Opportunity Presents Itself Quotes

One only dies once, and if one does not die well, a good opportunity is lost and will not present itself again.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people. Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.

I am innocent! But only because the opportunity to partake in an activity that would render me guilty has not presented itself.

To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed. And more than once, I have turned in the school hallway and caught his eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away. I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people. Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.

As ever, his grief made my heart ache. "Ambition is a dangerous thing," I murmured. "One can harbor it unknowing, only to find it sparked into life when the opportunity presents itself.

When ye are prepared for a thing, the opportunity to use it presents itself.

When you lose your path, you get an opportunity to discover a world you have never known! And better worlds are often found this way! Darkness and uncertainty hide presents in itself!

People may claim to be “free,” yet they cannot control themselves from gluttony in the presence of food or from illicit sexual relations when the opportunity presents itself. Such a notion of freedom is devoid of substance.

Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.

Her eyes widen and she shoves me back and then there's a space between us, enough to paralyze me with all of the things I could do to her next. I could raise my hand and hit her in the face or bring my knee into her stomach, take a fistful of her hair and rip it out of her skull. You don't get to do this when you're a girl, so when the opportunity for violence finally presents itself, I want all of it at once.

One has various things in the back of one's mind. Occasionally an opportunity presents itself to bring one forward. Most of these opportunities come to nothing. Once in a very great while one -- or two -- do come to something.

Each day, we’re given many opportunities to open up or shut down. The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening. It’s too much. It’s gone too far. We feel bad about ourselves. There’s no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good. No matter how hard we try, it just won’t work. Basically, life has just nailed us.

Bet? Yo?” Kill looked at me like I was a horrific car accident. “Who talks like that? What do you have against the English language? You seem to butcher it whenever the opportunity presents itself. Did English hurt you when you were young? Show me where on the doll.

The rules of scarcity govern prison life: accumulate when the opportunity presents itself, figure out what to do with your loot later. Sometimes,

The magic happens behind the scenes. Sit on ready so when an opportunity presents itself, you will be prepared.

The atheist, agnostic, or secularist ... should not be cowed by exaggerated sensitivity to people's religious beliefs and fail to speak vigorously and pointedly when the devout put forth arguments manifestly contrary to all the acquired knowledge of the past two or three millennia. Those who advocate a piece of folly like the theory of an 'intelligent creator' should be held accountable for their folly; they have no right to be offended for being called fools until they establish that they are not in fact fools. Religiously inclined writers like Stephen L Carter may plead that 'respect' should be accorded to religious views in public discourse, but he neglects to demonstrate that those views are worthy of respect. All secularists -- scientists, literary figures, even politicians (if there are any such with the requisite courage) -- should speak out on the issue when the opportunity presents itself.

To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.

Because I questioned myself and my sanity and what I was doing wrong in this situation. Because of course I feared that I might be overreacting, overemotional, oversensitive, weak, playing victim, crying wolf, blowing things out of proportion, making things up. Because generations of women have heard that they’re irrational, melodramatic, neurotic, hysterical, hormonal, psycho, fragile, and bossy. Because girls are coached out of the womb to be nonconfrontational, solicitous, deferential, demure, nurturing, to be tuned in to others, and to shrink and shut up. Because speaking up for myself was not how I learned English. Because I’m fluent in Apology, in Question Mark, in Giggle, in Bowing Down, in Self-Sacrifice. Because slightly more than half of the population is regularly told that what happens doesn’t or that it isn’t the big deal we’re making it into. Because your mothers, sisters, and daughters are routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied, harassed, threatened, punished, propositioned, and groped, and challenged on what they say. Because when a woman challenges a man, then the facts are automatically in dispute, as is the speaker, and the speaker’s license to speak. Because as women we are told to view and value ourselves in terms of how men view and value us, which is to say, for our sexuality and agreeability. Because it was drilled in until it turned subconscious and became unbearable need: don’t make it about you; put yourself second or last; disregard your feelings but not another’s; disbelieve your perceptions whenever the opportunity presents itself; run and rerun everything by yourself before verbalizing it—put it in perspective, interrogate it: Do you sound nuts? Does this make you look bad? Are you holding his interest? Are you being considerate? Fair? Sweet? Because stifling trauma is just good manners. Because when others serially talk down to you, assume authority over you, try to talk you out of your own feelings and tell you who you are; when you’re not taken seriously or listened to in countless daily interactions—then you may learn to accept it, to expect it, to agree with the critics and the haters and the beloveds, and to sign off on it with total silence. Because they’re coming from a good place. Because everywhere from late-night TV talk shows to thought-leading periodicals to Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Congress and the current administration, women are drastically underrepresented or absent, missing from the popular imagination and public heart. Because although I questioned myself, I didn’t question who controls the narrative, the show, the engineering, or the fantasy, nor to whom it’s catered. Because to mention certain things, like “patriarchy,” is to be dubbed a “feminazi,” which discourages its mention, and whatever goes unmentioned gets a pass, a pass that condones what it isn’t nice to mention, lest we come off as reactionary or shrill.

Language signifies when instead of copying thought it lets itself be taken apart and put together again by thought. Language bears the sense of thought as a footprint signifies the movement and effort of a body. The empirical use of already established language should be distinguished from its creative use. Empirical language can only be the result of creative language. Speech in the sense of empirical language - that is, the opportune recollection of a preestablished sign – is not speech in respect to an authentic language. It is, as Mallarmé said, the worn coin placed silently in my hand. True speech, on the contrary - speech which signifies, which finally renders "l'absente de tous bouquets" present and frees the sense captive in the thing - is only silence in respect to empirical usage, for it does not go so far as to become a common noun. Language is oblique and autonomous, and if it sometimes signifies a thought or a thing directly, that is only a secondary power derived from its inner life. Like the weaver, the writer works on the wrong side of his material. He has only to do with the language, and it is thus that he suddenly finds himself surrounded by sense.

Life gives us precious few opportunities to put our best foot forward, so when a chance to shine presents itself, one should always take it.

A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. In a different connection, we have already spoken of the tendency there was to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. Regarding our “provisional existence” as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life; everything in a way became pointless. Such people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself. Instead of taking the camp’s difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless.

Yes, my dear," he said reaching his hand to her cheek from where he sat. "But, it only takes one success to erase all the failures. When an opportunity presents itself, the only true failure takes place if one doesn't try at all. My wings weren't ready to fly this time, but, next time, you'll see. They all will see.

Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

I like to lean. Too much of the time I have to hold myself up, so if an opportunity to swoon presents itself, I take it.

After all, one does not laugh at senator's nephew at the first opportunity that presents itself.

But it has been my experience that guilt shadows a person like a most reliable friend, urging them to reveal the truth when opportunity at last presents itself.

Sometimes an opportunity presents itself and I take it. It has nothing to do with you or my cock.” Unless it involves Gianna Marino, anyway.

Life is full of plot twists you can’t control, June. Which is all the more reason to shag like mad when the opportunity presents itself.

