Realistic Relationship Quotes

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I know I'm not going to be in your head all the time. But once you know me, I'll be forever in your heart. 
Crystal Woods (Write like no one is reading)
With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically. He or she may begin to believe that there is something wrong with them or even fear they are losing their mind. They have become so beaten down emotionally that they blame themselves for the abuse.
Beverly Engel (The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing)
The guarantee of safety in a battering relationship can never be based upon a promise from the perpetrator, no matter how heartfelt. Rather, it must be based upon the self-protective capability of the victim. Until the victim has developed a detailed and realistic contingency plan and has demonstrated her ability to carry it out, she remains in danger of repeated abuse.
Judith Lewis Herman (Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror)
Women who say that they have met the most amazing guy in the world are only saying that because they haven’t lived with them yet.
Heather Chapple (Write like no one is reading)
It is a healthy approach not to expect persons to turn out precisely how you would have wished.
Criss Jami (Healology)
When you leave, I feel like I'm alone with your demons.
Crystal Woods (Write like no one is reading)
The word hope first appeared in English about a thousand years ago, denoting some combination of confidence and desire. But what I desired—life—was not what I was confident about—death. When I talked about hope, then, did I really mean “Leave some room for unfounded desire?” No. Medical statistics not only describe numbers such as mean survival, they measure our confidence in our numbers, with tools like confidence levels, confidence intervals, and confidence bounds. So did I mean “Leave some room for a statistically improbable but still plausible outcome—a survival just above the measured 95 percent confidence interval?” Is that what hope was? Could we divide the curve into existential sections, from “defeated” to “pessimistic” to “realistic” to “hopeful” to “delusional”? Weren’t the numbers just the numbers? Had we all just given in to the “hope” that every patient was above average? It occurred to me that my relationship with statistics changed as soon as I became one.
Paul Kalanithi (When Breath Becomes Air)
You can't compare men or women with mental disorders to the normal expectations of men and women in without mental orders. Your dealing with symptoms and until you understand that you will always try to find sane explanations among insane behaviors. You will always have unreachable standards and disappointments. If you want to survive in a marriage to someone that has a disorder you have to judge their actions from a place of realistic expectations in regards to that person's upbringing and diagnosis.
Shannon L. Alder
In the end, it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in love, to combat the inescapable disappointments of intimacy." “Women’s sense of integrity seems to be entwined with an ethic of care, so that to see themselves as women as to see themselves in a relationship of connection…I believe that many modern women, my mother included, carry within them a whole secret New England cemetery, wherein that have quietly buried in many neat rows– the personal dreams they have given up for their families…(Women) have a sort of talent for changing form, enabling them to dissolve and then flow around the needs of their partners, or the needs of their children, or the needs of mere quotidian reality. They adjust, adapt, glide, accept.” “The cold ugly fact is that marriage does not benefit women as much as it benefits men. From studies, married men perform dazzingly better in life, live longer, accumulate more, excel at careers, report to be happier, less likely to die from a violent death, suffer less from alcoholism, drug abuse, and depression than single man…The reverse is not true. In fact, every fact is reverse, single women fare much better than married women. On average, married women take a 7% pay cut. All of this adds up to what Sociologists called the “Marriage Benefit Imbalance”…It is important to pause here and inspect why so women long for it (marriage) so deeply.
Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
Don't set your husband up on a pedestal and then cry when you find that he is only an ordinary man, after all.
Blanche Ebbutt (Don'ts for Wives)
Should' assumes that when either willingness or ability is lacking, it may be compensated for by an abundance of the other. This is simply not realistic.
Agnostic Zetetic
I've had an amazing life. One filled with blessings I could never have imagined. Depressed is the last thing I am. Realistic, yes. Sad, never.
Viola Shipman (The Charm Bracelet)
I enjoy sitting at home eating a whole pizza, washing it down with a six pack of Budweiser and watching Anime on a Friday evening, can I realistically expect that hot fitness instructor at the gym to come on over and genuinely want to fuck my brains out?
Rollo Tomassi (The Rational Male)
As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren’t necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence (Sophie was intimidatingly efficient), and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness. Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people’s relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What’s going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people’s relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Though many of my arguments will be coolly analytical — that an acknowledgment of human nature does not, logically speaking, imply the negative outcomes so many people fear — I will not try to hide my belief that they have a positive thrust as well. "Man will become better when you show him what he is like," wrote Chekhov, and so the new sciences of human nature can help lead the way to a realistic, biologically informed humanism. They expose the psychological unity of our species beneath the superficial differences of physical appearance and parochial culture. They make us appreciate the wondrous complexity of the human mind, which we are apt to take for granted precisely because it works so well. They identify the moral intuitions that we can put to work in improving our lot. They promise a naturalness in human relationships, encouraging us to treat people in terms of how they do feel rather than how some theory says they ought to feel. They offer a touchstone by which we can identify suffering and oppression wherever they occur, unmasking the rationalizations of the powerful. They give us a way to see through the designs of self-appointed social reformers who would liberate us from our pleasures. They renew our appreciation for the achievements of democracy and of the rule of law. And they enhance the insights of artists and philosophers who have reflected on the human condition for millennia.
Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature)
As infants, we see the world in parts. There is the good—the things that feed and nourish us. There is the bad—the things that frustrate or deny us. As children mature, they come to see the world in more complex ways, realizing, for example, that beyond black and white, there are shades of gray. The same mother who feeds us may sometimes have no milk. Over time, we transform a collection of parts into a comprehension of wholes.4 With this integration, we learn to tolerate disappointment and ambiguity. And we learn that to sustain realistic relationships, one must accept others in their complexity. When we imagine a robot as a true companion, there is no need to do any of this work.
Sherry Turkle (Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other)
This, the idea of relationships bit, was all conjecture on her part. She herself felt too young to try to figure out her own life, let alone someone else's life near hers, and so she had never even sought out companionship of that type. Jackie thought about dating from time to time in the distant way a person thinks about eventually becoming famous or owning a castle or growing ram's horns. They're all achievable, realistic goals, but by turning objectives into mere fantasies, she never had to go through the trouble of achieving or maintaining them.
Joseph Fink
Some survivors can be wary of most people, yet blinded by compassion toward fellow survivors or others who suffer — or who pretend to suffer, or exaggerate their sufferings, in order to take advantage of the survivor. Some survivors overidentify with other survivors, not realizing that even if someone was traumatized or suffers in a similar way, it doesn’t necessarily mean that person is honest. Being either overly suspicious or overly trusting can create problems with a partner who is able to judge the sincerity of others more realistically.
