Roadblocks Quotes

We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we fuck up, we get fucked, we get sick, we don’t get what we want, we cross thousands of “could have done better”s and “wish that wouldn’t have happened”s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck, or figure out how to do it less often.

Sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get you to the right place.

The power behind taking responsibility for your actions lies in putting an end to negative thought patterns. You no longer dwell on what went wrong or focus on whom you are going to blame. You don't waste time building roadblocks to your success. Instead, you are set free and can now focus on succeeding.

Don’t build roadblocks out of assumptions.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, “Look here! This way!” That part of you loves you so much that it doesn’t want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you don’t listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.

Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.

For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder. I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies

If you're on the path you're meant to be on, everything falls into place; the Universe is telling you that. If you are not on the right path, you will experience roadblocks all along the way, and this is also the Universe telling you to stop, look, and ask if this is where you are supposed to be.

I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grows inside of their body and feeds on their blood and endangers their life and reroutes their future. There are no ‘good’ abortions and ‘bad’ abortions, there are only pregnant people who want them and pregnant people who don’t, pregnant people who have access and support and pregnant people who face institutional roadblocks and lies.

Some of the greatest discoveries...consist mainly in the clearing away of psychological roadblocks which obstruct the approach to reality; which is why,post factum they appear so obvious.

Doubts in your mind are a much greater roadblock to success than obstacles on the journey.

The trouble with ‘if only’ is that it doesn’t change anything. It keeps the person facing the wrong way – backward instead of forward. It wastes time. In the end, if you let it become a habit, it can become a real roadblock – an excuse for not trying anymore.

Grace is having a commitment to- or at least an acceptance of- being ineffective and foolish. That our bottled charm is the main roadblock to drinking that clear cool glass of love.

If you do not see light at the end of the tunnel, consider it an opportunity to create an opening yourself, wherever you want.

Great achievement goes through, not around, discouragement. Is there a roadblock in my way, keeping me from something I want to achieve? Am I discouraged? I understand now that discouragement often precedes achievement. Instead of retreating from the roadblock or seeking a way around it, I will boldly punch a hole through it and continue toward my goal.

You have to see every potential roadblock as an opportunity and a benefit.

When a person boldly declares 'You can't' he might as well add on 'Can you?' knowing that this spoken roadblock only serves to fuel a challenge in naturally stubborn souls.

To be on brand is to be 100% certain of who you are and what you do, and certainly, in art and in life, is not only completely overrated, it is also a roadblock to discovery. Uncertainty is the very thing that art thrives on.

Have you ever really wanted to be able to do something, but you came across a roadblock of some kind? You have a difficult choice. I made that choice once and it changed my whole life, by giving me experiences I never would have had if I took the easy street and had not tried.

biggest roadblocks you encounter in life are the ones you construct for yourself.

Relax. We're exactly where we're supposed to be. If not, we'd have seen a roadblock. Take a deep breath and relax.

But if you needed to HAVE AN IDEA, boredom could be to a roadblocked novel what chemotherapy was to a cancer patient.

Problems are not roadblocks, but exercise tools.

Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past.

An excuse is nothing more than a self-imposed roadblock.

They aren't roadblocks. They're signposts.

There is an old Belfast joke about the man stopped at a roadblock and asked his religion. When he replies that he is an atheist he is asked, “Protestant or Catholic atheist?

No part of walking by faith is more difficult than walking the road of repentance. However, with 'faith unto repentance', we can push the roadblock of pride away and beg God for mercy. One simply surrenders, worrying only about what God thinks, not about what 'they' think.

Reader, do you remember that ridiculous movie Volcano, the one with Tommy Lee Jones? Do you remember how they stopped eruption in the middle of downtown Los Angeles? They diverted it with cement roadblocks and pointed fire hoses at it, and rerouted the lava to the ocean, and everything was fine? Sweet reader, that is not how lava works. Anyone can tell you that. Here is the truth: I keep waiting for my anger to go dormant, but it won’t. I keep waiting for someone to reroute my anger into the ocean, but no one can. My heart is closer to Dante’s Peak of Dante’s Peak. My anger dissolves grandmas in acid lakes and razes quaint Pacific Northwest towns with ash and asphyxiates jet engines with its grit. Lava keeps leaking down my slopes. You should have listened to the scientist. You should have evacuated earlier.

