Prescription For Love Quotes

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When I give up the fish, I get, at long last, that thing I had been searching for: a mantra, a trick, a prescription for hope. I get the promise that there are good things in store. Not because I deserve them. Not because I worked for them. But because they are as much a part of Chaos as destruction and loss. Life, the flip side of death. Growth, of rot.
Lulu Miller (Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life)
HOW ANGELS SLEEP. Unsoundly. They toss and turn, trying to understand the mystery of the living. They know so little about what it's like to fill a new prescription for glasses and suddenly see the world again, with a mixture of disappointment and gratitude ... Also, they don't dream. For this reason, they have one less thing to talk about. In a backward way, when they wake up they feel as if there is something they are forgetting to tell each other. There is disagreement among the angels as to whether this is a result of something vestigial, or whether it is the result of the empathy they feel for the Living, so powerful it sometimes makes them weep. In general, they fall into these two camps on the subject of dreams. Even among the angels, there is the sadness of division.
Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)
I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful. I despised sophisters and calculators; I was groping for faith, honor, and prescriptive loyalties. I would have given any number of neo-classical pediments for one poor battered gargoyle.
Russell Kirk
He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (The Yellow Wall-Paper)
For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You don't need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers – but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens.
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
People are better at filling and properly administering prescription medication to their pets than to themselves. That’s not good. Even from your pet’s perspective, it’s not good. Your pet (probably) loves you, and would be happier if you took your medication.
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
I was immediately worn out by the tyranny of prescriptive joy.
Kate Bowler (Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved)
The First Prescription’s formula for success: Do whatever makes your inner light brighter. In other words, try to treat yourself and everyone else with love. 
Judith Orloff (Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear Into Vibrance, Strength, and Love)
My girl was mad and I loved her. Upon a night, she read my poetry; and kissing me madly she cried, ‘You are a genius, my love!’ To which I replied, ‘My girl,’ whispering, ‘Every doctor in this land with a prescription pad is more of a genius than I.
Roman Payne
Two cures for love 1. Don't see him. Don't phone or write a letter. 2. The easy way: Get to know him better.
Wendy Cope (The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Mind, Heart and Soul)
A few years ago I heard Jerome Kagan, a distinguished emeritus professor of child psychology at Harvard, say to the Dalai Lama that for every act of cruelty in this world there are hundreds of small acts of kindness and connection. His conclusion: "To be benevolent rather than malevolent is probably a true feature of our species." Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma. Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else's mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You don't need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers - but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens.
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
The hardest lessons come from the solutions people, who are already a little disappointed that I am not saving myself. There is always a nutritional supplement, Bible verse or mental process I have not adequately tried. “Keep smiling! Your attitude determines your destiny!” said a stranger named Jane in an email, having heard my news somewhere, and I was immediately worn out by the tyranny of prescriptive joy.
Kate Bowler (Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved)
Yawn... I believe that I love sleep much more than anybody I’ve ever met. I have the ability to sleep for 2 or 3 days and nights. I will go to bed at any given moment. I often confused my girlfriends this way— say it would be about onethirty in the afternoon: “well, I’m going to bed now, I’m going to sleep…” most of them wouldn’t mind, they would go to bed with me thinking I was hinting for sex but I would just turn my back and snore off. this, of course, could explain why so many of my girlfriends left me. as for doctors, they were never any help: “listen, I have this desire to go to bed and sleep, almost all the time. what is wrong with me?” “do you get enough exercise?” “yes…” “are you getting enough nourishment?” “yes…” they always handed me a prescription which I threw away between the office and the parking lot. it’s a curious malady because I can’t sleep between 6 p.m. and midnight. it must occur after midnight and when I arise it can never be before noon. and should the phone ring say at 10:30 a.m. I go into a mad rage don’t even ask who the caller is scream into the phone: “WHAT ARE YOU CALLING ME FOR AT THIS HOUR!” hang up… every person, I suppose, has their eccentricities but in an effort to be normal in the world’s eye they overcome them and therefore destroy their special calling. I’ve kept mine and do believe that they have lent generously to my existence. I think it’s the main reason I decided to become a writer: I can type anytime and sleep when I damn well please.
Charles Bukowski
friendship in marriage is its own thing: friendship in a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, or a cappuccino every Sunday morning. Friendship in buying undershirts and underpants. Friendship in picking up a prescription or rescuing the towed car. Friendship in waiting for the phone call after the mammogram. Friendship in toast buttered just so. Friendship in shoveling the snow. I am the one you want to tell. You are the one I want to tell.
Elizabeth Alexander
Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities.
Bessel van der Kolk
In all situations, a person will choose to live according to God’s way or man’s way. The problem with man’s way is that it changes and always fails. God’s plan, on the other hand, is always perfect, directional, prescriptive, and rewarding.
Tommy Nelson (The Book of Romance: What Solomon Says About Love, Sex, and Intimacy)
Be open to the fact that Spirit answers prayers three ways: “Yes!” and “Not now” and “No, because I love you too much.
Christiane Northrup (Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being)
Give time and money. And give it freely. But before giving it to another, give it to yourself. Spend lavishly, with your time and your money, on perfecting Yourself. Spend lavishly, with your time and money, on conquering Your mind. So that you may become a light to your loved ones, and the world.
Kapil Gupta (Direct Truth: Uncompromising, non-prescriptive Truths to the enduring questions of life)
Love is a chemical reaction, but it cannot be fully understood or defined by science. And though a body cannot exist without a soul, it too cannot be fully understood or defined by science. Love is the most powerful form of energy, but science cannot decipher its elements. Yet the best cure for a sick soul is love, but even the most advanced physician cannot prescribe it as medicine.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Desire his death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
William Shakespeare
Our bodies love us so much that they will do anything necessary to bring us to a place in which we recognize and release our unlovingness toward ourselves that’s causing us deep heartache. The message of illness and pain may be “It’s time to bring healing love into your energy field. You’ve been in emotional pain long enough. Let me turn up the volume by creating physical pain so you’ll pay attention and take care of your heart.