Aphrodite Matsakis (Loving Someone with PTSD: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Connecting with Your Partner after Trauma (The New Harbinger Loving Someone Series))
When the Romantic Novelists' Association was founded 35 years ago (in 1960) the image was of pink fluffy bimbos. Now, the view of life through rose-coloured spectacles has gone out of the window. A realistic background and certainly a more realistic relationship between a man and a woman are the important things.
Jean Chapman
The principals are quite simple. We can love people who treat us well. We cannot love people who treat us badly because, treating someone badly is not a virtue and we can only love virtue. I don’t think that’s controversial. I mean, there is no marriage therapist that I can imagine in the world who would say to a woman being beaten, humiliated, verbally abused, or completely ignored by her husband, “You just need to love him more. You need to work at making him happier.” That would be sadistic in the extreme to say to someone. So, in the same way I say, if anyone, I don’t care if they are your priest, god, father, mother, or your Siamese twin cousin coming out of your elbow or ass. I don’t care. If someone is treating you badly, that is not good for you. The solution is not you being so great that you both become better. That’s not a realistic solution.
Stefan Molyneux
The good news is that by grasping the concept of emotional immaturity, you can develop more realistic expectations of other people, accepting the level of relationship possible with them instead of feeling hurt by their lack of response.
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
I think there’s a ton of fear in the perception of romance in part because there’s something very realistic in great romance — namely, that women have the right to demand relationships that are based on equality and honesty and trust and, yes, a great sex life.
Sarah MacLean
Is this what my life’s come to? I’m a couples counselor, and I’m getting my own relationship advice from a divorce lawyer.” “You’re an idealist. I’m a realist.” I
Vi Keeland (Egomaniac)
Empty threats are for dreamers. And I fancy myself a realist.
Natalya Vorobyova
Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop.” ― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince
Holly Black (The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1))
The path to liberation lies in cultivating a more loving and realistic relationship with life, one that recognizes that there is no finish line, that we are all unformed.
Sheryl Paul (The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal)
Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing.' ...At the time, he hadn't believed these words, because at the time, everything really did seem possible: he was twenty-three, and everyone was young and attractive and smart and glamorous. Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence...and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness, Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples - in restaurants, on the street, at parties - and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had of offer and had chosen to value it as well.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
HONESTY is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. Where we cannot go in our mind, our memory, or our body is where we cannot be straight with another, with the world, or with our self. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties: all of us are afraid of loss, in all its forms, all of us, at times, are haunted or overwhelmed by the possibility of a disappearance, and all of us therefore, are one short step away from dishonesty. Every human being dwells intimately close to a door of revelation they are afraid to pass through. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth. The ability to speak the truth is as much the ability to describe what it is like to stand in trepidation at this door, as it is to actually go through it and become that beautifully honest spiritual warrior, equal to all circumstances, we would like to become. Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing and how astonished we are by the generous measure of grief that is conferred upon even the most average life. Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story, we do not know where we are in the story; we do not know who is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end. Honesty is not a weapon to keep loss and heartbreak at bay, honesty is the outer diagnostic of our ability to come to ground in reality, the hardest attainable ground of all, the place where we actually dwell, the living, breathing frontier where there is no realistic choice between gain or loss.
David Whyte
Sure, love happens," he said finally. "But it's better to be realistic so shit is not constantly blowing up in your face. And love is way more likely to blow up in your face than to bring eternal happiness. And if it doesn't hurt you, then you're the one hurting someone else. "Entering a relationship is borderline sadomasochistic. Especially when you can get everything you would from a romantic relationship from a friendship, without destroying anyone's life when it inevitably ends.
Emily Henry (Beach Read)
In writing The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford wasn’t trying to improve our relationship with death, she was trying to improve out relationship with the price point. That is where she went wrong. It was death that the public was being cheated out of by the funeral industry, not money. The realistic interaction with death and the chance to face our own mortality.
Caitlin Doughty (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory)
Each store will fulfil some of your needs, but no individual store can meet all of your needs. Learning how to set realistic expectations now and in future relationships requires you to examine each of the existing stores to see what they can offer.
Janet Crain
Maybe I selfishly figured out Clay was as lonely as I am. Or maybe I did hope he was pining after me a little. Not realistically, of course, but in a faraway kind of way. Like in the way one might daydream about a popular boy in school who the teacher assigns as your lab partner. Your relationship is purely based on frog spleens and formaldehyde, but sometimes he laughs at your joke and you think... maybe. Maybe. It's the "maybe" I'm mourning. The daydreams, even. That's what I'm all out of sort about. My lab partner asked someone else to the dance, and I'm left with the uncomfortable realization he was just being polite.
Erin Hahn (You'd Be Mine)
A relationship is more likely to succeed if positive attributes are confidently set in place and adhered to.
Delano Johnson (Love Quotes)
Healthy people learn how to frequently adjust their thoughts to make reality comfortable and realistic.
Sam Owen (500 Relationships And Life Quotes: Bite-Sized Advice For Busy People)
The moral contradictions of our ancestry should not prevent us from reaching a realistic assessment of who we are. Whehn we do that, high hopes are still possible.
Richard W. Wrangham (The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution)
The moral contradictions of our ancestry should not prevent us from reaching a realistic assessment of who we are. When we do that, high hopes are still possible.
Richard W. Wrangham (The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution)
Maybe, you will kiss the modern bride Let's agree to disagree, babe on everything, in advance Just duct tape my heart to yours babe
Casey Renee Kiser (Spit Me Out)
I lack experience. In so many ways.
Dojyomaru (How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 1)
The war,’ she said once, ‘left me with a deep knowledge of human suffering which I expect many other young people never know about. The things I saw during the occupation made me very realistic about life, and I’ve been that way ever since. Don’t,’ she added, ‘discount anything awful you hear or read about the Nazis. It’s worse than you could ever imagine. I came out of the war thankful to be alive, aware that human relationships are the most important thing of all, far more than wealth, food, luxury, careers, or anything you can mention.
Ian Woodward (Audrey Hepburn: Fair Lady of the Screen)
Self-doubt is that part of the soul that is able to taste the bitter in life as well as the sweet. It is open to a side of life that a sunny disposition must ignore in order to carry on smiling. It is less interested in pretense and more aware of the suffering entailed in daily living. It is realistic about the balance of suffering and happiness, but because of this realism is willing to be thankful for whatever genuine happiness is possible. It celebrates the melancholy nature of aloneness, but because of its refusal to shirk aloneness knows the worth of a real relationship.