The essence of meditation practice in Dzogchen is encapsulated by these four points: ▪ When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn’t there a consciousness of the present moment; fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a hair’s breadth of a concept, a luminous, naked awareness? Well, that is what Rigpa is! ▪ Yet it doesn’t stay in that state forever, because another thought suddenly arises, doesn’t it? This is the self-radiance of that Rigpa. ▪ However, if you do not recognize this thought for what it really is, the very instant it arises, then it will turn into just another ordinary thought, as before. This is called the “chain of delusion,” and is the root of samsara. ▪ If you are able to recognize the true nature of the thought as soon as it arises, and leave it alone without any follow-up, then whatever thoughts arise all automatically dissolve back into the vast expanse of Rigpa and are liberated. Clearly this takes a lifetime of practice to understand and realize the full richness and majesty of these four profound yet simple points, and here I can only give you a taste of the vastness of what is meditation in Dzogchen. … Dzogchen meditation is subtly powerful in dealing with the arisings of the mind, and has a unique perspective on them. All the risings are seen in their true nature, not as separate from Rigpa, and not as antagonistic to it, but actually as none other–and this is very important–than its “self-radiance,” the manifestation of its very energy. Say you find yourself in a deep state of stillness; often it does not last very long and a thought or a movement always arises, like a wave in the ocean.  Don’t reject the movement or particulary embrace the stillness, but continue the flow of your pure presence. The pervasive, peaceful state of your meditation is the Rigpa itself, and all risings are none other than this Rigpa’s self-radiance. This is the heart and the basis of Dzogchen practice. One way to imagine this is as if you were riding on the sun’s rays back to the sun: …. Of couse there are rough as well as gentle waves in the ocean; strong emotions come, like anger, desire, jealousy. The real practitioner recognizes them not as a disturbance or obstacle, but as a great opportunity. The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. To react to emotions in this way empowers them and binds us even tighter in the chains of delusion. The great secret of Dzogchen is to see right through them as soon as they arise, to what they really are: the vivid and electric manifestation of the energy of Rigpa itself. As you gradually learn to do this, even the most turbulent emotions fail to seize hold of you and dissolve, as wild waves rise and rear and sink back into the calm of the ocean. The practitioner discovers–and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated–that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa. The tempestuous energy becomes raw food of the awakened energy of Rigpa. The stronger and more flaming the emotion, the more Rigpa is strengthened.

The only difference between them and you, at this moment, is that when opportunity presented itself, they went into the phone booth and put on the cape. They took the leap. That’s basically it.

When a course of action is forced upon you it’s best to accept it with grace and milk it for whatever you can get, right up to the moment the first opportunity to weasel out of the deal presents itself.

Statesmen are not called upon only to settle easy questions. These often settle themselves. It is where the balance quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world-saving decisions presents itself.

One scandalized British soldier complained that the American riflemen “conceal themselves behind trees etc. till an opportunity presents itself of taking a shot at our advance sentries, which done, they immediately retreat. What an unfair method of carrying on a war!

Mussolini had learnt more from Lenin and the Bolsheviks than he would have cared to admit, notably the lesson that parliamentary majorities were far less important than the ability and determination to instil fear in opponents and to act ruthlessly when an opportunity presented itself.

Opportunity presents itself sometimes in unusual situations. What you think is the worst thing turns out to be a good thing. Difficult circumstances challenge people to do things they didn’t know they could do, and in those times when the outlook appears the worst, we find new reasons for optimism.

An autotelic experience is very different from the feelings we typically have in the course of life. So much of what we ordinarily do has no value in itself, and we do it only because we have to do it, or because we expect some future benefit from it. Many people feel that the time they spend at work is essentially wasted—they are alienated from it, and the psychic energy invested in the job does nothing to strengthen their self. For quite a few people free time is also wasted. Leisure provides a relaxing respite from work, but it generally consists of passively absorbing information, without using any skills or exploring new opportunities for action. As a result life passes in a sequence of boring and anxious experiences over which a person has little control. The autotelic experience, or flow, lifts the course of life to a different level. Alienation gives way to involvement, enjoyment replaces boredom, helplessness turns into a feeling of control, and psychic energy works to reinforce the sense of self, instead of being lost in the service of external goals. When experience is intrinsically rewarding life is justified in the present, instead of being held hostage to a hypothetical future gain.

He can even talk about nonsense as long as he does it in a confident manner and flirts whenever the opportunity presents itself. A male runs the risk of losing far more women because he does not say anything at all than he does because he is saying the wrong things. You can even talk about sex, and usually should, as long as you do not make the woman feel like a slut by asking her foolish things like whether she goes all the way on the first date or intimate questions that other people may overhear, for instance. Sex is nothing to be embarrassed about; it is part of whatever relationship you are looking for, and bringing the topic up is the easiest way to make a woman think about having sex with you. Therefore, it would not make sense to avoid it, but you do have to treat the subject as the no big deal that it is. Be serious and candid instead of joking about it. People who joke about sex all the time do so because they are uncomfortable with the topic, and women prefer such a male as their entertainer rather than their lover.

You don’t make money by trading, you make it by sitting.” It takes patience to wait for the trade to develop, for the opportunity to present itself. Let the market come to you, instead of chasing the market. Chart patterns are very accurate. They have proven their accuracy and predictability time and time again, but you have to wait for them to develop.

About two meters tall, he looked as if he’d made his living wrestling swamp panthers before the present career opportunity presented itself.

I wanted no part of the mafia world. I didn’t have my own money or an obvious way out, but I wouldn’t give up. An opportunity would present itself, and I’d be ready when it did.

It is where the balance quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world-saving decisions presents itself.

To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself. In myths, nothing good comes from gloating. You have to let the gods maintain the image of their singular power. I did not yet know that nightmares know no geography, that guilt and anxiety wander borderless. It is a reflex to expect the bad with the good. I don't know what fears kept hidden only grow more fierce. I don't know that my habits of pretending are only making us worse. Maybe moving forward also meant circling back. There are always two worlds. The one that I choose and the one that I deny, which inserts itself without my permission. To change our behavior, we must change our feelings and to change our feelings, we must change our thoughts. Freedom is bout choice - about choosing compassion, humor, optimism, intuition, curiosity and self-expression. To be free is to live in the present. When you have something to prove, you are not free. When we grieve, it's not just over what happened - we grieve for what didn't happen. You can't heal what you can't feel. It's easier to hold someone or something else responsible for your pain than to take responsibility for ending your own victimhood. Our painful experiences aren't a liability, they are a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength. One of the proving grounds for our freedom is in how we relate to our loved ones. There is no forgiveness without rage. But to ask "why" is to stay in the past, to keep company with our guilt and regret. We can't control other people and we can't control the past. You can't change what happened, you can't change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.

Good enough?" "Well...yeah," Linc says, the scalpel hanging limp in his hand. He looks mildly disappointed. "Don't worry. The opportunity to cut me could still present itself someday," Daniel says.

The British were unhinged by the colonists' unorthodox fighting style and shocking failure to abide by gentlemanly rules of engagement. One scandalized British soldier complained that the American riflemen 'conceal themselves behind trees etc. till an opportunity presents itself of taking a shot at our advance sentries, which done, they immediately retreat. What an unfair method of carrying on a war!

