Planning Without Action Quotes

As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion.

Although goals are important, having a plan of action is vital to the success of those goals. Having a goal with no plan of action is like wanting to travel to a new destination without having a map.

Men who are capable of real action first make their plans and then go forward without hesitation while their enemies have still not made up their minds.

Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action.

Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance;...in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

You can't live in your mind and expect those dreams to become real, without the work. Reality requires actions that might feel scary, but that is what is required if you want to find true love. Don't expect it to come and rescue you. You have to rescue yourself.

Something broke in me and left me with a nerve split in two. In the beginning the extremities linked to the cut hurt me so badly that I paled in pain and perplexity. However the split places gradually scarred over. Until coldly, I no longer hurt. I changed, without planning to. I used to look at you from my inside outward and from the inside of you, which because of love, I could guess. After the scarring I started to look at you from the outside in. And also to see myself from the outside in: I had transformed myself into a heap of facts and actions whose only root was in the domain of logic. At first I couldn't associate me with myself. Where am I? I wondered. And the one who answered was a stranger who told me coldly and categorically: you are yourself.

Griping is for those without a plan of action...

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage.

In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve? The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward. Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience. Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living. Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward. Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success. If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

What is the Other?" they ask. The Other is the one who taught me whatI should be like, but not what I am. The Other believes that it is our obligation to spend our entire life thinking about how to get our hands on as much money a possible so that we will not die of hunger when we are old. So we think so much about money and our plans for acquiring it that we discover we are alive only when our days on earth are practically done. And then it's too late." And you? Who are you?" I am just like everyone else who listens to their heart: a person who is enchanted by the mystery of life. Who is open to miracles, who experiences joy and enthusiasm for what they do. It's just that the Other, afraid of disappointment,kept me from taking action." But there is suffering in life," one of the listeners said. And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without ever even knowing what you're fighting for." That's it?" another listener asked. Yes, that's it. When I learned this, I resolved to become the person I had always wanted to be. The Other stood there in the corner of my room, watching me, but I will never let the Other into myself again----even though it has already tried to frighten me, warning me that it's risky not to think about the future. From the moment that I ousted the Other from my life, the Divine Energy began to perform its miracles.

A plan without action isn’t a plan, it’s a speech.

Thomas had inherited his father’s reason without his ruthlessness and his mother’s love of good without her tendency to pursue it. His plan for all practical action was to wait and see what developed.

I see no justice in that plan." "Who said," lashed out Isaac Penn, "that you, a man, can always perceive justice? Who said that justice is what you imagine? Can you be sure that you know it when you see it, that you will live long enough to recognize the decisive thunder of its occurrence, that it can be manifest within a generation, within ten generations, within the entire span of human existence? What you are talking about is common sense, not justice. Justice is higher and not as easy to understand -- until it presents itself in unmistakable splendor. The design of which I speak is far above our understanding. But we can sometimes feel its presence. "No choreographer, no architect, engineer, or painter could plan more thoroughly and subtly. Every action and every scene has its purpose. And the less power one has, the closer he is to the great waves that sweep through all things, patiently preparing them for the approach of a future signified not by simple human equity (a child could think of that), but by luminous and surprising connections that we have not imagined, by illustrations terrifying and benevolent -- a golden age that will show not what we wish, but some bare awkward truth upon which rests everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.

If motion doesn’t lead to results, why do we do it? Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. It doesn’t feel good to fail or to be judged publicly, so we tend to avoid situations where that might happen. And that’s the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure.

Mainly, though, the Democratic Party has become the party of reaction. In reaction to a war that is ill conceived, we appear suspicious of all military action. In reaction to those who proclaim the market can cure all ills, we resist efforts to use market principles to tackle pressing problems. In reaction to religious overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism, and forfeit the moral language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning. We lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans. We lost the courts and wait for a White House scandal. And increasingly we feel the need to match the Republican right in stridency and hardball tactics. The accepted wisdom that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists these days goes like this: The Republican Party has been able to consistently win elections not by expanding its base but by vilifying Democrats, driving wedges into the electorate, energizing its right wing, and disciplining those who stray from the party line. If the Democrats ever want to get back into power, then they will have to take up the same approach. ...Ultimately, though, I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country. It's what keeps us locked in "either/or" thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace "socialized medicine". It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off of politics.

You are the only one who can make it happen for you. Without your active participation, it won't work. Take action!

Hand-washing is a potentially effective behavior that can lessen the threat of any individual getting sick from the flu or other infectious diseases, but without organized vaccine programs or quarantine plans, quelling disease outbreaks is unlikely.

THE WISDOM OF SURRENDER It is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that is the main determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to surrender is the most important thing you can do to bring about positive change. Any action you take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness. To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action. SURRENDER IS THE SIMPLE but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.

Countrymen: I have given proofs, as well as the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people, so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same liberty. In my writings I have recommended the study of the civic virtues, without which there can be no redemption. I have also written (and my words have been repeated) that reforms, to be fruitful, must come from above, that those which spring from below are uncertain and insecure movements. Imbued with these ideas, I cannot do less than condemn, and I do condemn, this absurd, savage rebellion, planned behind my back, which dishonors the Filipinos and discredits those who can speak for us. I abominate all criminal actions and refuse any kind of participation in them, pitying with all my heart the dupes who have allowed themselves to be deceived. Go back, then, to your homes, and may God forgive those who have acted in bad faith.

The left and right sides of the brain also process the imprints of the past in dramatically different ways.2 The left brain remembers facts, statistics, and the vocabulary of events. We call on it to explain our experiences and put them in order. The right brain stores memories of sound, touch, smell, and the emotions they evoke. It reacts automatically to voices, facial features, and gestures and places experienced in the past. What it recalls feels like intuitive truth—the way things are. Even as we enumerate a loved one’s virtues to a friend, our feelings may be more deeply stirred by how her face recalls the aunt we loved at age four.3 Under ordinary circumstances the two sides of the brain work together more or less smoothly, even in people who might be said to favor one side over the other. However, having one side or the other shut down, even temporarily, or having one side cut off entirely (as sometimes happened in early brain surgery) is disabling. Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning. When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past—they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen. After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did way because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you “never listen to me.” Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and, over time, our research demonstrated why.

...adults acted as though trying to go anywhere or achieve anything was a frivolous dream, a luxury, compared to the real work of having kids and making money to pay for the kids. Nobody ever explained what was admirable about having the kids, or why it was the default course of action for every single human being. If you ever asked why any particular person had had a kid, or what good a particular kid was, people treated it as a blasphemy-- as if you were saying they should be dead, or the kid should be dead. It was is there was no way to ask what the plan had been, without implying that someone should be dead.

As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meanings medieval people found in their lives were no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist and capitalist meanings modern people find. The scientist who says her life is meaningful because she increases the store of human knowledge, the soldier who declares that his life is meaningful because he fights to defend his homeland, and the entrepreneur who finds meaning in building a new company are no less delusional than their medieval counterparts who found meaning in reading scriptures, going on a crusade or building a new cathedral. So perhaps happiness is synchronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction. This is quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?

Emeritus John Farrington said, "Sometimes God's creation does not yield to scientific research without great effort and our results are not always what we would like or predicted.

Trading is serious business with real money on the line. Why would you go into it without a well-thought-out plan of action? Yet, most people do.

Comfort without action is only discomfort and dissatisfaction in latent action. It always seems we shall have a good tomorrow until a bad tomorrow comes

Without, action plan is a just like a garbage

There are only two reasons for failing: action without thinking or thinking without any action.

Fear is not something that goes away. It’s not something that even diminishes, really. Rather, it stays. You can simply become better and better at hearing it without listening.

keeping with the laconic Mongol traditions, he warned his sons not to talk too much. Only say what needs to be said. A leader should demonstrate his thoughts and opinions through his actions, not through his words: “He can never be happy until his people are happy.” He stressed to them the importance of vision, goals, and a plan. “Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others,

A man runs into an old friend who had somehow never been able to make it in life. "I should give him some money", he thinks. But instead he learns that his old friend has grown rich and is actually seeking him out to repay the debts he had run up over the years. They go to a bar they used to frequent together and the friend buys drinks for everyone there, When they ask him how he became so successful, he answers that until only a few days ago, he had been living the role of the Other. "What is the Other?", they ask. "The 'Other' is the one who taught me what I should be like, but not what I am. The Other believes that it is out obligations to spend our entire life thinking about how to get our hands on as much money as possible so that we will not die of hunger when we are old. So we think so much about money and our plans for acquiring it that we discover that we are alive only when our days on earth are practically done. And then it's too late." "And you? Who are you?" "I am just like everyone else who listens to their heart: a person who is enchanted by the mystery of life. Who is open to miracles, who experiences joy and enthusiasm for what they do. It's just that the Other, afraid of disappointment, kept me from taking actions". "But there is suffering in life", one of the listeners said. "And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without ever even knowing what you're fighting for." "That's it?", another listener asked. "Yes, that's it. When I learned this, I resolved to become the person I had always wanted to be. The Other stood there in the corner of my room, watching me, but I will never let the Other into myself again - even though it has already tried to frighten me, warning me that it's risky not to think about the future." "From the moment that I ousted the Other from my life, the Divine Energy began to perform its miracles".

the price signals of supply and demand provided the only means yet discovered of coordinating the desires and actions of millions of freely acting individuals, without government compulsion, in what Hayek called a “spontaneous order.