David Whyte (The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America)
Never before in history had societies thought that such a set of high expectations about marriage was either realistic or desirable. Although many Europeans and Americans found tremendous joy in building their relationships around these values, the adoption of these unprecedented goals for marriage had unanticipated and revolutionary consequences that have since come to threaten the stability of the entire institution.
Stephanie Coontz (Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage)
Emotional hunger is not love, though people often confuse the two. Hunger is a strong need caused by emotional deprivation in childhood. It is a primitive condition of pain and longing which people often act out in a vain and desperate attempt to fill a void or emptiness. This emptiness is related to the pain of aloneness and separateness and can never realistically be satisfied in an adult relationship. Yet many people refuse to bear their pain and are unwilling to accept the futility of attempting to gratify their primitive dependency needs.
Robert W. Firestone (The Fantasy Bond: Structure of Psychological Defenses)
more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families, too.
Melody Beattie (Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself)
[P]sychiatric treatments should be directed toward the correction of interpersonal distortions, thus enabling the individual to lead a more abundant life, to participate collaboratively with others, to obtain interpersonal satisfactions in the context of realistic, mutually satisfying interpersonal relationships[.]
Irvin D. Yalom (The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy)
EXERCISE Creating Authentic Relationships The questions below deal with issues most people take for granted and let society define for them. You can start with a blank canvas and create your own definitions. • How do you define intimacy and closeness? • What constitutes a relationship for you? • Are there different types of relationships you wish you could have? • How long should a significant relationship last? • What is sex? Is it intercourse? Is it more specific: penis-in-vagina or penis-in-ass intercourse? What about manual stimulation and penetration, oral sex, sex toys, BDSM play? • What kinds of things do you consider intimate? Sex, sexual touch, genital contact, a BDSM scene with no sexual aspect? • Must you live near a partner for a relationship to be important? • How do you define fidelity? • What constitutes loving, affectionate, sexual, and romantic behavior? Where do things like flirting, kissing, love letters, gift giving, dating, courting, phone calls, emails, and instant messages fit into your definitions? • What does commitment mean to you? How do you define a committed relationship? • What are the most important things you need in a relationship? • How important is it for you to live with a partner? • Realistically , how much time and energy do you have to give to a relationship?  
Tristan Taormino (Opening Up: A Guide To Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships)
We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner. Psychiatrists are taught this in their training and know that it is impossible to realistically understand the conflicts and transferences of their patients without understanding their own transferences and conflicts.
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
We feasted on love; every mode of it, solemn and merry, romantic and realistic, sometimes as dramatic as a thunderstorm, sometimes comfortable and unemphatic as putting on your soft slippers. She was my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign, my trusty comrade, friends, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress, but at the same time all that any man friend has ever been to me.
C.S. Lewis
Transitions come in all shapes and sizes. We could change jobs or change relationships or move to another city or country, we could change our habits or try another fashion style, other social activities, or new communities. Keep in mind that change should not make us afraid, but on the contrary, it should make us embrace new horizons, new environments, interesting people, and exceptional challenges.
Andrei Cristian (Calendarul zâmbetelor realiste)
Kay Douglas's book is the most supportive, realistic, and practical guide for abused women that I have encountered. A woman with this book in her hands is on the path to a new life. The author really 'gets it' about what it takes to deal with a destructive partner and takes the reader step-by-step from the beginnings of grasping what is happening to her all the way to healing once the relationship has ended. Outstanding!
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
A secure attachment is marked by “self-confidence, empathy, and trust,” note researchers Christopher Weber and Christopher Federico, and can lead to a general belief that the world is a “safe, harmonious place” populated by people of goodwill. The secure voter, therefore, will tend to be tolerant of ambiguity and disinclined to embrace a rigid dogmatism. According to attachment expert Mario Mikulincer, a secure attachment produces “more moderate, more flexible, and more realistic political views.
Peter Lovenheim (The Attachment Effect: Exploring the Powerful Ways Our Earliest Bond Shapes Our Relationships and Lives)
The overarching principle of a therapeutic relationship is that therapists should be ever mindful of a variant of the Hippocratic oath and, to the degree possible, strive to "do no more harm" (Courtois, 2010). Complex trauma clients have already experienced considerable harm, much of it at the hands of other human beings. As a result of the ubiquitous processes of transference, attachment styles, and IWM [Internal working models], these clients often view the therapist's behavior and their relationship through the lens of their trauma-related negative interpersonal expectancies and unhealed emotional wounds and injuries. Therapists should not be surprised to be "guilty until proven innocent", not because clients with complex trauma histories are "unfair" or "unreasonable" but precisely the opposite - because the most realistic self-protective stance for them (given the fact that betrayal and harm have been more the rule than the exception) is to "distrust first and verify" (or to be hypervigilant) rather than to start with an expectation of safety and trustworthiness.
Christine A. Courtois (Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach)
The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is—insofar as it is thinkable at all—primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far. He accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual analysis; but the external conditions, which are set for him by the facts of experience, do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted in the construction of his conceptual world by the adherence to an epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world independent of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as free inventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and theories justified only to the extent to which they furnish a logical representation of relations among sensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or Pythagorean insofar as he considers the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research. (Einstein 1949, 683–684)
Albert Einstein (Autobiographical Notes)
Disappointment in a relationship with someone from whom we were expecting a lot (perhaps too much) can teach us to go deeper in prayer, in our relationship with God, and to look to him for that fullness, that peace and security, that only his infinite love can guarantee. Disappointments in relationships with other people oblige us to pass from “idolatrous” love to a love that is realistic, free, and happy. Romantic love will always be threatened with disappointments. Charity never is, because it “does not insist on its own way”54 or seek its own interest.
Jacques Philippe (Interior Freedom)
Maugham described the novel as “the story of a nine days wonder in a Lambeth slum” and confessed to being influenced by the great authors of realistic novels, such as Maupassant; however, Maugham was also accused of being overly influenced (to the point of plagiarism) by other gritty novels set in the slums, such as Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison, published in 1896. Some themes are bound to recur in such novels — descriptions of living conditions, the brutality of relationships, the dangers of living and working in such insanitary districts — so the critics that accused Maugham of copying were perhaps being unduly harsh,
W. Somerset Maugham (Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham)
Just as no sane farmer would express disappointment because his cow did not lay eggs or hope that his cow might be induced to lay eggs, an intelligent observer should be expected to refrain from critical or hortatory discussion of the functional capacity of the United Nations that is uninformed by an accurate understanding of the realistic possibilities. We have no warrant for being hopeful, disillusioned, cynical, or fearful of the United Nations, unless the expectations that enter into our judgment bear some sensible relationship to the nature of the organization and the limitations set by the political context within which it operates.
