts. What we remember often isn’t what we received, but rather how it felt to receive it.

Many of those who pontificate about "acculturation" are inclined to underestimate this element of choice. Such processes are often described in terms suggesting that the "dominant" culture is simply imposed on unwitting, passive minorities, rather than focusing on the extent to which individuals quite consciously, deliberately, cleverly and even mockingly pick and choose amongst the behaviours and customs of their host culture

That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him—or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it—but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered.

I often find that people either underestimate what they know, or overestimate it. Very rarely do they gauge their own knowledge appropriately.

Boredom is often a useful instrument in politics. Never underestimate it.

Music itself has taught me never to underestimate a mistake, for, in the midst of all, it’s often in that mistake where the realm of the unexpected creation is hidden.

People debate over whether or not there is a literal Hell, in the literal sense often described as fire and eternal torture, which, to many, seems to be too harsh a punishment. If men really want to fear something, they should be fearing separation from God, the supposedly more comforting alternative to a literal Hell. For separation from the authorship of love, mercy, and goodness is the ultimate torture. If you think a literal Hell sounds too bad, you are very much underestimating the pain of being absolutely, wholly separated from the goodness while exposed to the reality of the holiness of God.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. —Leo Buscaglia

Solitary people. Some people are so used to solitude with themselves that they never compare themselves to others, but spin forth their monologue of a life in a calm, joyous mood, holding good conversations with themselves, even laughing. But if they are made to compare themselves with others, they tend to a brooding underestimation of their selves: so that they have to be forced to learn again from others to have a good, fair opinion of themselves. And even from this learned opinion they will always want to detract or reduce something. Thus one must grant certain men their solitude, and not be silly enough, as often happens, to pity them for it.

The civil rights movement was very successful in what it achieved: the legal eradication of racism and the dismantling of the apparatus of segregation. This happened and we should not underestimate its importance. The problem is that it is often assumed that the eradication of the legal apparatus is equivalent to the abolition of racism. But racism persists in a framework that is far more expansive, far vaster than the legal framework

The civil rights movement was very successful in what it achieved: the legal eradication of racism and the dismantling of the apparatus of segregation. This happened and we should not underestimate its importance. The problem is that it is often assumed that the eradication of the legal apparatus is equivalent to the abolition of racism. But racism persists in a framework that is far more expansive, far vaster than the legal framework.

All of us in the West, our political leaders and our newspapers above all, had underestimated Adolf Hitler and his domination of this land and its people. His ideas might seem half-baked and often evil - to me they did. But the unpleasant fact was not only that he believed in them, fanatically, but that he was persuading the German people to believe in them. He might seem like a demagogue... but his oratory, his drive, his zeal, his iron will and the power of his personality were having an immense impact on the citizens of this country. He was convincing them that the new Germany...under his leadership, was great, was strong, and had a manifest destiny ... I heard no mention...of the loss of personal freedom and of other democratic rights. Apparently this was not much of a sacrifice. They couldn't have cared less. They had committed themselves to Adolf Hitler and his barbarian dictatorship.

We live in a world in which speed is prized above almost all else, and acting faster than the other side has itself become the primary goal. But most often people are merely in a hurry, acting and reacting frantically to events, all of which makes them prone to error and wasting time in the long run. In order to separate yourself from the pack, to harness a speed that has devastating force, you must be organized and strategic. First, you prepare yourself before any action, scanning your enemy for weaknesses. Then you find a way to get your opponents to underestimate you, to lower their guard. When you strike unexpectedly, they will freeze up. When you hit again, it is from the side and out of nowhere. It is the unanticipated blow that makes the biggest impact.

How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind [pseudoscience/'woo'], for philosophy-fiction. Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.

People often overlook the profound intimacy which can be felt by performing the smallest acts for someone they love. Never underestimate the energy that can be felt by simply sharing the same space with your soulmate. It is that electricity between two people that causes time to cease to exist.

Men rarely do, especially the decent ones. But still, too often their actions sting. How many times had I shown up to meetings only to be underestimated? Talked over? Snubbed by my male colleagues while they exclusively talked to one another and ignored the women in the room? Plenty. And I am so over it.