Those unearthly eyes were so close, she could see the reflection of her own furious expression in their depths. “I’d rather watch you take a lover than die at my hands.” She knew how much those words must’ve tortured him. Even now, the air was staining bloodred with anger. “And would you let that man live?” she whispered. No response. That gave her hope even when hope seemed impossible. “Then we fight, Judd.” She dared to place her hand gently on his chest. He flinched but didn’t move away. “We fight until every avenue is closed and then we dig under the roadblocks. Because I am not walking away from us.” Strong words, but she was shaking. He could destroy her with a few careless comments. “You’re the strongest, most determined woman I know.” He played his fingers along the strands of her hair. “You’d make mincemeat out of a lesser man. It’s a good thing you belong to me.” Relief almost collapsed her knees. “Not funny.” “I’m serious.” Something very male moved over his face. “If you say yes now, I won’t let you go if you decide I’m not what you want later on down the road. You say yes, you say yes forever. Be sure.

Success is not a destination, it is a journey. Failure is not permanent, it is transient. So continue your journey with intermittent roadblocks.

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour

and jazz is like a bird who migrates or emigrates or immigrates or transmigrates, roadblock jumper, smuggler, something that runs and mixes in

Never make a roadblock of yourself on trouble's road. No, make yourself a bridge instead, with stones slick as grease.

As a collaborative leader, you support people in their work—you remove roadblocks and help them win.

Our thoughts are not roadblocks to our meditation, they are the divine expression of the universe and the building blocks of infinite possibilities available to us in every moment.

I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

Being Lutheran is about having the theological roadblocks cleared away. No good works. No law pretending to be Gospel. No popes or piety. No moralism. Just the Gospel loudly and clearly proclaimed.

The moment isn't a piece of time; it's a question. The moment comes when you look up and see your life stretching out for seventy more years. And there, in front of you, like a giant roadblock, is the question: Is this life good enough for the next seventy years? But maybe that's the easy question. The next logical question--Can I live like this?--is the killer. Because it isn't a yes or no kind of question. It's a do or die kind of question. I avoid moments.

I have been thinking about the idea of excuses for some time now. They are like menacing demons that creep into our lives without us knowing. They are roadblocks, white lies to ourselves, a reason to set the bar lower, and self-justification for achieving less than our full potential.

Any woman of virtue won't be easy to come by. She will make you jump over hurdles to reach her.

The truth is I don't give a damn why anyone has an abortion. I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grow inside of their body and feeds on their blood and endangers their life and reroutes their future. There are no "good" abortions and "bad" abortions, there are only pregnant people who want them and pregnant people who don't, pregnant people who have access and support and pregnant people who face institutional roadblocks and lies.

Most people spend their lives doing one of two things to their emotions: numbing or venting. Self-loving people do something very different—they accept each emotion as a piece of communication and they try to decode it. This way, emotions can become important guideposts on the journey of self-discovery, rather than annoying roadblocks.

I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way they did, all at once, without anyone knowing beforehand. If there had still been portable money, it would have been more difficult. "It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. "Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. "I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? "That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed at home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could point your finger at. ... "Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn't be too careful.

The roadblocks to growth and joy come when we forget the bigness of God & instead make people bigger than He is.

I don’t regret or fear my problems and roadblocks. They have made me brave and given me the opportunity to overcome them.

Most of the time the road is not clear ahead. We have roadblocks and obstacles and stumble because of them. Are you courageous enough to map your way around them and continue on?

He was always so calm, always adaptable. She realized, watching him, that he met challenges as if they were an expected part of his path. By contrast, she resented every tiny roadblock.

How could it be that you could love someone so much and keep it a secret from yourself as you woke daily so far from home? She had put billboards and roads between them, throwing roadblocks behind her and ripping off the rearview mirror, and thought that would make him disappear?

You do not retreat from a road-block; you make your way around it, or look for another route to where you are going. And you learn to zigzag ... Take a different route, albeit a longer one.