Leaders instill courage in the hearts of those who follow. This rarely happens through words alone. It generally requires action. It goes back to what we said earlier: Somebody has to go first. By going first, the leader furnishes confidence to those who follow. As a next generation leader, you will be called upon to go first. That will require courage. But in stepping out you will give the gift of courage to those who are watching. What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business? What has been done is safe. But to attempt a solution to a problem that plagues an entire industry - in my case, the local church - requires courage. Unsolved problems are gateways to the future. To those who have the courage to ask the question and the tenacity to hang on until they discover or create an answer belongs the future. Don’t allow the many good opportunities to divert your attention from the one opportunity that has the greatest potential. Learn to say no. There will always be more opportunities than there is time to pursue them. Leaders worth following are willing to face and embrace current reality regardless of how discouraging or embarrassing it might be. It is impossible to generate sustained growth or progress if your plan for the future is not rooted in reality. Be willing to face the truth regardless of how painful it might be. If fear causes you to retreat from your dreams, you will never give the world anything new. it is impossible to lead without a dream. When leaders are no longer willing to dream, it is only a short time before followers are unwilling to follow. Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity? Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away. Where there is no uncertainty, there is no longer the need for leadership. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the need for leadership. Your capacity as a leader will be determined by how well you learn to deal with uncertainty. My enemy is not uncertainty. It is not even my responsibility to remove the uncertainty. It is my responsibility to bring clarity into the midst of the uncertainty. As leaders we can afford to be uncertain, but we cannot afford to be unclear. People will follow you in spite of a few bad decisions. People will not follow you if you are unclear in your instruction. As a leader you must develop the elusive skill of leading confidently and purposefully onto uncertain terrain. Next generation leaders must fear a lack of clarity more than a lack of accuracy. The individual in your organization who communicates the clearest vision will often be perceived as the leader. Clarity is perceived as leadership. Uncertainty exposes a lack of knowledge. Pretending exposes a lack of character. Express your uncertainty with confidence. You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential. You need a leadership coach. Great leaders are great learners. God, in His wisdom, has placed men and women around us with the experience and discernment we often lack. Experience alone doesn’t make you better at anything. Evaluated experience is what enables you to improve your performance. As a leader, what you don’t know can hurt you. What you don’t know about yourself can put a lid on your leadership. You owe it to yourself and to those who have chosen to follow you to open the doors to evaluation. Engage a coach. Success doesn’t make anything of consequence easier. Success just raises the stakes. Success brings with it the unanticipated pressure of maintaining success. The more successful you are as a leader, the more difficult this becomes. There is far more pressure at the top of an organization than you might imagine.

I know this may be a disappointment for some of you, but I don’t believe there is only one right person for you. I think I fell in love with my wife, Harriet, from the first moment I saw her. Nevertheless, had she decided to marry someone else, I believe I would have met and fallen in love with someone else. I am eternally grateful that this didn’t happen, but I don’t believe she was my one chance at happiness in this life, nor was I hers. Another error you might easily make in dating is expecting to find perfection in the person you are with. The truth is, the only perfect people you might know are those you don’t know very well. Everyone has imperfections. Now, I’m not suggesting you lower your standards and marry someone with whom you can’t be happy. But one of the things I’ve realized as I’ve matured in life is that if someone is willing to accept me—imperfect as I am—then I should be willing to be patient with others’ imperfections as well. Since you won’t find perfection in your partner, and your partner won’t find it in you, your only chance at perfection is in creating perfection together. There are those who do not marry because they feel a lack of “magic” in the relationship. By “magic” I assume they mean sparks of attraction. Falling in love is a wonderful feeling, and I would never counsel you to marry someone you do not love. Nevertheless—and here is another thing that is sometimes hard to accept—that magic sparkle needs continuous polishing. When the magic endures in a relationship, it’s because the couple made it happen, not because it mystically appeared due to some cosmic force. Frankly, it takes work. For any relationship to survive, both parties bring their own magic with them and use that to sustain their love. Although I have said that I do not believe in a one-and-only soul mate for anyone, I do know this: once you commit to being married, your spouse becomes your soul mate, and it is your duty and responsibility to work every day to keep it that way. Once you have committed, the search for a soul mate is over. Our thoughts and actions turn from looking to creating. . . . Now, sisters, be gentle. It’s all right if you turn down requests for dates or proposals for marriage. But please do it gently. And brethren, please start asking! There are too many of our young women who never go on dates. Don’t suppose that certain girls would never go out with you. Sometimes they are wondering why no one asks them out. Just ask, and be prepared to move on if the answer is no. One of the trends we see in some parts of the world is our young people only “hanging out” in large groups rather than dating. While there is nothing wrong with getting together often with others your own age, I don’t know if you can really get to know individuals when you’re always in a group. One of the things you need to learn is how to have a conversation with a member of the opposite sex. A great way to learn this is by being alone with someone—talking without a net, so to speak. Dates don’t have to be—and in most cases shouldn’t be—expensive and over-planned affairs. When my wife and I moved from Germany to Salt Lake City, one of the things that most surprised us was the elaborate and sometimes stressful process young people had developed of asking for and accepting dates. Relax. Find simple ways to be together. One of my favorite things to do when I was young and looking for a date was to walk a young lady home after a Church meeting. Remember, your goal should not be to have a video of your date get a million views on YouTube. The goal is to get to know one individual person and learn how to develop a meaningful relationship with the opposite sex.

If Clausewitz is right, no one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally.

It was getting late, but sleep was the furthest thing from my racing mind. Apparently that was not the case for Mr. Sugar Buns. He lay back, closed his eyes, and threw an arm over his forehead, his favorite sleeping position. I could hardly have that. So, I crawled on top of him and started chest compressions. It seemed like the right thing to do. "What are you doing?" he asked without removing his arm. "Giving you CPR." I pressed into his chest, trying not to lose count. Wearing a red-and-black football jersey and boxers that read, DRIVERS WANTED. SEE INSIDE FOR DETAILS, I'd straddled him and now worked furiously to save his life, my focus like that of a seasoned trauma nurse. Or a seasoned pot roast. It was hard to say. "I'm not sure I'm in the market," he said, his voice smooth and filled with a humor I found appalling. He clearly didn't appreciate my dedication. "Damn it, man! I'm trying to save your life! Don't interrupt." A sensuous grin slid across his face. He tucked his arms behind his head while I worked. I finished my count, leaned down, put my lips on his, and blew. He laughed softly, the sound rumbling from his chest, deep and sexy, as he took my breath into his lungs. That part down, I went back to counting chest compressions. "Don't you die on me!" And praying. After another round, he asked, "Am I going to make it?" "It's touch-and-go. I'm going to have to bring out the defibrillator." "We have a defibrillator?" he asked, quirking a brow, clearly impressed. I reached for my phone. "I have an app. Hold on." As I punched buttons, I realized a major flaw in my plan. I needed a second phone. I could hardly shock him with only one paddle. I reached over and grabbed his phone as well. Started punching buttons. Rolled my eyes. "You don't have the app," I said from between clenched teeth. "I had no idea smartphones were so versatile." "I'll just have to download it. It'll just take a sec." "Do I have that long?" Humor sparkled in his eyes as he waited for me to find the app. I'd forgotten the name of it, so I had to go back to my phone, then back to his, then do a search, then download, then install it, all while my patient lay dying. Did no one understand that seconds counted? "Got it!" I said at last. I pressed one phone to his chest and one to the side of his rib cage like they did in the movies, and yelled, "Clear!" Granted, I didn't get off him or anything as the electrical charge riddled his body, slammed his heart into action, and probably scorched his skin. Or that was my hope, anyway. He handled it well. One corner of his mouth twitched, but that was about it. He was such a trouper. After two more jolts of electricity--it had to be done--I leaned forward and pressed my fingertips to his throat. "Well?" he asked after a tense moment. I released a ragged sigh of relief,and my shoulders fell forward in exhaustion. "You're going to be okay, Mr. Farrow." Without warning, my patient pulled me into his arms and rolled me over, pinning me to the bed with his considerable weight and burying his face in my hair. It was a miracle!