The policy of the victors after World War II in contrast to the Treaty of Versailles and the reparations exacted after World War I is an actual case of learning from experience and putting what was learned into practice—an opportunity that does not often present itself. The occupation of Japan according to a post-surrender policy drafted in Washington, approved by the Allies and largely carried out by Americans, was a remarkable exercise

Diva had "popped" into the grocer's. She always popped everywhere just now; she popped across to see a friend, and she popped home again; she popped into church on Sunday, and occasionally popped up to town, and Miss Mapp was beginning to feel that somebody ought to let her know, directly or by insinuation, that she popped too much. So, thinking that an opportunity might present itself now, Miss Mapp read the news-board outside the stationer's till Diva popped out of the grocer's again. The headlines of news, even the largest of them, hardly reached her brain, because it was entirely absorbed in another subject. Of course, the first thing was to find out by what train . . .

He is not a challenge, he is not a conquest. You were once that for him, back when he used to call you a little beast and defeated you handily, time and again. You got the feeling over time and then again that he didn’t want to win, when he sparred with you. That was the motivation you needed. The opportunity presented itself; his weakness presented itself. You took it, you beat him, you got better, you stayed neck and neck. Just stay strong, was the first directive. Get stronger, was the next. Don’t die, was the final, and that is where you remain. Daunting, to excel at a game that you must eventually lose. Unless you really are an angel. Unless he really is already a ghost.

Whatever we think about the future, whatever plans we make, however, we foresee certain events happening, there is some force out there that can completely change all of that. Travelling, it probably gives you more opportunities to be surprised. Do it for enough time, for long stretches, and if you are blessed enough, you may learn how to not attempt to anticipate the future, and instead live more in the present, and let the future come to you by itself.

And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude. Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

A humorous treatment of the rigid uniformitarian view came from Mark Twain. Although the shortening of the Mississippi River he referred to was the result of engineering projects eliminating many of the bends in the river, it is a thought-provoking spoof: The Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. . . . Its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present. Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and “let on” to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past . . . what an opportunity is here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue from! . . . In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. . . . There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

When an opportunity presents itself, and you have a choice of either living life—risky as it might be—or continuing to do what’s expected . . .” Claire paused, waiting for me to meet her gaze, a knowing smile curving her lips. She was quoting me, one of my favorite lines from my first film, Taco Tuesday. I returned her grin and finished the quote, “You have to grab that regal centaur by the mane and ride it over the rainbow of opportunity.” We finished together, “Or else it might mistake you for a unicorn and try to impregnate you.

The women were emboldened by the first opportunity that had ever presented itself in their lives; the chance to take off the yoke and look back at the long slavish distance they had walked. How else could they count their losses? The neck of an ox, carrying a wooden yoke, cannot turn.

all around the different Roblox servers looking for action and adventure. You could say that I’m some kind of wandering soul whose only purpose in life is to look for adventure! I live life to the fullest, making the most of every opportunity and experience as it presents itself. Believe

Would the behavior of the United States during the war—in military action abroad, in treatment of minorities at home—be in keeping with a “people’s war”? Would the country’s wartime policies respect the rights of ordinary people everywhere to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And would postwar America, in its policies at home and overseas, exemplify the values for which the war was supposed to have been fought? These questions deserve thought. At the time of World War II, the atmosphere was too dense with war fervor to permit them to be aired. For the United States to step forward as a defender of helpless countries matched its image in American high school history textbooks, but not its record in world affairs. It had opposed the Hatian revolution for independence from France at the start of the nineteenth century. It had instigated a war with Mexico and taken half of that country. It had pretended to help Cuba win freedom from Spain, and then planted itself in Cuba with a military base, investments, and rights of intervention. It had seized Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and fought a brutal war to subjugate the Filipinos. It had “opened” Japan to its trade with gunboats and threats. It had declared an Open Door Policy in China as a means of assuring that the United States would have opportunities equal to other imperial powers in exploiting China. It had sent troops to Peking with other nations, to assert Western supremacy in China, and kept them there for over thirty years.

Never did so great an opportunity offer itself to England, and to all Europe, as is produced by the two Revolutions of America and France. By the former, freedom has a national champion in the western world; and by the latter, in Europe. When another nation shall join France, despotism and bad government will scarcely dare to appear. To use a trite expression, the iron is becoming hot all over Europe. The insulted German and the enslaved Spaniard, the Russ and the Pole, are beginning to think. The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world.

There are spiritual gifts like mercy, faith, or generosity that enable people to set the standard, so to speak. But just because you don't have that spiritual gift doesn't mean you aren't held to any standard at all. Even if you aren't gifted in that way, you're still called to live mercifully, faithfully, and generously. You might not set the standard, but you need to meet the standard. There is a baseline that all of us are called to. When the opportunity presents itself, we need to show mercy, exercise faith, and give generously. In the same sense, all of us are called to take risks. If it doesn't involve risk, it doesn't exercise faith.

Oh, M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful creature, daughter to the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, "do try and get up some famous trial while we are at Marseille. I never was in a law-court; I am told it is so very amusing!" "Amusing, certainly," replied the young man, "inasmuch as, instead of shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced at a theatre, you behold in a law-court a case of real and genuine distress - a drama of life. The prisoner whom you there see pale, agitated, and alarmed, instead of - as is the case when a curtain falls on a tragedy - going home to sup peacefully with his family, and then retiring to rest, that he may recommence his mimic woes on the morrow, - is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted to his prison and delivered up to the executioner. I leave you to judge how far your nerves are calculated to bear you through such a scene. Of this, however, be assured, that should any favorable opportunity present itself, I will not fail to offer you the choice of being present.

Yes. I know all about soul-wraiths.” Ramsey frowned. “How did you avoid them in the past?” “Set a perimeter of energized diaman crystal. That will keep them at bay.” Hel smiled without humor. “I have the diaman crystal in my saddle pack. I lack a sexual partner to energize them. I had intended to return with a magistra but a magister will work as well. Care to volunteer?” “Only if I top,” Ramsey snapped. “You’d have to kill me first,” returned Hel. “With pleasure.” Steffania took a breath. Ram cut her off. “No. I don’t share you, Vixen.” Fear of the unknown almost froze Adonia’s tongue, but she was the obvious answer. She could do this, and the opportunity might never present itself again. “I’ll be your partner.

Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I’d be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. And now it never will. Because we’re going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won’t seem sincere if I’m trying to slit his throat.

The opportunity to walk back in our stories with Jesus might present itself when a snapshot of a memory comes to mind and we invite Him to connect the way we feel today to any hurt from our past. It might mean taking an honest feeling (insecurity, anger, resentment, powerlessness) into God’s presence and allowing Him to uncover, rewrite, and release us from the power of a memory or pattern in our past.

We should think of others not as objects to be used, or annoying people in the way of realizing our projects, but rather as those whom we are called to serve. Instead of saying, “Why is this annoying person in my way?” we should ask, “What opportunity for evangelization has presented itself?” Has God put this person in your life precisely for this purpose? Reflect: How are evangelization and love connected?

It is not uncommon in the church for us to urge each other to witness to our faith and sometimes we do so as though it were easy to do. It is not. Our faith is so profoundly intimate and important that we draw our breath in pain to tell the story of our faith in God. And to find the appropriate word to speak even to a receptive mind is difficult. Especially if the opportunity that presents itself comes as a total surprise.