When scientists underestimate complexity, they fall prey to the perils of unintended consequences. The parables of such scientific overreach are well-known: foreign animals, introduced to control pests, become pests in their own right; the raising of smokestacks, meant to alleviate urban pollution, releases particulate effluents higher in the air and exacerbates pollution; stimulating blood formation, meant to prevent heart attacks, thickens the blood and results in an increased risk of blood clots in the heart. But when nonscientists overestimate [italicized, sic] complexity- 'No one can possibly crack this [italicized, sic] code" - they fall into the trap of unanticipated consequences. In the early 1950s , a common trope among some biologists was that the genetic code would be so context dependent- so utterly determined by a particular cell in a particular organism and so horribly convoluted- that deciphering it would be impossible. The truth turned out to be quite the opposite: just one molecule carries the code, and just one code pervades the biological world. If we know the code, we can intentionally alter it in organisms, and ultimately in humans. Similarly, in the 1960s, many doubted that gene-cloning technologies could so easily shuttle genes between species. by 1980, making a mammalian protein in a bacterial cell, or a bacterial protein in a mammalian cell, was not just feasible, it was in Berg's words, rather "ridiculously simple." Species were specious. "Being natural" was often "just a pose.

Experts in diagnostic errors provided an answer to the puzzle that had been nagging me: How was it possible for missed diagnoses to be so common and yet not perceived by doctors as a major problem? The problem is that physicians, while generally aware that mistakes happen, greatly underestimate how often they make them. In his talks to doctors on the topic, Graber often asks how many have made a diagnostic error in the past year; typically, only about 1 percent of the hands go up. 'The concept that they, personally, could err at a significant rate is inconceivable to most physicians,' he writes. In short, they think it's the other guy. This overconfidence is not necessarily their fault: doctors simply do not get the feedback needed to gain an accurate sense of their batting average. They assume their diagnoses are correct until they hear otherwise. Since there are few, if any, health care organizations that systematically measure diagnostic error rates, they typically learn of their mistakes only from the patients themselves.

From the moment we are born, boys and girls are treated differently. Parents tend to talk to girl babies more than boy babies. Mothers overestimate the crawling ability of their sons and underestimate the crawling ability of their daughters. Reflecting the belief that girls need to be helped more than boys, mothers often spend more time comforting and hugging infant girls and more time watching infant boys play by themselves.

At the social/political/ juridical, etc., level, the organizing principle was less to do with games and more to do with the nature of taboos—enormously powerful, often enormously arbitrary, and (crucially) regularly quietly broken, without undermining the fact of the taboo itself. That last element, I think, is sometimes underestimated in the discussions of cultural norms, where they are both asserted and breached. Both those elements are foundational. — author interview

Arin had bathed. He was wearing house clothes, and when Kestrel saw him standing in the doorway his shoulders were relaxed. Without being invited, he strode into the room, pulled out the other chair at the small table where Kestrel waited, and sat. He arranged his arms in a position of negligent ease and leaned into the brocaded chair as if he owned it. He seemed, Kestrel thought, at home. But then, he had also seemed so in the forge. Kestrel looked away from him, stacking the Bite and Sting tiles on the table. It occurred to her that it was a talent for Arin to be comfortable in such different environments. She wondered how she would fare in his world. He said, “This is not a sitting room.” “Oh?” Kestrel mixed the tiles. “And here I thought we were sitting.” His mouth curved slightly. “This is a writing room. Or, rather”--he pulled his six tiles--“it was.” Kestrel drew her Bite and Sting hand. She decided to show no sign of curiosity. She would not allow herself to be distracted. She arranged her tiles facedown. “Wait,” he said. “What are the stakes?” She had given this careful consideration. She took a small wooden box from her skirt pocket and set it on the table. Arin picked up the box and shook it, listening to the thin, sliding rattle of its contents. “Matches.” He tossed the box back onto the table. “Hardly high stakes.” But what were appropriate stakes for a slave who had nothing to gamble? This question had troubled Kestrel ever since she had proposed the game. She shrugged and said, “Perhaps I am afraid to lose.” She split the matches between them. “Hmm,” he said, and they each put in their ante. Arin positioned his tiles so that he could see their engravings without revealing them to Kestrel. His eyes flicked to them briefly, then lifted to examine the luxury of his surroundings. This annoyed her--both because she could glean nothing from his expression and because he was acting the gentleman by averting his gaze, offering her a moment to study her tiles without fear of giving away something to him. As if she needed such an advantage. “How do you know?” she said. “How do I know what?” “That this was a writing room. I have never heard of such a thing.” She began to position her own tiles. It was only when she saw their designs that she wondered whether Arin had really been polite in looking away, or if he had been deliberately provoking her. She concentrated on her draw, relieved to see that she had a good set. A tiger (the highest tile); a wolf, a mouse, a fox (not a bad trio, except the mouse); and a pair of scorpions. She liked the Sting tiles. They were often underestimated. Kestrel realized that Arin had been waiting to answer her question. He was watching her. “I know,” he said, “because of this room’s position in your suite, the cream color of the walls, and the paintings of swans. This was where a Herrani lady would pen her letters or write journal entries. It’s a private room. I shouldn’t be allowed inside.” “Well,” said Kestrel, uncomfortable, “it is no longer what it was.

