Perfect Scenarios Quotes

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She looks up at me with those vulnerable eyes. “What if it means something?” She asks. “What if it does?” “Promise me it won’t mean anything.” I lean my head back on the couch. “It won’t mean anythin’.” Aren’t I supposed to be the guy in this scenario, laying down the no-commitment rules? “And no tongue,” she adds. “Mi vida, if I kiss you, I guarantee there’s gonna be tongue.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Unless you are perfectly narcissistic and psychopathic—even then—your worst-case scenario is never limited to the loss of only your life.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto))
Our need to be in control, to orchestrate the perfect scenario for every journey of our lives, breeds anxiety in our hearts.
Emily Ley (Grace, Not Perfection: Celebrating Simplicity, Embracing Joy)
RELAX IN MY PRESENCE, KNOWING THAT nothing can separate you from My Love. The worst-case scenario in your life—that I might stop loving you—is not even in the realm of possibility. So rejoice that you don’t have to perform well enough to earn My Love, or to keep it. This Love is pure gift, flowing out of My own perfect righteousness. It secures your connection to Me—your Savior—for all eternity.
Sarah Young (Jesus Today: Experience Hope Through His Presence)
That’s the problem with all of this. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make it perfect. I can’t keep it in a bottle, can’t ignore reality. Chemicals are involved, the kind scientists try to synthesize and put into pill form, and they’re making tremendous advances every day. They’re winning the war against love. It’s probably inevitable now. There are only two ways to see the world: either no one and nothing is connected to anything, or we are all a random series of carbon molecules connected to each other. Tell me if there’s room for love in either of those scenarios.
Pete Wentz (Gray)
After all, when ‘the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become’ He resolved to ‘wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them’ (Genesis 6:7). The Bible thinks it is perfectly all right to destroy all animals as punishment for the crimes of Homo sapiens, as if the existence of giraffes, pelicans and ladybirds has lost all purpose if humans misbehave. The Bible could not imagine a scenario in which God repents having created Homo sapiens, wipes this sinful ape off the face of the earth, and then spends eternity enjoying the antics of ostriches, kangaroos and panda bears.
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
Listen to yourself, fucker. I was cheesing so hard all I needed was wine and some crackers to create the perfect picnic scenario.
L.J. Shen (The Hunter (Boston Belles, #1))
There is no perfect plan and no perfect scenario, because life happens. As helpful it is to be able to plan, it’s equally important to adapt to changing circumstances and problems. It’s important to understand that you will be significantly and continually impacted by imperfection—from yourself, the world, and others.
Stephen Guise (How to Be an Imperfectionist: The New Way to Self-Acceptance, Fearless Living, and Freedom from Perfectionism)
To properly engage in magical thinking, I find you have to think of every possible ghastly scenario. That's the only way you outsmart fate.
A.J. Jacobs (Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection)
From the stereo came music that Alice didn't recognize, but it wasn't there to be listened to, just to complete a perfect scenario; there was nothing casual about it.
Paolo Giordano (The Solitude of Prime Numbers)
In a perfect scenario, we'd all know our opponents… but the thing is… maybe it is even more important to know yourself… because, you shall pull it through, as long as you're well aware of what is it you're capable of pulling through in the first place.
Gina Wings (Secrets of a Perfect Hair Color: Adventures of an Urban Woman (On Hair and Humans Book 1))
It has been wished, and wished again, that the universe could hold perfect moments in perfect memory, the clearest remembrance of things left behind. Alas this form of memory is not possible. The camera of the universe affects the actions therein. The ultimate quantum cat scenario, the fates of all mankind walking a quantum plank from a multi-universal ship, blindfolded and screaming for release...or so it seems to certain flawed observers.
Alexx Bollen (Periphery)
As stupid and impossible as the impulse was, she wanted to be perfect for him. She wanted to be what he was looking for and that surely didn’t include crying unless it was part of some fucked-up role playing scenario.
Cara McKenna (Willing Victim (Flynn and Laurel, #1))
We knew lots of couples who split up and got back together, rinse and repeat, but that had never been us. We did not know how the other would act, would be, in this scenario. I was standing at the curb with a perfect stranger.
Jessica Knoll (Bright Young Women)
Traditionally, most murders and violent crimes were relatively easy for law enforcement officials to comprehend. They resulted from critically exaggerated manifestations of feelings we all experience: anger, greed, jealousy, profit, revenge. Once this emotional problem was taken care of, the crime or crime spree would end. Someone would be dead, but that was that and the police generally knew who and what they were looking for. But a new type of violent criminal has surfaced in recent years—the serial offender, who often doesn't stop until he is caught or killed, who learns by experience and who tends to get better and better at what he does, constantly perfecting his scenario from one crime to the next. I say "surfaced" because, to some degree, he was probably with us all along, going back long before 1880s London and Jack the Ripper, generally considered the first modern serial killer. And I say "he" because, for reasons we'll get into a little later, virtually all real serial killers are male.
John E. Douglas (Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit)
Children need practice dealing with other people. With people, practice never leads to perfect. But perfect isn’t the goal. Perfect is the goal only in a simulation. Children become fearful of not being in control in a domain where control is not the point. Beyond this, children use conversations with one another to learn how to have conversations with themselves. For children growing up, the capacity for self-reflection is the bedrock of development. I worry that the holding power of the screen does not encourage this. It jams that inner voice by offering continual interactivity or continual connection. Unlike time with a book, where one’s mind can wander and there is no constraint on time out for self-reflection, “apps” bring children back to the task at hand just when a child’s mind should be allowed to wander. So in addition to taking children away from conversation with other children, too much time with screens can take children away from themselves. It is one thing for adults to choose distraction over self-reflection. But children need to learn to hear their own voices.
John Brockman (What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night (Edge Question))
I'm learning that's marriage. At least it's the kind of marriage I want. And I know I want said that our fairy tale is on hold for a while, but I don't think that's true now. This is the fairy tale. We are living it. Fairy tales were never really about a perfect end to a story. It's the day by day living that counts. I like that scenario better anyway. At least it's real.
Kristy Cambron (Castle on the Rise (Lost Castle, #2))
What I felt for you was love. The poets, the philosophers—they say things about perfect love. How it heals, how it behaves, how it braves all things. But they’re idealizing it. Best-case scenario: love saves the day. But I was the worst-case scenario. Love is sometimes powerful enough to self-destruct. Because when an imperfect person wields the most powerful weapon in the universe, they’re bound to trip over their own feet.
Tarryn Fisher (F*ck Marriage)
The Bible thinks it is perfectly all right to destroy all animals as punishment for the crimes of Homo sapiens, as if the existence of giraffes, pelicans and ladybirds has lost all purpose if humans misbehave. The Bible could not imagine a scenario in which God repents having created Homo sapiens, wipes this sinful ape off the face of the earth, and then spends eternity enjoying the antics of ostriches, kangaroos and panda bears.
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
There is an endless stream of faux outrage, a constant manufacturing of nonexistent hurdles, rooted in some flawed concept of our society’s perfectibility. There are those in black America who use charges of racism as a social handicap. With the expectation that the mere utterance of the word will vindicate them in every scenario, we have arrived suddenly into an era of more insistence on rather than actual resistance against racism. And the Left, always happy to exploit our victimhood, urges us on.
Candace Owens (Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation)
Ironically, in an age of instant global connection, my certainty about anything has decreased. Rather than receiving truth from an authority, I am reduced to assembling my own certainty from the liquid stream of facts flowing through the web. Truth, with a capital T, becomes truths, plural. I have to sort the truths not just about things I care about, but about anything I touch, including areas about which I can’t possibly have any direct knowledge. That means that in general I have to constantly question what I think I know. We might consider this state perfect for the advancement of science, but it also means that I am more likely to have my mind changed for incorrect reasons. While hooked into the network of networks I feel like I am a network myself, trying to achieve reliability from unreliable parts. And in my quest to assemble truths from half-truths, nontruths, and some noble truths scattered in the flux, I find my mind attracted to fluid ways of thinking (scenarios, provisional belief, subjective hunches) and toward fluid media like mashups, twitterese, and search. But as I flow through this slippery web of
Kevin Kelly (The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future)
We greet 2020 as our constitutional moral center is being re-designed in an increasingly immoral way, governed by those professing to have a hold on Christian values yet sidestepping the core of Christianity – to love one another. Their necks turn from the suffering as they willingly follow one lacking an authentic responsiveness to a waning human condition. I had hoped for a more enlightened scenario for our new decade, imagining ceremonial panels opening, as the wings of great altarpieces on feast days, revealing 2020 as the year of perfect vision. Perhaps these expectations were naïve and yet were truly felt, just as the anguish of inequity is felt, a dark blot that will not go away.
Patti Smith (Year of the Monkey)
Words cannot express just how astonishing it is that this spell should hold such a wide community in thrall, keep people from the truth, and not be broken for 150 years. It is understandable that one or a few people might believe in impossible scenarios and claims full of stupidity and illogicality. However, "magic" is the only possible explanation for people from all over the world believing that unconscious and lifeless atoms suddenly decided to come together and form a universe that functions with a flawless system of organization, discipline, reason, and consciousness; a planet named Earth with all of its features so perfectly suited to life; and living things full of countless complex systems.