An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvers, and ugly aspirations, and often can build up your defenses. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy. The fact that the activity and movements of a stupid creature are absolutely erratic and irrational not only makes defense problematic but it also makes any counterattack extremely difficult—like trying to shoot at an object that is capable of the most improbable and unimaginable movements.

When I stopped viewing girls as potential girlfriends and started treating them as sisters in Christ, I discovered the richness of true friendship. When I stopped worrying about who I was going to marry and began to trust God’s timing, I uncovered the incredible potential of serving God as a single. . . . I believe the time has come for Christians, male and female, to own up to the mess we’ve left behind in our selfish pursuit of short-term romance. Dating may seem an innocent game, but as I see it, we are sinning against each other. What excuse will we have when God asks us to account for our actions and attitudes in relationships? If God sees a sparrow fall (Matthew 10:29), do you think He could possibly overlook the broken hearts and scarred emotions we cause in relationships based on selfishness? Everyone around us may be playing the dating game. But at the end of our lives, we won’t answer to everyone. We’ll answer to God. . . . Long before Seventeen magazine ever gave teenagers tips on dating, people did things very differently. At the turn of the twentieth century, a guy and girl became romantically involved only if they planned to marry. If a young man spent time at a girl’s home, family and friends assumed that he intended to propose to her. But shifting attitudes in culture and the arrival of the automobile brought radical changes. The new “rules” allowed people to indulge in all the thrills of romantic love without having any intention of marriage. Author Beth Bailey documents these changes in a book whose title, From Front Porch to Backseat, says everything about the difference in society’s attitude when dating became the norm. Love and romance became things people could enjoy solely for their recreational value. Though much has changed since the 1920s, the tendency of dating relationships to move toward intimacy without commitment remains very much the same. . . . Many of the attitudes and practices of today’s dating relationships conflict with the lifestyle of smart love God wants us to live.

Like Plato, Kant believed that human beings have a dual nature: part animal and part rational. The animal part of us follows the laws of nature, just as does a falling rock or a lion killing its prey. There is no morality in nature; there is only causality. But the rational part of us, Kant said, can follow a different kind of law: It can respect rules of conduct, and so people (but not lions) can be judged morally for the degree to which they respect the right rules. What might those rules be? Here Kant devised the cleverest trick in all moral philosophy. He reasoned that for moral rules to be laws, they had to be universally applicable. If gravity worked differently for men and women, or for Italians and Egyptians, we could not speak of it as a law. But rather than searching for rules to which all people would in fact agree (a difficult task, likely to produce only a few bland generalities), Kant turned the problem around and said that people should think about whether the rules guiding their own actions could reasonably be proposed as universal laws. If you are planning to break a promise that has become inconvenient, can you really propose a universal rule that states people ought to break promises that have become inconvenient? Endorsing such a rule would render all promises meaningless. Nor could you consistently will that people cheat, lie, steal, or in any other way deprive other people of their rights or their property, for such evils would surely come back to visit you. This simple test, which Kant called the “categorical imperative,” was extraordinarily powerful. It offered to make ethics a branch of applied logic, thereby giving it the sort of certainty that secular ethics, without recourse to a sacred book, had always found elusive.

In order to live our values in each of these domains, we must reserve time in our schedules to do so. Only by setting aside specific time in our schedules for traction (the actions that draw us toward what we want in life) can we turn our backs on distraction. Without planning ahead, it’s impossible to tell the difference between traction and distraction.

As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual.

He had four rules concerning action and information. Never make a plan without knowing as much as you can of the enemy. Never be afraid to change your plans when you receive new information. Never believe you know everything. And never wait to know everything. The man who waited to know everything was still sitting in his tent when the enemy burned it over his head.

He had four rules concerning action and information. Never make a plan without knowing as much as you can of the enemy. Never be afraid to change your plans when you receive new information. Never believe you know everything. And never wait to know everything. The man who waited to know everything was still sitting in his tent when the enemy burned it over his head. Niall

The danger of tolerating any hurtful behavior is that it can all too quickly become the norm. If we allow ourselves to "get away" with anything we know to be destructive - such as slapping a child or partner in the face - without taking responsibility for the gravity of what we have done, we are that much more likely to minimize the offense: "I may have overreacted, but she's got to learn not to set me off like that." . . . "because the partner is perceived as the cause of the violence, the perpetrator feels justified in using it." Once the actions are justified, they are more likely to be repeated. It is also important to remember that, in most relationships, both parties engage in some form of the abuses listed above. Angry remarks or mildly aggressive actions - insulting someone's intelligence, throwing a plate of food against the wall - can both provoke and be used to justify retaliatory actions that may be more dangerous, like pushing and shoving someone down the stairs. On the other hand, one sort of abuse does not necessarily lead to another. Rather, whether or not the violence escalates depends on the person committing it.

This is the only real "burden" of atheism. It calls for one to take full responsibility for their actions. There is no guiding hand to lay the blame upon and no "divine" plan that relieves us of our obligation to act humanely and justly to all people. But it's a "burden" and a "blessing" as well, because it also means that we get to own all the pride in our own achievements as well.

Error is intimately bound up with the notion of intention. The term ‘error’ can only be meaningfully applied to planned actions that fail to achieve their desired consequences without the intervention of some chance or unforeseeable agency. Two basic error types were identified: slips (and lapses), where the actions do not go according to plan, and mistakes, where the plan itself is inadequate to achieve its objectives.

He murdered Mary Dalton accidentally, without thinking, without plan, without conscious motive. But, after he murdered, he accepted the crime. And that’s the important thing. It was the first full act of his life; it was the most meaningful, exciting and stirring thing that had ever happened to him. He accepted it because it made him free, gave him the possibility of choice, of action, the opportunity to act and to feel that his actions carried weight.

See Ludwig von Mises' Human Action, p. 250, for a discussion of how uncertainty about the future is the key driver of demand for holding money. With no uncertainty of the future, humans could know all their incomes and expenditures ahead of time and plan them optimally so they never have to hold any cash. But as uncertainty is an inevitable part of life, people must continue to hold money so they have the ability to spend without having to know the future.

After high school, he’d passed two relatively laid-back years as a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles before transferring to Columbia, where by his own account he’d behaved nothing like a college boy set loose in 1980s Manhattan and instead lived like a sixteenth-century mountain hermit, reading lofty works of literature and philosophy in a grimy apartment on 109th Street, writing bad poetry, and fasting on Sundays. We laughed about all of it, swapping stories about our backgrounds and what led us to the law. Barack was serious without being self-serious. He was breezy in his manner but powerful in his mind. It was a strange, stirring combination. Surprising to me, too, was how well he knew Chicago. Barack was the first person I’d met at Sidley who had spent time in the barbershops, barbecue joints, and Bible-thumping black parishes of the Far South Side. Before going to law school, he’d worked in Chicago for three years as a community organizer, earning $12,000 a year from a nonprofit that bound together a coalition of churches. His task was to help rebuild neighborhoods and bring back jobs. As he described it, it had been two parts frustration to one part reward: He’d spend weeks planning a community meeting, only to have a dozen people show up. His efforts were scoffed at by union leaders and picked apart by black folks and white folks alike. Yet over time, he’d won a few incremental victories, and this seemed to encourage him. He was in law school, he explained, because grassroots organizing had shown him that meaningful societal change required not just the work of the people on the ground but stronger policies and governmental action as well. Despite my resistance to the hype that had preceded him, I found myself admiring Barack for both his self-assuredness and his earnest demeanor. He was refreshing, unconventional, and weirdly elegant.

THE WISDOM OF SURRENDER It is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that is the main determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to surrender is the most important thing you can do to bring about positive change. Any action you take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness. To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action. SURRENDER IS THE SIMPLE but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner resistance to what is. Inner resistance is to say “no” to what is, through mental judgment and emotional negativity. It becomes particularly pronounced when things “go wrong,” which means that there is a gap between the demands or rigid expectations of your mind and what is. That is the pain gap. If you have lived long enough, you will know that things “go wrong” quite often. It is precisely at those times that surrender needs to be practiced if you want to eliminate pain and sorrow from your life. Acceptance of what is immediately frees you from mind identification and thus reconnects you with Being. Resistance is the mind. Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and change the situation. In fact, it is not the overall situation that you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny segment called the Now. For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say: “Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.” Resignation is not surrender. YOU DON'T NEED TO ACCEPT AN UNDESIRABLE OR UNPLEASANT LIFE SITUATION. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with it. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the “isness” of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the situation. Such action I call positive action. It is far more effective than negative action, which arises out of anger, despair, or frustration. Until you achieve the desired result, you continue to practice surrender by refraining from labeling the Now

As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.

With God, we’re often told, “all things are possible.” Christians believe this until an alternative divine plan is suggested that appears to be better than what God is believed to have done. Whenever someone suggests a better divine plan of action, then without even pausing to think about it, Christians argue God could not have done differently for a variety of reasons. So God can apparently do anything up until someone suggests he does something better. In other words, true Christian believers have no imagination at all. They unnecessarily limit their God by their utter lack of imagination.