I have seen countless people say they want to transform themselves and their lives and tune into the new vibration. But when the challenges have come, which are necessary to make that happen, they want out immediately and go back to life as before. Yet these challenges set us free. The reason we face personal and emotional mayhem when we start this journey is because of the need to clean out our emotional cesspit of suppressed and unprocessed emotional debris that we have pushed deep into our subconscious because we don’t want to deal with it. If we don’t clear the emotional gunge of this and other physical lifetimes, we can’t reconnect with our multidimensional self. We can’t be free of the reptilian manipulation and control from the lower fourth dimension. So when we say we intend to transform, that intent draws to us the people and experiences necessary to bring that suppressed emotion to the surface where we can see it and deal with it. The same is happening collectively as the information presented in this book comes into the light of public attention, so we can see it, address it and heal it. Much of the New Age is in denial of this collective cesspit because it doesn’t want to face its own personal cesspit. It would rather sit around a candle and kid itself it is enlightened while, in fact, it is an emotional wreck with a crystal in its hand. The information in this book is part of the healing of Planet Earth and the human consciousness as the veil lifts on all that has remained hidden and denied. Hey, this is a wonderful time we’re living through here. We are tuning to the cosmic dance, the wind of change, the rhythm of reconnection with all that is, has been, or ever will be. You have come to make a difference, for yourself and for the world. You have the opportunity to do that now, now, now. Grasp it and let’s end this nonsense. A few can only control billions because the billions let it happen. We don’t have to. And we can change it just by being ourselves, allowing other people to be themselves, and enjoying the gift of life. This is not a time to fear and it’s not a time to hide. It is a time to sing and a time to dance.

The only man then living who might have brought this miracle to pass was Erasmus, and Emperor Charles V, the ruler of two worlds, had sent him a special invitation to be present at the diet, conjuring him to give advice and to act as mediator. But Erasmus’s tragic destiny recapitulated itself. Again, as so often before, he missed a magnificent and unique opportunity because of overcautiousness, because of his innate weakness and his incapacity for coming to a definite conclusion.

On the back of her gratitude for the opportunity to talk and connect with her children, a powerful new insight presents itself. Although she can’t provide as much as some parents materially, there’s is no reason why she can’t develop their inner strength in a way that others will struggle to match. Dealing with pressure and having to think clearly in emotional situations have helped her today, both at work and at home, and passing this gift on to her children will help them face adversity too.

Let the old year be gone and with it your old habit of getting in your own way! This is your year! It will reveal itself to you one day at a time. In each day you will have countless opportunities to have your actions reflect your goals. Don't throw away another day/another year. Make each day count! If you see something different for yourself in the future, you have to do something different for yourself in the present. Let today be the day you interrupt your thoughts of "I should" with your actions of DOING!

robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. Regarding our “provisional existence” as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life; everything in a way became pointless. Such people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself. Instead of taking the camp’s difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their

Transcendental generosity is generally misunderstood in the study of the Buddhist scriptures as meaning being kind to someone who is lower than you.  Someone has this pain and suffering and you are in a superior position and can save them—which is a very simple-minded way of looking down on someone.  But in the case of the bodhisattva, generosity is not so callous.  It is something very strong and powerful; it is communication.   Communication must transcend irritation, otherwise it will be like trying to make a comfortable bed in a briar patch.  The penetrating qualities of external color, energy, and light will come toward us, penetrating our attempts to communicate like a thorn pricking our skin.  We will wish to subdue this intense irritation and our communication will be blocked.   Communication must be radiation and receiving and exchange.  Whenever irritation is involved, then we are not able to see properly and fully and clearly the spacious quality of that which is coming toward us, that which is presenting itself as communication.  The external world is immediately rejected by our irritation which says, “no, no, this irritates me, go away.”  Such an attitude is the complete opposite of transcendental generosity.   So the bodhisattva must experience the complete communication of generosity, transcending irritation and self-defensiveness.  Otherwise, when thorns threaten to prick us, we feel that we are being attacked, that we must defend ourselves.  We run away from the tremendous opportunity for communication that has been given to us, and we have not been brave enough even to look to the other shore of the river.  We are looking back and trying to run away.   Generosity is a willingness to give, to open without philosophical or pious or religious motives, just simply doing what is required at any moment in any situation, not being afraid to receive anything.  Opening could take place in the middle of a highway.  We are not afraid that smog and dust or people’s hatreds and passions will overwhelm us; we simply open, completely surrender, give.  This means that we do not judge, do not evaluate.  If we attempt to judge or evaluate our experience, if we try to decide to what extent we should open, to what extent we should remain closed, the openness will have no meaning at all and the idea of paramita, of transcendental generosity, will be in vain.  Our action will not transcend anything, will cease to be the act of a bodhisattva.   The whole implication of the idea of transcendence is that we see through the limited notions, the limited conceptions, the warfare mentality of this as opposed to that. Generally, when we look at an object, we do not allow ourselves to see it properly.  Automatically we see our version of the object instead of actually seeing the object as it is.  Then we are quite satisfied, because we have manufactured or own version of the thing within ourselves.   Then we comment on it, we judge, we take or reject; but there is on real communication going on at all.   Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, p.167, Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche

APRIL 30 WHEN SOME BASIC NEED IS LACKING—time, energy, money—consider yourself blessed. Your very lack is an opportunity to latch onto Me in unashamed dependence. When you begin a day with inadequate resources, you must concentrate your efforts on the present moment. This is where you are meant to live—in the present; it is the place where I always await you. Awareness of your inadequacy is a rich blessing, training you to rely wholeheartedly on Me. The truth is that self-sufficiency is a myth perpetuated by pride and temporary success. Health and wealth can disappear instantly, as can life itself. Rejoice in your insufficiency, knowing that My Power is made perfect in weakness.

A parent-child combo might pop up at the crest of the old country road, wan and wary, and Mark Spitz shrank from these, no matter how well outfitted they were. Parenthood made grown-ups unpredictable. They hesitated at the key moment out of consideration for their kid’s abilities or safety, they were paranoid he wanted to rape or eat their offspring, they slowed him down with their baby steps or kept him distracted as he pondered their erraticism. They were worse than the bandits, who only wanted your stuff and sometimes managed to take it, on the spot, or at gunpoint later when the opportunity presented itself, when you were sleeping or taking a piss. The parents were dangerous because they didn’t want your precious supplies. They possessed the valuables, and it hobbled their reasoning.

An opportunity presented itself in 1894, when he was commissioned for a special task—to optimize lightbulbs, maximizing the light produced while minimizing the energy used. In order to do this, he had to tackle the problem of what is called black-body radiation. We can grasp what this is by going out to the campfire. If you stick a metal shish kebab skewer into the fire, its tip will eventually become red-hot. If it gets even hotter, the color will go from red to yellow to white, then blue. As the interior of the skewer heats up, the surface starts emitting electromagnetic radiation in the form of light, called thermal radiation. The hotter the interior (the higher the energy), the shorter the wavelength (and the higher the frequency) of the light that is emitted—thus the color change. Physicists soon posited an idealized object, a “perfect” emitter and absorber that would look black when it is cold, because all light that falls on it would be completely absorbed.