Harun Yahya (Those Who Exhaust All Their Pleasures In This Life)
Maybe I’m not cut out for monogamy,” G. had said to me early on. “Maybe I should just live in a room by myself and have girlfriends.” Another woman might have said, “Now, where did I put my coat?” Being a madly infatuated rationalist who had read her Simone de Beauvoir, I took a deep breath and carefully and calmly explained that of course he had to make up his own mind about how he wanted to live, and that I understood fidelity wasn’t for everyone, that some people could be perfectly happy without it, but I wanted to give my whole self in love and I couldn’t do that if I was being compared to other women on a daily basis (which I was) or if our relationship was only tentative and provisional (which it was). “Sweetie!” he said when I finished. “I love it that you can say how you feel without getting angry at me.” That other woman would have slammed the door behind her before he’d finished speaking. They say philanderers are attractive to women because of the thrill of the chase—you want to be the one to capture and tame that wild quarry. But what if a deeper truth is that women fall for such men because they want to be those men? Autonomous, in charge, making their own rules. Imagine that room G. spoke of, in which the women would come and go—is there not something attractive about it? Rain tapping softly on the tin ceiling, a desk, a lamp, a bed. A woman dashes up the narrow stairs, her raincoat flaring, her wet face lifted up like a flower. And then, the next day—maybe even the same day—different footsteps, another expectant face. I had to admit, it was an exciting scenario. You wouldn’t want to be one of the women trooping up and down the staircase, but you might want to be the man who lived in the room.
Katha Pollitt (Learning to Drive (Movie Tie-in Edition): And Other Life Stories)
If you program a self-driving car to stop and help strangers in distress, it will do so come hell or high water (unless, of course, you insert an exception clause for infernal or high-water scenarios). Similarly, if your self-driving car is programmed to swerve into the opposite lane in order to save the two kids in its path, you can bet your life this is exactly what it will do. Which means that when designing their self-driving car, Toyota or Tesla will be transforming a theoretical problem in the philosophy of ethics into a practical problem of engineering. Granted, the philosophical algorithms will never be perfect. Mistakes will still happen, resulting in injuries, deaths, and extremely complicated lawsuits. (For the first time in history, you might be able to sue a philosopher for the unfortunate results of his or her theories, because for the first time in history you might be able to prove a direct causal link between philosophical ideas and real-life events.)
Yuval Noah Harari (21 Lessons for the 21st Century)
In biology, the most basic assumptions of evolutionary theory elude otherwise able students who insist that the process of evolution is guided by a striving toward perfection. College students who have studied economics offer explanations of market forces that are essentially identical to those preferred by college students who have never taken an economics course. Equally severe biases and stereotypes pervade the humanistic segment of the curriculum, from history to art. Students who can discuss in detail the complex causes of the First World War turn right around and explain equally complex current events in terms of the simplest "good guy-bad guy" scenario. (This habit of mind is not absent from political leaders, who are fond of portraying the most complicated international situations along the lines of a Hollywood script.) Those who have studied the intricacies of modern poetry, learning to esteem T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, show little capacity to distinguish masterworks from amateurish drivel once the identity of the author has been hidden from view.
Howard Gardner (The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think And How Schools Should Teach)
Wait!" Brittany calls out as I'm walking away. I turn around and she's right in front of me. "What?" She smiles seductively as if she's wanting something more than a truce. Way more. Shit, is she gonna kiss me? I'm taken off guard here, which usually doesn't happen. She bites her bottom lip, as if she's contemplating her next move. I'm totally game to making out with her. As my brain goes through every scenario, she steps closer to me. And snatches my keys out of my hand. "What do you think you're doin'?" I ask her. "Getting you back for kidnapping me." She steps back and with all her might whips my keys into the woods. "You did not just do that." She backs up, facing me the entire time, as she moves toward her car. "No hard feelings. Payback's a bitch, ain't it, Alex?" she says, trying to keep a straight face. I watch in shock as my chem partner gets into her Beemer. The car drives out of the lot without a jolt, jerk, or hitch. Flawless start. I'm pissed off because I'm going to have to either crawl around in the dark woods trying to find my keys or call Enrique to pick me up. I'm also amused. Brittany Ellis bested me at my own game. "Yeah," I say to her even though she's probably a mile away and can't hear me. "Payback is a bitch.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
The last refuge of the Self, perhaps, is “physical continuity.” Despite the body’s mercurial nature, it feels like a badge of identity we have carried since the time of our earliest childhood memories. A thought experiment dreamed up in the 1980s by British philosopher Derek Parfit illustrates how important—yet deceiving—this sense of physical continuity is to us.15 He invites us to imagine a future in which the limitations of conventional space travel—of transporting the frail human body to another planet at relatively slow speeds—have been solved by beaming radio waves encoding all the data needed to assemble the passenger to their chosen destination. You step into a machine resembling a photo booth, called a teletransporter, which logs every atom in your body then sends the information at the speed of light to a replicator on Mars, say. This rebuilds your body atom by atom using local stocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and so on. Unfortunately, the high energies needed to scan your body with the required precision vaporize it—but that’s okay because the replicator on Mars faithfully reproduces the structure of your brain nerve by nerve, synapse by synapse. You step into the teletransporter, press the green button, and an instant later materialize on Mars and can continue your existence where you left off. The person who steps out of the machine at the other end not only looks just like you, but etched into his or her brain are all your personality traits and memories, right down to the memory of eating breakfast that morning and your last thought before you pressed the green button. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you may be perfectly happy to use this new mode of space travel, since this is more or less what the USS Enterprise’s transporter does when it beams its crew down to alien planets and back up again. But now Parfit asks us to imagine that a few years after you first use the teletransporter comes the announcement that it has been upgraded in such a way that your original body can be scanned without destroying it. You decide to give it a go. You pay the fare, step into the booth, and press the button. Nothing seems to happen, apart from a slight tingling sensation, but you wait patiently and sure enough, forty-five minutes later, an image of your new self pops up on the video link and you spend the next few minutes having a surreal conversation with yourself on Mars. Then comes some bad news. A technician cheerfully informs you that there have been some teething problems with the upgraded teletransporter. The scanning process has irreparably damaged your internal organs, so whereas your replica on Mars is absolutely fine and will carry on your life where you left off, this body here on Earth will die within a few hours. Would you care to accompany her to the mortuary? Now how do you feel? There is no difference in outcome between this scenario and what happened in the old scanner—there will still be one surviving “you”—but now it somehow feels as though it’s the real you facing the horror of imminent annihilation. Parfit nevertheless uses this thought experiment to argue that the only criterion that can rationally be used to judge whether a person has survived is not the physical continuity of a body but “psychological continuity”—having the same memories and personality traits as the most recent version of yourself. Buddhists
James Kingsland (Siddhartha's Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment)
Let's get out of here. You and me, mi amor. !Vamos!" I breathe a sigh of relief as I straddle Julio and Brittany hops on behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist, holding on tight as I speed out of the parking lot. We fly through the streets; which eventually become a blur. I don't even stop when rain starts pouring down. "Can we stop now?" she yells through the deafening storm. I park under an old abandoned bridge by the lake. Heavy rain pounds the cement surrounding us, but we have our own secluded place. Brittany hops to the ground. "You're a stupid jerk," she says. "You can't deal drugs. It's dangerous and stupid, and you promised me. You'll risk going to jail. Jail, Alex. You may not care, but I do. I won't let you ruin your life." "What do you want to hear?" "Nothing. Everything. Say something so I don't stand here feeling like a complete idiot." "The truth is . . . Brittany, look at me." "I can't," she says as she stares at the pouring rain. "I'm so tired of thinking of every scary scenario." I pull her against me. "Don't think, muneca. Everything will work itself out." "But--" "No buts. Trust me." My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. "Come to me," I say, then lift her until she's straddling me over my bike. I can't stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we're together like this, hell, I can't think of anything else but her.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
You only like white guys?” “Stop that,” I say through gritted teeth. “What?” he says, getting all serious. “It’s the truth, ain’t it?” Mrs. Peterson appears in front of us. “How’s that outline coming along?” she asks. I put on a fake smile. “Peachy.” I pull out the research I did at home and get down to business while Mrs. Peterson watches. “I did some research on the hand warmers last night. We need to dissolve sixty grams of sodium acetate and one hundred millimeters of water at seventy degrees.” “Wrong,” Alex says. I look up and realize Mrs. Peterson is gone. “Excuse me?” Alex folds his arms across his chest. “You’re wrong.” “I don’t think so.” “You think you’ve never been wrong before?” He says it as if I’m a ditzy blond bimbo, which sets my blood to way past boiling. “Sure I have,” I say. I make my voice sound high and breathless, like a Southern debutante. “Why, just last week I bought Bobbi Brown Sandwash Petal lip gloss when the Pink Blossom color would have looked so much better with my complexion. Needless to say the purchase was a total disaster,” I say. He expected to hear something like that come out of my mouth. I wonder if he believes it, or from my tone realizes I’m being sarcastic. “I’ll bet,” he says. “Haven’t you ever been wrong before?” I ask him. “Absolutely,” he says. “Last week, when I robbed that bank over by the Walgreens, I told the teller to hand over all the fifties he had in the till. What I really should have asked for was the twenties ‘cause there were way more twenties than fifties.” Okay, so he did get that I was putting on an act. And gave it right back to me with his own ridiculous scenario, which is actually unsettling because it makes us similar in some twisted way. I put a hand on my chest and gasp, playing along. “What a disaster.” “So I guess we can both be wrong.” I stick my chin in the air and declare stubbornly, “Well, I’m not wrong about chemistry. Unlike you, I take this class seriously.” “Let’s have a bet, then. If I’m right, you kiss me,” he says. “And if I’m right?” “Name it.” It’s like taking candy from a baby. Mr. Macho Guy’s ego is about to be taken down a notch, and I’m all too happy to be the one to do it.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Navy Seals Stress Relief Tactics (As printed in O Online Magazine, Sept. 8, 2014) Prep for Battle: Instead of wasting energy by catastrophizing about stressful situations, SEALs spend hours in mental dress rehearsals before springing into action, says Lu Lastra, director of mentorship for Naval Special Warfare and a former SEAL command master chief.  He calls it mental loading and says you can practice it, too.  When your boss calls you into her office, take a few minutes first to run through a handful of likely scenarios and envision yourself navigating each one in the best possible way.  The extra prep can ease anxiety and give you the confidence to react calmly to whatever situation arises. Talk Yourself Up: Positive self-talk is quite possibly the most important skill these warriors learn during their 15-month training, says Lastra.  The most successful SEALs may not have the biggest biceps or the fastest mile, but they know how to turn their negative thoughts around.  Lastra recommends coming up with your own mantra to remind yourself that you’ve got the grit and talent to persevere during tough times. Embrace the Suck: “When the weather is foul and nothing is going right, that’s when I think, now we’re getting someplace!” says Lastra, who encourages recruits to power through the times when they’re freezing, exhausted or discouraged.  Why?  Lastra says, “The, suckiest moments are when most people give up; the resilient ones spot a golden opportunity to surpass their competitors.  It’s one thing to be an excellent athlete when the conditions are perfect,” he says.  “But when the circumstances aren’t so favorable, those who have stronger wills are more likely to rise to victory.” Take a Deep Breath: “Meditation and deep breathing help slow the cognitive process and open us up to our more intuitive thoughts,” says retired SEAL commander Mark Divine, who developed SEALFit, a demanding training program for civilians that incorporates yoga, mindfulness and breathing techniques.  He says some of his fellow SEALs became so tuned-in, they were able to sense the presence of nearby roadside bombs.  Who doesn’t want that kind of Jedi mind power?  A good place to start: Practice what the SEALs call 4 x 4 x 4 breathing.  Inhale deeply for four counts, then exhale for four counts and repeat the cycle for four minutes several times a day.  You’re guaranteed to feel calmer on any battleground. Learn to value yourself, which means to fight for your happiness. ---Ayn Rand
Lyn Kelley (The Magic of Detachment: How to Let Go of Other People and Their Problems)
As NASA put it in 1965 when defending the idea of sending humans into space, “Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.” But, for some tasks, we don’t have to pretend anymore. Everything changed in 1997 when IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated then world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Predictive modeling was key. No matter how fast the computer, perfection at chess is impossible, since there are too many possible scenarios to explore. Various estimates agree there are more chess games than atoms in the universe, a result of the nature of exponential growth. So the computer can look ahead only a limited number of moves, after which it needs to stop enumerating scenarios and evaluate game states (boards with pieces in set positions), predicting whether each state will end up being more or less advantageous.