Eddy Nahmias criticized arguments of the sort I have presented here: Many philosophers, including me, understand free will as a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires. We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure. We are responsible for our actions roughly to the extent that we possess these capacities and we have opportunities to exercise them.18

One of my students told the class that he worked in a bank in which everybody made note of every action—a telephone call, a calculation, use of a computer, waiting on a customer, etc. There was a standard time for every act, and everybody was rated every day. Some days this man would make a score of 50, next day 260, etc. Everybody was ranked on his score, the lower the score, the higher the rank. Morale was understandably low. “My rate is 155 pieces per day. I can’t come near this figure—and we all have the problem—without turning out a lot of defective items.” She must bury her pride of workmanship to make her quota, or lose pay and maybe also her job. It could well be that with intelligent supervision and help, and with no inherited defects, this operator could produce in a day and with less effort many more good items than her stated rate. Some people in management claim that they have a better plan: dock her for a defective item. This sounds great. Make it clear that this is not the place for mistakes and defective items. Actually, this may be cruel supervision. Who declares an item to be defective? Is it clear to the worker and to the inspector—both of them—what constitutes a defective item? Would it have been declared defective yesterday? Who made the defective item? The worker, or the system? Where is the evidence?

So our medieval ancestors were happy because they found meaning to life in collective delusions about the afterlife? Yes. As long as nobody punctured their fantasies, why shouldn’t they? As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.

The first dysfunction is an absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust. This failure to build trust is damaging because it sets the tone for the second dysfunction: fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments. A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third dysfunction of a team: lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, though they may feign agreement during meetings. Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the good of the team. Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the needs of their divisions above the collective goals of the team.

There is a specific dzogchen meditation practice in which we bring ourselves to the place of stillness by closing the eyes and contemplating all of the body’s physical actions over a lifetime, action by action, day by day, year by year. Although we can’t review our entire life in a single meditation session, we can elicit enough physical memories to bring ourselves to the point of exhaustion. The instant we arrive at this point, we release all the actions into the stillness of the moment and abide without changing. “Abide without changing” means that as our thoughts and experiences continue to arise and dissolve, we continue to rest in our own nature and simply observe without elaborating. We try not to follow the past, plan the future, or change the present. We “leave it as it is.

There’s something to be said for detaching from others. When we are alone and disconnected from technology, we can reflect on our feelings, vent silently to ourselves or our diaries, and imagine what we might say or do while considering the impact of any real action. Everyone who grew up without digital technology recalls having written a letter we’re glad we never sent or having a rant we’re glad no one heard. Using private time to express and get to know a feeling lets the feeling come down to size, teaches us a great deal about ourselves, and acquaints us with our internal resources for managing distress. Social disconnection also allows time to develop a considered plan about how (or if!) we want to act on hard feelings. In other words, we have time to keep our thoughts and our feelings separate from our actions.

Participants in a program of Leaderless Resistance through phantom cell or individual action must know exactly what they are doing, and how to do it. It becomes the responsibility of the individual to acquire the necessary skills and information as to what needs to be done … all members of phantom cells or individuals will need to react to objective events in the same way through usual tactics of resistance. Organs of information distribution such as newspapers, leaflets, computers, etc., which are widely available to all, keep each person informed of events, allowing for a planned response that will take many variations. No one need issue an order to anyone. Those idealist[s] truly committed to the cause of freedom will act when they feel the time is ripe, or will take their cue from others who precede them.… It goes almost without saying that Leaderless Resistance leads to very small or even one man cells of resistance.36 Cell

Still, I found the idea of an aesthetic life to be tremendously compelling. It was the first time I had heard of an organizing principle or goal you could have in your life, other than making money and having kids. Nobody ever said that was their organizing principle, but I had often noticed it, when I was growing up: the way adults acted as though trying to go anywhere or achieve anything was a frivolous dream, a luxury, compared to the real work of having kids and making money to pay for the kids. Nobody ever explained what was admirable about having the kids, or why it was the default course of action for every single human being. If you ever asked a why a particular person had had a kid, or what good a particular kid was, people treated it as blasphemy--as if you were saying they should be dead, or the kid should be dead. It was as if there was no way to ask what the plan had been, without implying that someone should be dead.

Those diversions sparked her life with momentary excitement. Without them, Charis felt she would be driven mad by the unrelenting sameness of life in the palace. Now and again she imagined that she would like to run away, to disguise herself and travel the tumbled hills, to see life among the simple herdsmen and their families; or perhaps she would take a boat and sail the coasts, visiting tiny, sun-baked fishing villages and learning the rhythm of the sea. Unfortunately, making good either of those plans would mean taking action, and the only thing more palpable than the boredom she endured was the inertia that enclosed her like a massive fist. The weighty impossibility of changing her life in any but the most insignificant detail insured that she would not try. She sighed again and returned to the corridor, pausing to pick a sunshade from a nearby bush, idly plucking the delicate yellow petals and dropping them one by one, like days, fluttering from her hand.

The birth and growth of modern antisemitism has been accompanied by and interconnected with Jewish assimilation, the secularization and withering away of the old religious and spiritual values of Judaism. What actually happened was that great parts of the Jewish people were at the same time threatened by physical extinction from without and dissolution from within. In this situation, Jews concerned with the survival of their people would, in a curious and desperate misinterpretation, hit on the consoling idea that antisemitism, after all, might be an excellent means for keeping the people together so that the assumption of external antisemitism would even imply an external guarantee of Jewish existence. This superstition, a secularized travesty of the idea of eternity inherent in a faith in chosenness and a Messianic hope, has been strengthened through the fact that for many centuries the Jews experienced the Christian brand of hostility which was indeed a powerful agent of preservation, spiritually as well as politically. The Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred—and this all the more innocently because their assimilation had by-passed Christianity in its religious and cultural aspect. Confronted with an obvious symptom of the decline of Christianity, they could therefore imagine in all ignorance that this was some revival of the so-called "Dark Ages." Ignorance or misunderstanding of their own past were partly responsible for their fatal underestimation of the actual and unprecedented dangers which lay ahead. But one should also bear in mind that lack of political ability and judgment have been caused by the very nature of Jewish history, the history of a people without a government, without a country, and without a language. Jewish history offers the extraordinary spectacle of a people, unique in this respect, which began its history with a well-defined concept of history and an almost conscious resolution to achieve a well-circumscribed plan on earth and then, without giving up this concept, avoided all political action for two thousand years. The result was that the political history of the Jewish people became even more dependent upon unforeseen, accidental factors than the history of other nations, so that the Jews stumbled from one role to the other and accepted responsibility for none.

I am a child of the everlasting King. I am forgiven. I am a warrior. I am cloaked in righteous armor. I was made for adventure. I was built for battle. I am part of a larger story. My true and lasting affirmation comes only from my King. I am unique above all creation--planned and perfect in design. I have been created for a glorious destiny. All my ways are established by you, my King, and I walk in them. My life and actions are real, authentic, and without compromise. I am quickened and made alive through the power of your Spirit. My whole life is before me. I am a shining gift from God to this lost world. I know my name, I understand my calling, and I am worthy to walk in it. I am strong, brave, and courageous in the face of my enemies. Whatever is good, whatever is pure, whatever is true, dwell on these things. My sins are scattered as far as the east is from the west. I am a good husband to my wife. I am a good father to my daughters. The past is over, and the future glimmers with radiant light. I will look to the new day, the dawning of hope. I will step forward with the truth before me and will no longer look on the day that is gone. The past is over; the future has begun.

It is curious why anybody should pooh-pooh a study of fossils or various forms of rocks or lava. Such things grant us our only vision into Natural History’s big book; and it isn't a book in first-class condition. Far from it! Just a tiny scrap; a slip; or, possibly a big chunk is found, with nothing notifying us as to how it got to that particular point, nor how long ago. Man can only look at it, lift it, rap it, cut into it, and squint at it through a magnifying glass. And,— think about it. That’s all; until a formal study brings accompanying thoughts from many minds; and, by such tactics, judging that in all probability such and such a rock or fossil footprint is about so old. Natural History holds you in its grasp through just this impossibility of finding actual facts; for it is thus causing you to think. Now, thinking is not only a voluntary function; it is an acquisition; an art. Plants do not think. Animals probably do, but in a primary way, such as an aid in knowing poisonous foods, and how to bring up an offspring with similar ability. But Man can, and should think, and think hard and constantly. It is ridiculous to rush blindly into an action without looking forward to lay out a plan. Such an unthinking custom is almost a panic, and panic is but a mild form of insanity

Now his grandfather’s actions were adding to his unwanted notoriety. The death of Ian’s father had evidently caused the old duke to feel some belated request for the estrangement, and for the last twelve years he’d been writing to Ian periodically. At first he had pleaded with Ian to come and visit him at Stanhope. When Ian ignored his letters, he’d tried bribing him with promises to name Ian his legitimate heir. Those letters had gone unanswered, and for the last two years the old man’s silence had misled Ian into thinking he’d given up. Four months ago, however, another letter bearing Stanhope’s ducal crest had been delivered to Ian, and this one infuriated him. The old man had imperiously given Ian four months in which to appear at Stanhope and meet with him to discuss arrangements for the transfer of six estates-estates that would have been Ian’s father’s inheritance had the duke not disowned him. According to the letter, if Ian did not appear, the duke planned to proceed without him, publicly naming him his heir. Ian had written to his grandfather for the first time in his life; the note had been short and final. It was also eloquent proof that Ian Thornton was as unforgiving as his grandfather, who’d rejected his own son for two decades: Try it and you’ll look a fool. I’ll disclaim all knowledge of any relationship with you, and if you still persist, I’ll let your title and your estates rot.