Christiane Northrup (Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being)
The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie-- Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear. When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet's unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find--it's your own affair-- But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear. When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!). When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone--wherever it goes--for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart to a dog to tear. We've sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long-- So why in--Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Rudyard Kipling (Collected Dog Stories)
The Mania Speaks You clumsy bootlegger. Little daffodil. I watered you with an ocean and you plucked one little vein? Downed a couple bottles of pills and got yourself carted off to the ER? I gifted you the will of gunpowder, a matchstick tongue, and all you managed was a shredded sweater and a police warning? You should be legend by now. Girl in an orange jumpsuit, a headline. I built you from the purest napalm, fed you wine and bourbon. Preened you in the dark, hammered lullabies into your thin skull. I painted over the walls, wrote the poems. I shook your goddamn boots. Now you want out? Think you’ll wrestle me out of you with prescriptions? A good man’s good love and some breathing exercises? You think I can’t tame that? I always come home. Always. Ravenous. Loaded. You know better than anybody: I’m bigger than God.
Jeanann Verlee (Said The Manic To The Muse)
How many thousands of stories like yours have been told and forgotten how many stories of lovingly durable nurses of hospital sheets of IV tubes dripping saline and morphine How many stories of drugs that would haul you along in their wake for a while but finally let you sink
Mark Bibbins (13th Balloon)
Rather than shaming and condemning an already deeply stigmatized group, we, collectively, can embrace them – not necessarily their behavior, but them – their humanness. As the saying goes, ‘you gotta hate the crime, but love the criminal.’ This is not a mere platitude; it is a prescription for liberation.
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
Then let’s use this incredible tool God has given us to assess the risks that we face every day. We have the means to analyze risks and decide which are worth taking and which should be avoided. Do you have a brain? Then use it. That’s the secret. That’s my simple but powerful prescription for life, love, and success in a dangerous world.
Ben Carson (Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose, and Live with Acceptable Risk)
Understanding requires our own observation. Solutions frequently come in the form of mental pictures. The only prescription is to get out and use our eyes to see how things work.
David Sturt (Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love)
This is too big a word for human beings to understand. Like is more useful and powerful than love.
Kapil Gupta (Direct Truth: Uncompromising, non-prescriptive Truths to the enduring questions of life)
You’re an asshole. Unfortunately, there are no prescription drugs for that.
Roe Horvat (A Love Song for the Sad Man in the White Coat)
Spirit or Source is our true Beloved, who will always accept, forgive, and love us.
Christiane Northrup (Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being)
Love, Colter Shaw had learned, could be an endlessly refillable prescription of madness.
Jeffery Deaver (The Never Game (Colter Shaw, #1))
After everything that's happened, her fear of requesting a prescription or of asking Trevor about his mother baffles her. Shouldn't life-altering events make you less afraid of the little stuff? But it's the little stuff that paralyzes her: talking, eating, dressing, sleeping. Everyone in school is afraid of the apocalypse; she is afraid of living through it.
Alaya Dawn Johnson (Love Is the Drug)
You can’t prescribe decently for something you hate. It will always come out wrong. You can’t prescribe decently for something you despair in. If you despair of humankind, you’re not going to have good policies for nurturing human beings. I think people ought to give prescriptions who have ideas for improving things, ought to concentrate on the things that they love and that they want to nurture.
Jane Jacobs
Tiny little doses, every day, is what it takes to make a healthy relationship. Why? Because that’s exactly what a relationship is—not one big thing, but a million tiny things, every day, for a lifetime.
John M. Gottman (The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy (The Seven Days Series Book 1))
These US doctors are trained to cut you and write prescriptions. That is all. They don't know a thing about healing you. They treat symptoms, not causes. Like other professionals, they're working to buy their homes and send their kids to Harvard. That doesn't mean they don't care about your wellness, or that they're not good at diagnosing, and some of their treatments are excellent and should be followed. But before you let anyone go sticking a knife or needle in you, you've got to investigate. You've got to be sure you know what's happening with your body. You've got to advocate for yourself and your loved ones.
Cicely Tyson (Just as I Am)
And since no one any longer responds to things spontaneously-you take drugs to study, drugs to love, drugs to rise up in revolt, drugs to forget-the distinction between manipulated and natural feelings has ceased to exist.
Stanisław Lem
His prescription to experience a deep sense of meaning, then, was remarkably pragmatic. He had three recommendations: 1. Have a project to work on, some reason to get out of bed in the morning and preferably something that serves other people. 2. Have a redemptive perspective on life’s challenges. That is, when something difficult happens, recognize the ways that difficulty also serves you. 3. Share your life with a person or people who love you unconditionally. Frankl called this treatment logotherapy, or a therapy of meaning. And surprisingly, it worked. He was put in charge of the mental-health division of the Viennese hospital system because they had lost far too many patients to suicide. When Frankl came aboard, he had more than thirty thousand suicidal patients under his care. The challenge was phenomenal. Frankl created community groups for the patients and taught counselors to identify projects the patients could contribute to, serious work the world needed that would give them a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Frankl also had the patients circle the difficult experiences they’d had and while allowing them to grieve, also asked them to list benefits that had come from their pain. The result of the program was transformational. Not one patient committed suicide on Frankl’s watch.
Donald Miller (Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy)
How people reacted to their partner’s bids for connection was in fact the biggest predictor of happiness and relationship stability. These fleeting little moments, it turned out, spelled the difference between happiness and unhappiness, between lasting love and divorce.
John M. Gottman (The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy (The Seven Days Series Book 1))
Right now, the world you are inheriting is locked in a struggle between love and fear. Fear manifests as anger, insecurity, and loneliness. Fear eats away at our society, leaving all of us less whole, so we teach you that every healthy relationship inspires love, not fear. Love shows up as kindness, generosity, and compassion. It is healing. It makes us more whole. The greatest gift to ever receive will come through these relationships. The most meaningful connections may last for a few moments, or for a lifetime, but each will be a reminder that we were meant to be a part of one another's lives, to lift one another up, to reach heights together, greater than any of us could reach on our own. Our hope is that you will always have friends in your lives who love and remind you of your innate beauty, strength, and compassion. Equally as important, we hope you will do the same for others. It pains us that we won't always be there for you when you feel lonely and sad, but we offer this simple prescription to remind you, you are loved. When those moments of loneliness and suffering arise, take both your hands and place them on your heart and close your eyes. Think about the friends and family who have been there for you throughout your life, in moments of joy, and also in the depths of disappointment, the people who have listened to you when you were sad, the people who believed in you, even when you lost faith in yourself, the people who have held you up, lifted you, and seeing you for who you really are. Feel their warmth and their kindness washing over you, filling you with happiness. Now, open your eyes.