Eric Siegel (Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die)
God ’s Joyful Love The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior [Who saves]! He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest [in silent satisfaction] and in His love He will be silent and make no mention [of past sins, or even recall them]; He will exult over you with singing. ZEPHANIAH 3:17 AMP The first time a mom holds her newborn, a grandmother holds her grandchild, or an aunt holds her newborn niece or nephew, their hearts fill up with overwhelming love for that child. You look into the baby’s eyes, check all the fingers and toes, and marvel over the perfection of this child. You can’t imagine anything they do or say as the child grows up will lessen the love you have for him or her. This scenario is just a tiny glimpse into how much God loves His children. Paul wrote in Romans 8: “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 38–39 NLT). Zephaniah says that God’s love for His child is so overwhelming that He breaks into singing. Music is a spontaneous expression of many emotions, but especially love. Father, thank You for Your arms of love holding me close to Your heart.
Various (Daily Wisdom for Women 2015 Devotional Collection - January (None))
I’m going to invite you to contemplate a fictional scenario. Say that we are all citizens in a New England town with a traditional town meeting. As usual, a modest proportion of the citizens eligible to attend have actually turned out, let’s say four or five hundred. After calling the meeting to order, the moderator announces: “We have established the following rules for this evening’s discussion. After a motion has been properly made and seconded, in order to ensure free speech under rules fair to everyone here, each of you who wishes to do so will be allowed to speak on the motion. However, to enable as many as possible to speak, no one will be allowed to speak for more than two minutes.” Perfectly fair so far, you might say. But now our moderator goes on: “After everyone who wishes to speak for two minutes has had the floor, each and every one of you is free to speak further, but under one condition. Each additional minute will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.” The ensuing uproar from the assembled citizens would probably drive the moderator and the board of selectman away from the town hall—and perhaps out of town. Yet isn’t this in effect what the Supreme Court decided in the famous case of Buckley v. Valeo? In a seven-to-one vote, the court held that the First Amendment–guarantee of freedom of expression was impermissibly infringed by the limits placed by the Federal Election Campaign Act on the amounts that candidates for federal office or their supporters might spend to promote their election.3 Well, we’ve had time to see the appalling consequences.
Robert A. Dahl (How Democratic Is the American Constitution?: Second Edition (Castle Lecture Series))
Before we continue, let’s stop for a second and celebrate. Congratulations! You just learned exactly how to set yourself free from feeling trapped in emotions you don’t want to feel anymore and a reality that you want to change. You found the key to the jail cell. That key is your fear. Having that key in your hand now makes it possible for you to reprogram your mind to consciously create experiences that you want more of and to stop unconsciously manifesting past, painful patterns that you don’t want more of. It’s Conversation Time With Your Mind Now, it’s time to sit down and draft a letter to your mind. Here are the basic ideas you may want to explain in your letter: •    Tell your mind that you understand exactly why you’ve been feeling bad. Mind, I know I’ve been feeling bad because I have the following limiting beliefs. [List your limiting beliefs that you discovered] •   Tell your mind that you know why it constantly gives you the worst-case scenario thoughts and visions. Mind, I know that you help me remember these limiting beliefs by showing me visions and giving me thoughts of the worst-case scenario such as: [List worst-case scenario thoughts and visions] •    Tell your mind that you know that it’s been trying to protect you from a fearful thought coming true. Mind, I know you show me the worst-case scenario visions and thoughts because you want to protect me from: [name fearful thoughts] •    Explain to your mind that its protection may have kept you safe in the past, but now you want to change the way it protects you. Mind, I know that believing [name limiting thoughts] helped protect me in the past. Heck, those beliefs got me to this present moment where I’m ready to reclaim my gift as the co-creator of my reality. I thank you so much for every last thought and vision that you gave me in the past. They have been necessary. You did your job absolutely perfectly and I couldn’t imagine having a better mind than you. •    Explain what you want your mind to show you instead of the worst-case scenario thoughts and visions, effective immediately. Mind, I want to change the way we work together. I want to experience something different. To be able to experience something different, I need your help. This is what I need you to do. You know those worst-case scenario thoughts and visions that you give me all the time? I want you to switch those for thoughts and visions of me achieving the following: [list conscious manifestations]. I want you to show me the best-case scenario for those situations I just listed. Show me exactly what it looks like to live that life and experience the magic of those things I want to manifest. Those manifestations that I want to create are subject to change. If they do change, you will be the first to be notified so that we can create them together. This is a two-man operation and I need you. You’re so powerful and we’re
Lloyd Burnett (The Voice Inside Your Head: How to Use Your Mind to Instantly Create Financial Security & Attract Money)
If I’ve learned one thing about life, it’s that there is never a perfect answer to any scenario. Not like a video game, where you have black-and-white choices. In life, everything gets messy eventually, no matter how carefully you try to control yourself.
Darcy Coates (The Twisted Dead (Gravekeeper, #3))
You must keep in mind that you should always give the NCLEX what it wants. What I mean by this is that you shouldn’t argue with the facts that are presented to you during your studies and beyond. The test is based on what the average nurse will do in each particular situation, so it won’t do you any good to what you, personally, believe is correct if the NCLEX doesn’t agree with your answer. However, if you do get the answer wrong, be a blank slate, come up with the next right answer in your mind, and hold onto the rationale. For instance, what a real-world nurse would do in a clinical setting may not be what a nurse would do in an NCLEX setting, and that’s something that you will have to be aware of as you study. Hold onto the notion that it is is based on a perfect world with perfect clinical scenarios.
April Anne Acar (You Can Pass: A Holistic Approach to Studying the NCLEX)
When the work is done in the name of getting better, of enjoying the process, of searching for mastery of the craft, then confidence gradually grows. A feeling that “I’ve been here before, I’m prepared for this challenge.” It’s the writer who shows up at his desk every day and writes. The dancer who spends countless hours perfecting her routine. The executive who game-planned just about every scenario possible. The result might not always end up as hoped for, but doing the work provides a secure confidence founded in something concrete
Steve Magness (Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness)
In search of that perfection, some type A folks see other people as competitors in everything they do. Others (like me) compete constantly with themselves, always trying to beat their own personal best. Type A people also crave information, so that we can always be ready with the right answer in any scenario.
Mary Laura Philpott (I Miss You When I Blink: Essays)
If someone is attacking you, regardless of what technique they are attacking with, the highest probability of winning that encounter is to immediately attack that person with everything you’ve got. Kicks, knees, elbow strikes, open palm strikes, chops, punches, etc., thrown rapidly and with as much power you can generate. The key to this kind of defensive theory is that once you initiate your counter-attack, you don’t stop throwing techniques until your opponent is incapacitated. Some schools call this a “blitz” type of attack, which is borrowed from American football, but regardless of the name, it is a solid, proven method of counter-attacking. Finding yourself in the position of “getting jumped” by one or more thugs, for instance, would be a perfect example of utilizing this kind of counter-attack. Remember the action verses reaction gap we covered earlier? I suggest you should take some time and do a little research on what is known about this interaction. Action is always faster than reaction. That just makes common sense, doesn’t it? So, if you are waiting on your opponent to make the first move out of some archaic martial arts dogma about not striking first, then you are already behind before the fight starts. To win, you must cause your opponent to react rather that act. They must be the one that is a millisecond behind, always attempting to catch up to what is going on. You must become the initiator, but only after you have determined the level of force needed to control the situation. Once you have determined that, and it is very helpful to rehearse various scenarios prior to actually being involved in them, then it is a matter of always causing your opponent to react during that situation. This concept has been pressure tested numerous times, it works and works very effectively.
Rand Cardwell (36 Deadly Bubishi Points: The Science and Technique of Pressure Point Fighting - Defend Yourself Against Pressure Point Attacks!)
Being good at being a man is about being willing and able to fulfill the natural role of men in a survival scenario. Being good at being a man is about showing other men that you are the kind of guy they’d want on their team if the shit hits the fan. Being good at being a man isn’t a quest for moral perfection, it’s about fighting to survive.