Bernard acted thus when he complained of himself to our Lord, saying: ' Create in me a clean heart, oh Lord’, for not only is it filled with vain thoughts and defiled with impurity, but even distracted with bitterness, for often when annoyed by some injury done to me, my heart is full of a continuous tumult of feelings. Tossed to and fro I am beset and swayed on every side by the thought of what reprisals I can take for the injury done to me and how to avenge myself. I make endless plans, and my heart is bent solely on paying off my grudges in imagination as I cannot do so in act. I do not see the people around me but contradict the absent. In fancy, I insult and am insulted and reply with even harsher abuse as there is no one to answer me, I devise a quarrel. I think over the plots of the envious and what they might do and what I could do in return, and as it is all factitious, I labor like a litigant without a case. So I pass the day in idleness and the night in cogitation. I am slow in doing useful work because I am wearied with unlawful thoughts, and fight my battles in my memory because I meet with no resistance outside me. At other times the outward actions I have performed revert importunately to my mind, and often their memory torments me more than the act itself, frequently things that I never did or ever wished to do so haunt my thoughts that I almost wish that I had done them. Cleanse me, oh Lord, from my secret sins, for my outward actions cause me to sin gravely in my thoughts, because what I have seen and done is imprinted in my heart, so that a tumult of worldly cares revolves within it even when at rest.

headquarters permanently to Rome. Rome was at the center of world affairs, as it was also the center of world corruption. Where else could be better suited—especially now that Monteriggioni was no longer a viable option? He also had plans for a system of distribution of the Brotherhood’s funds in response to individual Assassins’ successfully completed missions. Those diamonds he’d taken from the slave traders had come in very handy, a welcome addition to the campaign fund. One day… But “one day” was still a long way off. The Brotherhood still had no new elected leader, though by common consent and by virtue of their actions, he and Machiavelli had become its temporary chiefs. But they were still only temporary. Nothing had been ratified in formal council. And Caterina preyed on his mind. He had left Claudia to oversee the renovation of the Rosa in Fiore without any supervision or interference. Let her sink or swim in her own overweening confidence! It’d be no fault of his if she sank. But the brothel was an important link in his network, and he admitted to himself that if he really had had absolutely no faith in her, he might have leaned on her harder in the first place. Now was the time to put her work—what she had achieved—to the test. When he returned to the Rosa in Fiore, he was as surprised as he was pleased. Just as successful, he hoped, as his own previous transformations in the city, and at Bartolomeo’s barracks, had been (though even for those he was modest and realistic enough not to take all the credit). But he hid his delight as he took in the sumptuous rooms hung with costly tapestries, the wide sofas, the soft silk cushions, and the white wines chilled with ice—an

She has a genius,” distinguished Simon Iff. “Her dancing is a species of angelic possession, if I may coin a phrase. She comes off the stage from an interpretation of the subtlest and most spiritual music of Chopin or Tschaikowsky; and forthwith proceeds to scold, to wheedle, or to blackmail. Can you explain that reasonably by talking of ‘two sides to her character’? It is nonsense to do so. The only analogy is that of noble thinker and his stupid, dishonest, and immoral secretary. The dictation is taken down correctly, and given to the world. The last person to be enlightened by it is the secretary himself! So, I take it, is the case with all genius; only in many cases the man is in more or less conscious harmony with his genius, and strives eternally to make himself a worthier instrument for his master’s touch. The clever man, so-called, the man of talent, shuts out his genius by setting up his conscious will as a positive entity. The true man of genius deliberately subordinates himself, reduces himself to a negative, and allows his genius to play through him as It will. We all know how stupid we are when we try to do things. Seek to make any other muscle work as consistently as your heart does without your silly interference—you cannot keep it up for forty-eight hours. All this, which is truth ascertained and certain, lies at the base of the Taoistic doctrine of non-action; the plan of doing everything by seeming to do nothing. Yield yourself utterly to the Will of Heaven, and you become the omnipotent instrument of that Will. Most systems of mysticism have a similar doctrine; but that it is true in action is only properly expressed by the Chinese. Nothing that any man can do will improve that genius; but the genius needs his mind, and he can broaden that mind, fertilize it with knowledge of all kinds, improve its powers of expression; supply the genius, in short, with an orchestra instead of a tin whistle. All our little great men, our one-poem poets, our one-picture painters, have merely failed to perfect themselves as instruments.

45. No Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy No matter how well you have prepared for something in advance - whether it’s an expedition, an exam, a marriage or a race - when you find yourself in the thick of the action, however good your plan, things happen. Adventure is unpredictable, and you had better learn to be flexible and to swing with the punches, or you will get beaten - it’s as simple as that. Mike Tyson famously once said: ‘Everyone has a plan…until they get punched in the face!’ If the adventure is an exciting one, you can bet your bottom dollar you will get hit by the occasional punch in the face. So prepare for the unexpected, and remember that forewarned is forearmed. Knowing that things will and do go wrong in the heat of battle is actually half the battle. It means that when it happens you are ready for it - you can react fast, stay nimble and you can survive the barrage. We used to say in the military that when things took a turn for the worse you have to ‘improvise, adapt and overcome.’ IAO. It is a good one to remember. It gives us a road map to deal with the unexpected. Being caught out, being caught off guard often makes people freeze - it is a human reaction to shock. But freezing can cost you the edge. So learn to anticipate the unexpected, and when it happens, smile to yourself and treat it as a solid marker that you are doing something right on your road to success. If nothing ever goes wrong then you haven’t been ambitious enough! I also like to say that the real adventure begins in earnest when things go a little bit wrong. It is only then that you get to pit yourself against the worst the wild has to throw at you. When all is going to plan, with all the kit working perfectly and the weather benign, then it isn’t really a test of character. It is easy to be the hero when all is going your way. But when it all goes wrong and life feels like a battle, it is then that we can see what sort of people we have around us. It is only through the hardships that our character becomes forged. Without struggle there can be no growth - physically or emotionally. So embrace the unexpected, feed off it, train yourself to be a master of the curve ball, and you will have built yourself another solid ‘character’ rung on the ladder to success.

Kode’s older sister, Kira, was leaning over a display of jewelry, fisting a jade-green necklace in one hand. Her nose was two inches from the Braetic across the table, the two exchanging intimidating glares. Eena watched for a few seconds as Kira all but crawled over a pile of merchandise, her face scrunched up with resentment, yet enviably stunning as always. “Hey Kode,” the young queen whispered. “Hey, girl.” “What’s going on?” “Kira’s bartering.” Eena watched the fistful of necklace come within a whisker of smacking the merchant’s nose. “She isn’t going to hurt the guy, is she?” Kode snorted on a chuckle. “Not if the dude’s got any sense.” Validly concerned, Eena inched closer to the confrontation, straining to hear their growled dialogue. Kode and Niki crept closer too. Efren, however, stayed where he was, testing the flagpole’s ability to support his body weight. They watched the feisty Mishmorat hold up a small pouch and shake it in front of the Braetic’s eyes. Kira’s fingers curled like claws around the purse. She seemed to smirk for a second when the merchant flinched. In a blink he was back in her face again, shoving aside the purse. “What is she trying to trade?” Eena asked, her voice still hushed as though she might disturb the haggling taking place across the way. “Viidun coins,” Kode said. “Ef gave ‘em to her.” “Are they worth much?’ Kode grinned wryly, “He sure as hell don’t freakin’ think so.” Eena foresaw Niki’s disapproving smack to the back of Kode’s head before he even finished his sentence. He cursed at his girlfriend for the physical abuse, an unwise response that earned him an additional thump on the head. “Freakin’ tyrant,” Kode grumbled. “Vulgar grogfish,” Niki retorted. Still unable to hear well enough to satisfy her curiosity, Eena stole in closer to the scene of heated bartering. She stopped when Kira’s strong voice carried over the murmur of the crowd. Kode and his girlfriend were right on her heels. “This purse is worth ten of those gaudy necklaces. You oughta be payin’ me to take ‘em off your hands, Braetic!” “That alien money is worthless to me, Mishmorat. In all my life I’ve never left Moccobatran soil. And even if I were to take an interstellar trip someday, you’d never catch the likes of me on a barbarian planet like Rapador!” Kira jerked her head, causing her black, cascading hair to ripple over her shoulder. The action made the trader flinch again. His eyes tapered, appearing to fume over what he perceived as intentional bullying. “You ain’t gonna sell this crap to no one else,” the exotic Mishmorat said. “Be smart and take the money. Hell, you could make a dozen pieces of jewelry from these coins. Sell ’em all for ten times the worth of anything you got here.” The Braetic shoved his finger at Kira’s chest, breathing down her throat at the same time. “Why don’t you just take your pretty little backside away from my table and make your own Viidun jewelry. Sell it yourself and then come back with a reasonable offer for my necklace.” His palm opened flat, demanding she hand over the jade stones still in her fist. “You wanna make me?” Kira breathed. “What do you plan to do, steal it?” The merchant challenged her in a gesture, nostrils flaring. “I’m no thief, but I’m not above beating some sense into you ‘til you choose to barter like a respectable Braetic!” Caught up in the intense interaction, Kode supported his sister a little too loudly. “Teach the freakin’ crook a lesson, Sis!” Niki smacked her boyfriend upside the head without missing a beat.