The archival record backs up the testimony of the survivors. Neither crop failure nor bad weather caused the famine in Ukraine. Although the chaos of collectivization helped create the conditions that led to famine, the high numbers of deaths in Ukraine between 1932 and 1934, and especially the spike in the spring of 1933, were not caused directly by collectivization either. Starvation was the result, rather, of the forcible removal of food from people’s homes; the roadblocks that prevented peasants from seeking work or food; the harsh rules of the blacklists imposed on farms and villages; the restrictions on barter and trade; and the vicious propaganda campaign designed to persuade Ukrainians to watch, unmoved, as their neighbours died of hunger.

There comes a time when we must rebel against the stop signs, detours, and bad counsel to stick with Yahweh. All those no’s create character, with a deeper shade of empathy. Carry on Ruth. To hell with all those human roadblocks. Michael Ben Zehabe, Ruth: a woman’s guide to husband material, pg 29

No lack of time, strength or money shall prevent me from doing anything that I want to do,” was Sarah Macnaughtan’s lifelong motto, first uttered in her younger years. A compassionate and daring woman ahead of her time who stood barely over 5 feet tall, Sarah let no obstacles become roadblocks in her life.

If it weren’t for public transportation,” Sam said, “my brother wouldn’t be getting married today. He and Maggie fell in love along the ferry route from Bellingham to Anacortes … which brings to mind the old saying that life is a journey. Some people have a natural sense of direction. You could put them in the middle of a foreign country and they could find their way around. My brother is not one of those people.” Sam paused as some of the guests started laughing, and his older brother gave him a mock-warning glance. “So when Mark by some miracle manages to end up where he was supposed to be, it’s a nice surprise for everyone, including Mark.” More laughter from the crowd. “Somehow, even with all the roadblocks and detours and one-way streets, Mark managed to find his way to Maggie.” Sam raised his glass. “To Mark and Maggie’s journey together. And to Holly, who is loved more than any girl in the whole wide world.

Enthusiastic people take action rather than setting up roadblocks or distractions. What helps grow enthusiasm and build momentum is having a clear vision of what motivates you, which will help you remain focused.

Occasionally they came to villages, and at each village they encountered a roadblock of fallen trees. Having had centuries of experience with the smallpox virus, the village elders had instituted their own methods for controlling the virus, according to their received wisdom, which was to cut their villages off from the world, to protect their people from a raging plague. It was reverse quarantine, an ancient practice in Africa, where a village bars itself from strangers during a time of disease, and drives away outsiders who appear. (94)

Because I like being around you.” He’s still looking out the window, and I wonder if he’s focusing on one object when he says this and what that object is. “I probably shouldn’t, but I do. And I can’t say why. I mean, I can think of a bunch of reasons why.” Like? Like? “But given … the obvious roadblock, I’m not sure how much we can get to know each other.” He rushes on. “As people, because you’re an interesting person and I value that in friendship. That’s seriously what I’m after, not that I’m after you and I’m not talking about, you know, ‘knowing’ each other. Like in a biblical way or anything, although you’re obviously pretty. I mean, very pretty and totally worth knowing both ways … Okay, shut it, Oliver. Shut it.

Changing our relationship to the past is a staple of therapy. But we talk far less about how our relationship to the future informs the present too. Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past. In

To instill the values for the culture was and is the responsibility of the leadership, and staff alignment was critical to its success. It started with both board and staff. They realized that they needed to share the same value system that says, “I am the equipper, not the doer.” If not, there were going to be immense roadblocks to effectively mobilizing people for ministry.

Just that winter she had found herself saying to a young woman who worked with her at the tasting bar on Saturdays that between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. 'That doesn't mean the weaker one doesn't love the stronger,' she'd pleaded. The girl looked at her blankly. But for my mother what mattered was that as she spoke, she had suddenly identified herself as the weaker one. This revelation sent her reeling. What had she thought all those years but the opposite? She pulled her chair as close to his head as she could and laid her face on the edge of his pillow to watch him breathing, to see the flutter of the eye beneath his eyelid when he dreamed. How could it be that you could love someone so far from home? She had put billboards and roads in between them, throwing roadblocks behind her and ripping off the rearview mirror, and thought that that would make him disappear? erase their life and children? It was so simple, as she watched him, as his regular breathing calmed her, that she did not even see it happening at first. She began to think of the rooms in our house and the hours that she had worked so hard to forget spent inside of them. Like fruit put up in jars and forgotten about, the sweetness seemed even more distilled as she returned. There on that shelf were all the dates and silliness of thier early love, the braid that began to form of their dreams, the solid root of a burgeoning family. The first solid evidence of it all. Me.