Vivek H. Murthy (Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness)
Just the two major legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol, are together directly responsible for over 500,000 deaths a year in this country. Deaths associated with prescription drugs are an additional 100,000 a year. The combined deaths associated with all the illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and PCP, may increase this total by another 5,000. In other words, if all illegal drug use were to be curtailed by some stroke of a magic wand, the drug-related deaths in the country would decrease by 1 percent. The remaining 99% remain just as dead,
Alexander Shulgin (Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story)
So let Dr. Love offer you a prescription: eight hugs a day. We've shown that if you give eight hugs a day you'll be happier, and the world will be a better place because you'll be causing others' brains to release oxytocin. They, in turn, will connect better to others, treat them more generously, causing oxytocin release...yes, the virtuous cycle begins with a hug. The other thing I do when anyone comes to see me is to ask how I can make their visit with me the most valuable and fulfilling. This is part of being fully present and available, which is another lesson I've learned from the Moral Molecule.
Paul J. Zak (The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity)
Atlas There is a kind of love callend maintenance, Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it; Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs; Which answers letters; which knows the way The money goes; which deals with dentists And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains, And postcards to the lonely; which upholds The permanently rickety elaborate Structures of living; which is Atlas. And maintenance is the sensible side of love, Which knows what time and weather are doing To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring; Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps My suspect edifice upright in air, As Atlas did the sky.
U.A. Fanthorpe (The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Mind, Heart and Soul)
Frankl theorized a sense of meaning was existential, that it was something that passed through us not unlike the recognition of beauty or a feeling of gratitude. And he believed life could be structured in such a way people would experience meaning. His prescription to experience a deep sense of meaning, then, was remarkably pragmatic. He had three recommendations: 1. Have a project to work on, some reason to get out of bed in the morning and preferably something that serves other people. 2. Have a redemptive perspective on life’s challenges. That is, when something difficult happens, recognize the ways that difficulty also serves you. 3. Share your life with a person or people who love you unconditionally.
Donald Miller (Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy)
Spirituality is a concoction of prescriptions and half-truths. It is a circus of orange robes, incense, and ineffective jargon such as love and mindfulness. It is a maze of silent retreats and men with pony tails and yoga pants spouting spiritual psychobabble to those who enjoy the psychobabble. It is the unserious leading the unserious in concentric circles that lead only to more circles.
Kapil Gupta (Direct Truth: Uncompromising, non-prescriptive Truths to the enduring questions of life)
Revolutionary love” is the choice to enter into wonder and labor for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves in order to transform the world around us. It is not a formal code or prescription but an orientation to life that is personal and political and rooted in joy. Loving only ourselves is escapism; loving only our opponents is self-loathing; loving only others is ineffective. All three practices together make love revolutionary, and revolutionary love can only be practiced in community.
Valarie Kaur (See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love)
No one could believe that Rachel Held—once such a promising young evangelist—was losing faith. Their prescriptions rolled in: “God’s ways are higher than our ways. You need to stop asking questions and just trust him.” “There must be some sin in your life causing you to stumble. If you repent, your doubts will go away.” “You need to avoid reading anything besides the Bible. Those books of yours are leading you astray.” “You should come to my church.” “You should listen to Tim Keller.” “You need to check your pride, Rachel, and submit yourself to God.
Rachel Held Evans (Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church)
I think you gave me the wrong prescription, Dr. McNamara. This says pre-natal vitamins. I need one for birth control pills.” My hand is shaking as I reach my arm out to give it back to her.  She looks back over her paperwork and then shuffles her chair closer to the bed.  “I’m afraid not, Ms. Becker. As part of the normal blood work-up, we do a pregnancy test, and yours came back positive. Since your numbers are still relatively low, I would assume that you aren’t very far along at all — a few weeks at the most. And considering your reaction, I’ll also assume that you didn’t already know.” “But
Melissa Collins (Let Love In (Love, #1))
Our society is very Prescriptive in it's idea of how people should be, and so is our education The result is - unemotional robots, angry rebels, wounded souls and a defeated mankind. Let's give our children the freedom TO BE. Let our education equip them with : 1. Tools and Focus to understand themselves 2. Ability to accept themselves and others without being judgemental 3. A sense of Right that is guided by their own heart and conscience. May be then, our future generations will learn to truly Love, not just each other , but themselves too. And may be then, we can have a truly Happy World.
Drishti Bablani
If you were in a drug store," said Stahr "-having a prescription filled-" "You mean a chemist?" Boxley asked. "If you were in a chemist's," conceded Stahr, "and you were getting a prescription for some member of your family who was very sick-" "-Very ill?" queried Boxley. "Very ill. Then whatever caught your attention through the window, whatever distracted you and held you would probably be material for pictures." "A murder outside the window, you mean." "There you go," said Stahr smiling. "It might be a spider working on the pane." "Of course-I see." "I'm afraid you don't, Mr. Boxley. You see it for your medium but not for ours. You keep the spiders for yourself and you try to pin the murders on us.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Love of the Last Tycoon)
Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord; Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word. Make friends of God’s children; help those who are weak, Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek. Take time to be holy, the world rushes on; Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be; Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see. Take time to be holy, let Him be thy guide; And run not before Him whatever betide. In joy or in sorrow still follow thy Lord, And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word. Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul; Each thought and each motive beneath His control. Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love, Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above. William D. Longstaff
Matthew Sleeth (24/6: A Prescription for a Healthier, Happier Life)
Pretty quickly, a pattern emerged surrounding what we started calling bids for connection. One person would make a bid, initiating a moment of connection—it could be physical or verbal, overt or subtle—and the researcher controlling the camera would zoom in close on their partner’s faces. Partners responded to bids for connection in one of three ways: 1. By turning toward: They gave a positive or affirmative response, acknowledging the other person and engaging with their attempt to connect. (Even a “hmm?” can count as turning toward.) 2. By turning away: They gave no response, either actively ignoring or just not noticing their partner’s attempt to connect. 3. By turning against: They responded irritably or angrily to actively shut down their partner’s attempt to connect.
John M. Gottman (The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection, and Joy (The Seven Days Series Book 1))
Scientists know your DNA reflects the genetic legacy of your parents, their parents, and your ancestors. It’s possible that it also reflects their emotional experiences. As researchers learn more about our DNA, maybe we’ll find that our cells have encoded the traumas of our ancestors. Experiments in mice have shown that aversion to certain smells is passed down to the offspring after the parental mice were trained to avoid a certain smell by being shocked every time they smelled it.8 While we know that a family history of heart disease may mean close relatives share genes and genetic markers, if we look back, we can often see in family stories hearts that are broken, conflicted, and prevented from loving fully. In my family, people tend to die of heart disease prematurely. My maternal
Christiane Northrup (Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being)
Religions that we make up for ourselves always reduce reality to what we feel comfortable with, or what makes us comfortable. We love being insiders. We feel secure when we are with cronies who talk our language and sing our songs and don’t rock the boat. It hardly matters that such a life is banal. It is safe. “Why does man accept to live a trivial life?” asks Ernest Becker. His answer: “Because of the danger of a full horizon of experience, of course.” 3 The danger is not to our humanity, but to our sense of running life on our own terms, managing people and things with ourselves at the center. The larger the world, the less of it we can subject to our own control. But that is a miserable ambition and a certain prescription for boredom. It is God’s world and God rules it. Our wholeness comes from participating in what God is doing, not manipulating what we can manage.