Elvis was pretty slick. Nonetheless, I knew that he was cheating. His four-of-a-kind would beat my full house. I had two choices. I could fold my hand and lose all the money I’d contributed to the pot, or I could match Elvis’s bet and continue to play. If a gambler thought he was in an honest game, he would probably match the bet thinking his full house was a sure winner. The con artist would bet large amounts of money on the remaining cards, knowing he had a winning hand. I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, as if struggling to decide whether to wager five hundred pesos or fold my hand and call it quits. I knew there were five men between me and the door and watched them from the corner of my eye. Even if I folded and accepted my losses, I knew they would not let me leave without taking all my cash. They had strength in numbers and would strong arm me if they could. The men stared, intently watching my next move. I set down my beer and took five one hundred peso notes from my wallet. The men at the bar relaxed. My adrenaline surged, pumping through my brain, sharpening my focus as I prepared for action. I moved as if to place my bet on the table, but instead my hand bumped my beer bottle, spilling it onto Elvis’ lap. Elvis reacted instinctively to the cold beer, pushing back from the table and rising to his feet. I jumped up from my chair making a loud show of apologizing, and in the ensuing pandemonium I snatched all the money off the table and bolted for the door! My tactics took everyone by complete surprise. I had a small head start, but the Filipinos recovered quickly and scrambled to cut off my escape. I dashed to the door and barely made it to the exit ahead of the Filipinos. The thugs were nearly upon me when I suddenly wheeled round and kicked the nearest man square in the chest. My kick cracked ribs and launched the shocked Filipino through the air into the other men, tumbling them to the ground. For the moment, my assailants were a jumble of tangled bodies on the floor. I darted out the door and raced down the busy sidewalk, dodging pedestrians. I looked back and saw the furious Filipinos swarming out of the bar. Running full tilt, I grabbed onto the rail of a passing Jeepney and swung myself into the vehicle. The wide-eyed passengers shrunk back, trying to keep their distance from the crazy American. I yelled to the driver, “Step on the gas!” and thrust a hundred peso note into his hand. I looked back and saw all six of Johnny’s henchmen piling onto one tricycle. The jeepney driver realized we were being pursued and stomped the gas pedal to the floor. The jeepney surged into traffic and accelerated away from the tricycle. The tricycle was only designed for one driver and two passengers. With six bodies hanging on, the overloaded motorcycle was slow and unstable. The motorcycle driver held the throttle wide open and the tricycle rocked side to side, almost tipping over, as the frustrated riders yelled curses and flailed their arms futilely. My jeepney continued to speed through the city, pulling away from our pursuers. Finally, I could no longer see the tricycle behind us. When I was sure I had escaped, I thanked the driver and got off at the next stop. I hired a tricycle of my own and carefully made my way back to my neighborhood, keeping careful watch for Johnny and his friends. I knew that Johnny was in a frustrated rage. Not only had I foiled his plans, I had also made off with a thousand pesos of his cash. Even though I had great fun and came out of my escapade in good shape, my escape was risky and could’ve had a very different outcome. I feel a disclaimer is appropriate for those people who think it is fun to con street hustlers, “Kids. Don’t try this at home.

Action without planning is the cause of every failure.

optimistically – get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning, and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might – as pessimists – give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway; things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

It is perhaps a pattern in my life that those closest to me pass away suddenly, without warning. What has that taught me? For each person I lost I found a new layer of grief to cover myself with, and each time I tried to bring something of their essence into my own being—be it unconditional love, kindness and piety. In Dr Sarabhai’s case, perhaps it was the ability to look ahead—to plan, to build and to create. If I have achieved even a part of that through my actions and through the various roles I have been entrusted with, I consider myself successful in living up to the expectations of this great visionary of India.

While abstract conceptual thought has no tangible, concrete existence, it is the product of a scarce, material body, subject to nature’s causal laws. Indeed, actors rely on the regularity of such causal laws to successfully reach their goals. When actors make choices, utilizing their knowledge and preferences, they deliberately implement causes in the world for the sake of creating particular effects. If an actor’s environment did not operate on reliable, causal laws, action would be impossible. An actor could never hope to predict the effects of his behavior based on past experiences, and therefore the achievement of his ends would have to take place without any expectation that one particular cause leads to a particular effect. Without a causally-stable external reality, every behavior would produce new, unique effects, about which no systematic prediction could ever be made. Actors would exist in a perpetual state of random flux, wherein any type of planning or prediction would be impossible. In sum, the world in which action takes place is and must be governed on the basis of cause and effect.

Do you know what makes a good yoga teacher? Among other things, an understanding of what makes people human. You have to teach from your own experience. You cannot teach without empathy. We all tell ourselves that we are not right for what we love. That we fall short. That someone is out of our league. Let me tell you something I have learned about myself that is true about you too because it’s true about everyone. You are enough. These lies we reinforce by repeating them over and over (I am an impostor) make no sense. They are not true. But we can make them true. If I believe myself when I say with relentless tenacity that I am not enough, I will set into action a self fulfilling prophecy that will go like this: I believe I am not good enough and therefore will sow insecurity into my heart. I will cheat myself out of opportunities. I will fail at something before I begin. I will become jealous and possessive of the person that I love. I will try to control him to avoid losing him. Every action will become evidence that he is planning to leave me. And he will. Not because I am not good enough but because I will drive him insane with my insecure delusions. Learn to love yourself before you drive away the people that you love.

Web Design - Give Your Brand Global Recognition Running a small business seems easy but actually, it is not. Surprised? Well, there’s a lot to look after and accomplish without violating the budget and resources. If you own a small business and planning to take it to new heights, you must begin with a professional web design company. Why? Because to let your audience know about your products and services, you got to make your online presence. To make a visible impact online, you need to give your organization a face, which is possible only with a well-designed website that’s professional yet user-friendly. When a website has to be designed, a number of factors are meant to be considered. Font, images, content, alignment, graphics, loading time and interface are the major factors to be careful about. What else? You need to ensure that your brand’s message is displayed the right way and at the right place. Call-to-action has to be there and the design must be in a way that attracts the audience. Want to know more? Length and number of pages also matter, as they play a great role in the presentation and are responsible to hold the audience. All this must be sounding like a lot of stuff and complicated but it is all easy with the right small business web design company by your side. It will understand your business, its needs, and goals for long-term and come with a website which is liked by the audience the moment they click it. All you need to be careful is finding the company that’s worth time and money you invest. The market is flooded with a number of web designers who boast a lot but are not worth what they say. Hiring the wrong designers may cause serious consequences for your website and eventually business. To stay away from coming across such ugly experiences, take enough time and settle for the best professionals. Check their previous work, feedback, price plan and expertise before finalizing anything. Keep this brief piece of information in mind and gift your small business the website it deserves. Good Luck!

So our medieval ancestors were happy because they found meaning to life in collective delusions about the afterlife? Yes. As long as nobody punctured their fantasies, why shouldn’t they? As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meanings medieval people found in their lives were no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist and capitalist meanings modern people find. The scientist who says her life is meaningful because she increases the store of human knowledge, the soldier who declares that his life is meaningful because he fights to defend his homeland, and the entrepreneur who finds meaning in building a new company are no less delusional than their medieval counterparts who found meaning in reading scriptures, going on a crusade or building a new cathedral. So perhaps happiness is synchronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction.