It is already the fashion to diminish Eliot by calling him derivative, the mouthpiece of Pound, and so forth; and yet if one wanted to understand the apocalypse of early modernism in its true complexity it would be Eliot, I fancy, who would demand one's closest attention. He was ready to rewrite the history of all that interested him in order to have past and present conform; he was a poet of apocalypse, of the last days and the renovation, the destruction of the earthly city as a chastisement of human presumption, but also of empire. Tradition, a word we especially associate with this modernist, is for him the continuity of imperial deposits; hence the importance in his thought of Virgil and Dante. He saw his age as a long transition through which the elect must live, redeeming the time. He had his demonic host, too; the word 'Jew' remained in lower case through all the editions of the poems until the last of his lifetime, the seventy-fifth birthday edition of 1963. He had a persistent nostalgia for closed, immobile hierarchical societies. If tradition is, as he said in After Strange Gods--though the work was suppressed--'the habitual actions, habits and customs' which represent the kinship 'of the same people living in the same place' it is clear that Jews do not have it, but also that practically nobody now does. It is a fiction, a fiction cousin to a myth which had its effect in more practical politics. In extenuation it might be said that these writers felt, as Sartre felt later, that in a choice between Terror and Slavery one chooses Terror, 'not for its own sake, but because, in this era of flux, it upholds the exigencies proper to the aesthetics of Art.' The fictions of modernist literature were revolutionary, new, though affirming a relation of complementarity with the past. These fictions were, I think it is clear, related to others, which helped to shape the disastrous history of our time. Fictions, notably the fiction of apocalypse, turn easily into myths; people will live by that which was designed only to know by. Lawrence would be the writer to discuss here, if there were time; apocalypse works in Woman in Love, and perhaps even in Lady Chatterley's Lover, but not n Apocalypse, which is failed myth. It is hard to restore the fictive status of what has become mythical; that, I take it, is what Mr. Saul Bellow is talking about in his assaults on wastelandism, the cant of alienation. In speaking of the great men of early modernism we have to make very subtle distinctions between the work itself, in which the fictions are properly employed, and obiter dicta in which they are not, being either myths or dangerous pragmatic assertions. When the fictions are thus transformed there is not only danger but a leak, as it were, of reality; and what we feel about. all these men at times is perhaps that they retreated inso some paradigm, into a timeless and unreal vacuum from which all reality had been pumped. Joyce, who was a realist, was admired by Eliot because he modernized myth, and attacked by Lewis because he concerned himself with mess, the disorders of common perception. But Ulysses ,alone of these great works studies and develops the tension between paradigm and reality, asserts the resistance of fact to fiction, human freedom and unpredictability against plot. Joyce chooses a Day; it is a crisis ironically treated. The day is full of randomness. There are coincidences, meetings that have point, and coincidences which do not. We might ask whether one of the merits of the book is not its lack of mythologizing; compare Joyce on coincidence with the Jungians and their solemn concordmyth, the Principle of Synchronicity. From Joyce you cannot even extract a myth of Negative Concord; he shows us fiction fitting where it touches. And Joyce, who probably knew more about it than any of the others, was not at tracted by the intellectual opportunities or the formal elegance of fascism.

A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. In a different connection, we have already spoken of the tendency there was to look into the past, to help make the present, with all its horrors, less real. But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. Regarding our "provisional existence" as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life; everything in a way became pointless. Such people forget that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself. Instead of taking the camp's difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless.

Setting down her own basket, Annabelle held a pin between her thumb and forefinger, and closed her eyes. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she always made the same wish…to marry a peer. Strangely, however, a new thought entered her head, just as she cast the pin into the well. I wish I could fall in love. Surprised by the wilful, wayward notion, Annabelle wondered how it was that she could have wasted a wish on something that was obviously so ill-advised. Opening her eyes, Annabelle saw that the other wallflowers were staring into the well with great solemnity. “I made the wrong wish,” she said fretfully. “Can I have another?” “No,” Lillian said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Once you’ve thrown in your pin, it’s done.” “But I didn’t mean to make that particular wish,” Annabelle protested. “Something just popped into my head, and it wasn’t at all what I had planned.” “Don’t argue, Annabelle,” Evie advised. “You d-don’t want to annoy the well spirit.” “The what?” Evie smiled at her perplexed expression. “The resident spirit of the well. He’s the one to whom y-you make a petition. But if you annoy him, he may decide to demand a terrible price for granting your wish. Or he may drag you into the well with him, to live there forever as his c-consort.” Annabelle stared into the brown water. She cupped her hands around the sides of her mouth to help direct her voice. “You don’t have to grant my rotten wish,” she told the unseen spirit loudly. “I take it back!” “Don’t taunt him, Annabelle,” Daisy exclaimed. “And for heaven’s sake, step back from the edge of that well!” “Are you superstitious?” Annabelle asked with a grin. Daisy glowered at her. “There’s a reason for superstitions, you know. At some> point in time, something bad happened to someone who was standing right next to a well, just as you are.” Closing her eyes, she concentrated intently, then tossed her own pin into the water. “There. I’ve made a wish for your benefit—so there’s no need for you to complain about having wasted one.” “But how do you know what I wanted?” “The wish I made is for your own good,” Daisy informed her. Annabelle groaned theatrically. “I hate things that are for my own good.

Benjamin Munro was his name. She mouthed the syllables silently, Benjamin James Munro, twenty-six years old, late of London. He had no dependents, was a hard worker, a man not given to baseless talk. He'd been born in Sussex and grown up in the Far East, the son of archaeologists. He liked green tea, the scent of jasmine, and hot days that built towards rain. He hadn't told her all of that. He wasn't one of those pompous men who bassooned on about himself and his achievements as if a girl were just a pretty-enough face between a pair of willing ears. Instead, she'd listened and observed and gleaned, and, when the opportunity presented, crept inside the storehouse to check the head gardener's employment book. Alice had always fancied herself a sleuth, and sure enough, pinned behind a page of Mr. Harris's careful planting notes, she'd found Benjamin Munro's application. The letter itself had been brief, written in a hand Mother would have deplored, and Alice had scanned the whole, memorizing the bits, thrilling at the way the words gave depth and color to the image she'd created and been keeping for herself, like a flower pressed between pages. Like the flower he'd given her just last month. "Look, Alice"- the stem had been green and fragile in his broad, strong hand- "the first gardenia of the season.

But Nietzsche’s tragedy is found here once again. The aims, the prophecies are generous and universal, but the doctrine is restrictive, and the reduction of every value to historical terms leads to the direst consequences. Marx thought that the ends of history, at least, would prove to be moral and rational. That was his Utopia. But Utopia, at least in the form he knew it, is destined to serve cynicism, of which he wanted no part. Marx destroys all transcendence, then carries out, by himself, the transition from fact to duty. But his concept of duty has no other origin but fact. The demand for justice ends in injustice if it is not primarily based on an ethical justification of justice; without this, crime itself one day becomes a duty. When good and evil are reintegrated in time and confused with events, nothing is any longer good or bad, but only either premature or out of date. Who will decide on the opportunity, if not the opportunist? Later, say the disciples, you shall judge. But the victims will not be there to judge. For the victim, the present is the only value, rebellion the only action. Messianism, in order to exist, must construct a defense against the victims. It is possible that Marx did not want this, but in this lies his responsibility which must be examined, that he incurred by justifying, in the name of the revolution, the henceforth bloody struggle against all forms of rebellion.