We need to understand enough of modern thought to identify the ways it blocks us from living out the Gospel the way God intends, both in terms of intellectual roadblocks and in terms of economic and structural changes that make it harder to live by Scriptural principles.

While you desire lasting change with positive results, it will take commitment from you to transform your dreams into a reality. Be aware that there can be tough moments when you're ready to throw in the towel. Frustrating times when you may want to quit. When it gets rough or you hit a roadblock, you must forge ahead and keep going. Despite blood, sweat, and tears, do not give up on yourself. You are worth the fight for a brighter future!

I don't know which is worse—to have a bad teacher or no teacher at all. In any case, I believe the teacher's work should be largely negative. He can't put the gift into you, but if he finds it there, he can try to keep it from going in an obviously wrong direction. We can learn how not to write, but this is a discipline that does not simply concern writing itself but concerns the whole intellectual life. A mind cleared of false emotion and false sentiment and egocentricity is going to have at least those roadblocks removed from its path. If you don't think cheaply, then there at least won't be the quality of cheapness in your writing, even though you may not be able to write well. The teacher can try to weed out what is positively bad, and this should be the aim of the whole college. Any discipline can help your writing: logic, mathematics, theology, and of course and particularly drawing. Anything that helps you to see, anything that makes you look. The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that doesn't require his attention.

I can do anything I believe I can do! I’ve got it, and every day I get more of it. I have talent, skills, and ability. I set goals and I reach them. I know what I want out of life. I go after it and I get it. People like me, and I feel good about myself. I have a sense of pride in who I am, and I believe in myself. Nothing seems to stop me. I have a lot of determination. I turn problems into advantages. I find possibilities in things that other people never give a chance. I have a lot of energy—I am very alive! I enjoy life and I can tell it and so can others. I keep myself up, looking ahead, and liking it. I know that I can accomplish anything I choose, and I refuse to let anything negative hold me back or stand in my way. I am not afraid of anything or anyone. I have strength, power, conviction, and confidence! I like challenges and I meet them head on, face to face—today especially! I am on top of the world and I’m going for it. I have a clear picture in my mind of what I want. I can see it in front of me. I know what I want and I know how to get it. I know that it’s all up to me and I know I can do it. Roadblocks don’t bother me. They just mean that I am alive and running, and I’m not going to stand still for anything. I trust myself I’ve got what it takes—plenty of it—and I know how to use it. Today, more than ever. Today I am unstoppable! I’ve got myself together and I’m getting more together every day. And today—look out world, here I come! Limitations? I don’t even recognize them as limitations. There is no challenge I can’t conquer; there is no wall I can’t climb over. There is no problem I can’t defeat, or turn around and make it work for me. I stand tall! I am honest and sincere. I like to deal with people and they like me. I think well; I think clearly. I am organized; I am in control of myself, and everything about me. I call my shots, and no one has to call them for me. I never blame anyone else for the circumstances of my life. I accept my failings and move past them as easily as I accept the rewards for my victories. I never demand perfection of myself, but I expect the very best of what I have to give—and that’s what I get! I never give myself excuses. I get things done on time and in the right way. Today I have the inner strength to do more than ever. I am an exceptional human being. My goals and my incredible belief in myself turn my goals into reality. I have the power to live my dreams. I believe in them like I believe in myself. And that belief is so strong that there is nothing that diminishes my undefeatable spirit.

We all step in shit from time to time. We hit roadblocks, we fuck up, we get fucked, we get sick, we don’t get what we wanted, we cross thousands of “could have done betters” and “wish that wouldn’t have happened”‘s in life. Stepping in shit is inevitable, so let’s either see it as good luck, or figure out how to do it less often.

Chaos limits the free-flow of love and becomes a roadblock to what family members want most and sadly, it becomes the normal for the family.