Eugene H. Peterson (Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best)
Wrapped up in all of this talk of acceptance and tolerance is the matter of judgment. The worst thing in the world, we are told, is to judge. We must never judge, never be judgmental. We are constantly reminded that Jesus said, “Do not judge” (Matthew 7:1). And those three words have become the most popular words ever uttered by Our Lord. We like to pretend that everything else He said is summarized by this one phrase. We treat “Do not judge” as the distillation of His life and ministry. There are over seven hundred thousand words in the Bible (yes, I counted), and we have come to believe that they all can be condensed down into those three. We’re wrong. Yes, He does tell us not to judge. But to understand what “Do not judge” actually means, and how it ought to apply to our lives, we have to look at those words in the context of Christ’s teachings. We don’t even have to look very hard, because He makes the point clear in the very same chapter of the Bible. Here is the full verse from the seventh chapter of Matthew: Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. The point here is that we must judge rightly and fairly, as Jesus says specifically in John 7:24: “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” The whole Bible is chock-full of judgments we are told to make about ourselves, about others, about actions and things and situations. Of course Jesus is not warning against judgment per se. He is warning, instead, against hypocritical and self-serving judgments. He says we must attend to the plank in our own eyes rather than focusing on the dust in our brother’s eye. But He does not recommend that we just leave our brother there to deal with the dust on his own. He tells us to take the plank out of our own eyes first and then help with the dust. This is both a practical and moral prescription. Moral because ignoring your plank would be self-righteous and dishonest. Practical because you cannot see well enough to handle the dust problem if you’ve got a big plank sticking in your eye. Judgment is good. We are commanded to judge. But our judgments themselves must be good, and made out of love and concern for our brother.
Matt Walsh (Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians)
THE SPEED OF TIME VARIED, fast or slow, depending on the depth of my sleep. I became very sensitive to the taste of the water from the tap. Sometimes it was cloudy and tasted of soft minerals. Other times it was gassy and tasted like somebody’s bad breath. My favorite days were the ones that barely registered. I’d catch myself not breathing, slumped on the sofa, staring at an eddy of dust tumbling across the hardwood floor in the draft, and I’d remember that I was alive for a second, then fade back out. Achieving that state took heavy dosages of Seroquel or lithium combined with Xanax, and Ambien or trazodone, and I didn’t want to overuse those prescriptions. There was a fine mathematics for how to mete out sedation. The goal for most days was to get to a point where I could drift off easily, and come to without being startled. My thoughts were banal. My pulse was casual. Only the coffee made my heart work a bit harder. Caffeine was my exercise. It catalyzed my anxiety so that I could crash and sleep again. The movies I cycled through the most were The Fugitive, Frantic, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and Burglar. I loved Harrison Ford and Whoopi Goldberg.
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
A Prescription for a Simple Life 1. Write in a journal daily, or almost daily. 2. Take three to four months off every few years and go live in some very different place, preferably a foreign country. 3. Limit your work (outside of the home) to 30 hours a week, 20 if you are a parent. 4. Don't let any material thing come into your home unless you absolutely love it and want to keep it for the rest of your life or until it is beyond repair. 5. Spend at least an hour a week in a natural setting, away from crowds of people, traffic, and buildings. Three to four hours of nature time each week is even better. 6. Live in a home with only those rooms that you or someone in your family use every day. 7. Select a home and place of work no more than 30 minutes away from each other. 8. Do whatever you need to do to connect with a sense of spirit in your life, whether it be prayer, religious services, meditation, spiritually-related reading, or walking in nature. 9. Seek the support of others who want to simplify their lives. Join or start a simplicity circle if you enjoy group interaction. 10. Practice saying no. Say no to those things that don't bring you inner peace and fulfillment, whether it be more things, more career responsibility, or more social activities.
Linda Breen Pierce (Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World)
General propositions – universal laws governing human thinking and human existence – leave room for many individualistic permutations. How shall I survive the specter of tomorrow, what is my life plan, and how will I come to terms with the finite lives of all humankind? How do I heal seeping internal wounds that lacerations weaken personal resolve? A person whom avoids seeking fame and fortune and engages in contemplative thought will enjoy a heightened state of existence. My survival hinges upon shedding the shackles of modern time’s economic rigors; seeking penance through heartfelt contrition; accepting a vision quest devoid of wanting; rejoicing in my budding curiosity; loving nature; giving breath to living without fear and apprehension; and eliminating any form of want or angst from my cerebral being. Unshackling myself from the burdens of the past – guilt, remorse, anger, and petty resentments – is part of the healing process. The other part of a rehabilitation prescription is declaring free rein to live in the present one moment at a time. After all, humankind is the only member of the animal kingdom that walks this earth with the foreknowledge of its ultimate demise, but why would any person allow information pertaining to our personal fate ruin a perfectly good walk in nature’s woodlands with our fellow creatures?