The year 1915 was fated to be disastrous to the cause of the Allies and to the whole world. By the mistakes of this year the opportunity was lost of confining the conflagration within limits which though enormous were not uncontrolled. Thereafter the fire roared on till it burnt itself out. Thereafter events passed very largely outside the scope of conscious choice. Governments and individuals conformed to the rhythm of the tragedy, and swayed and staggered forward in helpless violence, slaughtering and squandering on ever-increasing scales, till injuries were wrought to the structure of human society which a century will not efface, and which may conceivably prove fatal to the present civilization. But in January, 1915, the terrific affair was still not unmanageable. It could have been grasped in human hands and brought to rest in righteous and fruitful victory before the world was exhausted, before the nations were broken, before the empires were shattered to pieces, before Europe was ruined. It was not to be. Mankind was not to escape so easily from the catastrophe in which it had involved itself. Pride was everywhere to be humbled, and nowhere to receive its satisfaction. No splendid harmony was to crown the wonderful achievements. No prize was to reward the sacrifices of the combatants. Victory was to be bought so dear as to be almost indistinguishable from defeat. It was not to give even security to the victors. There never was to be ‘The silence following great words of

The bad news is, everyone looks great on paper and in interviews, but everyone also looks exactly the same. People have figured out how to present themselves as competent, qualified managers who won’t make waves and who won’t make mistakes—but nobody is able to say, “I’ve got ideas that are really new and different!” People are afraid to present themselves as innovators, and consequently innovation itself has become a lost art. This is a problem for American business. But it’s also a golden opportunity for anyone who values originality and knows how to put it to work. You can instantly set yourself apart from the crowd by focusing on what you’ll do right instead of what you won’t do wrong. To do that, you’ll need insight about your strengths and weaknesses, and intelligence about how to maximize your contribution. But most of all you’ll need inspiration—the power to create energy and excitement by what you say, how you look, and above all, what you do. Those are some of the topics we’ll be talking about in this chapter. As a first step toward making yourself unforgettable to others, consider how you see yourself in your own eyes. Image is built upon self-perception. If your self-perception is out of sync with the way you want to be perceived, you will have a hard time making a positive impression—especially if you’re not even fully aware of the problem. This happens to many people. For some reason, we tend to think less of ourselves than we’d like. We also tend to have a lower opinion of ourselves than other people have of us. It

It is for this reason that this book dramatizes how Cold War liberals reimagined the canon of political thought. Perhaps the greatest recent nominalist historian of liberalism, Duncan Bell, has reminded us that one part of the reshuffling of the liberal tradition is recanonization. Nothing about this, of course, is specific to liberalism; if all history is contemporary history, then all canonizing is too, as the past is reconfigured in light of the present. There may, indeed, be no better way into understanding political thought than by studying what ancestry it claims—and whom it censures or expels. “It is well known that each age writes history anew to serve its own purposes and that the history of political ideas is no exception to this rule,” Shklar observed in 1959. “The precise nature of these changes in perspective, however, bears investigation. For not only can their study help us to understand the past; it may also lead to a better understanding of our own intellectual situation.”13 Yet how mid-twentieth century liberalism invented its own past has barely been broached. In Bell’s classic article, he makes the destabilizing but narrow claim that it was only in the twentieth century that Locke was anointed the founder of liberalism. There is much more to say about the canonization process. It overturned a prevalent nineteenth-century version of liberal theory with perfectionist and progressivist features that Cold War liberalism transformed. Creative agency had been liberalism’s goal, and history its forum of opportunity. The mid-twentieth century changed all that.

And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the once genial earth produces, in every successive generation, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding ones. Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened era,—on the contrary, they never before were nearly so abundant,—but that mankind are getting so far beyond the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy any longer. A simple and joyous character can find no place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame. The entire system of man's affairs, as at present established, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and happy soul. The very children would upbraid the wretched individual who should endeavor to take life and the world as w what we might naturally suppose them meant for—a place and opportunity for enjoyment. It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and a purpose in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival at a colder and drearier region than we were born in. It insists upon everybody's adding somewhat—a mite, perhaps, but earned by incessant effort—to an accumulated pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be, to burden our posterity with even heavier thoughts and more inordinate labor than our own. No life now wanders like an unfettered stream; there is a mill-wheel for the tiniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenuous a resolution to go all right.

Dear Mother, . . . We have been putting in our time here at very hard drilling, and are supposed to have learned in six weeks what the ordinary recruit, in times of peace, takes all his two years at. We rise at 5, and work stops in the afternoon at 5. A twelve hours day at one sou a day. I hope to earn higher wages than this in time to come, but I never expect to work harder. The early rising hour is splendid for it gives one the chance to see the most beautiful part of these beautiful autumn days in the South. We march up to a lovely open field on the end of the ridge behind the barracks, walking right into the rising sun. From this panorama, spread about on three sides is incomparably fine—yellow cornfields, vineyards, harvest-fields where the workers and their teams can be seen moving about in tiny figures—poplars, little hamlets and church-towers, and far away to the south the blue line of the Pyrenees, the high peaks capped with snow. It makes one in love with life, it is all so peaceful and beautiful. But Nature to me is not only hills and blue skies and flowers, but the Universe, the totality of things, reality as it most obviously presents itself to us; and in this universe strife and sternness play as big a part as love and tenderness, and cannot be shirked by one whose will it is to rule his life in accordance with the cosmic forces he sees in play about him. I hope you see the thing as I do, and think that I have done well, being without responsibilities and with no one to suffer materially by my decision, in taking upon my shoulders, too, the burden that so much of humanity is suffering under, and, rather than stand ingloriously aside when the opportunity was given me, doing my share for the side that I think right. . . .

Stop it! Just give me a second!” “Alright, alright, everyone—” Hank flashed his palms like stop signs and then waved them around as if he were a city flagman exercising his authority to halt traffic. “Stand back, stand back—hands to yourself... in your pockets… there you go.” Hank loved the spotlight and demanded it whenever opportunity presented itself. For once, I actually welcomed his inflated need for attention. The pressing against my back let up, and my friends stepped aside. Pausing first for dramatic effect (typical Hank) he drew in a deep breath and delivered an improvised monologue (also typical Hank.) “People, people, people… look at what you’re doing. Can’t you see the effect you’re having on this sweet, innocent frightened child? I mean, what is up with the sudden aggressive-mob behavior here? Remember, people, this is our friend! Our colleague! Our schoolmate, chum, pal, our number-one supporter most days! Does she deserve this kind of peer pressure? …this group coercion? …this physical harassment? I say nay! Nay, I tell you! Now I know how excited you are to see her fi~nal~ly agree—after many, many grueling months of relentless persuading—to become one of us. To attempt a mad stab at initiation. To feel what it is to be spectacular! But give the girl some room to breathe! If you push a frightened lamb, she’s gonna turn tail and scamper off in the opposite direction, baaaahhing all the way. Then what will our efforts be for? For naught, I say! For naught! So the question here isn’t will she move or not move, but rather will she dare or not dare?” “The actual question is: are you gonna shut it or have us shut it for you?” Cory piped in with a pantomimed zip of the lip. Hank scoffed, blowing his bangs out of his face with a contrary huff, but he didn’t say another word.