Still, the tendency to scramble for security will try to reassert itself and gain some ground. We can’t underestimate the very real (and very fleeting) comfort it provides. The meditation teacher Tara Brach, in her book Radical Acceptance, describes a practice she uses at such times. It’s based on the Buddha’s encounters with his nemesis, Mara, a demon who kept appearing to tempt the Buddha to give up his spiritual resolve and go back to his old unaware ways. Psychologically, Mara represents the false promise of happiness and security offered by our habitual responses. So whenever Mara appeared, often with beautiful women or other temptations in tow, the Buddha would say, “I see you, Mara. I know you’re a trickster. I know what you’re trying to do.” And then he’d invite his nemesis to sit down for tea. When we’re tempted to go back to our habitual ways of avoiding groundlessness, we can look temptation in the eye and say, “I see you, Mara,” then sit down with the fundamental ambiguity of being human without any judgment of right or wrong.

More often than not, risk takers underestimate the odds they face, and do not invest sufficient effort to find out what the odds are. Because they misread the risks, optimistic entrepreneurs often believe they are prudent, even when they are not. Their confidence in their future success sustains a positive mood that helps them obtain resources from others, raise the morale of their employees, and enhance their prospects of prevailing. When action is needed, optimism, even of the mildly delusional variety, may be a good thing.

do not think that I underestimate the risk of this undertaking. It is as if one began to build a bridge out into space. Indeed, one might even allege—as has often been done—that in following this procedure the doctor and his patient are both together indulging in mere fantasies. And I do not consider this an objection, but quite to the point. I even make an effort to second the patient in his fantasies. Truth to tell, I have a very high opinion of fantasy. To me, it is actually the maternally creative side of the masculine spirit.

I do not think that I underestimate the risk of this undertaking. It is as if one began to build a bridge out into space. Indeed, one might even allege—as has often been done—that in following this procedure the doctor and his patient are both together indulging in mere fantasies. And I do not consider this an objection, but quite to the point. I even make an effort to second the patient in his fantasies. Truth to tell, I have a very high opinion of fantasy. To me, it is actually the maternally creative side of the masculine spirit.

The art film’s focus on inner conflict draws the interest of those with advanced degrees, because the inner world is where the highly educated spend a large amount of time. Minimalists, however, often overestimate the appetite of even the most self-absorbed minds for a diet of nothing but inner conflict. Worse, they also overestimate their talent to express the unseeable on screen. By the same token, Hollywood’s action filmmakers underestimate the interest of their audience in character, thought, and feeling, and, worse, overestimate their ability to avoid Action genre clichés.

We feel that we can hide or run from problems, but we fail to understand that it isn't the problem we hide or run from, but our capacity to handle that problem. Problems regularly attack due to our vulnerability to the problem; we often look at situation giving us the stress & consider stress as the problem, but stress isn't the problem, it's our feeling or understanding of that situation which causes the stress. We move away, try meditation, take medication & indulge in activities which rejuvenate the brain. hence, the stress goes away. We continue with our lives and after a while the merry feeling goes away too, and we start getting stressed again. Problems are most vulnerable when it’s in the seed stage, but we water them with our ignorance or lack of attention and one day they become bigger than our expectation & imagination. We can still fight it, but we underestimate our capabilities & keep running away, that process gives it more nutrition to grow even bigger, and since we run away without solving them, they keep following us in new disguises; finally, one day we run out of places to run to and are left with stress, depression, and anxiety.