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
At the time of solitude, I went where Narmada was sleeping. She got awake and sat up. She neither got scared nor nervous but she immediately got off the bed. She kept both her hands tied on her chest. I was standing so close to her that my face was near her face. We could sense each other’s breath. I called out her name and could not speak anything else. After a moment, I started - “I love you Narmada…I like to be with you…I want to marry you.” She got nervous and said - “Please, go to your room, why have you come here? It may cause trouble if Jaanki sees us like this.” She was neck down. Her eyes were on the floor. Her heart was beating fast. “Don’t you want to talk to me? Why are you angry with me? Why don’t you trust on my feelings for you?” - I softly asked her. “I guess you don’t like my friendship with Varsha. You and Varsha are poles apart.” - I added. She said - “You please go. It would not be nice if someone sees us like this. I do not want anything from you.” I said - “But I am dying for you and I know you too are made for me.” Her eyes suddenly fell on maid behind the curtains of the door who was trying to listen to our conversation. Narmada said - “You please leave right now, we’ll talk later. Mom is not at home.” I went by on her prescriptive tone. She was fighting for her self-being and the reason was only Varsha. She felt suffocated with my friendship with Varsha. I was glad to hear her words - “WE’LL TALK LATER”. This meant, she gave her consent to my love. She understood my restlessness. -- Excerpts from Romantic Novel "Narmada
Laxman Rao
It is clear that 'inquiry', as conceived by Dewey, is part of the general process of attempting to make the world more organic. 'Unified wholes' are to be the outcome of inquiries. Dewey's love of what is organic is due partly to biology, partly to the lingering influence of Hegel. Unless on the basis of an unconscious Hegelian metaphysic, I do not see why inquiry should be expected to result in 'unified wholes'. If I am given a pack of cards in disorder, and asked to inquire into their sequence, I shall, if I follow Dewey's prescription, first arrange them in order, and then say that this was the order resulting from inquiry. There will be, it is true, an 'objective transformation of objective subject-matter' while I am arranging the cards, but the definition allows for this. If, at the end, I am told: 'We wanted to know the sequence of the cards when they were given to you, not after you had re-arranged them,' I shall, if I am a disciple of Dewey, reply: 'Your ideas are altogether too static. I am a dynamic person, and when I inquire into any subject-matter I first alter it in such a way as to make the inquiry easy.' The notion that such a procedure is legitimate can only be justified by a Hegelian distinction of appearance and reality: the appearance may be confused and fragmentary, but the reality is always orderly and organic. Therefore when I arrange the cards I am only revealing their true eternal nature. But this part of the doctrine is never made explicit. The metaphysic of organism underlies Dewey's theories, but I do not know how far he is aware of this fact.
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
Dr. Luskin lifts forgiveness out of the purely psychological and religious domains and anchors it in science, medicine, and health. This book is vitally needed.” —Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words “Simply the best book on the subject, adding sophistication and depth to our instinctive but sometimes uncertain understanding of how forgiveness heals both those forgiven and those who forgive. Luskin’s research also shows how modern psychology can enrich traditional moral teachings. His book will stand as a modern classic in psychology.” —Michael Murphy, cofounder of the Esalen Institute and author of Future of the Body “Combining groundbreaking research with a proven methodology, Forgive for Good is an accessible and practical guide to learning the power of forgiveness.” —John Gray, Ph.D., author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus “Straightforward, sincere, and essential.” —Dave Pelzer, author of A Child Called It and Help Yourself “A rare and marvelous book—warm, loving, solidly researched, and wise. It could change your life.” —George Leonard, author of Mastery and president of the Esalen Institute “Dr. Luskin’s wise and clinically astute methods for finding forgiveness could not be more timely … a sure-handed guide through the painful emotions of hurt, sadness and anger towards a resolution that makes peace with the past, soothes the present, and liberates the future.
Fred Luskin (Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness)
And I commend to you the simple practice of extending unconditional love to another person at least once a day, every day, for the rest of your life. You’ll heal your world in delightful and surprising ways. Yet it is important to understand that love’s power can be trivialized. “Love heals” has been a popular notion for centuries. It has enjoyed a recent resurgence that has had an unfortunate side effect. Many people who do not get well, in the sense of a clinical cure, are made to feel guilty that they were not able to care enough or demonstrate ample enough compassion to effect healing. For them, love does not heal. Love is a cruel master. This “guilt-tripping,” this illusion that we have total control, misses the point entirely. It damages the individual and it relegates unconditional loving to a technique, a modality in health and healing. Love is much more than a prescription. There is no formula that universally links spiritual perfection and clinical cures. Those who make such claims are misguided. Rather, love transforms suffering — a crucial distinction. That transformation may include a clinical cure; it may not. Cure is not the standard for judging. For even the process of death is transformed by unconditional loving. We can leave the world filled with joyful memories, an example of how to love. That’s healing of the highest order. Arid death cannot be counted, then, as failure.
Greg Anderson (The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness: Feel, Think, and Live Better Than You Ever Thought Possible)
And I commend to you the simple practice of extending unconditional love to another person at least once a day, every day, for the rest of your life. You’ll heal your world in delightful and surprising ways. Yet it is important to understand that love’s power can be trivialized. “Love heals” has been a popular notion for centuries. It has enjoyed a recent resurgence that has had an unfortunate side effect. Many people who do not get well, in the sense of a clinical cure, are made to feel guilty that they were not able to care enough or demonstrate ample enough compassion to effect healing. For them, love does not heal. Love is a cruel master. This “guilt-tripping,” this illusion that we have total control, misses the point entirely. It damages the individual and it relegates unconditional loving to a technique, a modality in health and healing. Love is much more than a prescription. There is no formula that
Greg Anderson (The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness: Feel, Think, and Live Better Than You Ever Thought Possible)
His prescription to experience a deep sense of meaning, then, was remarkably pragmatic. He had three recommendations: 1. Have a project to work on, some reason to get out of bed in the morning and preferably something that serves other people. 2. Have a redemptive perspective on life’s challenges. That is, when something difficult happens, recognize the ways that difficulty also serves you. 3. Share your life with a person or people who love you unconditionally.
Donald Miller (Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy)
People aren’t learning social, communication, or relationship skills in the education system. Instead they have to trust the school of hard knocks, their street smarts, a mentor/coach, or a book. Today, almost everyone is struggling and overwhelmed by how to put what they learn into action—how to find and develop new friends, business colleagues, and romantic relationships, and create a meaningful life. Many people are just giving up and feel hopeless and lost, and they disengage from the world around them or self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, prescriptions, etc. In this way, they create a cycle of failure in their relationships and enter new toxic relationships…over and over again.
Jason Treu (Social Wealth: How to Build Extraordinary Relationships By Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Lead and Network)
Earlier, at the first Methodist Conference in 1744, Wesley had advised his helpers and assistants to preach Christ in all his offices and "to declare his law as well as his gospel, both to believers and unbelievers."52 In this counsel, then, the moral law holds great value not only in convicting sinners but also in keeping believers in Christ. That is, Wesley highlighted both the accusatory role of the law, in a way similar to Luther,53 as well as the prescriptive role of this same law, in a way similar to Calvin;54 the one to bring sinners to Christ; the other to keep believers alive in the Lord.