Jack Donovan (The Way of Men)
I think about patients who present ideal scenarios and insist that they can only be happy with that exact situation. If he didn’t drop out of business school to become a writer, he’d be my dream guy (so I’ll break up with him and keep dating hedge-fund managers who bore me). If the job wasn’t across the bridge, it would be the perfect opportunity (so I’ll stay in my dead-end job and keep telling you how much I envy my friends’ careers). If she didn’t have a kid, I’d marry her. Certainly we all have our deal-breakers. But when patients repeatedly engage in this kind of analysis, sometimes I’ll say, “If the queen had balls, she’d be the king.” If you go through life picking and choosing, if you don’t recognize that “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” you may deprive yourself of joy. At first patients are taken aback by my bluntness, but ultimately it saves them months of treatment. “The
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
De scenario's die op deze computeranalyses leunen, voelen steeds vaker als audiovisuele risicospreidingen; als artificiele in plaats van auteurscinema. Netflix Originals kan je zo meer en meer herkennen aan hun perfect uitgebalanceerde, algoritmische vorm van inclusiviteit die doet vermoeden dat vooral een zo breed mogelijk klantenbestand moet worden aangesproken. ... Alles sluimert, niets wordt uitgesproken. In die zin is Stranger Things van alles een beetje: een beetje preuts en een beetje provocatief, een beetje kinderlijk en een beetje volwassen, een beetje queer en een beetje conservatief, een beetje grappig en een beetje sexy en een heel klein beetje eng, maar vooral heel erg berekend.
Florian Deroo (De Netflix essays)
Before this situation occurs organically, for training purposes let’s artificially create a scenario to teach them to release what’s in their mouth in favor of something better. Step 1: Give your puppy something other than food to have in their mouth. A chew toy or a tug is perfect. Step 2: Put a delicious treat in front of their nose and say Drop It. Don’t use a stern or angry tone of voice. Be very matter-of-fact with no sense of urgency. Step 3: When your puppy drops the toy, say Yes, and pick up the toy as you give them the treat.
Zoom Room Dog Training (Puppy Training in 7 Easy Steps: Everything You Need to Know to Raise the Perfect Dog)
scenarios isn’t necessarily good. In fact, the political scientist James C. Scott actually thinks breaking a rule every once in a while is morally necessary: One day you will be called upon to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it.… How are you going to prepare for that day when it really matters? You have to stay “in shape” so that when the big day comes you will be ready. What you need is “anarchist calisthenics.” Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it’s only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you’ll keep trim; and when the big day comes, you’ll be ready.
Michael Schur (How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question)
two or ALL the puppies if I could’ve. But whatever, it was just cool to have puppies in the mall. My sister’s gonna FREAK when I tell her about it. Anyways, Fergus and Annie returned to our tournament table with the biggest plate of nachos I’d ever seen in my whole entire life, so me and Emma went and joined them. The four of us dug into the towering mountain of chips and cheese and chicken and onions and queso and tomatoes and salsa and sour cream and guac and jalapenos and O.M.CHEESE, it was SO good! I filled my belly with warm food and then sat back, watching all the people around the tournament having fun. What a great start to a weekend full of friends, puppies, and video games. I mean, seriously, everything was PERFECT, and there wasn’t a single thing that could change that… And immediately, Annie goes, “It was stolen,” but she didn’t know that! Isn’t it funny how some people go to the worst-case scenario first? That’s called “catastrophic thinking” and helps ABSOLUTELY NOBODY in times of stress. So, until we had more details, I thought it best to simply call the camera “missing.” I ran up to Callie, HOPING that maybe she had taken the camera to a Lost & Found box somewhere inside Hacktronics, but nope. Apparently, they didn’t have one. Not good. That meant somebody MIGHT have stolen it. I went to the other players in the tournament and asked if THEY saw anything suspicious, but nobody did! I just couldn’t believe it! How was it possible that NOBODY saw some fool GANK an $800 camera?? That doesn’t even make any sense! Fergus had completely shut down. Annie was angry at me. And Emma was just caught in the middle of it, sitting there, like, “Awkwaaaaaard.” Then, outta nowhere, Annie let me have it. She shouted a bunch of stuff at me that weren’t the kindest things ever, but I fixed all that through the MAGIC of editing…
Marcus Emerson (Kid Youtuber 7: Gamer's Paradise (a hilarious adventure for children ages 9-12): From the Creator of Diary of a 6th Grade Ninja)
A negative passion cannot become universal. You cannot imagine a federation of hatreds. You might almost wish to see such a scenario come about. But the worst situation doesn't always materialize. The fact remains that from this point on there is something which is completely beyond social regulation. If this is not the end of History, it is certainly the end of the social. We are no longer in anomie, but in anomaly. Anomaly is what escapes not only the law but the rule. What is outside the game, `offside', no longer in a position to play. The outlaw space bred violence; this offside space breeds virulence. But as to what exactly is being bred in anomaly, we have no notion. When a system becomes universal (the media, networks, the financial markets, human rights), it automatically becomes anomalous and secretes virulences of all kinds: financial crashes, AIDS, computer viruses, deregulation, disinformation. Hatred itself is a virus of this kind. Take Paulin, the man from Guadeloupe who went around murdering old ladies a few years ago. A monstrous individual, but cool, and with no apparent hatred in him. He had no identity, and was of indeterminate sex and mixed race. He committed his murders without violence or bloodshed. And he recounted them with an odd detachment. Being indifferent to himself, he was eliminating people who were themselves indifferent. But we can assume that behind all this there was a deep fund of radical hatred. Doubtless Paulin `had the hate', but he was too classy, too educated, to express it openly.
Jean Baudrillard (The Perfect Crime)
The Lonely, Deprived Child The most popular theory is one we often encounter in the treatment room. It’s the story of a child who grew up feeling conditionally loved based on performance. His parents may have expected him to be the best, instilling that to be anything short of perfect is to be flawed, inadequate, and unlovable. He may have been taught that love is tentative and contingent, or that his emotional needs would be met if he achieved greatness. His parents may have sought pride and attention through his achievements, implying a less-than-perfect performance would devastate them. This scenario may be complicated by different treatment from each parent. These children are often criticized by one parent while doted on, overprotected, or used as a surrogate spouse by the other. They may comply with their parents’ demands and expectations to receive attention and dodge criticism and shame. In response to this profound emotional deprivation, manipulation, and stifling of the precious and vulnerable little self, the child develops an attitude of I will need no one, No one is to be trusted, I will take care of myself, or I’ll show you. He was not loved for being himself, and was neither guided nor encouraged in the discovery of his true inclinations. He was not made to feel completely safe and unquestionably cherished by a caregiver. He was not shown how to walk in someone else’s shoes—how to feel the inner emotional life of another person. There was no role model for empathy and attunement. He was left with shame and a sense of defectiveness, both from the direct criticism and from the withholding of emotional nourishment and, often, physical affection. He was made to feel there was something wrong with him, as if wanting comfort, attention, and understanding were weaknesses. In defense, he mustered up whatever safeguards he could to extinguish the pain.
Wendy T. Behary (Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed)
It is as if our psychic lives were the sum total of our bad habits in the sense that what we unconsciously assume to be the limits of our lives ends up curtailing the range of our existential scenarios for the simple reason that it consistently directs us to certain situations, behaviors, and interpersonal relations while steering us away from others. Or, to express the matter slightly differently, it dictates how we seek and obtain pleasure in the world, thereby determining the very shape of our enjoyment. This is a perfect manifestation of what Roberto Harari, following Jacques Lacan, calls “a destiny compulsion.
Mari Ruti (A World of Fragile Things: Psychoanalysis and the Art of Living (Suny Psychoanalysis and Culture))
For someone without ROCD, a more present concern might be how their partner feels about them. But for the ROCD sufferer, a lot of energy and thought goes into the problem of whether their feelings for their partner are genuine or strong enough, or whether there isn’t someone else or some other relationship that is more perfect. For them, if a relationship isn’t perfect, then might that mean that it isn’t right? If the ROCD sufferer confesses these concerns to their partner, they are likely to cause a good deal of pain, and may even accidentally convince their partner that the relationship is indeed wrong somehow, or that the ROCD sufferer isn’t as invested in the relationship. And it stands to reason: if you didn’t know that your partner was dealing with OCD, it would be easy to look at the above questions, and the list of obsessions from earlier, and see them as evidence that your partner doesn’t care about you, or maybe actively dislikes you. In a worst-case scenario, the ROCD sufferer might, in fearing that their relationship is somehow wrong or doomed, actually precipitate the end of the relationship itself.
Hugh and Sophia Evans (Is She the One? Living with ROCD When You’re Married: Relationship Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Why it Doesn’t Have to Wreak Havoc on Your Relationship)
Generative AIs can produce reliable, near-perfect virtual scenarios, and AIs that expand consciousness can induce perceptions, but they still cannot completely erase the residual imprint of reality.
Michael B. Morgan (Lost in the Shell: Flash and shorts around SciFi: Short stories - Science fiction - Illustrated - English version)
But the tent caterpillar invasion on university grounds provided the perfect scenario to study his theory in the real world. The besieged trees did eventually change the composition of their leaves, sickening the caterpillars, who would essentially die of starvation through diarrhea. He was pleased. His theory checked out. But he also noticed something else: even the leaves of faraway trees, which the caterpillars had not yet touched, changed their composition too. They’d been warned, and somehow the warning had traveled a long distance. Plants are tremendous at chemical synthesis,
Zoë Schlanger (The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth)
So unrealistic.” “Excuse me?” Liam asked, eyeing the offending book. “Nothing,” I huffed. “Doesn’t look like nothing,” he countered. “Freaking Natalie and her fairy tale bullshit.” I let out a breath so heavy a lock of hair blew away from my face. The tiniest smirk curled on Liam’s lips. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled she got the happy ending she was searching for, but that’s not for everyone. These books she reads—there’s no way ninety-nine percent of these scenarios would ever happen. It’s false advertising for how life and love actually unfold, creating unrealistic expectations for men and women alike.” How so?” Narrowing my eyes across the table at him, I challenged, “Have you ever read one of these romance novels?” “Can’t say that I have,” he admitted. “Well, let me enlighten you. They’re all variations of the same story—the girl usually has some kind of a hang-up, and this perfect man comes along and makes her believe in love. Blah, blah, blah. Then something happens, a conflict, and they break up—every damn time. Then someone realizes they’re an idiot and apologizes—sometimes there’s a grand gesture—but they always end up back together. Life doesn’t work like that. Not all women are broken, and not all men are perfect. And don’t even get me started on how all the men are gods in bed with huge dicks.” Liam snorted. “Are they not, then?” “Don’t.” I was not in the mood and threw him a death glare. Throwing his hands up in defense, he asked, “What? I can only speak for myself, so I don’t know what all the other men are up to.” “Not funny, Liam.” Those piercing blue eyes found mine. “Who said I was joking, Amy?