When children become teenagers, their feelings are often invalidated by others because they have a hard time expressing them. They can’t find the words to use so adults deem their emotions as a “stage of adolescence.” As a result, everything beautiful and raw about life is reduced to a phase they're supposed to grow out of. Although how often is our growth just abandonment? Some people don’t mature, they just run away from their problems faster than they used to and happen to age. We greatly underestimate the tragedy of leaving behind the unaddressed. Many of our most intuitive and sincere experiences are lost to time. It is one of life’s saddest deficits

Members of the second group, who underestimate the prevalence of evil, are those most often targeted by it. They can pretty much be trusted not to do profound evil themselves, but they can’t be counted on to recognize clues that might determine which of their neighbors has ten dismembered bodies buried in his basement. The third type, those who patiently analyze evil from numerous psychological and sociological perspectives until its sharp shiny edges are dull and blurry, are too indecisive to be allies in any fraught encounter with darkness. In fact, they are often likely to have overanalyzed the situation to such an extent that they have talked themselves into an alliance with monsters.

Almost a year after the start of the corona crisis, how is the mental health of the population? MD: For the time being, there are few figures that show the evolution of possible indicators such as the intake of antidepressants and anxiolytics or the number of suicides. But it is especially important to place mental well-being in the corona crisis in its historical continuity. Mental health had been declining for decades. There has long been a steady increase in the number of depression and anxiety problems and the number of suicides. And in recent years there has been an enormous growth in absenteeism due to psychological suffering and burnouts. The year before the corona outbreak, you could feel this malaise growing exponentially. This gave the impression that society was heading for a tipping point where a psychological 'reorganization' of the social system was imperative. This is happening with corona. Initially, we noticed people with little knowledge of the virus conjure up terrible fears, and a real social panic reaction became manifested. This happens especially if there is already a strong latent fear in a person or population. The psychological dimensions of the current corona crisis are seriously underestimated. A crisis acts as a trauma that takes away an individual's historical sense. The trauma is seen as an isolated event in itself, when in fact it is part of a continuous process. For example, we easily overlook the fact that a significant portion of the population was strangely relieved during the initial lockdown, feeling liberated from stress and anxiety. I regularly heard people say: "Yes these measures are heavy-handed, but at least I can relax a bit." Because the grind of daily life stopped, a calm settled over society. The lockdown often freed people from a psychological rut. This created unconscious support for the lockdown. If the population had not already been exhausted by their life, and especially their jobs, there would never have been support for the lockdown. At least not as a response to a pandemic that is not too bad compared to the major pandemics of the past. You noticed something similar when the first lockdown came to an end. You then regularly heard statements such as "We are not going to start living again like we used to, get stuck in traffic again" and so on. People did not want to go back to the pre-corona normal. If we do not take into account the population's dissatisfaction with its existence, we will not understand this crisis and we will not be able to resolve it. By the way, I now have the impression that the new normal has become a rut again, and I would not be surprised if mental health really starts to deteriorate in the near future. Perhaps especially if it turns out that the vaccine does not provide the magical solution that is expected from it.

for ordinary African Americans, coping with hegemonic gender ideology can be so demanding that generating alternatives can seem virtually impossible. But the importance of this task cannot be underestimated because African American survival may depend on it. One important task lies in rejecting dominant gender ideology, in particular, its use of the thesis of "weak men, strong women" as a source of Black social control. Because hegemonic masculinity equates strength with dominance, an antiracist politics must challenge this connection. Within this project, the fundamental premise of any progressive Black gender ideology is that it cannot be based on someone else's subordination. This means that definitions of Black masculinity that rely on the subordination of Black women, poor people, children, LGBT people, or anyone else become invalid. Definitions of Black femininity that do not challenge relations of sexism, economic exploitation, age, heterosexism, and other markers of social inequality also become suspect. Rather than trying to be strong within existing gender ideology, the task lies in rejecting a gender ideology that measures masculinity and femininity using gendered definitions of strength. In this endeavor to craft a more progressive Black gender ideology, African American men and women face similar yet distinctive challenges. The task for African American men lies in developing new definitions of masculinity that uncouple strength from its close ties to male dominance. Good Black men need not rule their families with an iron hand, assault one another, pursue endless booty calls, and always seem to be "in control" in order to avoid the sigma of weakness. The task for African American women lies in redefining strength in ways that simultaneously enable Black women to reclaim historical sources of female power, yet reject the exploitation that has often accompanied that power. Good Black women need not be stoic mules whose primary release from work and responsibility comes once a week on Sunday morning. New definitions of strength would enable Black men and women alike to be seen as needing and worthy of one another's help and support without being stigmatized as either overly weak or unnaturally strong.