A writer keeps going despite what awaits the effort, the detours, ruts, curves & unexpected roadblocks. The road is clear. Drive on

No matter where you are in your life. No matter that detour, that roadblock, that reroute; all paths do what they must to take you to the place you need to be. That I can promise.

For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. MARY KAY ASH

Sometimes it’s life’s roadblocks that lead a heart onto its rightful path.

If a book remained roadblocked long enough, it began to decay, to fall apart; all the little tricks and illusions started to show. He

A conversational roadblock.

The deterioration of individual thought has resulted in a morbidly dependent society that has lost its sense of personal responsibility and accountability. Society has devolved into a state of thoughtless stagnancy, accepting the tyrannical laws and deleterious social structures without question or reason. This is the downfall of the human race, and the roadblock to Divinity.

Going through life regretting your past decisions is like being a repeat offender in jail. You never break free because you won't allow your mentality to move on". ~Demia Avery The Roadblock is You

Consider roadblocks in your life as sharks in sea and than imagine what you will do if you are swimming in sea. Will you stop swimming on seeing sharks or double , quadruple your efforts to reach the shore ?

When your manager is conducting a meeting or conference call and presents an idea or goal, they’re looking for commitment to tackle the task. If you start listing all of the reasons why it won’t work or argue unimportant details, your boss will see your effort as adversarial. You become a roadblock preventing everyone in the group from moving forward.... If you have a small concern or issue you want heard, save it for a personal moment later.

He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet he goes on taking in. It is not what he does, it is what he is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory, as if it were something precious, as if it were itself the loved child tottering homeward on the road. But there is so much of it. So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks; so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin. The world he claims, claims him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down… All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor plays chess with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday, but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does. Early Sunday morning, one of the friends comes back with rags and a jug of water and a box of the grave spices that are supposed to cut down on the smell. She’s braced for the task. But when she comes to the grave she finds that the linen’s been thrown into the corner and the body is gone. Evidently anonymous burial isn’t quite anonymous enough, after all. She sits outside in the sun. The insects have woken up, here at the edge of the desert, and a bee is nosing about in a lily like silk thinly tucked over itself, but much more perishable. It won’t last long. She takes no notice of the feet that appear at the edge of her vision. That’s enough now, she thinks. That’s more than enough. Don’t be afraid, says Yeshua. Far more can be mended than you know. She is weeping. The executee helps her to stand up.

I challenge you to destroy whatever roadblock is keeping you from moving forward. Destroy it with your physical body if you must, but first, destroy it with a power greater than a nuclear bomb—the power of your mind. Think it gone and it will go.

Wendell explains that my pain feels like it's in the present, but it's actually both in the past and the future. Therapists talk a lot about how the past informs the present- how our histories affect the ways we think, feel, and behave and how at some point in our lives, we have to let go of the fantasy of creating a better past. If we don't accept the notion that there's no redo, much as we try to get our parents or siblings or partners to fix what happened years ago, out pasts will keep us stuck. Changing our relationship to the past is a staple of therapy. But we talk far less about how our relationship to the future informs the present too. Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past.

Fourteen meters deep,” Edmond said. He told me that his brother-in-law had been a fanatically religious man, and on April 12, 1994, when he was stopped by interahamwe at a roadblock down the street and forced to lead them back to his house, he had persuaded the killers to let him pray. Edmond’s brother-in-law had prayed for half an hour. Then he told the militiamen that he didn’t want his family dismembered, so they invited him to throw his children down the latrine wells alive, and he did. Then Edmond’s sister and his brother-in-law were thrown in on top. Edmond took his camera out of a plastic bag and took some pictures of the holes in the ground. “People come to Rwanda and talk of reconciliation,” he said. “It’s offensive. Imagine talking to Jews of reconciliation in 1946. Maybe in a long time,

Canis latrans,” Wolfenson finally remarked. Fincher furrowed his brow. “Latin for... barking dog?” “Yes, the coyote. They have a gift of making the howls of a few sound like the howls of the many.” He looked toward the roadblock of brick and mortar. “I believe that’s why the Landlord chose them as his messengers.

very early in Moderan the mighty Stronghold masters had solved for themselves the flesh-woman question, or, to be more precise, the wife-nuisance roadblock. And for that I honor them. I mean, my beamish hat is off to them, for that was QUITE a solving! We have no such problem, of course, in the essence times. If I don't like the beams of the woman I'm with, or if I like too much the beams of the woman I'm with and she won't reciprocate, I just signal back to the Love Dictator's office my discontent and he orders one of his little clerk mechanics to call the old beams home, and the Love Dictator then transmits me, personally, a new package.