Kenneth J. Collins (The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace)
For Wesley, then, obedience to God through the moral law is required in the practical Christian life, not of course as the condition of acceptance, but in order to continue in the rich grace of God.55 And that Wesley did indeed develop a formal prescriptive use of the moral law— the tertius usus—is evident in his observation: "Each is continually sending me to the other—the law to Christ, and Christ to the law."56 Simply put, obedience to God through the moral law does not establish the Christian life, but it is a necessary fruit of that faith that both justifies and regenerates.
Kenneth J. Collins (The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace)
Burke, and the better men among his disciples, knew that change in society is natural, inevitable, and beneficial; the statesman should not struggle vainly to dam the whole stream of alteration, because then he would be opposing Providence; instead, his duty is to reconcile innovation and prescriptive truth, to lead the waters of novelty into the canals of custom. This accomplished, even though he may seem to himself to have failed, the conservative has executed his destined work in the great mysterious incorporation of the human race; and if he has not preserved intact the old ways he loved, still he has modified greatly the ugly aspect of the new ways.
Russell Kirk (The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot)
Transformation happens when we see our own crippling brokenness and need for God’s grace in the face and story of the addict in front of us. When addicts are not just the heroin pushers or prescription pill junkies “out there,” but are in our pews and among us, we are in the right position to begin helping addicts step into recovery. And this identification can’t be emphasized enough: my own secret cravings, patterns of self-destructive behavior and unchecked forms of consumption (of money, power, approval—you name it) may not manifest themselves in quite the same way as those of the crack addict in front of me, but they fall within the same realm of human bondage. So getting addicts into recovery means first standing in solidarity with addicts, recognizing that their plight and their stories are hitched to our own and in many ways are similar.
Jonathan Benz (The Recovery-Minded Church: Loving and Ministering to People With Addiction)
The doctor agreed to give her a prescription and painkillers. Then he and the nurse walked out leaving her alone with her riveting thoughts.
Leo Sullivan (Keisha & Trigga : A Gangster Love Story)
When addicts are not just the heroin pushers or prescription pill junkies “out there,” but are in our pews and among us, we are in the right position to begin helping addicts step into recovery.
Jonathan Benz (The Recovery-Minded Church: Loving and Ministering to People With Addiction)
No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You don’t need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers—but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens.
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
Romance is an adventurous odyssey. Falling in love in an experience unlike any other. Love stories capturing the madness, struggles, anguish, excitement, adventure, passion, hope, relief, and wonder of that journey give us an opportunity to experience the magic all over again. Perpetuating myths of addiction, simplistic and formulaic prescription, and manipulation and exploitation of innate human emotions are at best insulting to the reader if not downright unseemly.
K.J. Kilton
Many see this difficult passage as a prescription for ex-communication from the church. Aramaic speakers see in this passage the words “Turn him over to the Accuser,” as a figure of speech meaning “Let him suffer the consequences of his actions.” We have similar sayings in English. “Let him stew in his own juices.” Or “Give him enough rope to hang himself.” Or “Let him learn his lesson the hard way.” Regardless, it is not a light thing to be handed over to Satan. Apparently this man learned his lesson and repented, for Paul instructs the Corinthians in his second letter to forgive and comfort him. See 2 Corinthians 2:6–11.
Brian Simmons (1 & 2 Corithians: Love and Truth)
filling the form in.  She held up the photo and matched it with the wall, a tired, thinlooking girl looking out at her. It was set to the right of Oliver’s. They could have had them taken at the same time. She’d ask Mary.  Grace had said she had only been with Oliver — or at least that’s what the answers suggested. She’d have to ask her to make sure. It wasn’t unknown for homeless people to get into disagreements over love. When you’ve got nothing much to lose, the law doesn’t come into play when you’re asking yourself if you’re prepared to kill for someone.  Grace also admitted to being a regular heroin user and agreed to have an examination. She also said she didn’t have any diseases as far as she knew. She was the same age, too. Eighteen. Had they known each other before they’d become homeless? She’d have to find Grace to know the truth.  She went back to Oliver’s file and checked the date next to his signature. It said the seventh of September. Just under two months ago.  Jamie leafed to the next and only other page in the file. It was another shabbily photocopied sheet. Mary must have been doing them on her printer-scanner at home, creating them on her computer. She really did care. The sheet displayed a pixelated outline of the human body — no doubt an image pulled off the web and then stretched out to fill a page. The resolution was too low to keep any sort of detail, but the shape still came through okay. It was a human with their arms out, feet apart. At the top of the page, in Comic Sans, ‘Examination Sheet’ was written as the title.  In appropriately illegible handwriting for a doctor, notes had been jotted around the body. Parts had been circled with lines being drawn to the corresponding note. She read words like ‘graze’ and ‘lesion’. ‘Rash’ cropped up a few times. But there didn’t look to be anything sinister going on. The crooks of the elbows, as well as the ankles, were all circled several times but nothing was written at the sides. Those areas didn’t need explaining, though underneath, as if encapsulating the entire exam were the words ‘No signs of infection’. So he’d been relatively careful, then. Clean needles, at least. Under that, there was a little paragraph recommending a general blood panel, but overall, Oliver seemed to be in decent health. Nothing had been prescribed, it seemed.  She checked Grace’s and found it to be much the same, complete with triple circles around the elbows and ankles. Though her genital area had also been circled and the word ‘Rash’ had been written. At the bottom, a prescription had been written for azithromycin.  Jamie clicked her teeth together, rummaging in her brain for the name. Was it a gonorrhoea medication or chlamydia? She knew it was for an STD, she just couldn’t remember which. But that meant that where she’d put down ‘1’ for number of
Morgan Greene (Bare Skin (DS Jamie Johansson #1))
No serious religious path gives anyone a pass on addressing the suffering of other sentient beings. The idea that we can leave politics out of our conceptualization of our spiritual journey is an outdated concept, because politics is simply the journey we take together. We can’t transform our country without transforming our politics, and that we can do only by participating. Standing on the sidelines is not an option for a conscious seeker, or for a conscious citizen. Too much blood and too much suffering result from an unconscious politics for those of us who claim to be on the journey of higher consciousness to ignore. We must take a fundamental step forward in re-creating the world from the inside out. “Love each other” is not just a prescription for personal salvation; it is a prescription for political renewal as well.
Marianne Williamson (A Politics of Love: A Handbook for a New American Revolution)
He wondered how it would be if there were no prescriptions or proscriptions for handling a loved one’s death. What if, rather than prescribed behavior surrounding experiences of liminality, people were forbidden to react with emotion, whether grief or joy? In the case of reacting to the death of a loved one, would people hurt more or hurt less if they were not sanctioned to mourn?