Depression is often framed as a sufferer having a cognitively distorted sense of “learned helplessness,” where the reality of some loss in the past becomes mistakenly perceived as an inevitable future. In this study, though, it was not that depressed individuals were cognitively distorted, underestimating their actual control. Instead they were accurate compared with everyone else’s overestimates. Findings like these support the view that in some circumstances, depressed individuals are not distortive but are “sadder but wiser.” As such, depression is the pathological loss of the capacity to rationalize away reality. And thus, perhaps, “we’re better off believing in it anyway.” Truth doesn’t always set you free; truth, mental health, and well-being have a complex relationship, something explored in an extensive literature on the psychology of stress.

Focus on People, Perseverance, and Passion These “Three P’s” are the keys to successful entrepreneurship. People are the most important, particularly in the first year of a venture. To maximize their value, spend as much time as you can assembling the best possible team that really complements your skill set and can lead a little bit into where you’re heading, not just where you are. Creating the right kind of dynamic in terms of culture and commitment is really critical. Perseverance: never underestimate the value of really caring about your idea and being unwilling to drop it. If you have a big idea, and you know in your heart it’s going to happen (Passion), but know there will be roadblocks and challenges along the way. In this regard, a high degree of passion and commitment is extremely important. In my experience, really big ideas often take a decade to reach fruition. Sign

yet that person will often emerge victorious thanks to sheer tenacity and lack of scruples, by dint of stratagems and spleen and concentration, because his sole objective in life is to harm his enemy, to bleed him dry and undermine him and then finish him off, woe betide anyone who acquires an enemy with those characteristics, however weak and needy he may seem; if you don’t have the time or the will to direct the same passionate loathing at him and to respond with equal intensity, you will end up succumbing, because you can’t afford to be distracted when fighting a war, regardless of whether that war is open or hidden or secret, nor to underestimate your stubborn opponent, even if you believe him to be innocuous and incapable of harming you or inflicting so much as a scratch: the reality is that anyone can destroy us, just as anyone can conquer us, and that is our essential fragility.

In our society today, much is made of treating children as persons, human beings who have a right to be heard. But many family leaders today bend so far in the direction of consensus, in order to avoid the stigma of being authoritarian, that clarity of values and the positive, often crucial benefits of the leader's self-differentiation are almost totally missing from the system. One of the most prevalent characteristics of families with disturbed children is the absence or the involution of the relational hierarchy. While schools of family therapy have different ways of conceptualizing this condition, which may also be viewed as a political phenomenon regarding congregations, it is so diffuse among families troubled by their troubled children that its importance cannot be underestimated. What happens in any type of family system regarding leadership is paradoxical. The same interdependency that creates a need for leadership makes the followers anxious and reactive precisely when the leader is functioning best.

Which somehow made it appropriate that The Federalist’s hardest task—showing how a republic could be an empire without becoming a tyranny—fell to Madison, the most easily underestimated of the American Founders. 63 He fulfilled it, triumphantly, by connecting time, space, and scale. History had shown “instability, injustice, and confusion” always to have extinguished “popular governments,” Madison wrote in the tenth Publius essay. Independence had yet to free Americans from these dangers. Complaints are everywhere heard . . . that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. Revoking liberty would be a remedy “worse than the disease.” But curing it through equality would leave no one safe: [D] emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Men of this type often had strong mother figures in their childhood. They became good, obedient boys, excellent students at school. Consciously they are attracted to well-educated women, to those who seem good and perfect. But unconsciously they are drawn to women who are imperfect, bad, of dubious character. They secretly crave what is the opposite of themselves. It is the classic split of the mother/whore—they want the mother figure for a wife but feel a much stronger physical attraction to the whore, the Fallen Woman, the type who likes to display her body. They have repressed the playful, sensual, and earthy sides of the character they had as boys. They are too rigid and civilized. The only way they can relate to these qualities is through women who appear to be so different from themselves. Like Swann, they find a way to idealize them with some highbrow reference that has no relation to reality. They project onto such women weakness and vulnerability. They tell themselves they want to help and protect them. But what really attracts them is the danger and naughty pleasures these women seem to promise. Underestimating the strength of such women, they often end up as their pawns. Their anima is passive and masochistic.