Maybe you have been wondering about how to win the battle of life. Dress in the armour of war; be well grounded in the requisite knowledge to win your battle. Refine your skills, talents and tactics and forge ahead with determination. Prepare in advance and enter the war with the right strategy. Work with your warriors as a team. Avoid unnecessary mistakes and learn from your errors. Use the right weapons in your arsenal at the right time. Attack your struggles and protect your dreams. Know that timing is everything. Never give up until you destroy all your roadblocks. Capitalise on your strength and with victory in focus you will become a winner.

The review in the newspaper the next day was not very good. But by then I'd figured out the gift of failure, which is that it breaks through all that held breath and isometric tension about needing to look good: it's the gift of feeling floppier. One of the things I'd been most afraid of had finally happened, with a whole lot of people watching, and it had indeed been a nightmare. But sitting with all that vulnerability, I discovered I could ride it...Out of nowhere, I remembered something one of my priest friends had said once, that grace is having a commitment to - or at least an acceptance of - being ineffective and foolish. That our bottled charm is the main roadblock to drinking that clear, cool glass of love. I remembered what Grace's stories were all about: self-forgiveness, and taking care of one another. It wasn't far away from Jesus saying to feed his sheep. Now, I'm not positive he meant room service. But maybe he did. So I ate strawberries and melon and cookies, then put on the heat, and got in the tub.

Obstacles are real, but we must determine to succeed in life no matter how big and many they are.

The price of freedom is eternal mindfulness. This is a book about restoring connection. It is the experience of being in connection that fulfills the longing we have to feel fully alive. An impaired capacity for connection to self and others, and the ensuing diminished aliveness, are the hidden dimensions that underlie most psychological and many physiological problems. Unfortunately, we are often unaware of the internal roadblocks that keep us from experiencing the connection and aliveness we yearn for. These roadblocks develop in reaction to developmental and shock trauma and the related nervous system dysregulation, disruptions in attachment, and distortions of identity. The goal of the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is to work with these dysregulations, disruptions, and distortions while never losing sight of supporting the development of a healthy capacity for connection and aliveness. In this book we address conflicts around the capacity for connection and explore how deeper connection and aliveness can be supported in the process of healing developmental trauma.

I believe the principles of structural revolution are the same,” Lou Gerstner pointed out in the middle of his positive transformation of IBM. “First, it takes personal commitment on the part of the CEO. This is not a job you can delegate. Second, it takes a willingness to confront and expel the people and the organizations that are throwing up roadblocks to the changes you consider critical.

As we walk away I know they’re watching, these two men who aren’t yet permitted to touch women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt sway around me. It’s like thumbing your nose from behind a fence or teasing a dog with a bone held out of reach, and I’m ashamed of myself for doing it, because none of this is the fault of these men, they’re too young. Then I find I’m not ashamed after all. I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there. I hope they get hard at the sight of us and have to rub themselves against the painted barriers, surreptitiously. They will suffer, later, at night, in their regimented beds. They have no outlets now except themselves, and that’s a sacrilege. There are no more magazines, no more films, no more substitutes; only me and my shadow, walking away from the two men, who stand at attention, stiffly, by a roadblock, watching our retreating shapes.