When we are asked to act, we do so only if we feel at least minimally competent to do what is asked of us. We need to feel that our actions will ultimately be successful. Without some expectation of success, we are unlikely to act at all and will rather resign ourselves to letting fate take its course. We often redirect our thinking from our actual goals to the goal of preserving a sense of our competence. This act of self-protection is essential to maintaining a minimum capacity to act.

Unless, of course, there’s no such thing as chance; in which case Musa—for all his age and servility—was nothing less than a time-bomb, ticking softly away until his appointed time; in which case, we should either—optimistically—get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning, and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might—as pessimists—give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway; things will be as they will.

So a leader must possess unwavering determination to overcome obstacles and accomplish his goals—while remaining open to the possibility that he may have to throw out the plan and try something else. That’s a lot to ask of anyone, but the German military saw it as the essence of the leader’s role. “Once a course of action has been initiated it must not be abandoned without overriding reason,” the Wehrmacht manual stated. “In the changing situations of combat, however, inflexibly clinging to a course of action can lead to failure. The art of leadership consists of the timely recognition of circumstances and of the moment when a new decision is required.”7

Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.

Science and philosophy have for centuries been sustained by unquestioning faith in perception. Perception opens a window on to things. This means that it is directed, quasi-teleologically, towards a *truth in itself* in which the reason underlying all appearances is to be found. The tacit thesis of perception is that at every instant experience can be co-ordinated with that of the previous instant and that of the following, and my perspective with that of other consciousnesses—that all contradictions can be removed, that monadic and intersubjective experience is one unbroken text—that what is now indeterminate for me could become determinate for a more complete knowledge, which is as it were realized in advance in the thing, or rather which is the thing itself. Science has first been merely the sequel or amplification of the process which constitutes perceived things. Just as the thing is the invariant of all sensory fields and of all individual perceptual fields, so the scientific concept is the means of fixing and objectifying phenomena. Science defined a theoretical state of bodies not subject to the action of any force, and *ipso facto* defined force, reconstituting with the aid of these ideal components the processes actually observed. It established statistically the chemical properties of pure bodies, deducing from these those of empirical bodies, and seeming thus to hold the plan of creation or in any case to have found a reason immanent in the world. The notion of geometrical space, indifferent to its contents, that of pure movement which does not by itself affect the properties of the object, provided phenomena with a setting of inert existence in which each event could be related to physical conditions responsible for the changes occurring, and therefore contributed to this freezing of being which appeared to be the task of physics. In thus developing the concept of the thing, scientific knowledge was not aware that it was working on a presupposition. Precisely because perception, in its vital implications and prior to any theoretical thought, is presented as perception of a being, it was not considered necessary for reflection to undertake a genealogy of being, and it was therefore confined to seeking the conditions which make being possible. Even if one took account of the transformations of determinant consciousness, even if it were conceded that the constitution of the object is never completed, there was nothing to add to what science said of it; the natural object remained an ideal unity for us and, in the famous words of Lachelier, a network of general properties. It was no use denying any ontological value to the principles of science and leaving them with only a methodical value, for this reservation made no essential change as far as philosophy was concerned, since the sole conceivable being remained defined by scientific method. The living body, under these circumstances, could not escape the determinations which alone made the object into an object and without which it would have had no place in the system of experience. The value predicates which the reflecting judgment confers upon it had to be sustained, in being, by a foundation of physico-chemical properties. In ordinary experience we find a fittingness and a meaningful relationship between the gesture, the smile and the tone of a speaker. But this reciprocal relationship of expression which presents the human body as the outward manifestation of a certain manner of being-in-the-world, had, for mechanistic physiology, to be resolved into a series of causal relations.” —from_Phenomenology of Perception_. Translated by Colin Smith, pp. 62-64 —Artwork by Cristian Boian

That there are nations, states, and churches, that there is social cooperation under the division of labor, becomes discernible only in the actions of certain individuals. Nobody ever perceived a nation without perceiving its members. In this sense one may say that a social collective comes into being through the actions of individuals. That does not mean that the individual is temporally antecedent. It merely means that definite actions of individuals constitute the collective. There is no need to argue whether a collective is the sum resulting from the addition of its elements or more, whether it is a being suigeneris, and whether it is reasonable or not to speak of its will, plans, aims, and actions and to attribute to it a distinct "soul." Such pedantic talk is idle. A collective whole is a particular aspect of the actions of various individuals and as such a real thing determining the course of events. It is illusory to believe that it is possible to visualize collective wholes. They are never visible; their cognition is always the outcome of the understanding of the meaning which acting men attribute to their acts. We can see a crowd, i.e., a multitude of people. Whether this crowd is a mere gathering or a mass (in the sense in which this term is used in contemporary psychology) or an organized body or any other kind of social entity is a question which can only be answered by understanding the meaning which they themselves attach to their presence. And this meaning is always the meaning of individuals. Not our senses, but understanding, a mental process, makes us recognize social entities. Those who want to start the study of human action from the collective units encounter an insurmountable obstacle in the fact that an individual at the same time can belong and--with the exception of the most primitive tribesmen--really belongs to various collective entities. The problems raised by the multiplicity of coexisting social units and their mutual antagonisms can be solved only by methodological individualism

The separation of thought and action in our society." We are living in a time when systematically — though without our wanting it so — action and thought are being separated. In our society, he who thinks can no longer act for himself; he must act through the agency of others, and in many cases he cannot act at all. He who acts cannot first think out his action, either because of lack of time and the burden of his personal problems, or because society's plan demands that he translate others' thoughts into action. And we see the same division within the individual himself. For he can use his mind only outside the area of his job — in order to find himself, to use his leisure to better himself, to discover what best suits hint, and thus to individualize himself, whereas in the context of his work he yield* to the common necessity, the common method, the need to incorporate his own work into the overall plan. Escape into dreams is suggested to him white he performs wholly mechanized actions.

I think it’s best,” Li offered. “Let’s talk plan of action because I know you don’t like going into a mission without a plan.” Making shit up as you went was for suckers who expected to fail. A good plan of attack was the only way to go. A plan A, plan B, and plan everything’s fucked up, let’s blow it all to hell. She hoped she didn’t need that last one, but she would have it in her back pocket all the same.

read once that time management is impossible—what you are managing is not time, which ticks on with or without you in its own inexorable current, but yourself. I manage myself, my actions, my thoughts, my goals, my calories ingested and expended, mood, work deliverables, and long-range planning with an intensity and accountability that I know most people could not handle, and which I would never subject one of my subordinates to because it’s too much to ask, but if you want to know how I’ve gotten to where I am, that is how.

The great thing about Strength is that it helps you feel like there are options. Without it, you often feel like life is happening to you, that other people and their actions are in charge of what happens to you. But when you build your Strength and your ability to control how you show up, then you’re in a place to choose what you do next. You’re no longer a victim of the circumstances.

We need a variation of white space that’s short yet powerful, and I have just the thing. It’s a supremely elegant and adaptable form of white space called the Wedge. The Wedge is a small portion of white space inserted between two activities. It’s used specifically to pry apart actions or events that without it would have been connected. The Wedge buys you a moment to think, plan, or compose yourself. It’s as versatile as can be. It’s a nimble power move any of us can use on our own and, when applied as a team, it dramatically lowers stress and improves communication and cohesion.

You see, life will never operate the way we want it to. People will not submit to the laws of our kingdoms for long. God will not get up and give us his holy throne. Our reality is irrational and our hope is hopeless. Our dreams are gas (see Psalm 73:18–20). The more we work to fill our hearts, the emptier they become. The more we work to achieve our dreams, the more they vaporize in our hands. The more we live for ourselves, the more envious we become. It is socially acceptable madness. It cannot and will not ever work. This is not the way the world was created, and this is not who we were designed to be. We were designed to live with both King and kingdom consciousness, because we were designed to live for God. The architecture of our lives was to be shaped by all of the plans, purposes, words, and actions that would flow out of these words: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). It is only inside of the boundaries of these words that true and lasting life and peace of heart will ever be found. Inside these boundaries, real wisdom and real love live. Inside of this moral structure, life lives in gorgeous beauty. Outside are frustration, discouragement, anger, disappointment, and doubt. Sure, the temporary pleasures of here and now are enjoyable, but their shelf life is short. Creation has no capacity whatsoever to truly satisfy your heart. Your heart has been wired to find its hope, peace, and rest in God alone. What is spiritual death? It is living as if God doesn’t exist. It is putting yourself where God is supposed to be.