Siena Trap (Playing Pretend with the Prince (The Remington Royals, #2))
I think about patients who present ideal scenarios and insist that they can only be happy with that exact situation. If he didn’t drop out of business school to become a writer, he’d be my dream guy (so I’ll break up with him and keep dating hedge-fund managers who bore me). If the job wasn’t across the bridge, it would be the perfect opportunity (so I’ll stay in my dead-end job and keep telling you how much I envy my friends’ careers). If she didn’t have a kid, I’d marry her. Certainly we all have our deal-breakers. But when patients repeatedly engage in this kind of analysis, sometimes I’ll say, “If the queen had balls, she’d be the king.” If you go through life picking and choosing, if you don’t recognize that “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” you may deprive yourself of joy.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
When we become lost in this process, we miss out on our crucial emotional need to experience a sense of belonging. We live in permanent estrangement oscillating between the extremes of too good for others or too unlikeable to be included. This is the excruciating social perfectionism of the Janus-faced critic: others are too flawed to love and we are too defective to be lovable. A verbal diagram of a typical critic-looping scenario looks like this. The outer critic’s judgmentalness is activated by the need to escape the “in-danger” feeling that is triggered by socializing. Even the thought of relating can set off our disapproval programs so that we feel justified in isolating. Extended withdrawal however, reawakens our relational hunger and our impulses to connect. This simultaneously reverses the critic from outer to inner mode. The critic then laundry lists our inadequacies, convincing us that we are too odious to others to socialize. This then generates self-pitying persecution fantasies, which eventually re-invites the outer critic to build a case about how awful people are…ad infinitum…ad nauseam. This looping then keeps us “safe” in the hiding of silent disengagement. When it emanates from the inner critic direction, the vacillating critic can look like this. The survivor’s negative self-noticing drives her to strive to be perfect. She works so hard and incessantly at it that she begins to resent others who do not. Once the resentment accumulates enough, a minor faux pas in another triggers her to shift into extreme outer critic disappointment and frustration. She then silently perseverates and laundry lists “people” for all their faults and betrayals.
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
There are moments in life when one knows they’ve got it good. This is my moment. Thirty years old, single, living in a house I own with things that are all mine, no kids to watch me walk around naked, looking out for number one and enjoying the peace that comes with living alone. Nobody close to me understands just how perfect the scenario is.
Cassie Mae (Flirty Thirty (Nerdy Thirties. #1))
The nature of being at the correct distance from the opponent and of understanding the principle of reaction time does not give the attacker the luxury of completing more than one strike before being counterattacked by a skilled defender. Once you have created the distraction with your first strike, you need to continue and attack appropriately. Therefore, when you train, students need to gain a complete understanding of what they are drilling and the training drill should be designed accordingly. Be aware that the human mind is constantly trying to create imaginary connections between motion possibilities without always seeing the whole picture. Shortening the range from a kick to a hand strike cuts down on time between the first and subsequent attacks. Such an attempt does not recognize that a good defense against a kick eliminates the option for a continuous hand attack since that was already taken into account. Executing multiple attacks on the defense however would break the opponent’s train of thought and give the initiator another second to hit again. If you have reached the target through the first strike, with no obstacles, you are buying time for a more devastating attack. You must recognize that with less devastating strikes, you buy less time, and in a real fight it is measured in splits of a second. It should only take a few seconds to finish the opponent. Krav Maga principles dictate a perfect relationship in which a counterattack requires the same speed as the block, but sometimes the distance can be too close to accelerate the hand to a maximum speed—and then you are just buying another second and must follow up with a more devastating attack. If you deliver attacks of medium strength, your opponent might get the message and stop attacking you. However, while it is a good practice to change an attacker’s mind and habits, you may not want to risk your own life protecting your attacker from extensive harm. Finally, when executing a counterattack, please be as precise as possible, so you do not need to rework. I personally would not spend more than two seconds on one opponent, since it would occupy and distract me from other dangerous changes that might occur in the environment. If you break glass in a store, you would want to get out of there as quickly as possible instead of waiting around in the same spot. I’d like to remind the reader that the above paragraphs elaborate the dangers and safety in both training and in reality. By understanding safe training, you need to understand the dangers of reality. To master the process, you need to train in simulated scenarios that are as close as possible to a realistic fight for survival. Keep in mind that when you identify a threat, you should set your boundaries, and decide that if the opponent gets too close to you, you should attack him by kicking or punching according to the distance between you two. If however the attacker attacks you by surprise, not giving you enough time to think, your body instinctively defends itself. This means that if you are at the point where you notice an attack coming at you, your primary instinct is to defend as opposed to attack.
Boaz Aviram (Krav Maga: Use Your Body as a Weapon)
In the morning, I spent ten minutes thinking about all the things I was grateful for. I repeated positive, empowering phrases again and again. I feel great. Today is going to be a great day. Good things are coming my way. I visualized facing several scenarios—good and bad—on the golf course and then executing the perfect shot in each situation. I imagined winning the Gateway Championship—seeing myself with the trophy in hand.
Darrin Donnelly (The Mental Game: Winning the War Within Your Mind (Sports for the Soul Book 7))
Obviously the students preferred to assign themselves to the appealing task and their partners to the unappealing task, but they also recognized that it would be fairer to toss a coin to decide who would undertake each task. The laws of probability state that if the students were using the coins fairly, roughly half of them should have been assigned to the positive task, and the other half should have been assigned to the negative task. Though all of the students tossed the coin, the researchers found that 85 percent of the students assigned themselves to the positive task, suggesting that the coin was merely a prop that allowed them to defend the fairness of the desired outcome. Since they weren’t supervised, you can imagine how the students interpreted a negative outcome: if they lost the first toss, perhaps they decided that the outcome should rest on a best-of-three scenario. The researchers tried the task again, this time placing the students in front of a large mirror. Forced to stare at their reflections as they tossed the coin, the students were perfectly fair, assigning their phantom partner to the positive task exactly 50 percent of the time. Incredibly, the students claimed they reached their decision fairly in both situations, but only the students who sat in front of a mirror actually obeyed the outcome of the coin toss.
Adam Alter (Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave)
Product immediately after exercise insurance solutions No investment insurance purchase in a very simple Prostatis action, even though he is trained only exception in the industry. There are many new threats that can lure the unwary with remote media policy is clearly insufficient for your needs. It is important to do your due diligence and scientific evidence, ask yourself just before the market does not provide a sound purchasing decisions. This short article will help you, just accept, shoulders that decisive action must begin with knowledge. Those most critical factors giving a positive self basically want to cover the first edition. That's pretty strong earnings, unemployment, and some cannot Prostatis even be informed. Talk to your employer and give generally positive, they are not. Relevance Tab justified confidence that the business aspects, really, that this, after all, attractive to employers incentives, long-term employees, and where the only specialized services for industry and again the other for employees of highest quality that are more difficult problem to treat, made only more secure, since it is to find a person. Although the direction of transmission of buying Prostatis insurance on their own, more attention is considerable, certainly in the sense that the plan to "complete" and "renewable insurance." This suggests that other, as you continue to receive payment of costs should not be fully covered by commercial insurance. Not even know that the level of demand in the economy Although in good condition I, and the company has taken the right path, and then joined a vague clause to complete the plan in principle and in its way through, you can also apply safeguards Generally they produce, the plan rescission period is 10 days during the working sets, make sure it's perfect, then throw the cards, if not immediately. The scenario is especially the Prostatis fact that it contains the option to change the terms and other demanding applications. Currently, for many years a large number of hits includes hands. As "absolutely certain legal requirements" specialized insurance services for investment in more selective inside to be taken, especially in the stop position of education on the basis of a different plan that incorporates the experience, regardless evaluation or situations require the exercise includes products and services for the same price evaluation face to face selling. Similarly, principles and manipulated so as the experience of many destructive aspect of the current market containing the entire industry. An insurance company to a higher potential, to ensure that purchasers or plans worth more to feel a little pressure, the result is inevitable that insurance is available against people who have contact to practice for a few days . Basically it is to maintain the power to print money to unrealistic levels.
ProstateSolomon
In this perfect moment, my mind didn’t fill in worst case scenarios that involved Michael discovering he couldn’t stand me, or cheating on me, or one of us getting hurt or killed in the line of duty. Right now, everything was as close to perfect as it could be. And then the phone rang.