This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. To avoid this kind of embarrassment, the Quakers have of late years been gradually declining the public service in the Assembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather to quit their power than their principle. In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove [84] for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, [85] found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

College students were instructed to sit by themselves for up to fifteen minutes in a sparsely furnished, unadorned room and “entertain themselves with their thoughts.” They were allowed to think about whatever they liked, the only rules being that they should remain in their seat and stay awake. Before they entered the room they were obliged to surrender any means of distraction they had about their person, such as cell phones, books, or writing materials. Afterward, they were asked to rate the experience on various scales. Unsurprisingly, a majority reported that they found it difficult to concentrate and their minds had wandered, with around half saying they didn’t enjoy the experience. A subsequent experiment, however, revealed that many found being left alone in an empty room with nothing to occupy their minds so unpleasant (this is, after all, what makes solitary confinement such a harsh punishment in prisons) that they would rather give themselves electric shocks. In the first part of this experiment, the volunteers were asked to rate the unpleasantness of a shock delivered via electrodes attached to their ankle and say whether they would pay a small amount of money to avoid having to experience it again. In the second part, during which they were left alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes, they were presented with the opportunity to zap themselves once again. Amazingly, among those who had said they would pay to avoid a repeat experience, 67 percent of the men (12 out of 18) and 25 percent of the women (6 out of 24) opted to shock themselves at least once. One of the women gave herself nine electric shocks. One of the men subjected himself to no fewer than 190 shocks, though he was considered exceptional—a statistical “outlier”—and his results were excluded from the final analysis. In their report for the journal Science, the researchers write, “What is striking is that simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 minutes was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid.” This goes a long way toward explaining why many people initially find it so hard to meditate, because to sit quietly with your eyes closed is to invite the mind to wander here, there, and everywhere. In a sense, that is the whole point: we are simply learning to notice when this has happened. So the frustrating realization that your thoughts have been straying—yet again—is a sign of progress rather than failure. Only by noticing the way thoughts ricochet about inside our heads like ball bearings in a pinball machine can we learn to observe them dispassionately and simply let them come to rest, resisting the urge to pull back the mental plunger and fire off more of them. One of the benefits of meditation is that one develops the ability to quiet the mind at will. “Without such training,” the psychologists conclude drily in their paper, “people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.

Classical liberalism has been reproached with being too obstinate and not ready enough to compromise. It was because of its inflexibility that it was defeated in its struggle with the nascent anticapitalist parties of all kinds. If it had realized, as these other parties did, the importance of compromise and concession to popular slogans in winning the favor of the masses, it would have been able to preserve at least some of its influence. But it has never bothered to build for itself a party organization and a party machine as the anticapitalist parties have done. It has never attached any importance to political tactics in electoral campaigns and parliamentary proceedings. It has never gone in for scheming opportunism or political bargaining. This unyielding doctrinairism necessarily brought about the decline of liberalism. The factual assertions contained in these statements are entirely in accordance with the truth, but to believe that they constitute a reproach against liberalism is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of its essential spirit. The ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas. Nothing can serve as a substitute for an ideology that enhances human life by fostering social cooperation—least of all lies, whether they be called "tactics," "diplomacy," or "compromise." If men will not, from a recognition of social necessity, voluntarily do what must be done if society is to be maintained and general well-being advanced, no one can lead them to the right path by any cunning stratagem or artifice. If they err and go astray, then one must endeavor to enlighten them by instruction. But if they cannot be enlightened, if they persist in error, then nothing can be done to prevent catastrophe. All the tricks and lies of demagogic politicians may well be suited to promote the cause of those who, whether in good faith or bad, work for the destruction of society. But the cause of social progress, the cause of the further development and intensification of social bonds, cannot be advanced by lies and demagogy. No power on earth, no crafty stratagem or clever deception could succeed in duping mankind into accepting a social doctrine that it not only does not acknowledge, but openly spurns. The only way open to anyone who wishes to lead the world back to liberalism is to convince his fellow citizens of the necessity of adopting the liberal program. This work of enlightenment is the sole task that the liberal can and must perform in order to avert as much as lies within his power the destruction toward which society is rapidly heading today. There is no place here for concessions to any of the favorite or customary prejudices and errors. In regard to questions that will decide whether or not society is to continue to exist at all, whether millions of people are to prosper or perish, there is no room for compromise either from weakness or from misplaced deference for the sensibilities of others. If liberal principles once again are allowed to guide the policies of great nations, if a revolution in public opinion could once more give capitalism free rein, the world will be able gradually to raise itself from the condition into which the policies of the combined anticapitalist factions have plunged it. There is no other way out of the political and social chaos of the present age.

kensi Gounden says, However, keep in mind that combining evergreen solutions with contemporary tech will allow you to cater to the entirety of the modern market. Sometimes your team members are simply so busy managing the hectic daily workload that they don’t have the time or the resources to be creative or innovative. Instead of putting innovation on the backburner until an opportunity presents itself (which it never will), you can allocate some of your resources to create departments and divisions intended for this purpose.

But the laws of the schools were aimed at something distant and vague. What did it mean to, as our elders told us, “grow up and be somebody”? And what precisely did this have to do with an education rendered as rote discipline? To be educated in my Baltimore mostly meant always packing an extra number 2 pencil and working quietly. Educated children walked in single file on the right side of the hallway, raised their hands to use the lavatory, and carried the lavatory pass when en route. Educated children never offered excuses—certainly not childhood itself. The world had no time for the childhoods of black boys and girls. How could the schools? Algebra, Biology, and English were not subjects so much as opportunities to better discipline the body, to practice writing between the lines, copying the directions legibly, memorizing theorems extracted from the world they were created to represent. All of it felt so distant to me. I remember sitting in my seventh-grade French class and not having any idea why I was there. I did not know any French people, and nothing around me suggested I ever would. France was a rock rotating in another galaxy, around another sun, in another sky that I would never cross. Why, precisely, was I sitting in this classroom? The question was never answered. I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance. I loved a few of my teachers. But I cannot say that I truly believed any of them. Some years after I’d left school, after I’d dropped out of college, I heard a few lines from Nas that struck me: Ecstasy, coke, you say it’s love, it is poison Schools where I learn they should be burned, it is poison That was exactly how I felt back then. I sensed the schools were hiding something, drugging us with false morality so that we would not see, so that we did not ask: Why—for us and only us—is the other side of free will and free spirits an assault upon our bodies? This is not a hyperbolic concern. When our elders presented school to us, they did not present it as a place of high learning but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing. Fully 60 percent of all young black men who drop out of high school will go to jail. This should disgrace the country. But it does not, and while I couldn’t crunch the numbers or plumb the history back then, I sensed that the fear that marked West Baltimore could not be explained by the schools. Schools did not reveal truths, they concealed them. Perhaps they must be burned away so that the heart of this thing might be known.

It is better to be prepared for an unseen opportunity, than to be unprepared when the opportunity presents itself.

Good time to fill me in,” Cornelius said. So he did. “That’s messed up,” Cornelius said when he finished. “Yup.” Then: “Why did you help us, Cornelius?” “Why not?” “I’m serious.” “So am I. Not a lot of chances to be a hero in real life. You got to step up when the opportunity presents itself.” Cornelius shrugged as if to emphasize it was a no-brainer and that simple, and Simon believed that maybe it was.