Inis L. Claude Jr. (Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Process of International Organization)
Today, people still expect to be married ‘till death us do part’, and much of life revolves around having and raising children. Now try to imagine a person with a lifespan of 150 years. Getting married at forty, she still has 110 years to go. Will it be realistic to expect her marriage to last 110 years? Even Catholic fundamentalists might baulk at that. So the current trend of serial marriages is likely to intensify. Bearing two children in her forties, she will, by the time she is 120, have only a distant memory of the years she spent raising them – a rather minor episode in her long life. It’s hard to tell what kind of new parent–child relationship might develop under such circumstances.
Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow)
Actually, some asexual people celebrate sex—up to and including engaging in it themselves despite lack of sexual attraction. Some asexual people write stories or produce art depicting sexual situations and/or nudity. Some asexual people have no problem with consuming media that contains sexual content. They do not have to be attracted to other people to appreciate or create positive portrayals of these relationships. This can be especially difficult to explain if an asexual artist does create sexually explicit material, because people want to know whether they’re creating this because they secretly desire it. Or they might reverse the issue and suggest asexual people have no business creating this media—or that they can’t be good at it—if they don’t have personal experience. What artists choose to make art about has absolutely no bearing on what they’re attracted to or what they might want to experience themselves. Art can be used to express personal desires, but no one should assume someone must be doing so if that person depicts experiences or images contrary to personally expressed desires, and no one should use a person’s artwork or subject matter to invalidate claims. Asexual artists cannot be restricted to creating media that is devoid of sex. Asexual artists know and accept that most people are attracted sexually to others, so if they want to write realistic books or movies, they generally have to create at least some of their subjects with that dimension attached to them.
Julie Sondra Decker (The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality)
One fairly common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families, too.
Melody Beattie (Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself)
When these red flags appeared early on, the narrative was “shaped” in a way that was at times romantic, passionate, and even practical. The old saying of “love is blind” applies here, and before these patterns set in, hope is often what allows people to look the other way when the red flags arise. Over time, the narratives become a bit more realistic, hope begins to fade, and it becomes brutally clear that these patterns of mistrust, anger, and deceit are here to stay. A human relationship should not be built on what you can do for someone, but simply on a mutual partnership. A narcissistic relationship can often devolve into superficial attributes, such as jobs, schools, titles, resources, addresses, photo-shopped images, status posts, quiet children, well-appointed homes, and possessions.
Ramani Durvasula (Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist)
I suspected that most marriages were more complicated than couples tended to let on. That summer, it seemed like every week brought news of another pair in our community who were splitting up. They were all around our age, most with little kids, trying to run their own businesses in a small economy. The evidence of those breakups directly contradicted the rosy way relationships were portrayed on Facebook, in public. I began to believe that future generations would study how we represent our long-term partnerships, and call us on our lies, in the same way we look at the way the Victorians depicted sex and know that it simply wasn't like that, not behind closed doors or in the hayloft. We hide marital conflict with the same sense of decorum. We'd do more good if we were honest and set realistic expectations for what it's like in the long run.
Kristin Kimball (Good Husbandry)
For realists, the state is the main actor and sovereignty is its distinguishing trait. The meaning of the sovereign state is inextricably bound up with the use of force. In terms of its internal dimension, to illustrate this relationship between violence and the state we need to look no further than Max Weber’s famous definition of the state as ‘the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’(M. J. Smith 1986: 23).3 Within this territorial space, sovereignty means that the state has supreme authority to make and enforce laws. This is the basis of the unwritten contract between individuals and the state. According to Hobbes, for example, we trade our liberty in return for a guarantee of security. Once security has been established, civil society can begin. But in the absence of security, there can be no art, no culture, no society. The first move, then, for the realist is to organize power domestically. Only after power has been organized, can community begin.
John Baylis (The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations)
With a deeper understanding of reality,” the Dalai Lama has explained, “you can go beyond appearances and relate to the world in a much more appropriate, effective, and realistic manner. I often give the example of how we should relate to our neighbors. Imagine that you are living next to a difficult neighbor. You can judge and criticize them. You can live in anxiety and despair that you will never have a good relationship with them. You can deny the problem or pretend that you do not have a difficult relationship with your neighbor. None of these is very helpful. “Instead, you can accept that your relationship with your neighbor is difficult and that you would like to improve it. You may or may not succeed, but all you can do is try. You cannot control your neighbor, but you do have some control over your thoughts and feelings. Instead of anger, instead of hatred, instead of fear, you can cultivate compassion for them, you can cultivate kindness toward them, you can cultivate warmheartedness toward them. This is the only chance to improve the relationship. In time, maybe they will become less difficult. Maybe not. This you cannot control, but you will have your peace of mind. You will be able to be joyful and happy whether your neighbor becomes less difficult or not.
Dalai Lama XIV (The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World)
As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. if you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm he thought, had chosen reliability and competence (sophie was intimidatingly efficient), and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness. Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost 48 year old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples-in restaurants, on the street, at parties-and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? he now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had to offer and had chosen to value it as well.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, in addition to the daily letter I also made sure to send her a Valentine’s card and a different bar of chocolate. I was buying really nice bars of chocolate, all different flavors and kinds. She was only allowed to eat them right there at mail call, and sometimes she would get several packages at once, so even though it was hard to do, she’d share bites of her chocolate with other people. I also made sure to give extra thought to the regular, daily letter that would arrive on Valentine’s Day: Jamie, In the beginning of our relationship I criticized your expectations in a boyfriend. I told you that you watched too many movies and lived in a fantasy world. In a way I was asking you to settle. Even through our arguments about what was realistic and what was a fairy tale, I did everything I could to be your prince in a world where I saw you as the princess that you are. I was wrong to ever question you. Your standards never dropped and it forced me to rise up to the level needed to keep you. Like a storybook romance, I’ve defended your honor, showered you with love, worshipped the ground you walk on, and will faithfully wait for you while you’re away. You have made me a better man. Because of you I live a life I am proud of and have become the father, brother, son, and friend my family deserves. Your love has positively affected every aspect of my life. And for that I could never repay you. But I will happily be forever yours, paying off my debt and love for years to come. Like your favorite movie, Beauty and the Beast, a tale as old as time, we are living proof that fantasy can be reality. Love always and forever, Noah I’d never been that outwardly romantic before. I’d never worn my feelings on my sleeve quite like I did with her.