Elisa Archer (Burglary Blues (Lexie Sarcone/Michael Riley, #1))
During the process of redesigning the NPR News mobile app, senior designer Libby Bawcombe wanted to know how to make design decisions that were more inclusive to a diverse audience, and more compassionate to that audience’s needs. So she led a session to identify stress cases for news consumers, and used the information she gathered to guide the team’s design decisions. The result was dozens of stress cases around many different scenarios, such as: • A person feeling anxious because a family member is in the location where breaking news is occurring • An English language learner who is struggling to understand a critical news alert • A worker who can only access news from their phone while on a break from work • A person who feels upset because a story triggered their memory of a traumatic event13 None of these scenarios are what we think of as “average.” Yet each of these is entirely normal: they’re scenarios and feelings that are perfectly understandable, and that any of us could find ourselves experiencing. That’s not to say NPR plans to customize its design for every single situation. Instead, says Bawcombe, it’s an exercise in seeing the problem space differently: Identifying stress cases helps us see the spectrum of varied and imperfect ways humans encounter our products, especially taking into consideration moments of stress, anxiety and urgency. Stress cases help us design for real user journeys that fall outside of our ideal circumstances and assumptions.14 Putting this new lens on the product helped the design team see all kinds of decisions differently.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher (Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech)
I probably should have restrained myself. Graham had been perfectly normal all morning, but after an evening of dreaming up revenge scenarios, I couldn’t help myself when presented with such an easy opportunity. Besides, he had told me to get inventive. The “sandwich” I made Graham had six different types of meat including one mystery one, plus peanut butter, plus marshmallow spread, plus mayonnaise, hot sauce, and raisins. Graham
Jen Malone (Map to the Stars)
Just for the record, should you ever find yourself in a similar scenario, the middle of a monologue is the perfect time to send your free fist smashing into the bad guy's crotch.
Rick Gualtieri (The Tome of Bill - Volume 1)
Reading is a skill, sharpened with practice, perfected by continuous practice. Operative surgery reinforces this notion. The physical skills, sense of prioritized organization, personal confidence, and intuition of the accomplished surgeon result from attention to the craft. That is the reason it is called the practice of surgery. Like the scalpel, a book becomes much friendlier with frequent use. Enjoy the journey.
Justin B. Dimick (Clinical Scenarios in Surgery: Decision Making and Operative Technique (Clinical Scenarios in Surgery Series Book 1))
Mr.Nobody is perfect for the Scenario "All as None".
Deyth Banger (All As None (Deeper Level Drop #1))
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Maddy Roby
Can the trees and flowers which we see all around us at all times have themselves formed such perfect systems as to bring about a phenomenon such as photosynthesis, some parts of which are still not fully understood, in their own bodies? Did plants choose to use carbon dioxide (CO2), of the gases in the air, to produce food? Did they themselves determine the amount of CO2 they would use? Could plants have designed those mechanisms which make up the root system and which enable them to take the materials necessary for photosynthesis from the soil? Did plants bring about a transport system where different types of tubes are used for transporting nutrients and water? As ever, defenders of the theory of evolution searching for an answer 16 The solar energy trapped by the chlorophyll in the leaf, carbon-dioxide in the air, and water in the plant go through various processes and are used to produce glucose and oxygen. These complex processes do not take place in a factory, but in special structures like those in the leaf in the picture, and which measure only one thousandth of a millimeter across. Sunlight Chlorophyll Glucose 6H2O Water Light Chlorophyll Carbon dioxide + Water Glucose + Oxygen 6CO2 Carbon dioxide 6O2 Oxygen C6 H12O 6 to the question of how plants emerged have resorted to "chance" as their only re m e d y. They have claimed that from one species of plant which came about by chance, an infinite variety of plants have emerged, again by chance, and that features such as smell, taste, and colour, particular to each species, again came about by chance. But they have been unable to give any scientific proof of these claims. Evolutionists explain moss turning into a strawberry plant, or a poplar, or a rose bush, by saying that conditions brought about by chance differentiated them. Whereas when just one plant cell is observed, a system so complex will be seen as could not have come about by minute changes over time. This complex system and other mechanisms in plants definitively disprove the coincidence scenarios put forward as evolutionist logic. In this situation just one result emerges.
Harun Yahya (The Miracle Of Creation In Plants)
Hawaii DUI attorney Hawaii DUI Legislation As part of the Hawaii DUI is taken to manage OVUII provisions relating "to the job without having to do, under the influence of narcotics." At any time, arrested me with this design crime, two different scenarios are part of the action. Individual courses in prison behind the lower through life, and the management can unforeseen consequences for you are behind the privileges. While it has an address that is protected effectively only two scenarios and the services of a DUI attorney in Hawaii will have to use, is the perfect solution. Take a Hawaii DUI lawyer as well as a symbol of crimes and administrative conditions in order simply because a knowledgeable attorney composed of a selection of tools and consultants from personal experience what is a second has been selected to represent the country. Team Hawaii DUI North Carolina, which do not contain a large number of other closely how the situation further. Two scenarios can be supplied to the defendant standards. In particular, it depends on the devaluation of the accused, even if it makes the work of the unit. This usually means that the defendant was the less able, of course, the direction of action of motor vehicles and motor vehicles that the liquid does not eat before experiencing again. Fiscal policy scenarios on how to warn this routine, the incredible strength, the smell of alcohol on his breath of the accused, chemical tests are successful, the driver's actual appearance. When you are ready to have to effectively protect against cross phase of the project, I recommend Hawaii DUI lawyer trained to drive during treatment and can demonstrate an adequate protection. Delgado was of the view that it is "per se". This means that the prosecutor have not been included in the exhibition show the method or the driver looked in the direction under the influence of alcohol behind the negative cable. These types of circumstances, mostly on the same chemical research and the prosecution on the basis must prove that the defendant to reduce the crime in Hawaii in March for chemical research in the blood of 0.08% or more, is in the liquid phase summarized exposed. Hawaii DUI lawyer to eat properly trained is reflected in this model can help each scenario to ensure that the legs yourselfer difference in the fighting. Hawaii is a place, a time of "natural Look Back", contains to return to the effects of the crime. Search again, it's time the crime is alleged for the first act, when the perpetrator of a lack of experience composed only other offense again. If a particular offense known author and has only should recognize this period as an impending crime or offense. Exhibition Dates countries Hawaii is five years. This suggests that the accused has no criminal DUI during the last five calendar years; the first violation would be appreciated. Administrative Results Concession withdrawal of the Office of Management reliable care for administrative purposes on drunken driving offense in Hawaii leaders together. Hawaii is the player under Tiny Interstate. This little machine is comparable towards alternative requirements for the content of teaching, the DUI offense. This means that if someone is breaking the law is arrested by driving under the influence of alcohol in the country that the players informed of their offensive in the direction of your region and the country at home, the home to protect the rights of accessories to suspend. This may be necessary, for depression itself could protect live in Hawaii. Hawaii DUI attorney, these values and work to be able to move to an adequate safety system hard, suspended to keep the license point home.
Jon Royals
Tieken has suggested, on the basis of the problems we have outlined, that all the Sangam poems in the major anthologies were composed to order by poets who were perfectly aware of the fictive nature of their subject (tuṟai) and its context. Thus eighth- or ninth-century poets at the Pandya court, in Tieken’s reconstruction, deliberately composed poems with an internal speaker addressing a far more ancient hero or patron—as if a poet today were to adopt the persona of, say, Christopher Marlowe writing verses for Queen Elizabeth. But there is no need to conjure up such a scenario, with early-medieval court poets busy composing thousands of poems deliberately retrojected into the distant past, using conventional themes as well as invented materials meant to bring these ancient kings and bards to life. Is it not far more economical to imagine a process whereby the poems, many of them very old, all of them self-conscious literary efforts to begin with, survived through a slow process of recording, editorial accretion, and explication? Moreover, the relation of poem to colophon must have been, in many cases, far more intimate than any linear development could account for. There may well have been cases where the text and the colophon are, in a special sense, mutually determining—that is, cases where the poetic situation at work in the poem fits and informs the colophon long before the latter was recorded. Again, there is no need to assume that the “fictive” nature of the colophon means it is false. Quite the contrary may be the case: poem and colophon, though certainly distinct, usually share a single mental template. Fiction often offers a much closer approximation to truth than what passes for fact can give us. It’s also possible that some of the colophons are arbitrary editorial interventions long after the period of composition—that is, that well-known, ancient names were recycled by creative editors. We need to keep an open, critical mind as we investigate these materials.
David Dean Shulman (Tamil: A Biography)
Uses of Customized Blinds Custom blinds will also be used to manage the temperature in any room. As an illustration, if the room in a home is cold through the day time, the owner of the home and their family members can easily open up the blinds so that they'll let the daylight in. The daylight helps to heat up the room with out altering the temperature on the wall. Additionally, when it gets too scorching, the family can shut the blinds in order that they can cool the room down as properly. Regardless of the scenario, these blinds can be utilized for all kinds of different purposes. Window blinds right now can be found in quite a few colours, materials and magnificence. Getting a perfect window blind will rely in your style. Aside from decoration, the window shades serve many functions in properties. They prevent excess light from coming through windows, they provide us with privateness and they're also appropriate to manage temperature. In cold seasons they forestall heat from getting out of the home. Buying the perfect varieties of window blinds can change your complete looks of your own home and make it attractive. Vertical blinds are among the most unique sorts of window blinds you can get. They're good insulators and can be utilized to utterly Blinds Sutherland Shire block daylight penetration. The vertical shades are also strong sufficient to prevent any damage from strong winds. They're low-cost however trendy. Some are constructed with the ability to adjust themselves according to the time of day. Customs blinds can be used for both informal and office settings. This innovative idea means that you can use images as blind. In the case of makes use of of customized blinds, there are different options. Using your personal creativeness, customized blinds will be embellished with completely different colours, designs and patterns. If your window is of an additional strange size, there are traditional window blinds which might be customized to slot in. These are the roller blinds. Resulting from technology, they have been superior to be extra dependable and sturdy than before. They're now less more likely to breakdown. You can select from all kinds of colours and patterns. Earlier than coming to a conclusion on one of the best kinds of window blinds, it is important to do some in depth analysis. Custom blinds act as a fantastic reward in your loved ones. It's a present that can be cherished and remembered for a number of years. It is unique from normal gifts, the recipient will be glad about the trouble and thought you will have invested into it. When you parents have passion for grandchildren, think about having your children printed onto a blind and giving it to them. They may merely adore the photograph of their grandchildren, as well as having a new blind to boost the look of their residence.