One night I did the thing Carr warned me not to do. I questioned the decision as I was getting ready for a work party. The thought entered my mind that I could drink if I wanted to, and just like that the whole thing crumbled. By the time my mascara had dried I was committed to drinking. Once I crossed that line it was hard to reign the drinking back in. Then I was back in the gray area of cognitive dissonance. And each opportunity to drink from then on presented itself as a new decision to be made. Should I tonight? Why not? When I was using Carr’s method. I wasn't using willpower. You don't have to use willpower when you don't want to do something. You just don’t do it. But as soon as I question my decision not to drink I had to rely on willpower, a limited resource, to abstain. The next time I quit would require far more from me than just Carr’s logic.

Sometimes when an opportunity for compassion or kindness presents itself, we forget why we're supposed to judge or hate; we even forget our own suffering as something inside us rises to the surface and places someone's immediate needs above all else.

For a scientist, the only valid question is to decide whether the phenomenon can be studied by itself, or whether it is an instance of a deeper problem. This book attempts to illustrate, and only to illustrate, the latter approach. And my conclusion is that, through the UFO phenomenon, we have the unique opportunities to observe folklore in the making and to gather scientific material at the deepest source of human imagination. We will be the object of much contempt by future students of our civilization if we allow this material to be lost, for "tradition is a meteor which, once it falls, cannot be rekindled." If we decide to avoid extreme speculation, but make certain basic observations from the existing data, five principal facts stand out rather clearly from our analysis so far: Fact 1. There has been among the public, in all countries, since the middle of 1946, an extremely active generation of colorful rumors. They center on a considerable number of observations of unknown machines close to the ground in rural areas, the physical traces left by these machines, and their various effects on humans and animals. Fact 2. When the underlying archetypes are extracted from these rumors, the extraterrestrial myth is seen to coincide to a remarkable degree with the fairy-faith of Celtic countries, the observations of the scholars of past ages, and the widespread belief among all peoples concerning entities whose physical and psychological description place them in the same category as the present-day ufonauts. Fact 3. The entities human witnesses report to have seen, heard, and touched fall into various biological types. Among them are beings of giant stature, men indistinguishable from us, winged creatures, and various types of monsters. Most of the so-called pilots, however, are dwarfs and form two main groups: (1) dark, hairy beings – identical to the gnomes of medieval theory – with small, bright eyes and deep, rugged, "old" voices; and (2) beings – who answer the description of the sylphs of the Middle Ages or the elves of the fairy-faith – with human complexions, oversized heads, and silvery voices. All the beings have been described with and without breathing apparatus. Beings of various categories have been reported together. The overwhelming majority are humanoid. Fact 4. The entities' reported behavior is as consistently absurd as the appearance of their craft is ludicrous. In numerous instances of verbal communications with them, their assertions have been systematically misleading. This is true for all cases on record, from encounters with the Gentry in the British Isles to conversations with airship engineers during the 1897 Midwest flap and discussions with the alleged Martians in Europe, North and South America, and elsewhere. This absurd behavior has had the effect of keeping professional scientists away from the area where that activity was taking place. It has also served to give the saucer myth its religious and mystical overtones. Fact 5. The mechanism of the apparitions, in legendary, historical, and modern times, is standard and follows the model of religious miracles. Several cases, which bear the official stamp of the Catholic Church (such as those in Fatima and Guadalupe), are in fact – if one applies the deffinitions strictly – nothing more than UFO phenomena where the entity has delivered a message having to do with religious beliefs rather than with space or engineering.

The Geographical Experiment gave geography the chance to establish itself as a university discipline. The breadth of its terms of reference was both a strength and a weakness. The strength was that it included nature and culture and their relationship, a concept no other discipline had claimed. This breadth remains a contested topic in modern geography despite the opportunities it presents of ever-increasing relevance. The weakness is the spread of interest over such a wide field and an ‘anything goes’ mentality. This weakness becomes most apparent when different parts of the discipline relate to different intellectual traditions. The touching points then become very few or non-existent. It is fair to say that most physical geography today is evolving within the research framework of the natural and mathematical sciences, whereas most human geography draws upon and interrelates with the traditions of the humanities and social studies. It is possible to recognize a definite lacuna in which physical and human geography interact, but for many this is a minority interest.

To me, vale tudo is different from MMA because there are many more possibilities, both good and bad. Until an opportunity presents itself, one has to fight defensively, as Royce did against Dan Severn in UFC 4. Severn weighed 260 pounds and was on top of my brother for sixteen minutes before Royce caught him in a triangle choke from his back. According to today's rules, Royce could never have own that fight. The ref would have stood them up again after five minutes on the ground. MMA is a game; vale tudo is a war.

Whenever the right opportunity presents itself in your life; the wrong one also appears invariably to distract you from making the right choice. It's the battle of choices and opportunities...

You keep reminding yourselves and each other of the deaths.  Should you not be celebrating life instead?  You are alive and each day presents itself new opportunities for your further understanding to greatness and greater ways of being. Instead, you dwell on your pain.  Your children, who were not part of your war generations, have been taught well how the men suffered and died at the hands of their enemies.  The gassing gives your children nightmares.  You are doing well keeping your fears and memories alive.  It is like a fire that you keep feeding, to make sure it will not go out.

Throughout the I Ching there is mention of following, being led, and clinging. There are also warnings against the misuse of power, and of acting on our own. The impression we get from this advice is that the I Ching presents a passive approach to life. This is not true. When we are faced with a situation in which the I Ching calls for retreat, holding fast, and not acting, it refers to all these things in a moving time frame. We are meant to stop at the moment, retreat momentarily, hold fast and not act, until the right moment arrives to move ahead. It is not a static, permanent counsel to quit. When does the right moment arrive to move ahead? When we have perceived the inner truth of the situation with clarity, when we have become emotionally detached, and when we have become independent in our inner attitude, yet firm in recognizing what is correct. Then we are able to seize the opportunities presented by the moment, and move ahead appropriately. If we are able to keep our attitude modest and sincere when we act, we will achieve maximum progress. We need, however, to be able to retreat the moment the opening begins to close. If we fail to disengage in time, our good effect will be diminished. Acting from inner independence is different from acting from egotistical enthusiasm. The ego would dazzle us with its “comprehensive” solutions. It is good at insinuating itself into the role of savior with clever, airtight remedies, and it is good at acting detached. That is why the I Ching counsels “hesitating caution.” Caution keeps the ego at a distance. If we move ahead without having put ourselves into a correct relationship to the situation, we fall victim to arrogance. In order to be led, we need to be open and alert. Even though we develop a firm knowledge of I Ching principles, we should avoid taking inflexible positions. A situation may be full of ambiguity until we see how to relate to the matter without compromising ourselves. When we do not yet understand a new lesson, it is important to allow ourselves to be led without resistance through the developing situation. We keep asking, inwardly, what we need to do to relate correctly to the moment. Often, we need only wait in a neutral but alert frame of mind, like an actor in the wings awaiting his cue. He listens within, he feels the action going on, and when he moment arrives, he fulfills his role.

Smart investors do not inject their finances blindly into every opportunity that presents itself, yet we are now in a state of constant infuriation in response to any cause that picks up enough momentum.

Life will always present itself with opportunities to us, If you have any doubt, don’t get involved