Noah Galloway (Living with No Excuses: The Remarkable Rebirth of an American Soldier)
coated with unmet expectations. So, what do I do? Well, I’ve found it tremendously helpful to list the expectations I have of a relationship in which I’m feeling slighted. Then I prayerfully discern whether or not my expectations are realistic or unrealistic. And if I can’t really discern one way or the other, I ask. I ask God. I ask that person. I ask someone wise who knows both of us well.
Lysa TerKeurst (Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions)
Busyness lies. It tricks us into thinking that things are happening. That we’re going places, being productive, living a full life. The exhilarating effects of stress, not the quiet or stillness after chaos, is familiar. We would rather have something, than nothing, even if that something is…empty. We all do this. We look to relationships, drugs or distractions to fill so-called “voids” and assuage our loneliness or anxiety about who we are and the uncertainty of our futures. Isn't that why we tie our self worth to salaries and job titles in hopes that this will validate us? Isn't that why we justify the long hours, routine work, and deteriorating relationships as “real life?” How is it that we've become so complacent? I refuse to believe that with age, you need to be realistic and live out your decisions based on what’s been done or what’s expected of you. What if we stopped looking externally for validation or excitement, but found that within ourselves? See I want to feel like life is worth living. Not for culture, not for the societal structures and institutions in place, not for the security, none of that. Just life itself. The idea that being alive is enough…beautiful, even. I don’t want to be tied down to a job I despise or to be surrounded by people who take that shit too seriously. And by shit, I mean, jobs, resumes, salaries, kids, marriage, age, any of it. Others may be able to go through life’s routine and find their truth, or perhaps never bother finding it at all. But I can’t. I just can’t.
Thoughts of a post-grad 21 year old who finds busyness overrated
With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically. He or she may begin to believe that there is something wrong with them or even fear they are losing their mind. They have become so beaten down emotionally that they blame themselves for the abuse.
Beverly Engel The Emotionally Abusive Relationship How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing
Many people generally think of it as a sincere desire to help the other person to be more realistic, behave in more constructive ways, to help them recognize others as worthwhile, unique individuals, to show that you value the relationship, or to help that person reduce self-destructive behaviors. Our motives are praiseworthy, we are trying to help the other person. Many times what you fail to recognize is that your vision of needed changes rises from your own needs and expectations. Yes, the changes may do all that is needed to make the person more effective and loveable, but the impetus is your need to have him or her be this way—not his or her need. The person did not request or seek your assistance to change, you decided it was necessary and began to work to make him or her accept your vision.
Anonymous
think of the blue flame as a convergence of mission and passion founded on a realistic self-assessment of your abilities.
Keith Ferrazzi (Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time)
James Hollis correctly observes, “Wisdom is always humbling, never inflationary. . . . The realistic thinking of midlife has as its necessary goal the righting of a balance, the restoration of a person to a humble but dignified relationship to the universe.
KathleenA. Brehony (Awakening at Midlife: Realizing Your Potential for Growth and Change)
Only One Thing One thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14 AMP The start of a new year is filled with anticipation of what is ahead—a sense of getting to start over, make a fresh start—and with relief that some things are best left behind. Some make resolutions, only to break them within a few days or hours. Some set goals, both realistic and unrealistic. Many stay up New Year’s Eve in order to welcome in the New Year; others value their sleep more and really couldn’t care less. Luke records a story in his Gospel illustrating our need to resolve to do only one thing. Jesus and His disciples came to Bethany and were invited to stay with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. When Martha came to Jesus, complaining that her sister Mary wasn’t helping her, Jesus spoke to her in loving concern: “There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42 NLT). Maintaining a close relationship with the Savior is the only goal Paul would set. He wasn’t perfect at it, but he singlemindedly pursued it. And he encourages us to do so today. Life is much simpler when we choose to pursue only one thing—the race before us. Don’t look back. Heavenly Father, keep our eyes on the goal, forgetting the successes and failures of this past year.
Various (Daily Wisdom for Women 2015 Devotional Collection - January (None))
Make spirituality your first priority. Integrate the second most important thing, whether it’s school, a relationship, or whatever, and then the third most important thing, and so on. To be realistic, you can only have about five things, not twenty things. You have to surrender, as they say in Desiderata, the things of youth, the things that really aren’t serving you in your spiritual growth. You need to begin removing those things that hold you back, and you need to deal with them now. The sooner you begin devoting yourself to your spiritual growth, making it your priority, the more you’re going to spiritually achieve. There’s no better time than the present. No matter how old you are. So, if this is the moment you are reading this, then now is the moment that you understand. Now is the moment that you must put every ounce of effort into this.
Eric Pepin (Igniting the Sixth Sense: The Lost Human Sensory that Holds the Key to Spiritual Awakening and Unlocking the Power of the Universe)
Had Putin allowed Medvedev to run for reelection as president in 2012, the prospects for the Russian people and for the U.S.-Russian relationship would be far brighter. I felt that Medvedev understood Russia’s deep internal problems—economic, demographic, and political, as well as the absence of the rule of law, among others—and had realistic ideas about how to deal with them, including the need to more closely align Russia with the West and to attract foreign investment. However, Putin’s lust for power led him to shoulder Medvedev aside and reclaim the presidency.