Along with saying no, the easiest thing you can do to become more influential is just ask. Ask more often, ask more directly, and ask for more. People who ask for what they want get better grades, more raises and promotions, and bigger job opportunities and even more orgasm. This might seem obvious but apparently it isn't. Most people do not realize how often they are not asking until they start asking more often. Whenever our MBA course ends and students share the biggest thing they have learned - after we have done so much together - the most common answer is “just ask”. The full realization comes from practice. What if you’re not sure how to ask? Just ask the other person. Seriously. One of the simplest and most surprising influence hacks is that if you ask people how to influence them, they will often tell you. Most of us are reluctant to ask because we fundamentally misunderstand the psychology of asking and we underestimate our likelihood of success. In one series of experiments, employees were more likely to turn in mediocre work than to ask for deadline extension, fearing their supervisor, would think them incompetent if they asked for extra time. But they had it backward: Managers saw extension requests as a good sign of capability and motivation. Pg 64, 65

First are those for whom the words right and wrong have no meaning other than for such as traffic directions: You turn right at the second stoplight; if you turn left, you’ve gone wrong. They are nihilists, though not all of them know it and though many of them would bristle at the label. All such people are difficult to trust: some are dangerous, and some are lethal sociopaths. Second are those who recognize right and wrong, a natural tao, and who try to live by what is right, as much as they can. These people are aware that real and implacable evil exists in the world; however, as a psychological defense mechanism, many of them grossly underestimate the prevalence of it. Third are those who, busy with their lives, haven’t given much thought to right and wrong. When encountering profound evil, they are not sure what to think about it, and they seek to understand it as a complex phenomenon when in fact it’s simple. By imagining evil as infinitely nuanced, they drain all the bloody color out of it, render it in grays, and move on. This is the largest group. The conclusion he makes regarding the three groups has often kept him alive when he should have ended up bleeding from every orifice and then some. Members of the second group, who underestimate the prevalence of evil, are those most often targeted by it.

Conscientiousness Not every anxious person is conscientious, but because you’re reading a CBT-based self-help book, there’s a good chance you’re at least moderately high in conscientiousness—a personality trait associated with having a strong work ethic and a thorough, orderly approach to tasks. People high in conscientiousness often get particularly great results from learning cognitive behavioral principles and skills. Why? They tend to like the systematic nature of a cognitive behavioral approach. They do well because they work hard to understand themselves and are diligent in applying their learning to their lives. Anxious people sometimes underestimate how conscientious they are, so make sure you give yourself enough credit for your conscientiousness. It’s important to understand that conscientiousness is not the same thing as perfectionism. For example, perfectionists might spend so long trying to make something “just right” that they don’t have any willpower left over for other important tasks. Perfectionism and conscientiousness tend to be associated with opposite outcomes. For example, in a study of older adults, perfectionism was associated with an increased risk or mortality. Conscientiousness was associated with a decreased risk. There are big advantages to reducing perfectionism but retaining your conscientiousness!

The part played by deduction in science is greater than Bacon supposed. Often, when a hypothesis has to be tested, there is a long deductive journey from the hypothesis to some consequence that can be tested by observation. Usually the deduction is mathematical, and in this respect Bacon underestimated the importance of mathematics in scientific investigation. The problem of induction by simple enumeration remains unsolved to this day. Bacon was quite right in rejecting simple enumeration where the details of scientific investigation are concerned, for in dealing with details we may assume general laws on the basis of which, so long as they are taken as valid, more or less cogent methods can be built up. John Stuart Mill framed four canons of inductive method, which can be usefully employed so long as the law of causality is assumed; but this law itself, he had to confess, is to be accepted solely on the basis of induction by simple enumeration. The thing that is achieved by the theoretical organization of science is the collection of all subordinate inductions into a few that are very comprehensive—perhaps only one. Such comprehensive inductions are confirmed by so many instances that it is thought legitimate to accept, as regards them, an induction by simple enumeration. This situation is profoundly unsatisfactory, but neither Bacon nor any of his successors have found a way out of it.