Tactical Consideration in Strikes and Kicks Used in Attack and Defense When you have enough time to identify a dangerous scenario before it starts, the primary attacks are kicks and secondary attacks are punches. In the short range it is faster to reach with a punch than to shift the body’s weight up for a kick. In the long range it is faster to leap one step and lift the leg for a kick instead of leaping two steps. Therefore in the long range, kicks are considered to be primary attacks. If you block a fake kick, attack at the same time. If your opponent tries to punch you, he would not succeed since he would have closed a two-step gap before reaching you while you were moving to block his kick as he started to move. Since he initially planned to lunge two steps forward to close the gap, he would not expect you to meet him halfway and it would break his train of thought. Another tactical move would be to move forward and close the gap without immediately attacking, and waiting for the opponent to attack first so that you could follow with a block and counterattack. However, your opponent could preemptively kick as you try to move in. Krav Maga defense techniques are designed to automatically counter a kick with a follow-up hand strike. First, the right hand goes to the left shoulder before it strikes, therefore catching the outside of the forearm in any such possible attack. During training and practice of that particular defense, the student should practice the defense with all the possible follow-up scenarios as well. Reaction Time Consideration Remember that you are a human being and your skeleton is designed for use in a unique way. If you try to crawl like a snake, or walk like a monkey, you will never reach the speed and balance of your natural movement. Therefore as a Krav Maga fighter you have the upper hand. If a martial artist attempts to get into a particular stance, or makes an opening statement with a few threatening moves and screams, or tries to fake an attack, you should know by now that he is wasting his energy and attacks and you should really react to his initial standing position when he is about to close the range, or preemptively attack if you think he is serious about hurting you. At times ignoring a person at the right time but yet being ready to counter him with the right timing will discourage a bully through the messages your body and actions deliver. From a distance, you can see that his closest limb, according to the striking distance, is what you should be concerned about. Follow your training and counterattack by blocking only the closest limb. If he fakes his first move, it should not be a great concern. While he is doing this, you should block the fake attack and counterattack him at the same time. He should never be able to get to his second planned attack.

Memory Recognizing the value of an alert mind and an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may call to mind frequently. Subconscious Mind Reorganizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily! Imagination Recognizing the need for sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires, I will develop my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of my plans. Emotion Realizing that my emotions are both positive and negative, I will form daily habits which will encourage the development of the positive emotions and aid me in converting the negative emotions into some form of useful action. Reason Recognizing that my positive and negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires, aims, and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it in giving expression to these. Conscience Recognizing that my emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my conscience to guide me as to what is right and wrong, but I will never set aside the verdicts it renders, no matter what may be the cost of carrying them out. Willpower The power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind. I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to action for any purpose, and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.

Hope and Fear Are Inseparable.” ― Francois De La Rochefoucau Ludlum There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for. - J.R.R. Tolkien “For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. ― Psalms Twenty Seven : Five “ You will never forget a person who came to you with a torch in the dark.” ― Unknown “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” ― Mark Twain “The battle between good and evil is endlessly fascinating because we are participants every day.”― Mark Twain “Family isn’t always blood, It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what. “ ― Maya Angelo “In spite of the shame, in spite of the sleepless nights, I'm coping. I'm not pretending it wasn't real. I'm not playing games in my mind. I wouldn't go back to the way I was, naive. I'm a different person now. I know I'm courageous, and without blame. I’ve realized I have it in me to stand up against this horror. — ADC "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ― Jeremiah Twenty-Nine: Eleven “The universe doesn’t give you what you ask for with your thoughts - it gives you what you demand with your actions.” ― Steve Maraboli Hoo-hoo-hoo, go on, take the money and run, Go on, take the money and run! - Steve Miller Band “What separates us from the other killers, is we only kill bad people.”― Vigilante and “Some people just need killing.” ― Barry Eisler “In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.” ― George R. R. Martin “Wherever there is abuse there is also corruption. Politics, philosophy, theology, science, industry, any field with the potential to affect the well-being of others can be destroyed by abuse or saved by good will.” ― Criss Jami “True life is lived when tiny changes occur." ― Leo “You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life, really? It is a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away” ― James Four: Fourteen “In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.” Buddha

Unsurprisingly, the nation’s xenophobia has seeped into popular culture. Bollywood, long known for its extensive Muslim involvement across the entire industry, is being forced to toe the anti-Islam perspective. Many in Bollywood happily pushed the hard-line Hindu nationalist agenda, releasing films that openly celebrated the actions of the Indian armed forces. In a similar vein, the Israeli series Fauda, which features undercover Israeli agents in the West Bank, has been hugely popular among right-wing Indians, looking for a sugar hit of war on terror and anti-Islamist propaganda in a slickly produced format. During the May 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the right-wing economist Subramanian Swamy, who sits on the BJP national executive, tweeted that he loved Fauda.28 The post-9/11 “war on terror” suited both India and Israel in their plans to pacify their respective unwanted populations. To this end, Israel trained Indian forces in counterinsurgency. Following a 2014 agreement between Israel and India, pledging to cooperate on “public and homeland security,” countless Indian officers, special forces, pilots, and commandoes visited Israel for training. In 2020, Israel refused to screen Indian police officers to determine if they had committed any abuses in India. Israeli human rights advocate Eitay Mack and a range of other activists petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in 2020 to demand that Israel stop training Indian police officers who “blind, murder, rape, torture and hide civilians in Kashmir.” The court rejected the request, and in the words of the three justices, “without detracting from the importance of the issue of human rights violations in Kashmir.

A passionate emotion that rises among all. Count down to the near future, beside the path of forgetfulness. Can anyone know what’s around? Will they feel safe, or will they rot? Can they see the truth beyond the lines of darkness? It’s an unwanted feeling, an emotion, a burden. To many, this path granted them unlimited action, for unlimited access to time. Where they were able to go in and out of pathways, affecting lives without the sensation of being sorry for their actions. Only now had the creators decided to insert a notion to stop all this madness. Decided upon many to reach out and create a different valiant world, where no one would be able to manipulate, but things didn’t go to plan. The Rainbow–created to order the existence of all multi-coloured creatures, but what the creators had forgotten to realise was that, it could be deployed, and reconstructed. The product, no longer being the essence of survival, but now an item for destruction, which had to be demolished. However, no one was powerful enough to smash it. It was released among the human race and everyone hated the moment it brewed into something different, something more damaging than what it would have been if it was only used as their source of life. Now, the world, in a peril, must try to survive the next generations of constructors of the drug, now known as Boxsaje…

A chronic disturbance in which at least twelve of the following are present: 1. A sense of underachievement, of not meeting one’s goals (regardless of how much one has actually accomplished). 2. Difficulty getting organized. 3. Chronic procrastination or trouble getting started. 4. Many projects going simultaneously; trouble with follow-through. 5. A tendency to say what comes to mind without necessarily considering the timing or appropriateness of the remark. 6. A frequent search for high stimulation. 7. An intolerance of boredom. 8. Easy distractibility, trouble focusing attention, tendency to tune out or drift away in the middle of a page or a conversation, often coupled with an ability to hyperfocus at times. 9. Often creative, intuitive, highly intelligent. 10. Trouble in going through established channels, following “proper” procedure. 11. Impatient; low tolerance of frustration. 12. Impulsive, either verbally or in action, as in impulsive spending of money, changing plans, enacting new schemes or career plans, and the like; hot-tempered. 13. A tendency to worry needlessly, endlessly; a tendency to scan the horizon looking for something to worry about, alternating with inattention to or disregard for actual dangers. 14. A sense of insecurity. 15. Mood swings, mood lability, especially when disengaged from a person or a project. 16. Physical or cognitive restlessness. 17. A tendency toward addictive behavior. 18. Chronic problems with self-esteem. 19. Inaccurate self-observation. 20. Family history of ADD or manic-depressive illness or depression or substance abuse or other disorders of impulse control or mood. B. Childhood history of ADD. (It may not have been formally diagnosed, but in reviewing the history, one sees that the signs and symptoms were there.) C. Situation not explained by other medical or psychiatric condition.

As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion.

Living a life without setting goals is like sailing a ship without a planned course. You are likely to end up somewhere you didn’t intend to go!

Keep reminding the intellect—that the ability to picture is an attribute of God—the attribute of sight. The power to feel, experience, and associate with the perfected picture is God's power. The substance used in the world without—to make the forms in your picture and plan is God's pure substance. Then you must—know—God is the Doer, the Doing, and the Deed of every constructive form and action that ever has been sent forth—into the world of manifestation. When you thus use all the constructive processes—it is impossible for your plan—not—to come into your visible world.

The Origins and Development of the Spirit of the Prussian Officer,” he tells the story of a staff officer dutifully carrying out an order without question, only to be pulled up short by a high-ranking general with the words: “The King made you a staff officer because you should know when not to obey.” In contrast to other European officer corps, Prince Friedrich Karl comments, the Prussians do not allow themselves to be hemmed in with rules and regulations, but give rein to the imagination and exploit every opportunity opened up by unexpected success. Such behavior would not be possible if senior commanders were to demand full control over every unit.10