On reflection, looking at shows like this and considering my own experiences, what fascinated me was that we have so many stories like this that help us empathize with monstrous men. “Yes, these men are flawed, but they are not as evil as this man.” Even more chilling, they tend to be stories that paint women as roadblocks, aggressors, antagonists, complications—but only in the context of them being a bitch, a whore, a Madonna. The women are never people. Stories about monstrous men are not meant to teach us how to empathize with the women and children murdered, but with the men fighting over their bodies. As a woman menaced by monsters, I find this particularly interesting, this erasure of me from a narrative meant to, if not justify, then explain the brokenness of men. There are shows much better at this, of course, which don’t paint women out of the story—Mad Men is the first to come to mind, and Game of Thrones—but True Detective doubled down. The women terrorized by monsters in real life are active agents. They are monster-slayers, monster-pacifiers, monster-nurturers, monster-wranglers—and some of them are monsters, too. In truth, if we are telling a tale of those who fight monsters, it fascinates me that we are not telling more women’s stories, as we’ve spun so many narratives like True Detective that so blatantly illustrate the sexist masculinity trap that turns so many human men into the very things they despise. Where are the women who fight them? Who partner with them? Who overcome them? Who battle their own monsters to fight greater ones? Because I have and continue to be one of those women, navigating a horror show world of monsters and madmen. We are women who write books and win awards and fight battles and carve out extraordinary lives from ruin and ash. We are not background scenery, our voices silenced, our motives and methods constrained to sex. I cannot fault the show’s men for forgetting that; they’ve created the world as they see it. But I can prod the show’s exceptional writers, because in erasing the narrative of those whose very existence is constantly threatened by these monsters, including trusted monsters whose natures vacillate wildly, they sided with the monsters. I’m not a bit player in a monster’s story. But with narratives like this perpetuated across our media, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how my obituary read: a catalogue of the men who sired me, and fucked me, and courted me. Stories that are not my own. Funny, isn’t it? The power of story. It’s why I picked up a pen. I slay monsters, too.

The witch-hunt narrative is now the conventional wisdom about these cases. That view is so widely endorsed and firmly entrenched that so widely endorsed and firmly entrenched that there would seem to be nothing left to say about these cases. But a close examination of the witch hunt canon leads to some unsettling questions: Why is there so little in the way of academic scholarship about these cases? Almost all of the major witch-hunt writings have been in magazines, often without any footnotes to verify or assess the claims made. Why hasn't anyone writing about these cases said anything about how difficult they are to research? There are so many roadblocks and limitations to researching these cases that it would seem incumbent on any serious writer to address the limitations of data sources. Many of these cases seem to have been researched in a manner of days or weeks. Nevertheless, the cases are described in a definitive way that belies their length and complexity, along with the inherent difficulty in researching original trial court documents. This book is based on the first systematic examination of court records in these cases.

As stated in the opening paragraph, be excited! You are about to embark on an incredible journey that provides extraordinary opportunities and offers valuable rewards. The journey to become a physical therapist often is not easy, and it will not come without roadblocks and detours. The challenges do not end once you have graduated; they simply change. However, as many seasoned clinicians can attest, these challenges pale in comparison to the reward of knowing how many patients’ lives you have profoundly impacted. The unexpected gift is how profoundly they will impact yours.

The key questions answered by tipping point leaders are as follows: What factors or acts exercise a disproportionately positive influence on breaking the status quo? On getting the maximum bang out of each buck of resources? On motivating key players to aggressively move forward with change? And on knocking down political roadblocks that often trip up even the best strategies? By single-mindedly focusing on points of disproportionate influence, tipping point leaders can topple the four hurdles that limit execution of blue ocean strategy. They can do this fast and at low cost. Let

That is, “Yes” is nothing without “How.” Asking “How,” knowing “How,” and defining “How” are all part of the effective negotiator’s arsenal. He would be unarmed without them.         ■    Ask calibrated “How” questions, and ask them again and again. Asking “How” keeps your counterparts engaged but off balance. Answering the questions will give them the illusion of control. It will also lead them to contemplate your problems when making their demands.         ■    Use “How” questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No.” This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutions—your solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves.         ■    Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players “behind the table.” You can do so by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are.         ■    Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language. Incongruence between the words and nonverbal signs will show when your counterpart is lying or uncomfortable with a deal.         ■    Is the “Yes” real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three: use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.         ■    A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of “I,” “me,” and “my,” the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere. Picking up a lot of “we,” “they,” and “them,” it’s more likely you’re dealing directly with a savvy decision maker keeping his options open.         ■    Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.