Edward Cullen
Uses of Custom Blinds Customized blinds may also be used to control the temperature in any room. For example, if the room in a home is chilly during the day time, the owner of the house and their family members can simply open up the blinds so that they'll let the sunlight in. The daylight helps to heat up the room without changing the temperature on the wall. Additionally, when it will get too sizzling, the household can shut the blinds so that they can cool the room down as nicely. Whatever the scenario, these blinds can be utilized for a wide variety of various purposes. Out there, there are various kinds of window shades. Choosing the right window blind is usually a bit hectic if it’s your first time. Listed below are some various varieties of window shades that you can choose from. Venetian blinds are the commonest and in style at this time. They're constructed from horizontal slates connected to one another. They function on a change or pull string. Some are product of wooden, plastic or composites. They are appropriate for each houses and places of work. Vertical blinds are among the most unique varieties of window blinds you can get. They are good insulators and can be used to Custom Blinds utterly block daylight penetration. The vertical shades are also robust enough to stop any harm from strong winds. They are low cost but stylish. Some are constructed with the power to adjust themselves in response to the time of day. Customs blinds can be used for each casual and office settings. This innovative thought means that you can use pictures as blind. With regards to makes use of of custom blinds, there are different options. Using your individual imagination, customized blinds might be adorned with completely different colors, designs and patterns. If your window is of an additional ordinary size, there are basic window blinds which can be customized to slot in. These are the roller blinds. Attributable to know-how, they've been advanced to be extra reliable and durable than earlier than. They're now less likely to breakdown. You possibly can select from all kinds of colours and patterns. Before coming to a conclusion on the perfect kinds of window blinds, it is very important do some extensive research. The images can be printed on a high quality curler and you should utilize vertical blinds, that are fade resistant, easier to clean and final for a number of years. In case your home windows varies in sizes, contemplate the images that will look one of the best. For a big window, a large panorama image can be effective. If the window is kind of slim, you need to consider photos corresponding to flowers or bushes.
Edwin Hall
Intentionally or involuntarily, your earthly and spiritual fathers will lead you the perfect Father. You might not recognize it, but even when they fail, they create the perfect scenario for you to run into your Heavenly Daddy’s arms. When they reject you, He will receive you. When they fail at meeting you, He will open up His schedule. When they miscommunicate with you, He will share His heart of love for you and, His heart of love for them.
Carlos A. Rodriguez (Designed For Inheritance: A Discovery of Sonship)
partners are neither perfect as individuals nor perfectly matched, even in the best scenarios. All partners have some traits that are less desirable, and those traits can drive us crazy. When those traits go unmitigated and manifest themselves as chronic meanness, cruelty or a lack of concern, then people are right to point out these concerning characteristics and to ask for some mindful changes on the part of the guilty party. When we are guilty of allowing our worst traits to get the best of us and of allowing those traits to consistently have a negative impact on our relationship, reasonable requests for discussion should not be ignored or dismissed. No partner is perfect, and part of a relationship is showing a consistent effort to manage your own weaknesses, while showing some consistent grace when it comes to your partner’s weaknesses.
Ty Tashiro (The Science of Happily Ever After: What Really Matters in the Quest for Enduring Love)
My model here projects an 83 percent crash in late 2022. That’s perfectly in line with my Generational Spending Wave turning up again longer-term in 2023. But most of the damage should be seen by early 2020, when my four fundamental cycles still point down together. I would expect the S&P 500 (and the Dow) to be down around 75 percent by then and down 83 percent by late 2022. To go back to the original bubble origin in late 1994, the S&P would have to fall to 450 and the Dow to 3,800 . . . Do you want to sit through that scenario?
Harry S. Dent (Zero Hour: Turn the Greatest Political and Financial Upheaval in Modern History to Your Advantage)
My happy talk about a painless shift to a carbon-free future prompted grumbling from some climate change activists. They hoped to hear me issue a call for bigger sacrifice and harder choices—including a moratorium or outright ban on oil and gas drilling—in order to confront an existential threat. In a perfectly rational world, that might have made sense. In the actual and highly irrational world of American politics, my staff and I were pretty sure that having me paint doomsday scenarios was a bad electoral strategy.
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
So the Formula One driver has a dual status: he is both an automatic terminal of the most refined technical machinery, a technical operator, and he is the symbolic operator of crowd passions and the risk of death. The paradox is the same for the motor companies, caught as they are between investment and potlatch. Is all this a calculated — and hence rational — investment (marketing and advertising)? Have we here a mighty commercial operation, or is the company spending inordinate sums, far beyond what is commercially viable, to assuage a passion for prestige and charisma (there is also a manufacturers' world championship)? In this confrontation between manufacturers, isn't there an excessive upping of the stakes, a dizzying passion, a delirium? This is certainly the aspect which appeals, in the first instance, to the millions of viewers. In the end, the average TV viewer has doubtless never been aware that McLaren is a flagship for Honda. And I am not sure he or she is tempted to play the Formula One driver in ordinary life. The impact of Formula One lies, then, in the exceptional and mythic character of the event of the race and the figure of the driver, and not in the technical or commercial spin-offs. It is not clear why speed would be both severely limited and morally condemned in the public domain and, at the same time, celebrated in Formula One as never before, unless there is an effect of sublime compensation going on here. Formula One certainly serves to popularize the cult of the car and its use, but it does much more to maintain the passion for absolute difference — a fundamental illusion for all, and one which justifies all the excesses. In the end, however, hasn't it gone about as far as it can? Isn't it close to a final state, a final perfection, in which all the cars and drivers, given the colossal resources deployed, would, in a repetitive scenario, achieve the same maximum performance and produce the same pattern in each race? If Formula One were merely a rational, industrial performance, a test-bed for technical possibilities, we should have to predict that it would simply burn itself out. On the other hand, if Formula One is a spectacle, a collective, passionate (thoug h perfectly artificial) event, embracing the multiple screens of technological research, the living prosthesis of the driver, and the television screens into which the viewers project themselves, then it certainly has a very fine future. In a word, Formula One is a monster. Such a concentration of technology, money, ambition and prestige is a monster (as is the world of haute couture, which is equally abstract, and as far removed from real clothing as Formula One is from road traffic). Now, monsters are doomed to disappear, and we are afraid they might be disappearing. But we are not keen, either, to see them survive in a domesticated, routinized form. In an era of daily insignificance — including the insignificance of the car and all its constraints — we want at least to save the passion of a pure event, and exceptional beings who are permitted to do absolutely anything.
Jean Baudrillard (Screened Out)
The perfect scenario is when you are living your dream, when you have found your gift and when you are working to bring it to perfection
Sunday Adelaja
Three Ways to Start a Conversation It’s a lot easier than you think. Over the years, countless clients have said to me, “But I don’t know what to say! What is the perfect opening line?” Well, he’s some good news: There is no “perfect” opener! In fact, few people remember the first things they ever said to each other. Appearing comfortable and at ease socially is far more important than being witty or astute when it comes time to make that first impression. Just get the conversation going, preferably by encouraging others to talk to you. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Imagine yourself in each of these situations, and think about other things you might say. 1. Ask a question. Scenario: You are in a parking lot and see someone with a late-model car. “Excuse me,” you say, “I’m in the market for a new car, and I’m considering one like this. What do you think of it?” 2. Voice an opinion. Scenario: During intermission at a concert or play. “I think they are absolutely terrific! What did you think?” If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, follow up with a veiled invitation. “I think it’s wonderful that they bring such talent to our area, don’t you? I’d really like to come more often.” 3. State a fact. Scenario: At an art gallery, showing the work of someone about whom you’ve done a little research (it never hurts, and gives you an air of being in the know). “I understand the artist spent several years in Haiti, working with native artists.” Or, if you know next to nothing about the artist, “I’m intrigued by his work, but I know so little about his background. Are you familiar with it?” (This clever turn-around sets your new companion up as the expert, and works even if you actually do know a little something about the subject!)
Jonathan Berent (Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties)
Behavior Rehearsal So far, we have used imagery to place ourselves in ideal relaxed settings. But mental imagery is also a valuable component in behavior rehearsal—picturing yourself succeeding at a stressful task. For example, a basketball player can imagine shooting the ball into the basket as a way of improving his or her performance. A golfer envisions putting the ball right into the hole as a means of practice. Both are relying on imagery to improve their games. When should you use imagery? In gearing up for public speaking class, Alan used imagery quite effectively—putting himself in front of a group, giving his speech successfully—just after doing the relaxation exercise we just went through, because the mind and body are more receptive to imagery in a relaxed state. I myself use imagery in preparing to give a speech—I find it useful to picture myself giving the speech, and to imagine the reaction of the audience. Again, practice makes perfect, and mental imagery offers an opportunity for a mental dress rehearsal of the situation you wish to confront. To add behavior rehearsal into your daily relaxation ritual, try the following: When you get close to the end of the relaxation exercise, when you know you are relaxed—right when you close your eyes—picture yourself in a group situation that so far has not been a success for you. Choose a scenario in which you would like to have success that does seem possible in the long term, such as a date, a work or school assignment, and so on. Walk into the room. Envision yourself as relaxed as you are now. You are in control. Your muscles are soft and loose, your face is relaxed, maybe even smiling. Your hands are warm and dry. Your breathing is even. If you get nervous as the scenario continues, pause to refocus your breathing and put your muscles at ease, pulling them back into a relaxed state. Experiment with behavior rehearsal as often as you like—this is a new skill, and there is no substitute for practice.