Epsom Salt - Don't underestimate the powerful healing effects of regular Epsom salt.  Soaking in hot water infused with Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) boosts blood levels of the ever important mineral magnesium, by as much as 35% in just 1 week.  Magnesium is a critical mineral that too many people are deficient in.  If you suffer from muscle tightness, stiffness, spasms, aches and pains, then buying Epsom salt in bulk and adding it to a hot bath 3 times a week, will bring magical relief to your discomfort.  The magnesium in Epsom salt will also bring much wanted relief to those who find themselves in a chronic state of tension, stress and anxiety.   The human body requires magnesium to manufacture the 2 enzymes quinone reductase, and glutathione S-transferase, both of which assist in neutralizing and eliminating chemical toxins.  Being deficient in magnesium, puts a significant damper on your body’s detoxification abilities. Magnesium also plays a critical role in regulating nerve and muscle activity, to help shield the body against the ravages and dangerous cumulative effects of stress.  Add 2-4 cups of pure Epsom salt to a hot bath several times a week, and see for yourself the incredible difference it makes.  Epsom salt baths can often turn even the most "bath-shy" guy, into a tub lover.   Most people can enjoy these detoxifying baths as often as they like.  The exception would be for those who suffer from any type of heart condition, epilepsy, narcolepsy, and pregnant women, all of whom, should only use bath therapy under the guidance and care of their health care provider.

Lfr Jp tZ~ LLtI~ A righteous [woman] who walks in [her] integrity-how blessed are [her] sons after [her]. -PROVERBS 20:7 My Bob often says, "Just do what you say you are going to do!" This has been our battle cry for more than 25 years. People get into relational problems because they forget to keep their promises. It's so easy to make a verbal promise for the moment and then grapple with the execution of that promise later. Sometimes we underestimate the consequences of not keeping the promise flippantly made in a moment of haste. Many times we aren't even aware we have made a promise. Someone says, "I'll call you at 7:00 tonight"; "I'll drop by before noon"; or "I'll call you to set up a breakfast meeting on Wednesday." Then the weak excuses begin to follow. "I called but no one answered" (even though you have voice mail and no message was left). "I got tied up and forgot." "I was too tired." I suggest that we don't make promises if we aren't going to keep them. The person on the other end would prefer not hearing a promise that isn't going to be kept. Yes, there will be times when the execution of a promise will have to be rescheduled, but be up front with the person when you call to change the time. We aren't perfect, but we can mentor proper relationship skills to our friends and family by exhibiting accountability in our words of promise. We teach people that we are trustworthy-and how they can be trusted too. You'll be pleased at how people will pleasantly be surprised when you keep your promises. As my friend Florence Littauer says, "It takes so little to be above average." When you develop a reputation for being a woman who does what she says, your life will have more meaning and people will enjoy being around you.

Usually adolescent rebels are quickly humbled because they overestimate their own truth and underestimate the truth of their elders. As Mark Twain famously put it, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” One purpose of youthful rebellion is to put one’s self at odds with adult authority not so much to defeat it as to be defeated by it. One opposes it to discover its logic and validity for one’s self. And by failing to defeat it, one comes to it, and to greater maturity, through experience rather than mere received wisdom. Of course, every new generation alters the adult authority it ultimately joins. But if the young win their rebellion against the old, their rite of passage to maturity is cut short and they are falsely inflated rather than humbled. Uninitiated, they devalue history rather than find direction in it, and feel entitled to break sharply and even recklessly from the past. The sixties generation of youth is very likely the first generation in American history to have actually won its adolescent rebellion against its elders. One of the reasons for this, if not the primary reason, is that this generation came of age during the age of white guilt, which meant that its rebellion ran into an increasingly uncertain adult authority. Baby boomers, already rather inflated from growing up in the unparalleled prosperity of postwar America, were inflated further by an adult authority that often backed down in the face of their rebellion. It doesn’t matter, for example, that there was honor in America’s acknowledgment of moral wrong in the area of race. An acknowledgement of wrong was an acknowledgment of wrong, and it brought a loss of moral authority—and, thus, adult authority—despite the good it achieved.