Robert M. Gates (Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War)
André and Jeanne soon felt nothing but blessed tenderness, maternal satisfaction, at sharing the same bed, at simply lying close together and talking before they turned back to back and went to sleep.” It was beautiful, but was it realistic? Was it a viable prospect today? Clearly, it was connected with the pleasures of the table: “Gourmandise entered their lives as a new interest, brought on by their growing indifference to the flesh, like the passion of priests who, deprived of carnal joys, quiver before delicate viands and old wines.” Certainly, in an era when a wife bought and peeled the vegetables herself, trimmed the meat, and spent hours simmering the stew, a tender and nurturing relationship could take root; the evolution of comestible conditions had caused
Michel Houellebecq (Submission)
Managing the Neutral Zone: A Checklist Yes No   ___ ___ Have I done my best to normalize the neutral zone by explaining it as an uncomfortable time that (with careful attention) can be turned to everyone’s advantage? ___ ___ Have I redefined the neutral zone by choosing a new and more affirmative metaphor with which to describe it? ___ ___ Have I reinforced that metaphor with training programs, policy changes, and financial rewards for people to keep doing their jobs during the neutral zone? ___ ___ Am I protecting people adequately from inessential further changes? ___ ___ If I can’t protect them, am I clustering those changes meaningfully? ___ ___ Have I created the temporary policies and procedures that we need to get us through the neutral zone? ___ ___ Have I created the temporary roles, reporting relationships, and organizational groupings that we need to get us through the neutral zone? ___ ___ Have I set short-range goals and checkpoints? ___ ___ Have I set realistic output objectives? ___ ___ Have I found the special training programs we need to deal successfully with the neutral zone? ___ ___ Have I found ways to keep people feeling that they still belong to the organization and are valued by our part of it? And have I taken care that perks and other forms of “privilege” are not undermining the solidarity of the group? ___ ___ Have I set up one or more Transition Monitoring Teams to keep realistic feedback flowing upward during the time in the neutral zone? ___ ___ Are my people willing to experiment and take risks in intelligently conceived ventures—or are we punishing all failures? ___ ___ Have I stepped back and taken stock of how things are being done in my part of the organization? (This is worth doing both for its own sake and as a visible model for others’ similar efforts.) ___ ___ Have I provided others with opportunities to do the same thing? Have I provided them with the resources—facilitators, survey instruments, and so on—that will help them do that? ___ ___ Have I seen to it that people build their skills in creative thinking and innovation? ___ ___ Have I encouraged experimentation and seen to it that people are not punished for failing in intelligent efforts that do not pan out? ___ ___ Have I worked to transform the losses of our organization into opportunities to try doing things a new way? ___ ___ Have I set an example by brainstorming many answers to old problems—the ones that people say we just have to live with? Am I encouraging others to do the same? ___ ___ Am I regularly checking to see that I am not pushing for certainty and closure when it would be more conducive to creativity to live a little longer with uncertainty and questions? ___ ___ Am I using my time in the neutral zone as an opportunity to replace bucket brigades with integrated systems throughout the organization?
William Bridges (Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change)
Along with that, the Bible continually reminds us that God sends the uncomfortable grace of trial not to crush or discourage us, but to mature and refine us. As we are realistic about difficulty, that needs to be our hope.
Timothy S. Lane (Relationships: A Mess Worth Making)
Try to reserve judgment—as I have learned to do for the most part. Unless you’ve walked in that person’s shoes, you don’t know what you would do in any given circumstance. I was too desperately, devotedly, blindly in love to say no and move on. I understand better now why some people stay on in relationships that might not be healthy or fulfilling. There are so many things that keep you there, not the least of which is the deep, abiding love you feel for that person, the history you share, and the hope that things will get better. Today I am far more realistic, seasoned, and decidedly stronger and more independent, and I would never stay in a relationship that caused me such pain again. But
Linda Thompson (A Little Thing Called Life: On Loving Elvis Presley, Bruce Jenner, and Songs in Between)
The closer we are to someone, the more we expect from him. We are disappointed, confused, angry, hurt, encouraged, happy, or ecstatic in our relationships according to how close our expectations meet reality. Realistic vision frees us to relate to those close to us with the same objectivity we are able to use with those who touch our life but are not intertwined with our needs.
Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
The Psalms treat depression more realistically than many of today’s popular books on Christianity and psychology. David and other psalmists often found themselves deeply depressed for various reasons. They did not, however, apologize for what they were feeling, nor did they confess it as sin. It was a legitimate part of their relationship with God. They interacted with Him through the context of their depression.2 Another
David P. Murray (Christians Get Depressed Too)
Was it safe to assume codependency was triggered through relationships with people who have serious illnesses, behavior problems, or destructive compulsive disorders? Alcoholism in the family helped create codependency, but many other circumstances seemed to produce it, also. One fairly common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families, too.
Melody Beattie (Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself)
Being a realist does not mean seeing the truth for what it is. It is a question of determining our relationship with the truth in the way that is most beneficial for us. What do you achieve by accepting reality as it is? What will that offer apart from a slew of petty decisions that are neither meaningful nor valuable on their own? You can't do anything but draw up endless lists of what you need and do not have. What difference does that make? If anything, it only leads you away from your true path. You become permanently settled in pessimism and eventually you are crushed beneath it. To see the truth as it is...is to admit defeat. Yes, it is the very definition of defeatism, for it is its very genesis.
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü)
I remind myself: This will not make me feel loved, so if that’s why I’m saying yes, that’s not a good reason. The love I want will not be found here, and what I will feel in its place is resentment and anger. I’m committed to a particular, limited amount of things in this season, and if what’s being asked of me isn’t one of those, then it stands in the way. That’s why knowing your purpose and priorities for a given season is so valuable—because those commitments become the litmus test for all the decisions you face. Picture your relationships like concentric circles: the inner circle is your spouse, your children, your very best friends. Then the next circle out is your extended family and good friends. Then people you know, but not well, colleagues, and so on, to the outer edge. Aim to disappoint the people at the center as rarely as possible. And then learn to be more and more comfortable with disappointing the people who lie at the edges of the circle—people you’re not as close to, people who do not and should not require your unflagging dedication. To do this, though, you have to give even the people closest to you—maybe especially the people closest to you—realistic expectations for what you can give to them. We disappoint people because we’re limited. We have to accept the idea of our own limitations in order to accept the idea that we’ll disappoint people. I have this much time. I have this much energy. I have this much relational capacity.
Shauna Niequist (Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living)
The fact that our religion or world view is initially largely determined by our unique childhood experience brings us face to face with a central problem: the relationship between religion and reality. It is the problem of the microcosm and the macrocosm. Stewart’s view of the world as a dangerous place where he would get his throat cut if he wasn’t very careful was perfectly realistic in terms of the microcosm of his childhood home; he lived under the domination of two vicious adults. But all parents are not vicious and all adults are not vicious. In the larger world, the macrocosm, there are many different kinds of parents and people and societies and cultures.
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
Unfortunately, the majority of young people in the United States don't receive comprehensive sexuality education that includes information on pleasurable and fulfilling sexual relationships. We also live in a sex negative culture that includes a lot of oversexualization, sex stigma, and body shaming so there are few positive and pleasurable representations of sexuality for young people. Many young people are curious about sex and how it works. As a result many young people turn to the internet and end up looking at porn to figure it out. That's like watching the Fast and the Furious to learn how to drive. Porn is not a realistic representation of healthy, pleasurable, communicative, and responsible sex.
Shafia Zaloom (Sex, Teens, and Everything in Between: The New and Necessary Conversations Today's Teenagers Need to Have about Consent, Sexual Harassment, Healthy Relationships, Love, and More (Parenting Book))
So why choose to be so pessimistic? Instead, why not choose the power of your imagination mixed with realistic thinking to create a happier state of mind? Why not expect good things to happen, problems to be overcome, a robust Earth, loving relationships and a mind free from unnecessary fears?