Peggy Lammers (Onansburg, Iowa)
Biblically speaking, the only prescription for a sick Christian is to have local mature believers minister to him or her. You don’t need to have perfect faith. You don’t have to eliminate all doubt. You don’t have to confess the right promises or quote the right scriptures. You don’t have to uncover secret sins or figure out spiritual roots. You don’t have to hunt down a faith-healer. You don’t have to perform. And you certainly don’t have to figure out how to minister to yourself (although there’s nothing wrong with trying). All these things are nice if they happen, but none of them are Biblical responsibilities of a sick person. The only thing you need to do is touch Jesus, and He’s right there in the nearest Christian.
Art Thomas (Healing Miracles for Your Family: Practical Solutions for Helping Your Loved One Experience a Healing Miracle)
most advice for couples focuses on their personal relationship, not the way it intersects with professional dreams. Even then, couples are bombarded with blanket prescriptions on what they should do: “Divide the housework equally,” “Strike a balance between life and career,” “Make time for one another”—none of which have helped couples become clearer about, let alone learn how to satisfy, their deepest needs in work and in love.
Jennifer Petriglieri (Couples That Work: How To Thrive in Love and at Work)
The fundamental problem with fundamentalists was that no matter how much touchy-feely love and peace their religions professed, in practice they always turned into prescriptions for moral contempt. Reasons to hate were given divine sanction... If you consider somebody's behaviour or beliefs an affront to your God for which they will suffer an eternity of pain and humiliation, it makes it kind of hard to then treat that person as an equal human being.
Christopher Brookmyre (Not the End of the World)
She loved to read and did so quite uncritically, taking each book as a prescription of sorts, an argument for a certain kind of life.
Jennifer Egan (The Invisible Circus)
Lovallo and Kahneman offer a useful prescription to repair this cognitive bias: Get the data. Track down actual figures on launch failure rates for your company, your industry, other industries or projects similar to yours. The numbers will be fascinating – and sobering.
Adrian J. Slywotzky (Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It)
Two conflicting forces cannot exist in one human heart. When doubt reigns, faith cannot abide. Where hatred rules, love is crowded out. Where selfishness rules, there love cannot dwell. When worry is present, trust cannot crowd its way in. The very best prescription for banishing worry is found in Psalm 37:5: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” The word commit means to turn over to, to entrust completely.
Billy Graham (Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional)
In 2008, Donald Trump published a book with Meredith McIver titled Never Give Up. In it he compiled what he labeled his “Top 10 List for Success.” The items on his list are so close to Peale’s prescriptions that it worth listing them as they are deeply built into Trump’s self-psychology. Despite being written over ten years ago, one can see all these elements of Trump’s current rhetoric and conduct. Trump’s ten rules include: 1. Never give up! Do not settle for remaining in your comfort zone. Remaining complacent is a good way to get nowhere. 2. Be passionate! If you love what you’re doing, it will never seem like work. 3. Be focused! Ask yourself: What should I be thinking about right now? Shut out interference. In this age of multitasking, this is a valuable technique to acquire. 4. Keep your momentum! Listen, apply, and move forward. Do not procrastinate. 5. See yourself as victorious! That will focus you in the right direction. 6. Be tenacious! Being stubborn can work wonders. 7. Be lucky! The old saying: ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get’ is absolutely right on. 8. Believe in yourself! If you don’t, no one else will either. Think of yourself as a one-man army. 9. Ask yourself: What am I pretending not to see? There may be some great opportunities right around you, even if things aren’t looking so great. Great adversity can turn into a great victory. 10. Look at the solution, not the problem. And never give up! Never, never, never give up.
Sheldon Roth M.D. (Psychologically Sound: The Mind of Donald J. Trump)
Education is not about enacting a prescriptive, boxed sort of curriculum-based classroom, but instead is about passing on a legacy of a love for learning, an independent joy in discovery, a motivation to bring light, beauty, and goodness back into the world of our children.
Sally Clarkson (Awaking Wonder: Opening Your Child's Heart to the Beauty of Learning)
Drinkers at social events will tell you they don’t need to drink. But, when the next bit of anxiety comes up, they grab another glass. Smokers will tell you they enjoy lighting up. They’ll tell you they feel better right after a cigarette. And nearly all of them will tell you they really want to quit—they’re just not quite ready yet. Workaholics will tell you they enjoy what they do, or at least feel a sense of purpose, while stretching themselves to the breaking point. They’ll tell you they have to do it. Some will even admit that it makes them feel important. They’ll promise to get control of their schedules… as soon as the next project is done. Compulsive shoppers love to hit the stores. They call it “stress management” or “retail therapy.” For a few hours, they’ll say, everything is perfect. After they get the goodies home, though, some will tell you they feel empty or even disgusted. They’d love a simpler life—but only if they first can buy the best of everything. People who misuse prescription drugs will tell you the pills ease their pain. The pain from a surgery or disease was so extreme that they got prescribed a medication, and soon they had to take more and more to keep the pain away. They’ll say they hate being constantly constipated and forgetting where they are, but it’s the only way they believe they can function and feel normal.
Jean-Francois Benoist (Addicted to the Monkey Mind: Change the Programming That Sabotages Your Life)
I eat what I love, but I watch what I eat.
Muffazal Lakdawala (The Eat Right Prescription: From India's Leading Weight-Loss Surgeon)
ARTHUR: I want me to stop attacking my mother. I want me to accept her, love her, and embrace her as good enough for me. KATIE: Yes, sweetheart. That’s your prescription for
Byron Katie (A Mind at Home with Itself: How Asking Four Questions Can Free Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Turn Your World Around)
Creative thinking, working with your mind, that’s my number-one prescription for longevity. If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.
Gary Shteyngart (Super Sad True Love Story)
Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love:
Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
The heart of healthcare is the most sublime act to practice compassion with the prescription of human tenderness.