the challenges of our day-to-day existence are sustained reminders that our life of faith simply must have its center somewhere other than in our ability to hold it together in our minds. Life is a pounding surf that wears away our rock-solid certainty. The surf always wins. Slowly but surely. Eventually. It may be best to ride the waves rather than resist them. What are your one or two biggest obstacles to staying Christian? What are those roadblocks you keep running into? What are those issues that won’t go away and make you wonder why you keep on believing at all? These are questions I asked on a survey I gave on my blog in the summer of 2013. Nothing fancy. I just asked some questions and waited to see what would happen. In the days to come, I was overwhelmed with comments and e-mails from readers, many anonymous, with bracingly honest answers often expressed through the tears of relentless and unnerving personal suffering. I didn’t do a statistical analysis (who has the time, plus I don’t know how), but the responses fell into five categories.         1.        The Bible portrays God as violent, reactive, vengeful, bloodthirsty, immoral, mean, and petty.         2.        The Bible and science collide on too many things to think that the Bible has anything to say to us today about the big questions of life.         3.        In the face of injustice and heinous suffering in the world, God seems disinterested or perhaps unable to do anything about it.         4.        In our ever-shrinking world, it is very difficult to hold on to any notion that Christianity is the only path to God.         5.        Christians treat each other so badly and in such harmful ways that it calls into question the validity of Christianity—or even whether God exists. These five categories struck me as exactly right—at least, they match up with my experience. And I’d bet good money they resonate with a lot of us. All five categories have one big thing in common: “Faith in God no longer makes sense to me.” Understanding, correct thinking, knowing what you believe—these were once true of their faith, but no longer are. Because life happened. A faith that promises to provide firm answers and relieve our doubt is a faith that will not hold up to the challenges and tragedies of life. Only deep trust can hold up.

Stop strokin’ that gun, Kyle,” Gator said. “You’re makin’ me nervous. I’m thinkin’ you’re about to make love to the damn thing.” “She is purty,” Kyle said, giving the gun one last caress, his eye watching the truck ahead. “Slow down a little, and let them get ahead of us, Gator.” “What if they put up a roadblock?” Jonas asked. Ryland opened one eye. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Can the chatter and let me sleep. We’ve got swimming to do and I’m getting too old for this shit.” “Do they have sharks off this coast?” Jonas asked. Sam snickered. “You and those sharks, Jonas.” “I have nightmares, man,” Jonas protested. “I’ll feed you to a damn shark if you don’t let me sleep,” Ryland drawled. Kadan and Nico exchanged amused glances. Ryland opened both eyes. “I heard that. I’m not that old.

Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned

It was a roadblock, manned by an officer and several other soldiers. Sivaram and the trishaw driver were ordered out of the vehicle, and I was told to stay where I was. The soldiers held their rifl es aimed and ready as the offi cer interrogated the trishaw driver, a Muslim man, who fumbled out his documents. He was soon allowed to get back in his trishaw. When it was Sivaram’s turn, he just stood there, completely quiet. After several questions, the offi cer started screaming at him. Then he ordered his soldiers to take him, and gestured for the trishaw driver to go on. Without thinking, I jumped out of the trishaw. I was a visiting professor at Colombo University and he was one of my students, I lied, approaching them. I threatened to call the American Embassy if they arrested my ‘student.’ The offi cer yelled, in English, for me to come no closer, to get back in the trishaw. Then he barked an order, and one of the soldiers lifted his rifl e and aimed it directly at my head. I kept babbling on about the embassy, but even I did not hear myself. All I could see was that hole at the end of the rifl e and, above it, the sweaty face and very frightened eyes of the soldier. He looked very young, maybe 18. I thought, I’m going to die right now. And then we grew very quiet. The offi cer barked another order, the soldier lowered his gun, and the other soldiers pushed Sivaram back toward the trishaw. We got in and took off. I do not believe we said anything on the way back to my rented room. I remember giving the trishaw driver a big tip. Once inside, I sat down in one of the two big rattan chairs in my room and tried to light a cigarette. But I had the shakes and kept missing the end. Sivaram lit it for me, and then sat staring at me in the other chair. ‘My God,’ I said, ‘that was horrible. He could have killed us.’ ‘He wanted to kill us both.’ ‘My God.’ ‘But, one good thing maccaan, at last you begin to understand politics now