M.P. Neary (Free Your Mind)
It is not without good reason that the literary tradition of pastoral poetry can look back on an almost uninterrupted history of over two thousand years since its beginnings in Hellenism. With the exception of the early Middle Ages, when urban and court culture was extinguished, there have been variants of this poetry in every century. Apart from the thematic material of the novel of chivalry, there is probably no other subject-matter 15 that has occupied the literature of Western Europe for so long and maintained itself against the assaults of rationalism with such tenacity. This long and uninterrupted reign shows that ‘sentimental’ poetry, in Schiller’s sense of the word, plays an incomparably greater part in the history of literature than ‘naïve’ poetry. Even the idylls of Theocritus himself owe their existence not, as might be imagined, to genuine roots in nature and a direct relationship to the life of the common people, but to a reflective feeling for nature and a romantic conception of the common folk, that is, to sentiments which have their origin in a yearning for the remote, the strange and the exotic. The peasant and the shepherd are not enthusiastic about their surroundings or about their daily work. And interest in the life of the simple folk is, as we know, to be sought neither in spatial nor social proximity to the peasantry; it does not arise in the folk itself but in the higher classes, and not in the country but in the big towns and at the courts, in the midst of bustling life and an over-civilized, surfeited society. Even when Theocritus was writing his idylls, the pastoral theme and situation were certainly no longer a novelty; it will already have occurred in the poetry of the primitive pastoral peoples, but doubtless without the note of sentimentality and complacency, and probably also without attempting to describe the outward conditions of the shepherd’s life realistically. Pastoral scenes, although without the lyrical touch of the Idylls, were to be found before Theocritus, at any rate, in the mime. They are a matter of course in the satyr plays, and rural scenes are not unknown even to tragedy. But pastoral scenes and pictures of country life are not enough to produce bucolic poetry; the preconditions for this are, above all, the latent conflict of town and country and the feeling of discomfort with civilization.
Arnold Hauser (The Social History of Art Volume 3: Rococo, Classicism and Romanticism)
Faith is one of the most important elements of human life. It is with faith that you operate your imagination, then gaining upper control over the physical universe around you. It is with faith that you make plans for the future, endure the pains of seeing them fail, and then regain hope again, by replanning, readjusting towards your goals, in order to finally succeed. It is because of your faith that your life gains a higher meaning, enabling you to endure the most profound of chaos, at a mental, physical, and spiritual level. It is due to faith, that we love. And it is because of faith that we keep our relationships. No relationship was ever made possible without faith. That was not, at the very least, a relationship that could be labeled as a loving one. Because we only associate with those who can become recipients of our faith. That faith then assumes different ramifications, in the form of trust, commitment, realistic expectations, and understanding. Whenever these fundamental branches get broken, faith is lost, and so is the relationship or its meaning. Nothing ever ends before ending faith first. Suicide, depression, despair, and anxiety, among many other forms of mental illnesses and emotional challenges in general, cannot emerge without breaking faith first. And that faith is broken first in our social interactions before being broken within us. We do that by violating our own ethical code. Ultimately, faith connects us as a collective and connects the essence of our soul to the meaning of life. Without faith, nothing makes any sense. But the deepest challenge of faith, is always a karmic one, for the heavier your karma, the more faith you will need to overcome it. The worse the actions of the past — the more against your spiritual integrity and the spiritual integrity of others they are — the thicker will be the layers of your karma. And those layers will manifest too in the physical world, leading into the greatest trap of all, which is the idea that your surroundings and those who compose them make you. They do not. And every glimpse of light in the horizon, in the form of an illusion, shows you that. Because that is what pleasant illusions are for, to give you hope. Because it is thanks to hoping that you rediscover your faith and it is with this renewed faith that you rediscover love. Happiness then could be considered a process, but no process is joyful until you look back at the memories that led you towards success, and no success is meaningful except the one that can be shared. Recognition and admiration are then not a goal in itself, but part of such illusion in which we find ourselves, for it either sink us deeper into thicker layers of karma or propels us outwards, and towards love. The difference is as clear as in seeing with whom we associate ourselves with, for we may be too immersed in a karmic fog to realize that the ones who help us the most are not our enemies, and our enemies may be the ones we consider friends. Upon contemplating these different stages of karmic manifestation, one then understands the need to repent, and becomes humble, and focused on his spiritual freedom before even considering a spiritual growth. When this is consciously seen and accepted, he will feel blessed for the glimpses of light, no matter how delusional, and the ones who despite the inner conflicts caused can lead then to the spiritual freedom they seek. As a man in the dark, those who are blinded by their karma, won’t be able to discern their angels from their demons, but faith in oneself is a good start in that direction.
Dan Desmarques (Codex Illuminatus: Quotes & Sayings of Dan Desmarques)
To continue the debate, Egan has responded directly to interview questions about his approach to characterization: There's a preconception in some circles that the characters in realistic fiction ought to have a certain quota of relationship problems, family issues and emotional baggage of various kinds—and some people seem literally unable to believe that a real human being can be more passionate about scientific ideas than anything else, even though the history of science is littered with people for whom that was true. I write about characters for whom the events of whatever story I'm telling are among the most important things in their lives, and there's not much point writing about science through the eyes of someone who'd rather be down the pub. (“Interview: Virtual Worlds”)
Karen Burnham (Greg Egan)
Surrendering yourself, or the idea of it can be daunting to codependents because they come from a place of neglect and abuse. But, on the other hand, trust is not built in a day. It is a process, and in order to move towards it, you have to learn to let go. Reality is more often than not painful. Even if everything is going well, there will be moments when you will think that something is missing, but that is okay. Your life is not meant to be perfect. You need to accept everything realistically because only then can you live effectively. But letting go doesn’t mean you should not make goals. It simply means that you should not try to control the outcomes.
Elisabeth Cloud (I DON'T NEED YOU: Love Without Codependency...Fight to Never Be in a Codependent Relationship Again)
Everyday sunk cost fallacy examples can run from less consequential decisions, such as finishing a movie or book that you don’t like, to larger ones, such as investing more money into a failing business or staying in a career or relationship that is turning sour. You need to avoid thinking, We’ve come too far to stop now. Instead, take a realistic look at your chances of success and evaluate from an opportunity cost perspective whether your limited resources are best used continuing what you are doing or persuing another opportunity.