True law necessarily is rooted in ethical assumptions or norms; and those ethical principles are derived, in the beginning at least, from religious convictions. When the religious understanding, from which a concept of law arose in a culture, has been discarded or denied, the laws may endure for some time, through what sociologists call "cultural lag"; but in the long run, the laws also will be discarded or denied. With this hard truth in mind, I venture to suggest that the corpus of English and American laws--for the two arise for the most part from a common root of belief and experience--cannot endure forever unless it is animated by the spirit that moved it in the beginning: that is, by religion, and specifically by the Christian people. Certain moral postulates of Christian teaching have been taken for granted, in the past, as the ground of justice. When courts of law ignore those postulates, we grope in judicial darkness. . . . We suffer from a strong movement to exclude such religious beliefs from the operation of courts of law, and to discriminate against those unenlightened who cling fondly to the superstitions of the childhood of the race. Many moral beliefs, however, though sustained by religious convictions, may not be readily susceptible of "scientific" demonstration. After all, our abhorrence of murder, rape, and other crimes may be traced back to the Decalogue and other religious injunctions. If it can be shown that our opposition to such offenses is rooted in religion, then are restraints upon murder and rape unconstitutional? We arrive at such absurdities if we attempt to erect a wall of separation between the operation of the laws and those Christian moral convictions that move most Americans. If we are to try to sustain some connection between Christian teaching and the laws of this land of ours, we must understand the character of that link. We must claim neither too much nor too little for the influence of Christian belief upon our structure of law. . . . I am suggesting that Christian faith and reason have been underestimated in an age bestridden, successively, by the vulgarized notions of the rationalists, the Darwinians, and the Freudians. Yet I am not contending that the laws ever have been the Christian word made flesh nor that they can ever be. . . . What Christianity (or any other religion) confers is not a code of positive laws, but instead some general understanding of justice, the human condition being what it is. . . . In short, judges cannot well be metaphysicians--not in the execution of their duties upon the bench, at any rate, even though the majority upon the Supreme Court of this land, and judges in inferior courts, seem often to have mistaken themselves for original moral philosophers during the past quarter century. The law that judges mete out is the product of statute, convention, and precedent. Yet behind statute, convention, and precedent may be discerned, if mistily, the forms of Christian doctrines, by which statute and convention and precedent are much influenced--or once were so influenced. And the more judges ignore Christian assumptions about human nature and justice, the more they are thrown back upon their private resources as abstract metaphysicians--and the more the laws of the land fall into confusion and inconsistency. Prophets and theologians and ministers and priests are not legislators, ordinarily; yet their pronouncements may be incorporated, if sometimes almost unrecognizably, in statute and convention and precedent. The Christian doctrine of natural law cannot be made to do duty for "the law of the land"; were this tried, positive justice would be delayed to the end of time. Nevertheless, if the Christian doctrine of natural law is cast aside utterly by magistrates, flouted and mocked, then positive law becomes patternless and arbitrary.

By this point in my stay, my list of don’ts covered three pages and included such reminders as: never fall asleep in a Dumpster, never underestimate a bee, never drive a convertible behind a flatbed truck, never get old, never get drunk near a train, and never, under any circumstances, cut off your air supply while masturbating. This last one is a nationwide epidemic, and it’s surprising the number of men who do it while dressed in their wife’s clothing, most often while she is out of town. To

When children become teenagers, their feelings are often invalidated by others because they have a hard time expressing them. They can’t find the words to use so adults deem their emotions as a “stage of adolescence.” As a result, everything beautiful and raw about life is reduced to a phase they’ll grow out of. Although how often is our growth just abandonment? Some people don’t mature, they just run away from their problems faster than they used to and happen to age. We greatly underestimate the tragedy of leaving behind the unaddressed. Many of our most intuitive and sincere experiences are lost to time. It is one of life’s saddest deficits.

this generation, many of whom were raised in small families by hyper-protective parents, on soft-surface playgrounds, and then taught in universities with “safe spaces” where they don’t have to hear things they don’t want to—schooled to be risk-averse—has among it, now, millions who feel stultified by this underestimation of their potential resilience and who have embraced Jordan’s message that each individual has ultimate responsibility to bear; that if one wants to live a full life, one first sets one’s own house in order; and only then can one sensibly aim to take on bigger responsibilities. The extent of this reaction has often moved both of us to the brink of tears.

Photography is a powerful visual storytelling tool often underestimated by many. As a medium and in it's purest form, it possesses the ability to prescribe desire, joy, sadness or pain. An image is potent enough to change the world's view in an instant.

Often, automatic thoughts overestimate threats and underestimate our ability to deal with problems. Sometimes they become distorted, but we continue to accept them as true. These thoughts are the result of dysfunctional beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world, and they can be exaggerated by depression or anxiety. These thoughts can be identified, challenged, and replaced with more reasonable thoughts.

at work when employees are developing new skills. We often forget how uncomfortable and frustrating it can be to learn something new, especially with somebody looking over your shoulder, so as leaders, it’s our job to ward off discouragement and build their confidence during this process. Don’t underestimate the power of a “good job” or “keep trying” – it can literally be the difference between success and failure.