Jonathan Berent (Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties)
Brittany’s tongue snakes out to wet her perfect heart-shaped lips, which are now shiny and oh, so inviting. “Don’t tease me like that,” I groan, my lips inches from hers. Her books hit the carpet. Her eyes follow, but if I lose her attention, I may never get this moment back. My fingers move to her chin, gently urging her to look at me. She looks up at me with those vulnerable eyes. “What if it means something?” she asks. “What if it does?” “Promise me it won’t mean anything.” I lean my head back on the couch. “It won’t mean anythin’.” Aren’t I supposed to be the guy in this scenario, laying down the no-commitment rules? “And no tongue,” she adds. “Mi vida, if I kiss you, I guarantee there’s gonna be tongue.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Brittany’s tongue snakes out to wet her perfect heart-shaped lips, which are now shiny and oh, so inviting. “Don’t tease me like that,” I groan, my lips inches from hers. Her books hit the carpet. Her eyes follow, but if I lose her attention, I may never get this moment back. My fingers move to her chin, gently urging her to look at me. She looks up at me with those vulnerable eyes. “What if it means something?” she asks. “What if it does?” “Promise me it won’t mean anything.” I lean my head back on the couch. “It won’t mean anythin’.” Aren’t I supposed to be the guy in this scenario, laying down the no-commitment rules? “And no tongue,” she adds. “Mi vida, if I kiss you, I guarantee there’s gonna be tongue.” She hesitates. “I promise it won’t mean anythin’,” I assure her again. I really don’t expect her to do it. I think she’s teasing me, testing to see how much I can take before I crack. But as her eyelids close and she leans closer, I realize it’s going to happen. This girl of my dreams, this girl who is more like me than anyone I’ve ever met, wants to kiss me. I take over control as soon as she tilts her head. Our lips touch for the briefest moment before I lace my fingers in her hair and keep kissing her soft and gentle. I cup her cheek in my palm, feeling her baby-soft skin against my rough fingers. My body urges me to take advantage of the situation, but my brain (the one inside my head) keeps me in check. A satisfied sigh escapes Brittany’s mouth, as if she’s content to stay in my arms forever. I brush the tip of my tongue against her lips, enticing her to open her mouth. She tentatively meets my tongue with her own. Our mouths and tongues mingle in a slow, erotic dance until the sound of the front door opening makes her jerk away.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Promise me it won’t mean anything.” I lean my head back on the couch. “It won’t mean anythin’.” Aren’t I supposed to be the guy in this scenario, laying down the no-commitment rules? “And no tongue,” she adds. “Mi vida, if I kiss you, I guarantee there’s gonna be tongue.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
I want the same things out of life you do,” I admit. “I just go about them in a different way. You adapt to your environment, I adapt to mine.” I put my hand back on hers. “Let me show you I’m different. Oye, would you ever date a guy who couldn’t afford to take you to expensive restaurants and buy you gold and diamonds?” “Absolutely.” She slips her hand out from under mine. “But I have a boyfriend.” “If you didn’t, would you give this Mexicano a chance?” Her face turns a deep shade of pink. I wonder if Colin ever makes her blush like that. “I’m not answering that,” she says. “Why not? It’s a simple question.” “Oh, please. Nothing about you is simple, Alex. Let’s not even go there.” She puts the car in first gear. “Can we go now?” “Si, if you want. Are we cool?” “I think so.” I hold my hand out for her to shake. She eyes the tattoos on my fingers, then extends her hand toward mine and shakes it, her enthusiasm apparent. “To hand warmers,” she says with a smile on her lips. “To hand warmers,” I agree. And sex, I add silently. “Do you want to drive back? I don’t know the way.” I drive her back in comfortable silence while the sun sets. Our truce brings me closer to my goals: graduating, the bet…and something else I’m not ready to admit. As I pull her kick-ass car into the dark library parking lot, I say, “Thanks for, you know, lettin’ me kidnap you. I guess I’ll see you around.” Taking my keys out of my front pocket, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to afford a car that isn’t rusted, used, or old. After I step out of her car, I pull out Colin’s picture from my back pocket and toss it on the seat I just vacated. “Wait!” Brittany calls out as I’m walking away. I turn around and she’s right in front of me. “What?” She smiles seductively as if she’s wanting something more than a truce. Way more. Shit, is she gonna kiss me? I’m taken off guard here, which usually doesn’t happen. She bites her bottom lip, as if she’s contemplating her next move. I’m totally game to making out with her. As my brain goes through every scenario, she steps closer to me. And snatches my keys out of my hand. “What do you think you’re doin’?” I ask her. “Getting you back for kidnapping me.” She steps back and with all her might whips my keys into the woods. “You did not just do that.” She backs up, facing me the entire time, as she moves toward her car. “No hard feelings. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, Alex?” she says, trying to keep a straight face. I watch in shock as my chem partner gets into her Beemer. The car drives out of the lot without a jolt, jerk, or hitch. Flawless start. I’m pissed off because I’m going to have to either crawl around in the dark woods trying to find my keys or call Enrique to pick me up. I’m also amused. Brittany Ellis bested me at my own game. “Yeah,” I say to her even though she’s probably a mile away and can’t hear me. “Payback is a bitch.” ¡Carajoǃ
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
Do you want to drive back? I don’t know the way.” I drive her back in comfortable silence while the sun sets. Our truce brings me closer to my goals: graduating, the bet…and something else I’m not ready to admit. As I pull her kick-ass car into the dark library parking lot, I say, “Thanks for, you know, lettin’ me kidnap you. I guess I’ll see you around.” Taking my keys out of my front pocket, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to afford a car that isn’t rusted, used, or old. After I step out of her car, I pull out Colin’s picture from my back pocket and toss it on the seat I just vacated. “Wait!” Brittany calls out as I’m walking away. I turn around and she’s right in front of me. “What?” She smiles seductively as if she’s wanting something more than a truce. Way more. Shit, is she gonna kiss me? I’m taken off guard here, which usually doesn’t happen. She bites her bottom lip, as if she’s contemplating her next move. I’m totally game to making out with her. As my brain goes through every scenario, she steps closer to me. And snatches my keys out of my hand. “What do you think you’re doin’?” I ask her. “Getting you back for kidnapping me.” She steps back and with all her might whips my keys into the woods. “You did not just do that.” She backs up, facing me the entire time, as she moves toward her car. “No hard feelings. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, Alex?” she says, trying to keep a straight face. I watch in shock as my chem partner gets into her Beemer. The car drives out of the lot without a jolt, jerk, or hitch. Flawless start. I’m pissed off because I’m going to have to either crawl around in the dark woods trying to find my keys or call Enrique to pick me up. I’m also amused. Brittany Ellis bested me at my own game. “Yeah,” I say to her even though she’s probably a mile away and can’t hear me. “Payback is a bitch.” ¡Carajoǃ
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
We need to accept imperfection. Good may be the enemy of the great but perfect is the enemy of getting stuff done. There is a vulnerability in many environments if you are to share things that are not quite perfect or perfectly thought through. The idea of presenting a new product without showing reams of research to show that it definitely will work is contrary to how most people think. The idea of not having an answer to every question that could be asked is scary, as is dreaming a little bigger or differently to others. Most companies feel like they need people who are professionals who can defend everything, who have thought through every single scenario. We need people to embrace messiness, to accept that real progress comes from things that are never done perfectly the first time. Young companies talk about the idea of a minimal viable product (MVP) which are ideas developed enough to see if there is something worth exploring further. Today we have processes like rapid prototyping or design sprints, or other ways to conceive, develop and test proposals far, far faster than a culture of perfection would ever allow. Arguably, the innovation process in China is by nature faster and bolder thanks to its spirit of chabuduo which means ‘it’ll do’ and meibanfa, aka ‘can’t be helped’. On the one hand it means things are never done perfectly, but on the other it allows rapid progress. Unlike in the West, people don’t freak out if something doesn’t work perfectly. China has a higher acceptance of imperfection, and that’s reassuring if you are trying things that may totally mess up!
Tom Goodwin (Digital Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest in the Age of Business Disruption (Kogan Page Inspire))
Second, the conventional approach implies that we have a sneaky God. In the usual understanding of God’s will, God knows what we should do. He has the perfect plan for our lives. And He’ll hold us accountable if we don’t follow His will. But He won’t show us what that will is. The traditional approach to God’s will makes God into a tricky little deity who plays hide and seek with us. Just to be clear, God does not hide things from His people. There are lots of scenarios we don’t know, lots of mysteries we can’t figure out. There is a will of decree that is not usually known to the people of God (Deuteronomy 29:29). But He is not trying to confuse us or hide truth. In the conventional view of God’s will, however, we get the impression that He not only hides His will from us, but He then expects us to find it. So we obsess over God’s will of direction, eventually getting frustrated with God for not showing us what He wants. We end up disappointed with ourselves or angry with God because we can’t seem to figure out how to find God’s will for our lives.
Kevin DeYoung (Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will)
The authors of The Alliance posit that frequent checkpoints create a perfect scenario where employer and employee sit down to openly discuss their expectations, to calibrate where the other wants to go and to fill any gaps that may have developed along the way.
Heather R. Younger (The 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty: Fascinating Truths About What It Takes to Create Truly Loyal and Engaged Employees)
If someone had been writing a manual for police officers and medical personnel on how to handle a rape case with compassion, I would have been the perfect test case on procedure. They were wonderful. And I know this now because I have lobbied Congress and state legislatures about treatment of rape victims. I’ve seen worst-case scenarios, and they’re devastating. Now I can appreciate the care with which I was handled. Now I know it rarely happens that way and it really rarely happens that way for black women. I am grateful I had the experience I did, wrapped up in the worst experience of my life. Now.
Gabrielle Union (We're Going to Need More Wine)
1 Minute Wisdom of Conscious Goal Setters: “I want my goal, where I end up, to be perfect in the scenario of synchronicity... Whatever that is.
Tony Dovale
This is life, Felix - not a test scenario. It's never going to be perfect. You just have to go for it.
Peng Shepherd (The Cartographers)
If you agree to this, Lily, there’s not a single scenario where it won’t be you getting fucked by one of us. We know you’re a bottom, princess.
Sadie Kincaid (The Perfect Fit)
Romance is for everyone. Men watch porn because they are usually more stimulated by visuals, while women prefer to create the perfect scenarios in their minds.
T.L. Smith (When He Reads To Me)