Dr. Tony Beizaee
sinners . . . I was angry with God . . . I drove myself mad with a desperate disturbed conscience.”4 It is not insignificant that Luther’s own father and mother were both harsh disciplinarians, but regardless of the cause, Luther had clearly internalized a crippling image of God as judge that tormented him until he discovered grace. This message of grace and forgiveness has been a life-changing one to many people over the ages since Luther rediscovered it, but it has often been tragically accompanied by a message of fear and condemnation itself. Luther, for example, preached that one must face the horrors of wrath before one could come to grace. In other words, he believed that everyone needed to be forced to go through the horrible struggle he did before they could hear about grace. Ever since then, there has been a long history of revival preachers who have proclaimed this “pre-gospel” of fear, threat, and condemnation—telling people the bad news so they could then receive the good news, wounding people first, so they could then heal those wounds. The philosophy behind this strategy is that people need to be shaken out of their complacency and made ready to respond to the gospel. This may indeed be true for some, but for others it amounts to little more than abuse, and has resulted in a hurtful image of God being hammered into their heads that has estranged them from God, and driven them away from faith. For a person struggling with moral failure, facing up to their brokenness and realizing that God loves them and died for them despite it is a crucial step towards life. But to tell a person whose sin is self-hatred that they need to face how bad and worthless they are is like making them swallow the wrong prescription medicine—what was healing to the first person,
Derek Flood (Healing the Gospel: A Radical Vision for Grace, Justice, and the Cross)
Timing is important. If you go to get your eyes checked, it’s best to go with your eyes already tired, already under strain, because those are the times when you will need your glasses the most. Therefore, it’s better to go there with your eyes under that condition when you do the testing, so that the prescription that you get is there when you need it the most.
Richard Heart
They reclassified Jesus as a supernatural teacher who had looked human, though he was not; the Incarnation and the Atonement they denied, and replaced Christ’s call to a life of holy love with either prescriptions for asceticism or permission for licentiousness. Paul’s letters to Timothy (1 Tim. 1:3-4; 4:1-7; 6:20-21; 2 Tim. 3:1-9); Jude 4, 8-19; 2 Peter 2; and John’s first two letters (1 John 1:5-10; 2:9-11, 18-29; 3:7-10; 4:1-6, 5:1-12; 2 John 7-11) are explicitly opposing beliefs and practices that would later emerge as Gnosticism.
J.I. Packer (Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs)
Without voluntary and loving surrender to God, we will not know peace, and the most sustainable peace prescription is God’s own pronouncement that He is the proprietor of all lands (Gita 5.29).
Mukunda Goswami (Spirit Matters: From the Hindustan Times)
Her laughter catches him off guard. As if it's carbonated and someone has poured it too fast and it's bubbling over in all directions. It doesn't fit at all with the grey cement and right-angled garden paving stones. It's an untidy, mischievous laugh that refuses to go along with rules and prescriptions.
Frederik Backman
The reason for their ire goes back to the eighteenth century, and an analogy drawn by grammarians between Latin and English. English infinitives supported by the preposition to were required to remain fused as single unit, like their one-word Latin counterparts, e.g. amare (to love). The grammar of English was for many years described using the same categories as those applied to Latin, and many of our prescriptive rules (e.g. that one should not end a sentence with a preposition, or that one should say ‘It is I’ rather than ‘It is me’) derive ultimately from Latin. But it’s patently nonsensical to require one language to follow the rules of another, and English is very different from Latin in almost every respect.
David Hornsby (Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself (Ty: Complete Courses Book 1))
In Poor Richard's Almanac Franklin counseled: "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut thereafter." Perhaps this "eyes-half-shut" solution is about right, but I favor a tougher prescription: "See it like it is and love anyway.
Peter D. Kaufman (Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition)
She's like a therapist and books are her prescription." "That is about the best description of a librarian I've ever heard.
Janice M. Whiteaker (Cowboy Seeking Someone to Love (Cowboy Classifieds, #4))
The whole purpose of the coming of the Word into the world is to produce people in whom the power of the kingdom will bear fruit. But since the kingdom is fully, albeit mysteriously, present in the Word (since, in other words, the Word's fruitfulness is not in question but is already an accomplished fact), it is chiefly for our sakes that the parable enjoins the necessity of response. The biggest difference made by responses to the Word is the difference they make to us, for us, and in us. They decide not whether the Word will achieve his purposes but whether we will enjoy his achievement - or find ourselves in opposition to it. Admittedly, I am leaning once again in the direction of a descriptive rather than a prescriptive interpretation ofJesus' words. What he is saying in this parable seems to me to be of a piece with all his other loving, if often sad, commentaries on our condition. He is not threatening some kind of retaliation by the Word against people who fail to make the best response; rather, he is almost wistfully portraying what we miss when we fall short and fail to bear fruit. And there is the Word. In the case of even the most promising of the deficient responses to the sowing of the Word (namely, in the verse about the seed that fell among thorns - Matt. 13:22; Mark 4:18), the result specified is that it becomes dkarpos, without fruit, unfruitful. For a plant, the failure to bear fruit is not a punishment visited on it by the seed, but an unhappy declination on the plant's part from what the seed had in mind for it. It is a missing of its own fullness, its own maturity - even, in some deep sense, of its own life. So too with us. If we make deficient responses to the Word, we do not simply get ourselves in dutch; rather, we fail to become ourselves at all.
Robert Farrar Capon (Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus)
And while seeking out the opinions and perspectives of people like ourselves may lead to a more personal and familiar buying experience, what’s even more amazing is the impact those trusted sources have on conversion rates. B2B sales cycle data from Salesforce demonstrates that, when it comes to lead conversion, the interest that originates from customer and employee referrals converts to deals at rates fifty times higher than email campaigns!9 Furthermore, data from marketing automation giant Marketo indicates that leads originating from referrals convert to opportunities at rates of four times the average, and similar to the next three highest-converting lead sources combined (those being partner, inbound, and marketing-generated).10 My personal experience over the years greatly corroborates these statistics. For example, when I started my own sales practice, Cerebral Selling, I needed to have a logo designed. Around the same time, my friend had recently had a nice logo designed for his business. I asked him who he used, he told me, and I just did the same. No further research or investigation required. A short time later, I wanted to head out of town with my wife for an overnight trip to the beautiful Niagara wine region of Ontario to celebrate our anniversary. I didn’t know where to stay or which restaurant to go to, so instead of sifting through pages of online content and reviews, I asked a friend who runs a vineyard in the region. When he gave me his recommendations, I simply booked the places he told me. No questions asked. Were there better places to stay and eat? Potentially. Were there other creative design shops that could have generated equally if not more spectacular logos? More than likely. Do I care? Absolutely not! I love my logo and had a great anniversary outing, and feel secure in my decisions around both because of the feeling I received by selecting recommendations from people I trust. Both experiences are perfect examples of the prescriptive-led sales cycle we spoke about in chapter 2. This means that when it comes to your selling motion, one of the most unobtrusive, empathetic, and authentic ways to convert prospective buyers is simply to surround them with like-minded customers who love you.
David Priemer (Sell the Way You Buy: A Modern Approach To Sales That Actually Works (Even On You!))