Gabriel Weinberg (Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models)
But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however
Melody Beattie (Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself)
Chasing a dream is a one-way relationship: you have to love it and give it everything or it won't work out, but you can't expect loyalty in return. Some guys are realistic about the results and just enjoy the process, but for others, the dream had thrown them away long before and they were still going after it--or maybe they were running away from something else. I had friends who were in it so long, trying to stay above water in their own little world was all they knew, and they'd gotten good at it, with side jobs and host families, living out of their cars, just as I would have been if I hadn't won Redlands by two seconds--if I hadn't met Tom Danielson against my will. If you're lost in the forest, you might get hungry, so you'll teach yourself how to hunt. And then maybe you'll make a shelter when you get cold. It all seems reasonable, but one step at a time, the forest becomes home, and you forget you were trying to get out.
Phil Gaimon (Draft Animals: Living the Pro Cycling Dream (Once in a While))
The ordinary challenging relationship remains a strangely and unhelpfully neglected topic. It's the extremes that repeatedly grab the spotlight - the entirely blissful partnerships or the murderous catastrophes - and so it is hard to know what we should make of, and how lonely we should feel about, such things as immature rages, late-night threats of divorce, sullen silences, slammed doors and everyday acts of thoughtlessness and cruelty. Ideally, art would give us the answers that other people don't. This might even be one of the main points of literature: to tell us what society at large is too prudish to explore. The important books should be those that leave us wondering, with relief and gratitude, how the author could possibly have known so much about our lives. But too often a realistic sense of what an endurable relationship is ends up weakened by silence, societal or artistic. We hence imagine that things are far worse for us than they are for other couples. Not only are we unhappy; we misunderstand how freakish and rare our particular form of unhappiness might be. We end up believing that our struggles are indications of having made some unusual and fundamental error, rather than evidence that our marriages are essentially going entirely according to plan.
Alain de Botton (The Course of Love)
The defining ethos of Halden Prison is that the principle of normality best prepares people to leave prison and return to their communities as functional members of society. A relentless and pragmatic focus on what happens after release drives the philosophy. You can’t expect someone who’s spent months or years sitting in a cell to then hop up in the morning, make his breakfast, and go to work all day the moment he’s released. Just as teenagers are armed with more independence and more responsibility before they move out of the family home, you must prepare a person for the transition out of prison and back into the responsibilities of the community if you want that transition to occur with any measure of success. And in order to do this, you must also be realistic about the significant obstacles that a man released from prison is facing: he’s been absent from all his relationships; he’ll suddenly have financial obligations like rent and groceries and child support; he’ll need to find counseling and likely substance-abuse programs.
Christine Montross (Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration)
Most people think that money and love aren’t related topics. But allow me explain this to you in a realistic way. When someone criticizes you but doesn’t see your value, this person is trying to bargain your happiness. When someone doesn’t invest in a relationship, but instead complains about her needs and wants, this person is overpricing herself. When a woman invests more in her outer beautify than inner beauty, she is focusing on her brand, and not quality. When the cost of a relationship exceeds the quality of what you get, you are being cheated. And there’s no such thing as cost for quality, because very often the nicest people you find are also the easiest to hang out with, and the kindest. They make you feel like your life is easy despite any challenges along the way, and that you haven’t lost anything but instead gained a lot. When someone adds value to your life, well then, that person proves to be a great investment. And great investments are worth a lifetime. They require little to be maintained but give you plenty in return. You should never let go a good opportunity, in love and wealth. And if you’re smart enough to understand this, you can be in a fantastic relationship and wealthy at the same time. If you can’t, you probably undervalued yourself.
Robin Sacredfire
If the therapist understands and does not take mistrust as personal affront, the therapeutic relationship can evolve gradually. The client can begin to recognize that the therapist actually "gets" why he or she is initially skeptical, self-protective, or "realistically paranoid" and does not pressure the client to be a "happy camper" but instead works to earn trust by being honorable, reliable, and consistent. This also implies a view of the client's initial mistrust as expectable in light of the client's history - that is, as a strength rather than as a deficiency or pathology.
Christine A. Courtois (Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach)
I’m also the mother of a teenage boy. I’ve said in the past, and I’ll say it again, that fourteen-year-old boys are like the single-cell protozoan version of a husband. I often want to invite my single girlfriends over to my house for a day so they can get a clear picture of what they’re really dealing with when it comes to men. It’s not that all men are immature. It’s that all men have a part inside them that matches the part inside me that never really left ninth grade. And in order to love them (and love myself), I’m going to need to get realistic about that part.
Tracy McMillan (Why You're Not Married . . . Yet: The Straight Talk You Need to Get the Relationship You Deserve)
Our partnership is the primary bond. Not our kids. And as compelling as it is to turn our full attention to our new baby, our toddler, our young kids or our teens, if we leave our partner out in the cold, we will chip away at the very core of what holds our loving family together. We will, without doubt, put our family at risk. We have to find balance. Though it’s not always easy, with a little practice and a few simple shortcuts applied, we can realistically do it. Love is an active verb.
JoAnneh Nagler (Naked Marriage: How to Have a Lifetime of Love, Sex, Joy, and Happiness)
Setting Goals with SPRIGS A sprig is a small stem that bears leaves, buds, and flowers. As each sprig blossoms and bears fruit, it contributes to a larger thriving bush or tree. By setting goals using the SPRIGS method, you create a way to enhance your intention. Your goals should be: S: Specific P: Positive R: Realistic I: Inspiring G: Grounded in Time and Gaugeable and finally, allow you to: S: Set Your Next Steps
Andrea Lieberstein (Well Nourished: Mindful Practices to Heal Your Relationship with Food, Feed Your Whole Self, and End Overeating)
Always consider the symptom and the response. It’s tempting to focus only on the ADHD issue when you confront a problem, but considering both the symptom and the response provides a more realistic picture of the situation and helps keep the ADHD partner from feeling as if she is being blamed. Don’t let the presence of negative responses turn into an excuse not to manage ADHD symptoms. A classic example is the ADHD spouse who convinces himself that his wife’s anger is the real cause of their problems. Yes, the anger is a factor that needs to be addressed, but it’s also a response to specific ADHD symptoms. Learn which responses produce positive outcomes. Anger, nagging, and withdrawal are responses that don’t move you forward. Look for different ways to get your ideas across. Responses are important, and choosing how to express yourself in constructive ways is the best and fastest way a non-ADHD partner can contribute to breaking out of symptom-response-response deadlocks.
Melissa Orlov (The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps)