Rushed Decisions Quotes

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Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life - that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.
Victoria Erickson
Patience is the antidote to the restless poison of the Ego. Without it we all become ego-maniacal bulls in china shops, destroying our future happiness as we blindly rush in where angels fear to tread. In these out-of-control moments, we bulldoze through the best possible outcomes for our lives, only to return to the scene of the crime later to cry over spilt milk.
Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
Today," she told it, "death comes to all your circuits. Will it be slow and systematic or fast and brutal?" Considering, she circled it, "Tough decision. I've waited so long for this moment. Dreamed of it." Showing her teeth, she began to roll up her sleeves. "What," Roarke asked from the doorway that connected their work areas, "is that?" "The former bane of my existence. The Antichrist of technology. Do we have a hammer?" Studying the pile on the floor, he walked in. "Several, I imagine, of various types." "I want all of them. Tiny little hammers, big, wallbangers, and everything in between." "Might one ask why?" "I'm going to beat this thing apart, byte by byte, until there's nothing left but dust from the last trembling chip." "Hmmm." Roarke crouched down, examined the pitifully out-of-date system. "When did you haul this mess in here?" "Just now. I had it in the car. Maybe I should use acid, just stand here and watch it hiss and dissolve. That could be good." Saying nothing, Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, opened it, and chose a slim tool. With a few deft moves, he had the housing open. "Hey! Hey! What're you doing?" "I haven't seen anything like this in a decade. Fascinating. Look at this corrosion. Christ, this is a SOC chip system. And it's cross-wired." When he began to fiddle, she rushed over and slapped at his hands. "Mine. I get to kill it." "Get a grip on yourself," he said absently and delved deeper into the guts. "I'll take this into research." "No. Uh-uh. I have to bust it apart. What if it breeds?
J.D. Robb (Witness in Death (In Death, #10))
I am, and always have been - first, last, and always - a child of America. You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sir—we were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand. I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House. You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, “We’re rooting for you.” As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down. Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, his country had raised him too. The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms. We were not afforded that liberty. But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will “hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice. Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us. If I can ask only one thing of the American people, it’s this: Please, do not let my actions influence your decision in November. The decision you will make this year is so much bigger than anything I could ever say or do, and it will determine the fate of this country for years to come. My mother, your president, is the warrior and the champion that each and every American deserves for four more years of growth, progress, and prosperity. Please, don’t let my actions send us backward. I ask the media not to focus on me or on Henry, but on the campaign, on policy, on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans at stake in this election. And finally, I hope America will remember that I am still the son you raised. My blood still runs from Lometa, Texas, and San Diego, California, and Mexico City. I still remember the sound of your voices from that stage in Philadelphia. I wake up every morning thinking of your hometowns, of the families I’ve met at rallies in Idaho and Oregon and South Carolina. I have never hoped to be anything other than what I was to you then, and what I am to you now—the First Son, yours in actions and words. And I hope when Inauguration Day comes again in January, I will continue to be.
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
I’m fairly certain, Captain,” she said, “that the more you discover about me, the more you will dislike me. Therefore, let’s cut to the chase and acknowledge that we don’t like each other. Then we won’t have to bother with the in-between part.” She was so bloody frank and practical about the whole thing that Christopher couldn’t help but be amused. “I’m afraid I can’t oblige you.” “Why not?” “Because when you said that just now, I found myself starting to like you.” “You’ll recover,” she said. Her decisive tone made him want to smile. “It’s getting worse, actually,” he told her. “Now I’m absolutely convinced that I like you.” Beatrix gave him a patently skeptical stare. “What about my hedgehog? Do you like her, too?” Christopher considered that. “Affection for rodents can’t be rushed.” “Medusa isn’t a rodent. She’s an erinaceid.
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
Like I said, magic comes from life, and especially from emotions. They're a source of the same intangible energy that everyone can feel when an autumn moon rises and fills you with a sudden sense of bone-deep excitement, or when the first warm breeze of spring rushes past your face, full of the scents of life, and drowns you in a sudden flood of unreasoning joy. The passion of mighty music that brings tears to your eyes, and the raw, bubbling, infectious laughter of small children at play, the bellowing power of a stadium full of football fans shouting "Hey!" in time to that damned song—they're all charged with magic. My magic comes from the same places. And maybe from darker places than that. Fear is an emotion, too. So is rage. So is lust. And madness. I'm not a particularly good person. I'm no Charles Manson or anything, but I'm not going to be up for canonization either. Though in the past, I think maybe I was a better person than I am today. In the past I hadn't seen so many people hurt and killed and terrorized by the same kind of power that damn well should have been making the world a nicer place, or at the least staying the hell away from it. I hadn't made so many mistakes back then, so many shortsighted decisions, some of which had cost people their lives. I had been sure of myself. I had been whole.
Jim Butcher (Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, #7))
The decision to get married will impact one's life more deeply than almost any decision in life. Yet people continue to rush into marriage with little or no preparation for making a marriage successful. In fact, many couples give far more attention to making plans for the wedding than making plans for marriage. The wedding festivities last only a few hours, while the marriage, we hope, will last for a lifetime
Gary Chapman (Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married)
Trust me, divorce is not a hall pass. While it can feel like freedom to some, it can feel like death to others. Either way, it inevitably comes rushing upstream carrying a containership of grief and guilt. It’s like a bad dream, even when you didn’t realize you were asleep.
Nicole Sodoma (Please Don't Say You're Sorry: An Empowering Perspective on Marriage, Separation, and Divorce from a Marriage-Loving Divorce Attorney)
At every stage of our lives we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we’re going to become, and then when we become those people, we’re not always thrilled with the decisions we made. So young people pay good money to get tattoos removed that teenagers paid good money to get. Middle-aged people rushed to divorce people who young adults rushed to marry. Older adults work hard to lose what middle-aged adults worked hard to gain. On and on and on.48
Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
but far too few religious men have the perseverance to stay objective in their decision to ‘hold out’ and overlook major character flaws in women they’d like to be their spouse in a furious rush to marry them and get to “the sex part.
Rollo Tomassi (The Rational Male)
A beautiful woman should always have at the back of her mind that her ravishing appearance is only an ephemeral quality. When she wakes up in the morning, looks into the mirror, and notices that something is fading away, she knows that the time is ripe for marriage. She should be careful of who she takes into her life because the union is gonna be everlasting.
Michael Bassey Johnson
It wasn’t until I turned around that I realized that I had walked past a garden brilliant with color and laced with rich fragrance while rushing off to obligations that had neither.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
I will never fully understand why things happen the way they do on this planet. Too many people hold their tongue here. Too many people hide their true feelings. And at the end of the day, that does nothing but hurt someone. The men and women of Tamaran were always taught to live by their emotions, to trust that first reaction, as it is the most pure. Cyborg argues that you need time to make the proper decision. I argue that time blurs the true intent. To Earth standards, I may appear brash and rushed. I never hide what I think. Perhaps that is why Tamaran was a target for so many invasions. Our captors may have enjoyed seeing what pain they inflicted upon us, for our tears were never hidden either.
Geoff Johns (Teen Titans, Vol. 1: A Kid's Game)
Actions fueled by desperation. They were the worst kinds of decisions, because desperate people could see the error of their ways and simply not care. They would rush headlong into a bad situation because they could see no other options.
Emily Lloyd-Jones (The Hearts We Sold)
"When you have a tough decision to make, the longer you wait, the harder it gets."
James Abel (White Plague (Joe Rush, #1))
Politeness does not prevent a person from feeling angry or upset or hurt. What it does is delay the expression of the feeling. Manners counteract the rush to judgement. They allow a few moments for more information to emerge, for the ire to reduce slightly before doing anything decisive. The delay built into politeness allows you time to determine the true facts. It provides space to understand the issue behind the anger. If you knew more, you might not be so irate.
The School of Life (Calm: Educate Yourself in the Art of Remaining Calm, and Learn how to Defend Yourself from Panic and Fury)
Ari's coming with backup. Should I pretend we barely survived without his help or gloat that we didn't need him at all?" "Tough decision," I said. "You can't go wrong with either one," Kade said. "You guys are no fun. I have to go with the gloating. But no mention of that magic stuff. It ruins the effect." Janco rushed off.
Maria V. Snyder (Storm Glass (Glass, #1))
When you make shitty fucking decisions, you’ll probably end up in a shitty fucking situation, and you don’t force the people you love to sacrifice themselves for your reputation. It’s unforgivable.
Elsie Silver (Off to the Races (Gold Rush Ranch, #1))
Let me pull you close and whisper a heart-stopping truth. That daily stuff—those responsibilities that seem more like distractions—those things we want to rush and just get through to get on with the better and bigger assignments of life—those things that are unnoticed places of service? They are the very experiences from which we unlock the riches of wisdom. We’ve got to practice wisdom in the everyday places of our lives. Never despise the mundane. Embrace it. Unwrap it like a gift. And be one of the rare few who looks deeper than just the surface. See something more in the everyday. It’s there.
Lysa TerKeurst (The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands)
New beginnings are usually welcome. But being a beginner? Not so much. We want our circumstances to change, to start again, to be brand-new. But when they change, we often don’t give ourselves permission to be new within them. Instead, we want to rush ahead to mastery. We think we ought to know how to navigate the newness, especially if it’s something we wanted, something we prayed for, waited for, asked for, or planned.
Emily P. Freeman (The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions)
One upside to having a single parent was not rushing to get married, like so many people she knew had, just because they were trying to be adults. It was embarrassing, if you slowed down long enough to think about it, how many major life decisions happened because they looked like the model you’d been given.
Emma Straub (This Time Tomorrow)
10.  In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack—the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers. 11.  The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle—you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination? 12.  The onset of troops is like the rush of a torrent which will even roll stones along in its course. 13.  The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim. [The Chinese here is tricky and a certain key word in
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
We have long memories and do not rush to hasty decision. Words will decide nothing, only deeds.
Christopher Paolini
Leaphorn didn't comment. It was the decision he would have made. Handle it on Navajo time. No reason to rush in there.
Tony Hillerman (A Thief of Time (Leaphorn & Chee, #8))
Not everything happens for a reason. Some things happen because we make the conscious decision to stop letting shit happen to us.
Elsie Silver (The Front Runner (Gold Rush Ranch, #3))
Time has a way of focusing in on the reality of things, whether it be in regard to relationships, goals, decisions, etc. So don’t be in a rush. Give it time.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
Oprah says we women rush into decisions because we don’t have faith that something better will ever come along. And that’s how we get stuck in dissatisfying careers and marriages. Amen!
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
Oprah says that we women rush into decisions because we don't have faith that something better will ever come along. And that's how we get stuck in dissatisfying careers and marriages. Amen!
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
We startled awake, alarmed by her shouting, jumping to our feet, drawing swords, looking for imminent danger. Jeb was saying it was a false alarm, that there was nothing wrong, but Lia had somehow gotten to her feet on her own, her eyes wild, telling us we had to leave. A relieved breath hissed between my teeth and I lowered my sword. She’d only had a nightmare. I stepped toward her. “Lia, it was just a bad dream. Let me help you lie back down.” She hobbled backward, determined, sweat glistening on her face, and her arm stretched out to keep me at a distance. “No! Get ready. We leave this morning.” “Look at you,” I said. "You’re tottering like a drunk. You can’t ride.” “I can and I will." “What’s your hurry, Your Highness?” Sven asked. She looked from me to my men. Their feet were firmly planted. They weren’t going anywhere based on her wild-eyed demands. Had she spiked another fever? Her expression sobered. “Please, Rafe, you have to trust me on this.” “What did you see?” I asked. “It’s not what I saw but what I heard— Aster’s voice telling me not to tarry.” “Didn’t she say that to you a dozen times?” “At least,” she answered, but her stance remained determined. All this rush over don’t tarry? Ever since I had gathered her into my arms on that riverbank, I had been looking over my shoulder for danger. I knew it was there. But I had to weigh that uncertainty against the benefits of healing too. I looked away, trying to think. I wasn’t sure if I was making the right decision or not, but I turned back to my men. “Pack up.
Mary E. Pearson (The Beauty of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles, #3))
He's trying to speak, I do believe," Beth announced. At this moment speech came to White Fang, rushing up in a great burst of barking. "Something has happened to Weedon," His wife said decisively.
Jack London (White Fang)
Historians like a quiet life, and usually they get it. For the most part, history moves at a deliberate pace, working its changes subtly and incrementally. Nations and their institutions harden into shape or crumble away like sediment carried by the flow of a sluggish river. English history in particular seems the work of a temperate community, seldom shaken by convulsions. But there are moments when history is unsubtle; when change arrives in a violent rush, decisive, bloody, traumatic; as a truck-load of trouble, wiping out everything that gives a culture its bearings - custom, language, law, loyalty. 1066 was one of those moments.
Simon Schama (A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3500 BC-AD 1603 (A History of Britain, #1))
This is the same advice they give people who’ve just come out of rehab. After a grueling period of work (or what passes for grueling work in our soft-handed world) you will crave some kind of reward. Don’t let this cause you to rush into a big decision, like a new house or a marriage or partial ownership of a minor league baseball team, that you may later regret. The interesting thing about this piece of advice is that no one ever takes it.
Tina Fey (Bossypants)
If you find yourself rushed or uttering the words, ‘I just don’t have enough time,’ stop and take a second. Is this actually true, or have you just committed to a lot of unnecessary things?...Your life is plenty long; just use it properly.
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
With his blood rushing, he thinks about death. He is not afraid of death, and this gives him the confidence to make quick decisions—even if they are dangerous. Avinon is not going to let these slavers harm the girl. Besides, who would care if the world had less slavers in it?
Julian Fernandes (Avinon (Earth's Final Chapter #1))
Often the person we judge most harshly is ourself. Every day, we criticize our decisions, our actions, even our private thoughts. We worry the tone of an e-mail we sent to a colleague might be misconstrued. We lambaste our lack of self-control as we throw away the empty ice-cream container. We regret rushing a friend off the phone instead of listening patiently to their troubles. We wish we had told a family member what they meant to us before they died. We all carry the weight of secret regrets—the strangers we see on the street, our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, even our loved ones.
Greer Hendricks (An Anonymous Girl)
At every stage of our lives we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we're going to become, and then when we become those people, we're not always thrilled with the decisions we made. So young people pay good money to get tattoos removed that teenagers paid good money to get. Middle-aged people rushed to divorce people who young adults rushed to marry. Older adults work hard to lose what middle-aged adults worked hard to gain. On and on and on. The question is, as a psychologist, that fascinates me is, why do we make decisions that our future selves so often regret?
Dan Gilbert
The art of fiction has not changed much since prehistoric times. The formula for telling a powerful story has remained the same: create a strong character, a person of great strengths, capable of deep emotions and decisive action. Give him a weakness. Set him in conflict with another powerful character -- or perhaps with nature. Let his exterior conflict be the mirror of the protagonist's own interior conflict, the clash of his desires, his own strength against his own weakness. And there you have a story. Whether it's Abraham offering his only son to God, or Paris bringing ruin to Troy over a woman, or Hamlet and Claudius playing their deadly game, Faust seeking the world's knowledge and power -- the stories that stand out in the minds of the reader are those whose characters are unforgettable. To show other worlds, to describe possible future societies and the problems lurking ahead, is not enough. The writer of science fiction must show how these worlds and these futures affect human beings. And something much more important: he must show how human beings can and do literally create these future worlds. For our future is largely in our own hands. It doesn't come blindly rolling out of the heavens; it is the joint product of the actions of billions of human beings. This is a point that's easily forgotten in the rush of headlines and the hectic badgering of everyday life. But it's a point that science fiction makes constantly: the future belongs to us -- whatever it is. We make it, our actions shape tomorrow. We have the brains and guts to build paradise (or at least try). Tragedy is when we fail, and the greatest crime of all is when we fail even to try. Thus science fiction stands as a bridge between science and art, between the engineers of technology and the poets of humanity.
Ben Bova
The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now. Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran could have produced. ‘Yes, it is the same oak,’ thought Prince Andrei, and all at once he was seized by an unreasoning spring-time feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with the lofty heavens, his wife’s dead reproachful face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and the moon, and … all this rushed suddenly to his mind. ‘No, life is not over at thirty-one!’ Prince Andrei suddenly decided finally and decisively. ‘It is not enough for me to know what I have in me—everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony.
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
he took three potentially life-saving decisions. First, he eliminated rush hour by staggering the opening times of factories, shops and cinemas. Second, he established a clearing-house system under which 150 emergency health centres were set up across the city to coordinate the care and reporting of the sick. And third and most controversially, he kept the schools open.12
Laura Spinney (Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World)
Dimitri? She tried not to influence him. It was their decision together, not just hers. She knew he would listen with an open mind to her reasons and she wanted to be able to do the same for him. His laughter was soft in her mind, filling her with an odd tingling sensation, with a small rush of heat. Skyler. That was it. Her name. She sent him a look from under her lashes, one she usually reserved for Josef. Are you mocking me? Teasing you. Just a little. We’re getting the wolf pups. How could I possibly say no to a gift like that? You would never stop arguing with me. Discussing. I was totally prepared to be reasonable and listen to you and then show you all the reasons you were absolutely wrong if you disagreed. Dimitri burst out laughing.
Christine Feehan (Dark Wolf (Dark, #22))
Close your eyes and stare into the dark. My father's advice when I couldn't sleep as a little girl. He wouldn't want me to do that now but I've set my mind to the task regardless. I'm staring beyond my closed eyelids. Though I lie still on the ground, I feel perched at the highest point I could possibly be; clutching at a star in the night sky with my legs dangling above cold black nothingness. I take one last look at my fingers wrapped around the light and let go. Down I go, falling, then floating, and, falling again, I wait for the land of my life. I know now, as I knew as that little girl fighting sleep, that behind her gauzed screen of shut-eye, lies colour. It taunts me, dares me to open my eyes and lose sleep. Flashes of red and amber, yellow and white speckle my darkness. I refuse to open them. I rebel and I squeeze my eyelids together tighter to block out the grains of light, mere distractions that keep us awake but a sign that there's life beyond. But there's no life in me. None that I can feel, from where I lie at the bottom of the staircase. My heart beats quicker now, the lone fighter left standing in the ring, a red boxing glove pumping victoriously into the air, refusing to give up. It's the only part of me that cares, the only part that ever cared. It fights to pump the blood around to heal, to replace what I'm losing. But it's all leaving my body as quickly as it's sent; forming a deep black ocean of its own around me where I've fallen. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Never have enough time here, always trying to make our way there. Need to have left here five minutes ago, need to be there now. The phone rings again and I acknowledge the irony. I could have taken my time and answered it now. Now, not then. I could have taken all the time in the world on each of those steps. But we're always rushing. All, but my heart. That slows now. I don't mind so much. I place my hand on my belly. If my child is gone, and I suspect this is so, I'll join it there. There.....where? Wherever. It; a heartless word. He or she so young; who it was to become, still a question. But there, I will mother it. There, not here. I'll tell it; I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry I ruined your chances - our chances of a life together.But close your eyes and stare into the darkness now, like Mummy is doing, and we'll find our way together. There's a noise in the room and I feel a presence. 'Oh God, Joyce, oh God. Can you hear me, love? Oh God. Oh God, please no, Hold on love, I'm here. Dad is here.' I don't want to hold on and I feel like telling him so. I hear myself groan, an animal-like whimper and it shocks me, scares me. I have a plan, I want to tell him. I want to go, only then can I be with my baby. Then, not now. He's stopped me from falling but I haven't landed yet. Instead he helps me balance on nothing, hover while I'm forced to make the decision. I want to keep falling but he's calling the ambulance and he's gripping my hand with such ferocity it's as though I'm all he has. He's brushing the hair from my forehead and weeping loudly. I've never heard him weep. Not even when Mum died. He clings to my hand with all of his strength I never knew his old body had and I remember that I am all he has and that he, once again just like before, is my whole world. The blood continues to rush through me. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Maybe I'm rushing again. Maybe it's not my time to go. I feel the rough skin of old hands squeezing mine, and their intensity and their familiarity force me to open my eyes. Lights fills them and I glimpse his face, a look I never want to see again. He clings to his baby. I know I lost mind; I can't let him lose his. In making my decision I already begin to grieve. I've landed now, the land of my life. And still my heart pumps on. Even when broken it still works.
Cecelia Ahern (Thanks for the Memories)
It was only natural that the intellectuals who questioned the necessity of American purpose did not rush from Cambridge and New Haven to inflict their doubts about American power and goals upon the nation’s policies. So people like Riesman, classic intellectuals, stayed where they were while the new breed of thinkers-doers, half of academe, half of the nation’s think tanks and of policy planning, would make the trip, not doubting for a moment the validity of their right to serve, the quality of their experience. They were men who reflected the post-Munich, post-McCarthy pragmatism of the age. One had to stop totalitarianism, and since the only thing the totalitarians understood was force, one had to be willing to use force. They justified each decision to use power by their own conviction that the Communists were worse, which justified our dirty tricks, our toughness.
David Halberstam (The Best and the Brightest)
Don't misunderstand, but how dare you risk your life? What the devil did you think, to leap over like that? You could have stayed safe on this side and just helped me over." Even to her ears, her tone bordered on the hysterical. Beneath her fingers, the white lawn started to redden. She sucked in a shaky breath. "How could you risk your life-your life, you idiot!" She leaned harder on the pad, dragged in another breath. He coughed weakly, shifted his head. "Don't you dare die on me!" His lips twisted, but his eyes remained closed. "But if I die"-his words were a whisper-"you won't have to marry, me or anyone else. Even the most censorious in the ton will consider my death to be the end of the matter. You'll be free." "Free?" Then his earlier words registered. "If you die? I told you-don't you dare! I won't let you-I forbid you to. How can I marry you if you die? And how the hell will I live if you aren't alive, too?" As the words left her mouth, half hysterical, all emotion, she realized they were the literal truth. Her life wouldn't be worth living if he wasn't there to share it. "What will I do with my life if you die?" He softly snorted, apparently unimpressed by-or was it not registering?-her panic. "Marry some other poor sod, like you were planning to." The words cut. "You are the only poor sod I'm planning to marry." Her waspish response came on a rush of rising fear. She glanced around, but there was no one in sight. Help had yet to come running. She looked back at him, readjusted the pressure on the slowly reddening pad. "I intend not only to marry you but to lead you by the nose for the rest of your days. It's the least I can do to repay you for this-for the shock to my nerves. I'll have you know I'd decided even before this little incident to reverse my decision and become your viscountess, and lead you such a merry dance through the ballrooms and drawing rooms that you'll be gray within two years." He humphed softly, dismissively, but he was listening. Studying his face, she realized her nonsense was distracting him from the pain. She engaged her imagination and let her tongue run free. "I've decided I'll redecorate Baraclough in the French Imperial style-all that white and gilt and spindly legs, with all the chairs so delicate you won't dare sit down. And while we're on the subject of your-our-country home, I've had an idea about my carriage, the one you'll buy me as a wedding gift..." She rambled on, paying scant attention to her words, simply let them and all the images she'd dreamed of come tumbling out, painting a vibrant, fanciful, yet in many ways-all the ways that counted-accurate word pictures of her hopes, her aspirations. Her vision of their life together. When the well started to run dry, when her voice started to thicken with tears at the fear that they might no longer have a chance to enjoy all she'd described, she concluded with, "So you absolutely can't die now." Fear prodded; almost incensed, she blurted, "Not when I was about to back down and agree to return to London with you." He moistened his lips. Whispered, "You were?" "Yes! I was!" His fading voice tipped her toward panic. Her voice rose in reaction. "I can't believe you were so foolish as to risk your life like this! You didn't need to put yourself in danger to save me." "Yes, I did." The words were firmer, bitten off through clenched teeth. She caught his anger. Was anger good. Would temper hold him to the world? A frown drew down his black brows. "You can't be so damned foolish as to think I wouldn't-after protecting you through all this, seeing you safely all this way, watching over you all this time, what else was I going to do?
Stephanie Laurens (Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (Cynster, #16; The Cynster Sisters Trilogy, #1))
At last, somebody in line steps forward. “I can commit,” he says. He’s a tall, lean young man with a rifle slung over his back. “What’s your name?” Chris asks. “Andrew,” he replies. “And I’m in.” Chris nods. A few other guys step forward and, after a few moments, the entire crowd of ex-POWs takes one step, signifying their decision. My chest swells with pride – pride for Chris’s leadership, pride for the people willing to give their lives to take down Omega. It’s a rush.
Summer Lane (State of Chaos (Collapse, #2))
We are the result of our decisions, everyday we deal with its consequences. Actions without thinking creates a world of deceptions and humiliations. When you make a wrong move, your experiences becomes your punishment. With prudence you must consider both sides when deciding, your fear or your foolish overconfidence will tell you to go left or to go right, but to decide see what’s in the middle and considere it, do not rush, it will demonstrates your capability. Remeber always, there is balance in everything.
Natasha Helvin
Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are common themes in the American culture today. Folks sometimes mistake my meaning when I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, because they all too often rush to drop everything that is weighing them down. They quit the job, ditch the unhappy marriage, cut out negative friends and family, get out of Dodge, etc. I do not advocate such hastiness; in fact, I believe that rash decision-making leads to more problems further down the road. Another unsatisfying job manifests; another unhappy relationship results. These people want a new environment, yet the same negative energy always seems to occupy it. This is because transformation is all about the internal shift, not the external. Any blame placed on outside sources for our unhappiness will forever perpetuate that unhappiness. Pointing the finger is giving away your power of choice and the ability to create our best life. We choose: “That person is making me unhappy” vs. “I make myself happy.” When you are in unhappy times of lack and feelings of separation – great! Sit there and be with it. Find ways to be content with little. Find ways to be happy with your Self. As we reflect on the lives of mystics past and present, it is not the things they possess or the relationships they share that bring them enlightenment – their light is within. The same light can bring us unwavering happiness (joy). Love, Peace, Joy – these three things all come from within and have an unwavering flame – life source – that is not dependent on the conditions of the outside world. This knowing is the power and wisdom that the mystics teach us that we are all capable of achieving. When I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, I am not referring to external conditions; I am referring to the choice you have to look inward and discover the ability to transform the lead of the soul into gold. Transformation is an inner journey of the soul. Why? Because, as we mentioned above, wherever we go, ourselves go with us. Thus, quitting the job, dumping relationships, etc. will not make us happy because we have forgotten the key factor that makes or breaks our happiness: ourselves. When we find, create, and maintain peace, joy, and love within ourselves, we then gain the ability to embrace the external world with the same emotions, perspective, and vibration. This ability is a form of enlightenment. It is the modern man’s enlightenment that transforms an unsatisfying life into one of fulfillment.
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
So many times I looked at Wellhouse Turn and thought it might be nice to fly. And here it was, right when I needed it. An hour ago, when I stopped, I thought it would be an easy decision to drop my foot on the gas pedal and hold the steering wheel straight. But just thinking about it—the speed, the rush, the drop—no, that’s not easy at all. Anyone who thinks that’s an easy way out hasn’t had to face it. It’ll be okay, I tell myself, then let out a hysterical laugh. I’m thinking about killing myself. Of course it won’t be okay.
Francesca Zappia (Eliza and Her Monsters)
For most of your life, you are accustomed to a sense of your own importance; that the choices you make and the actions you perform have weight and consequence. You worry about a word misspoken or a decision rushed. You view other lives in relation to their significance and connection to you. Your parents, your children, your friends. You view your own life in relation to your successes and defeats. These are the things that matter. Winning a race, a fight, a war. Loving a partner or a cause. Saving a life or the planet. But when you think ‘planet’ you think ‘humans’. When you think about winning, you disregard the loss of others. When you think about love, you wonder who loves you back. Your worldview is selfish beyond your own survival, beyond your code. The universe revolves around you. One day you stand alone on a mountain or in a crater, and in that glimpse at the majesty of the sea or the eternity of the stars, in that moment when the telescope reverses, your sense of your unique self collapses and you carry the knowledge with you and you try never to forget. Have
Sophie Ward (Love and Other Thought Experiments)
I want you with me.” Another kiss was placed on my face. “But don’t rush into making a decision. I don’t want you regretting anything.” “We’ll figure it out.” I smiled, soaking in the scent of him, the feel of his slick suit and thick shoulder beneath my cheek. The brush of his beard against the top of my head. Heaven. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Love you.” “You do?” “Without a doubt.” “Good. I love you more though,” I said. Because it’s important in relationships, especially those that felt like forever, to show that you were the better person. Ha.
Kylie Scott (Twist (Dive Bar, #2))
That is why I can’t in any way approve of those MEDDLESOME and RESTLESS characters who, without being called by BIRTH or by FORTUNE to the management of public affairs, are yet forever thinking up some new reform! If I thought this present work contained the SLIGHTEST ground for suspecting me of such FOLLY, I would SHRINK from allowing it to be published! My plan has NEVER gone beyond trying to reform my own thoughts and to build on a foundation that is ALL MY OWN. If I’m pleased enough with my work to present you with this sketch of it, it’s not because I would advise anyone to imitate it. Those on whom GOD has bestowed more of his favours than he has on me will PERHAPS have higher aims; but I’m afraid that this project of mine may be too bold for many people! The mere decision to rid myself all the opinions I have hitherto accepted isn’t an example that everyone ought to follow! The world is mostly made up of two types of minds for whom it is QUITE unsuitable. (1) There are those who, believing themselves cleverer than they are, can’t help rushing to judgment and can’t muster the patience to direct all their thoughts in an ORDERLY manner. So that if they ONCE took the liberty of doubting the principles they have accepted and leaving the common path, they would NEVER be able to stay on the straighter path that they ought to take, AND would REMAIN lost ALL their LIVES. (2) And there are those who are reasonable enough, or modest enough, to THINK that they can’t distinguish true from false as well as some other people by whom they can be taught. THESE should be content to follow the opinions of those others rather than to seek better opinions themselves.
René Descartes (Discourse on Method)
While some of our deepest wounds come from feeling abandoned by others, it is surprising to see how often we abandon ourselves through the way we view life. It’s natural to perceive through a lens of blame at the moment of emotional impact, but each stage of surrender offers us time and space to regroup and open our viewpoints for our highest evolutionary benefit. It’s okay to feel wronged by people or traumatized by circumstances. This reveals anger as a faithful guardian reminding us how overwhelmed we are by the outcomes at hand. While we will inevitably use each trauma as a catalyst for our deepest growth, such anger informs us when the highest importance is being attentive to our own experiences like a faithful companion. As waves of emotion begin to settle, we may ask ourselves, “Although I feel wronged, what am I going to do about it?” Will we allow experiences of disappointment or even cruelty to inspire our most courageous decisions and willingness to evolve? When viewing others as characters who have wronged us, a moment of personal abandonment occurs. Instead of remaining present to the sheer devastation we feel, a need to align with ego can occur through the blaming of others. While it seems nearly instinctive to see life as the comings and goings of how people treat us, when focused on cultivating our most Divine qualities, pain often confirms how quickly we are shifting from ego to soul. From the soul’s perspective, pain represents the initial steps out of the identity and reference points of an old reality as we make our way into a brand new paradigm of being. The more this process is attempted to be rushed, the more insufferable it becomes. To end the agony of personal abandonment, we enter the first stage of surrender by asking the following question: Am I seeing this moment in a way that helps or hurts me? From the standpoint of ego, life is a play of me versus you or us versus them. But from the soul’s perspective, characters are like instruments that help develop and uncover the melody of our highest vibration. Even when the friction of conflict seems to divide people, as souls we are working together to play out the exact roles to clear, activate, and awaken our true radiance. The more aligned in Source energy we become, the easier each moment of transformation tends to feel. This doesn’t mean we are immune to disappointment, heartbreak, or devastation. Instead, we are keenly aware of how often life is giving us the chance to grow and expand. A willingness to be stretched and re-created into a more refined form is a testament to the fiercely liberated nature of our soul. To the ego, the soul’s willingness to grow under the threat of any circumstance seems foolish, shortsighted, and insane. This is because the ego can only interpret that reality as worry, anticipation, and regret.
Matt Kahn (Everything Is Here to Help You: A Loving Guide to Your Soul's Evolution)
You say you were lucky that in the critical years between 100 and 800 C.E. Christianity went forward, and we were unlucky that during the same years Judaism went backward. Don’t you see that the real question is forward to what, backward to what?” Cullinane reflected for a moment and said, “By God, I do! That’s what’s been bugging me without my knowing it, because I hadn’t even formulated the question.” “My thought is that in those critical years Judaism went back to the basic religious precepts by which men can live together in a society, whereas Christianity rushed forward to a magnificent personal religion which never in ten thousand years will teach men how to live together. You Christians will have beauty, passionate intercourse with God, magnificent buildings, frenzied worship and exaltation of the spirit. But you will never have that close organization of society, family life and the little community that is possible under Judaism. Cullinane, let me ask you this: Could a group of rabbis, founding their decisions on Torah and Talmud, possibly have come up with an invention like the Inquisition—an essentially anti-social concept?
James A. Michener (The Source)
It was awfully quiet. Chicago only gets this quiet when it snows, he thought. And then he flipped open the phone, pressed the voice button, and said “Katherine.” He said it softly, reverently. Five rings and then her voice mail. Hey, it’s Katherine, he heard, and in the background cars rushed by. They’d been walking home together from the RadioShack when she recorded the message. I’m not, uh. And she uhed, he remembered, because he’d goosed her butt as she tried to talk. Uh, at my cell phone, I guess. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back. And he remembered everything about it, and also everything about everything else, and why couldn’t he forget and beep. “Hey, it’s Col. I’m standing in a soybean field outside of Gutshot, Tennessee, which is a long story, and it’s hot. K. I’m standing here sweating like I had hyperhidrosis, that disease where you sweat a lot. Crap. That’s not interesting. But anyway, it’s hot, and so I’m thinking about cold to stay cool. And I was remembering walking through the snow coming back from the ridiculous movie. Do you remember that, K? We were on Giddings, and the snow made it so quiet, I couldn’t hear a thing in the world but you. And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it’s hot, and dead quiet again, and I love you still.” Five minutes later, he was trudging back when his phone began vibrating. He raced back to the spot with good reception and, breathless answered. “Did you listen to the message?” he asked immediately. “I don’t think I need to,” she answered. “I’m sorry, Colin. But I think we made a really good decision.” And he didn’t even care to point out that they hadn’t made a decision, because the sound of her voice felt so good –well not good exactly. It felt like the mysterium tremedum et fascinans, the fear and the fascination. The great and terrible awe.
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
Looking over to his left, he watches a rocket-propelled grenade race in and blow up one of the M-60 machine-gun positions. Just then he also sees a lone, tall figure, an American, charge the position, fire, and retake the gun. Even in the dark, amid the explosions, he can recognize the silhouette of the gunner as Michael Bradshaw. Stan is filled with joy that Bradshaw has rushed to the position to counter the enemy’s attack; his decision to do this may help save them. Stan knows Bradshaw must be scared, but in the din he can’t hear if he’s screaming or yelling or swearing; silence. He’s a flickering image amid hundreds of explosions.
Doug Stanton (The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War)
She felt that she was trembling. She studied Clerfayt. He asked no questions. I don’t have to explain anything to him, she thought. He takes me at my word. What to me is the decision of my life is to him only the kind of ordinary decision people make every day. Perhaps he doesn’t even think me particularly sick; I suppose it takes an auto smashup to convince him that someone is really incapacitated. She felt to her surprise as if a burden she had borne for years were sliding from her shoulders. Here was the first person in years who was not concerned about her illness. It made her happy in a strange way. It was as if she had crossed a frontier hitherto impassable to her. Her sickness, which had always been like an opaque window between herself and the world, no longer existed, at least for the moment. Instead, life lay outspread before her, breathtakingly clear and wide, flooded with moonlight; life with clouds and valleys and happenings. And she belonged to it, she was no longer excluded from it; she stood like all the others, the healthy people, at the starting point, a burning, crackling torch in her hand, ready for the steep drop, the rush down and into life. What had Clerfayt said once? That the most desirable thing in life was to be able to choose your own death, because then death could not kill you like a rat or extinguish you, suffocate you, when you were not ready. She was ready. She trembled, but she was ready.
Erich Maria Remarque (Heaven Has No Favorites)
I'd rather eat shit than have to work for that cunt one more day," I told her. "Didn't you say she was married to a prince or something?" "Exactly," I answered. "But that was just a rumor anyway." "So you're not sick?" "I'm resting." I lay down on the sofa to demonstrate. "That makes sense," Reva said, nodding compliantly, although I could tell she was suspicious. "Take some time off and think about your next move. Oprah says we women rush into decisions because we don't have faith that something better will ever come along. And that's how we get stuck in dissatisfying careers and marriages. Amen!" "I'm not making a career move," I started to explain, but I went no further. "I'm taking some time off. I'm going to sleep for a year.
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a bus. Like I felt the wind of the bus. I could even see a couple of the passengers, all shaken by a potential suicide. And out of nowhere, the guy rushes over, yanks me toward him, and escorts me out of the street.” “The birthday boy?” “No, different guy. You all start to look the same after a while, you know that? Anyway, we were both so high on adrenaline, we couldn’t stop laughing the whole night. Then he asked me out. Now one of our jokes is about that time I flung myself into traffic to avoid him.” “You were in shock.” “No, I wasn’t.” “Why isn’t the joke that he saved your life?” “I don’t know, Amos,” I said, folding my fingers together. “Maybe we’re both waiting for the day I turn around and say, ‘That’s right, asshole, I did fling myself into traffic to avoid you.’ I’m joking.” “Are you?” “Am I?” I mimicked him. “Should the day come when you manage to face-plant yourself into a relationship, you’ll find there are certain fragile truths every couple has. Sometimes I’m uncomfortable with the power, knowing I could break us up if I wanted. Other times, I want to blow it up just because it’s there. But then the feeling passes.” “That’s bleak.” “To you, it is. But I’m not like you. I don’t need to escape every room I’m in.” “But you are like me. You think you want monogamy, but you probably don’t if you dated me.” “You’re faulting me for liking you now?” “All I’m saying is you can’t just will yourself into being satisfied with this guy.” “Watch me,” I said, trying to burn a hole in his face. “If it were me, the party would have been our first date and it never would have ended.” “Oh, yes it would have,” I said, laughing. “The date would have lasted one week, but the whole relationship would have lasted one month.” “Yeah,” he said, “you’re right.” “I know I’m right.” “It wouldn’t have lasted.” “This is what I’m saying.” “Because if I were this dude, I would have left you by now.” Before I could say anything, Amos excused himself to pee. On the bathroom door was a black and gold sticker in the shape of a man. I felt a rage rise up all the way to my eyeballs, thinking of how naturally Amos associated himself with that sticker, thinking of him aligning himself with every powerful, brilliant, thoughtful man who has gone through that door as well as every stupid, entitled, and cruel one, effortlessly merging with a class of people for whom the world was built. I took my phone out, opening the virtual cuckoo clocks, trying to be somewhere else. I was confronted with a slideshow of a female friend’s dead houseplants, meant to symbolize inadequacy within reason. Amos didn’t have a clue what it was like to be a woman in New York, unsure if she’s with the right person. Even if I did want to up and leave Boots, dating was not a taste I’d acquired. The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a decision. They knew they were on trial too, but our courtrooms had more lenient judges.
Sloane Crosley (Cult Classic)
The wind rushed between the branches of the zelkova tree, making a piercing howl, like the coldhearted breath leaking out between the teeth of a person who has lost all hope. Tengo gazed at the moons, not paying much attention to the sound of the wind, sitting there until his whole body was chilled to the bone. It must have been around fifteen minutes. No, maybe more. His sense of time had left him. His body, initially warmed by the whiskey, now felt hard and cold, like a lonely boulder at the bottom of the sea. The clouds continued to scud off toward the south. No matter how many were blown away, others appeared to take their place. There was an inexhaustible source of clouds in some land far to the north. Decisive people, minds fixed on the task, clothed in thick, gray uniforms, working silently from morning to night to make clouds, like bees make honey, spiders make webs, and war makes widows.
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
The Messianic Wall and the Ultra-Loyal Base First published in 2019 There is much talk of Trump’s ultra-loyal political base, and rightly so. That base, or at least the most passionate element of it, consists of angry people who feel spurned by the political establishment. The base showed its psychological and political clout when Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who claimed to speak for it, denounced Trump for “caving” to a unanimous Senate decision to keep the government running, which caused Trump to reverse himself and create a disastrous partial government shutdown. Yet that same base could play a large part in removing Trump from office. People who submit themselves to an omnipotent guru can be especially passionate in their support of all that he says and does. But this cultism can also be a source of vulnerability for both. Leaders and followers can become antagonists rather than mutual nurturers.
Robert Jay Lifton (Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry)
After breakfast, Amar stood waiting for me in the center of a marble vestibule. Around him, the mirror portals flashed through the settings--a fox napping in tall grass, a shining cave strung with ghost-lit threads and a cliff jutting a stony chin to the sea. Amar grinned and once more, I was transfixed by the way a small smile could soften the stern angles of his jaw and the haunted look in his eyes. “Are we going to the tapestry room?” He shook his head. “Not yet. Those decisions take time. There are other things to see and know here.” I shivered at the thought of yanking the threads. I was in no rush to condemn someone. Amar stepped toward a door I hadn’t noticed until now, inky black and studded with pearls and moonstone. He pushed it open and a chilly gust kissed my face. “I promised you the moon for your throne and stars to wear in your hair,” said Amar, gesturing inside. “And I always keep my promises.
Roshani Chokshi (The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen, #1))
Turning, she smiled with genuine affection at Lord Marchman and offered him her hand through the open window of the coach. “Thank you,” she said shyly but with great sincerity, “for being all the things you are, my lord.” His face scarlet with pleasure at her compliment, John Marchman stepped back and watched her coach pull out of his drive. He watched it until the horses turned onto the road, then he slowly walked back toward the house and went into his study. Sitting down at his desk, he looked at the note he’d written her uncle and idly drummed his fingers upon his desk, recalling her disturbing answer when he asked if she’d dissuaded old Belhaven from pressing his suit. “I think I have,” she’d said. And then John made his decision. Feeling rather like an absurd knight in shining armor rushing to save an unwilling damsel in the event of future distress, he took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out a new message to her uncle. As it always happened the moment courtship was involved, Lord Marchman lost his ability to be articulate. His note read: If Belhaven asks for her, please advise me of it. I think I want her first.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
From another corner of neuroscience, we’re learning about a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Though there are more than fifty neurotransmitters (that we know of), scientists studying substance problems have given dopamine much of their attention. The brain’s reward system and pleasure centers—the areas most impacted by substance use and compulsive behaviors—have a high concentration of dopamine. Some brains have more of it than others, and some people have a capacity to enjoy a range of experiences more than others, owing to a combination of genetics and environment. The thing about dopamine is that it makes us feel really good. We tend to want more of it. It is naturally generated through ordinary, pleasurable activities like eating and sex, and it is the brain’s way of rewarding us—or nature’s way of rewarding the brain—for activities necessary to our survival, individually or as a species. It is the “mechanism by which ‘instinct’ is manifest.” Our brains arrange for dopamine levels to rise in anticipation and spike during a pleasurable activity to make sure we do it again. It helps focus our attention on all the cues that contributed to our exposure to whatever felt good (these eventually become triggers to use, as we explain later). Drugs and alcohol (and certain behaviors) turn on a gushing fire hose of dopamine in the brain, and we feel good, even euphoric. Dopamine produced by these artificial means, however, throws our pleasure and reward systems out of whack immediately. Flooding the brain repeatedly with dopamine has long-term effects and creates what’s known as tolerance—when we lose our ability to produce or absorb our own dopamine and need more and more of it artificially just to feel okay. Specifically, the brain compensates for the flood of dopamine by decreasing its own production of it or by desensitizing itself to the neurotransmitter by reducing the number of dopamine receptors, or both. The brain is just trying to keep a balance. The problem with the brain’s reduction in natural dopamine production is that when you take the substance or behavior out of the picture, there’s not enough dopamine in the brain to make you feel good. Without enough dopamine, there is no interest or pleasure. Then not only does the brain lose the pleasure associated with using, it might not be able to enjoy a sunset or a back rub, either. A lowered level of dopamine, combined with people’s longing for the rush of dopamine they got from using substances, contributes to “craving” states. Cravings are a physiological process associated with the brain’s struggle to regain its normal dopamine balance, and they can influence a decision to keep using a substance even when a person is experiencing negative consequences that matter to him and a strong desire to change. Depending on the length of time and quantities a person has been using, these craving states can be quite uncomfortable and compelling. The dopamine system can and does recover, starting as soon as we stop flooding it. But it takes time, and in the time between shutting off the artificial supply of dopamine and the brain’s rebuilding its natural resources, people tend to feel worse (before they feel better). On a deep, instinctual level, their brains are telling them that by stopping using, something is missing; something is wrong. This is a huge factor in relapse, despite good intentions and effort to change. Knowing this can help you and your loved one make it across this gap in brain reward systems.
Jeffrey Foote (Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change)
The next morning I showed up at dad’s house at eight, with a hangover. All my brothers’ trucks were parked in front. What are they all doing here? When I opened the front door, Dad, Alan, Jase, and Willie looked at me. They were sitting around the living room, waiting. No one smiled, and the air felt really heavy. I looked to my left, where Mom was usually working in the kitchen, but this time she was still, leaning over the counter and looking at me too. Dad spoke first. “Son, are you ready to change?” Everything else seemed to go silent and fade away, and all I heard was my dad’s voice. “I just want you to know we’ve come to a decision as a family. You’ve got two choices. You keep doing what you’re doing--maybe you’ll live through it--but we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. Somebody can drop you off at the highway, and then you’ll be on your own. You can go live your life; we’ll pray for you and hope that you come back one day. And good luck to you in this world.” He paused for a second then went on, a little quieter. “Your other choice is that you can join this family and follow God. You know what we stand for. We’re not going to let you visit our home while you’re carrying on like this. You give it all up, give up all those friends, and those drugs, and come home. Those are your two choices.” I struggled to breathe, my head down and my chest tight. No matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this moment. My breath left me in a rush, and I fell to my knees in front of them all and started crying. “Dad, what took y’all so long?” I burst out. I felt broken, and I began to tell them about the sorry and dangerous road I’d been traveling down. I could see my brothers’ eyes starting to fill with tears too. I didn’t dare look at my mom’s face although I could feel her presence behind me. I knew she’d already been through the hell of addiction with her own mother, with my dad, with her brother-in-law Si, and with my oldest brother, Alan. And now me, her baby. I remembered the letters she’d been writing to me over the last few months, reaching out with words of love from her heart and from the heart of the Lord. Suddenly, I felt guilty. “Dad, I don’t deserve to come back. I’ve been horrible. Let me tell you some more.” “No, son,” he answered. “You’ve told me enough.” I’ve seen my dad cry maybe three times, and that was one of them. To see my dad that upset hit me right in the gut. He took me by my shoulders and said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and we love you, but you just can’t live like that anymore.” “I know. I want to come back home,” I said. I realized my dad understood. He’d been down this road before and come back home. He, too, had been lost and then found. By this time my brothers were crying, and they got around me, and we were on our knees, crying. I prayed out loud to God, “Thank You for getting me out of this because I am done living the way I’ve been living.” “My prodigal son has returned,” Dad said, with tears of joy streaming down his face. It was the best day of my life. I could finally look over at my mom, and she was hanging on to the counter for dear life, crying, and shaking with happiness. A little later I felt I had to go use the bathroom. My stomach was a mess from the stress and the emotions. But when I was in the bathroom with the door shut, my dad thought I might be in there doing one last hit of something or drinking one last drop, so he got up, came over, and started banging on the bathroom door. Before I could do anything, he kicked in the door. All he saw was me sitting on the pot and looking up at him while I about had a heart attack. It was not our finest moment. That afternoon after my brothers had left, we went into town and packed up and moved my stuff out of my apartment. “Hey bro,” I said to my roommate. “I’m changing my life. I’ll see ya later.” I meant it.
Jep Robertson (The Good, the Bad, and the Grace of God: What Honesty and Pain Taught Us About Faith, Family, and Forgiveness)
You are personally responsible for so much of the sunshine that brightens up your life. Optimists and gentle souls continually benefit from their very own versions of daylight saving time. They get extra hours of happiness and sunshine every day. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life The secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by slowing down and inventing some imaginary letters along the way. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life “There is nothing more important than family.” Those words should be etched in stone on the sidewalks that lead to every home. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life I may be uncertain about exactly where I’m headed, but I am very clear regarding this: I’m glad I’ve got a ticket to go on this magnificent journey. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life When your heart is filled with gratitude for what you do have, your head isn’t nearly so worried about what you don’t. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life Don’t let cynical people transfer their cynicism off on you. In spite of its problems, it is still a pretty amazing world, and there are lots of truly wonderful people spinning around on this planet. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers All the good things you can do – having the right attitude, having a strong belief in your abilities, making good choices and responsible decisions – all those good things will pay huge dividends. You’ll see. Your prayers will be heard. Your karma will kick in. The sacrifices you made will be repaid. And the good work will have all been worth it. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers The more you’re bothered by something that’s wrong, the more you’re empowered to make things right. – Douglas Pagels, from Everyone Should Have a Book Like This to Get Through the Gray Days May you be blessed with all these things: A little more joy, a little less stress, a lot more understanding of your wonderfulness. Abundance in your life, blessings in your days, dreams that come true, and hopes that stay. A rainbow on the horizon, an angel by your side, and everything that could ever bring a smile to your life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Each day brings with it the miracle of a new beginning. Many of the moments ahead will be marvelously disguised as ordinary days, but each one of us has the chance to make something extraordinary out of them. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Keep planting the seeds of your dreams, because if you keep believing in them, they will keep trying their best to blossom for you. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things I hope your dreams take you... to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Love is what holds everything together. It’s the ribbon around the gift of life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things There are times in life when just being brave is all you need to be. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things When it comes to anything – whether it involves people or places or jobs or hoped-for plans – you never know what the answer will be if you don’t ask. And you never know what the result will be if you don’t try. – Douglas Pagels, from Make Every Day a Positive One Don’t just have minutes in the day; have moments in time. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds A life well lived is simply a compilation of days well spent. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds
Douglas Pagels
What the-“ he began, already heading toward the house, with Elizabeth walking quickly behind him. Ian opened the front door just as Jake came hurrying in from the back of the cottage. “I got some milk-“ Jake began, then he stopped abruptly as the stench hit him. His gaze snapped from Ian and Elizabeth, who were just rushing inside, to Lucinda, who was sitting exactly where she had been, serenely indifferent to the smell of burning bacon and incinerated eggs as she fanned herself with a black silk fan. “I took the liberty of removing the utensil from the stove,” she informed them. “However, I was not in time to save its contents, which I sincerely doubt were worth saving in any case.” “Couldn’t you have moved ‘em before they burned?” Jake burst out. “I cannot cook, sir.” “Can you smell?” Ian demanded. “Ian, there’s nothing for it-I’ll have to ride to the village and hire a pair o’ wenches to come up here and get this place in order for us or we’ll starve.” “My thoughts exactly!” Lucinda seconded promptly, already standing up. “I shall accompany you.” “Whaat?” Elizabeth burst out. “What? Why?” Jake echoed, looking balky. “Because selecting good female servants is best done by a woman. How far must we go?” If Elizabeth weren’t so appalled, she’d have laughed at Jake Wiley’s expression. “We can be back late this afternoon, assumin’ there’s anyone in the village to do the work. But I-“ “Then we’d best be about it.” Lucinda paused and turned to Ian, passing a look of calculating consideration over hum; then she glanced at Elizabeth. Giving her a look that clearly said “Trust me and do not argue,” she said, “Elizabeth, if you would be so good as to excuse us, I’d like a word alone with Mr. Thornton.” With no choice but to do as bidden, Elizabeth went out the front door and stared in utter confusion at the trees, wondering what bizarre scheme Lucinda might have hatched to solve their problems. In the cottage Ian watched through narrowed eyes as the gray-haired harpy fixed him with her basilisk stare. “Mr. Thornton,” she said finally, “I have decided you are a gentleman.” She made that pronouncement as if she were a queen bestowing knighthood on a lowly, possibly undeserving serf. Fascinated and irritated at the same time, Ian leaned his hip against the table, waiting to discover what game she was playing by leaving Elizabeth alone here, unchaperoned. “Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said coolly. “What have I done to earn your good opinion?” “Absolutely nothing,” she said without hesitation. “I’m basing my decision on my own excellent intuitive powers and on the fact that you were born a gentleman.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
Chinese seek victory not in a decisive battle but through incremental moves designed to gradually improve their position. To quote Kissinger again: “Rarely did Chinese statesmen risk the outcome of a conflict on a single all-or-nothing clash: elaborate multi-year maneuvers were closer to their style. Where the Western tradition prized the decisive clash of forces emphasizing feats of heroism, the Chinese ideal stressed subtlety, indirection, and the patient accumulation of relative advantage.”48 In an instructive analogy, David Lai illustrates this by comparing the game of chess with its Chinese equivalent, weiqi—often referred to as go. In chess, players seek to dominate the center and conquer the opponent. In weiqi, players seek to surround the opponent. If the chess master sees five or six moves ahead, the weiqi master sees twenty or thirty. Attending to every dimension in the broader relationship with the adversary, the Chinese strategist resists rushing prematurely toward victory, instead aiming to build incremental advantage. “In the Western tradition, there is a heavy emphasis on the use of force; the art of war is largely limited to the battlefields; and the way to fight is force on force,” Lai explains. By contrast, “The philosophy behind go is to compete for relative gain rather than seeking complete annihilation of the opponent forces.” In a wise reminder, Lai warns that “It is dangerous to play go with the chess mindset. One can become overly aggressive so that he will stretch his force thin and expose his vulnerable parts in the battlefields.
Graham Allison (Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?)
A story best told at speed. After finals, more exams, then the call to the bar, pupillage, a lucky invitation to prestigious chambers, some early success defending hopeless cases—how sensible it had seemed, to delay a child until her early thirties. And when those years came, they brought complex worthwhile cases, more success. Jack was also hesitant, arguing for holding back another year or two. Mid-thirties then, when he was teaching in Pittsburgh and she worked a fourteen-hour day, drifting deeper into family law as the idea of her own family receded, despite the visits of nephews and nieces. In the following years, the first rumors that she might be elected precociously to the bench and required to be on circuit. But the call didn’t come, not yet. And in her forties, there sprang up anxieties about elderly gravids and autism. Soon after, more young visitors to Gray’s Inn Square, noisy demanding great-nephews, great-nieces, reminded her how hard it would be to squeeze an infant into her kind of life. Then rueful thoughts of adoption, some tentative inquiries—and throughout the accelerating years that followed, occasional agonies of doubt, firm late-night decisions concerning surrogate mothers undone in the early-morning rush to work. And when at last, at nine thirty one morning at the Royal Courts of Justice, she was sworn in by the Lord Chief Justice and took her oath of allegiance and her Judicial Oath before two hundred of her bewigged colleagues, and she stood proudly before them in her robes, the subject of a witty speech, she knew the game was up; she belonged to the law as some women had once been brides of Christ.
Ian McEwan (The Children Act)
I don't know just where I'm going But I'm goin' to try for the kingdom if I can 'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man When I put a spike into my vein Then I tell you things aren't quite the same When I'm rushing on my run And I feel just like Jesus' son And I guess I just don't know And I guess that I just don't know I have made very big decision I'm goin' to try to nullify my life 'Cause when the blood begins to flow When it shoots up the dropper's neck When I'm closing in on death You can't help me not you guys All you sweet girls with all your sweet talk You can all go take a walk And I guess I just don't know And I guess I just don't know I wish that I was born a thousand years ago I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas On a great big clipper ship Going from this land here to that I put on a sailor's suit and cap Away from the big city Where a man cannot be free Of all the evils in this town And of himself and those around Oh, and I guess I just don't know Oh, and I guess I just don't know Heroin, be the death of me Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life Because a mainer to my vein Leads to a center in my head And then I'm better off than dead When the smack begins to flow Then I really don't care anymore About all the Jim-Jims in this town And everybody putting everybody else down And all of the politicians makin' crazy sounds All the dead bodies piled up in mounds, yeah Wow, that heroin is in my blood And the blood is in my head Yeah, thank God that I'm good as dead Ooohhh, thank your God that I'm not aware And thank God that I just don't care And I guess I just don't know And I guess I just don't know - Heroin
Lou Reed (Pass Thru Fire: The Collected Lyrics)
a young Goldman Sachs banker named Joseph Park was sitting in his apartment, frustrated at the effort required to get access to entertainment. Why should he trek all the way to Blockbuster to rent a movie? He should just be able to open a website, pick out a movie, and have it delivered to his door. Despite raising around $250 million, Kozmo, the company Park founded, went bankrupt in 2001. His biggest mistake was making a brash promise for one-hour delivery of virtually anything, and investing in building national operations to support growth that never happened. One study of over three thousand startups indicates that roughly three out of every four fail because of premature scaling—making investments that the market isn’t yet ready to support. Had Park proceeded more slowly, he might have noticed that with the current technology available, one-hour delivery was an impractical and low-margin business. There was, however, a tremendous demand for online movie rentals. Netflix was just then getting off the ground, and Kozmo might have been able to compete in the area of mail-order rentals and then online movie streaming. Later, he might have been able to capitalize on technological changes that made it possible for Instacart to build a logistics operation that made one-hour grocery delivery scalable and profitable. Since the market is more defined when settlers enter, they can focus on providing superior quality instead of deliberating about what to offer in the first place. “Wouldn’t you rather be second or third and see how the guy in first did, and then . . . improve it?” Malcolm Gladwell asked in an interview. “When ideas get really complicated, and when the world gets complicated, it’s foolish to think the person who’s first can work it all out,” Gladwell remarked. “Most good things, it takes a long time to figure them out.”* Second, there’s reason to believe that the kinds of people who choose to be late movers may be better suited to succeed. Risk seekers are drawn to being first, and they’re prone to making impulsive decisions. Meanwhile, more risk-averse entrepreneurs watch from the sidelines, waiting for the right opportunity and balancing their risk portfolios before entering. In a study of software startups, strategy researchers Elizabeth Pontikes and William Barnett find that when entrepreneurs rush to follow the crowd into hyped markets, their startups are less likely to survive and grow. When entrepreneurs wait for the market to cool down, they have higher odds of success: “Nonconformists . . . that buck the trend are most likely to stay in the market, receive funding, and ultimately go public.” Third, along with being less recklessly ambitious, settlers can improve upon competitors’ technology to make products better. When you’re the first to market, you have to make all the mistakes yourself. Meanwhile, settlers can watch and learn from your errors. “Moving first is a tactic, not a goal,” Peter Thiel writes in Zero to One; “being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you.” Fourth, whereas pioneers tend to get stuck in their early offerings, settlers can observe market changes and shifting consumer tastes and adjust accordingly. In a study of the U.S. automobile industry over nearly a century, pioneers had lower survival rates because they struggled to establish legitimacy, developed routines that didn’t fit the market, and became obsolete as consumer needs clarified. Settlers also have the luxury of waiting for the market to be ready. When Warby Parker launched, e-commerce companies had been thriving for more than a decade, though other companies had tried selling glasses online with little success. “There’s no way it would have worked before,” Neil Blumenthal tells me. “We had to wait for Amazon, Zappos, and Blue Nile to get people comfortable buying products they typically wouldn’t order online.
Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
Eventually, two Swedish climbers and a Sherpa called Babu Chiri found Mick. By chance--by God’s grace--Babu was carrying a spare canister of oxygen. Neil and Pasang had also now descended, and met up with Mick and the others. Neil then located an emergency cache of oxygen half-buried in the snow nearby. He gave one to Alan and forced both him and Mick to their feet. Slow and tired, his mind wandering in and out of consciousness, Mick remembers little about the next few hours. It was just a haze of delirium, fatigue, and cold. Descending blue sheet ice can be lethal. Much more so than ascending it. Mick staggered on down, the debilitating effects of thin air threatening to overwhelm him. Somewhere beneath the Balcony Mick suddenly felt the ground surge beneath him. There was a rush of acceleration as the loose topping of snow--covering the blue ice--slid away under him. He began to hurtle down the sheer face on his back, and then made the all-too-easy error of trying to dig in his crampons to slow the fall. The force catapulted him into a somersault, hurtling him ever faster down the steep ice and snow face. He resigned himself to the fact that he would die. He bounced and twisted, over and over, and then slid to a halt on a small ledge. Then he heard voices. They were muffled and strange. Mick tried to shout to them but nothing came out. The climbers who were now at the col then surrounded him, clipped him in, and held him. He was shaking uncontrollably. When Mick and Neil reached us at camp two, forty-eight hours later, they were utterly shattered. Different men. Mick just sat and held his head in his hands. That said it all. That evening, as we prepared to sleep, he prodded me. I sat up and saw a smile spread across his face. “Bear, next time, let me choose where we go on holiday--all right?” I began to laugh and cry at the same time. I needed to. So much had been kept inside. The next morning, Mick, Neil, and Geoffrey left for base camp. Their attempt was over. Mick just wanted to be off this forsaken mountain--to be safe. I watched them head out into the glacier and hoped I had made the right decision to stay up at camp two without them all.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
Our story begins on a sweltering August night, in a sterile white room where a single fateful decision is made amid the mindless ravages of grief. But our story does not end there. It has not ended yet. Would I change the course of our lives if I could? Would I have spent my years plucking out tunes on a showboat, or turning the soil as a farmer’s wife, or waiting for a riverman to come home from work and settle in beside me at a cozy little fire? Would I trade the son I bore for a different son, for more children, for a daughter to comfort me in my old age? Would I give up the husbands I loved and buried, the music, the symphonies, the lights of Hollywood, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who live far distant but have my eyes? I ponder this as I sit on the wooden bench, Judy’s hand in mine, the two of us quietly sharing yet another Sisters’ Day. Here in the gardens at Magnolia Manor, we’re able to have Sisters’ Day anytime we like. It is as easy as leaving my room, and walking to the next hall, and telling the attendant, “I believe I’ll take my dear friend Judy out for a little stroll. Oh yes, of course, I’ll be certain she’s delivered safely back to the Memory Care Unit. You know I always do.” Sometimes, my sister and I laugh over our clever ruse. “We’re really sisters, not friends,” I remind her. “But don’t tell them. It’s our secret.” “I won’t tell.” She smiles in her sweet way. “But sisters are friends as well. Sisters are special friends.” We recall our many Sisters’ Day adventures from years past, and she begs me to share what I remember of Queenie and Briny and our life on the river. I tell her of days and seasons with Camellia, and Lark, and Fern, and Gabion, and Silas, and Old Zede. I speak of quiet backwaters and rushing currents, the midsummer ballet of dragonflies and winter ice floes that allowed men to walk over water. Together, we travel the living river. We turn our faces to the sunlight and fly time and time again home to Kingdom Arcadia. Other days, my sister knows me not at all other than as a neighbor here in this old manor house. But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse. “Aren’t they so very sweet?
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
Sam Underwater, everything is quiet. Tranquil. Like heaven is all around you, caressing your body, pulling you into its embrace. Deeper and deeper, it pulls at your legs until they beg to be released. I hold my water-resistant camera in front of me and take multiple pictures of the cold depths of the ocean. Its beauty never fails to mesmerize me. But I can’t stay for too long; sooner or later, that urge to breathe always pulls me back to the surface toward the dark sky littered with a million flickering lights … back into the noise of swooshing water and rushing wind. The shore is mostly deserted, except for a few beer cans, party cups, and some clothes and trash lying scattered all around. The only other person there is Nate Wilson … the most handsome guy at school and so much more than that. He’s sitting on a few rocks near the edge of the beach with a girl by his side. I can’t stop watching. Their hands touch briefly, but then the wave overtakes me and blocks my view. When the water lowers, I shake my head, but the waves keep picking up. Still, I hold up my camera and take a few pictures. Right as he turns his head toward me, I dive underwater again. Here, there are no boys, no girls, and no secret touches. Just me and the water, and all the beautiful creatures below that need to meet my camera. A single picture says more than words ever will. No matter how powerful they are. Nate People say it only takes a few minutes for your life to be destroyed. I never believed them … until today. With just the snap of a finger, a stupid decision and a simple push, I marked my own fate. My body grows colder and colder the longer I stay in the water. It consumes me whole as I stray farther and farther away from myself. From reality. I’m so damn dizzy, but I can’t collapse here. Not now, not in the middle of the ocean. I take a deep breath and peel my eyes open, forcing myself to go. That’s when I spot her … the girl and her camera. FLASH. I cover my eyes with my hand. Salty seawater enters my nostrils and mouth as I struggle to swim. When I open my eyes again, the girl is gone; swallowed by the same waves that drag me back to the shore. As my feet sink into the sand and the water creeps up against my toes, I stop and turn around, clutching the long red hairs in my hand as though they’re my last lifeline. This is now the place where not only my life changed forever. But hers too.
Clarissa Wild (Cruel Boy)
I am in no rush. Let Life happen to me just as Life has planned. Because at the end of the day, when the sun sets there is always a horizon somewhere waiting to call forth another sun, in a paradox of Time. Because at the end of each chapter, the story walks towards its culmination. But just like it is not in the setting or rising of the sun but in the sunshine that one basks, just like it is not the finishing line but the voyage through the storyline where one finds the true understanding of the book, Life is about exploring the voyage all the while knowing full well that each chapter shall find its beginning middle and end just how it's meant to be. It is about the truth that Life is but a dream in Time's illusion and the only sharp truth is to love and be loved, and through that assemble moments in Time that smile beyond Time, to make a garden of experiences through lessons and understandings that Life puts at our journey only to walk us closer to our destination. It is not about the destination rather about the journey, and perhaps about who we share the journey with at each crossroad. And no matter how Time walks by, until and unless we cross all the alleys along the way, until and unless we climb up the peak bit by bit, we cannot reach that destination where we belong. But if we tread along the mountain peak or a winding alley soaking in all the freshness of the air enjoying the crispness of our walk, the journey becomes even more enriching not just to our soul but to all of our senses and our very heart. While if we try to run along the way, we might actually topple down a bad turn, taking in a scar that might demand another cup of our soul's portion to heal. Such is Life. A journey that takes smiles and tears, a voyage that bathes in hope and hopelessness, but in all of it, it never stays stagnant, always tiptoeing to exactly where we are meant to be, at any point of our journey. So when something seems to go stagnant or few things make no sense, I tell myself to pause and pat my soul acknowledging each and every decision or detour of mine as part and parcel of Life's plan. I close my eyes and breathe in the freshness of air that flows in every part of my soul to know, to feel alive to all that this journey has shared with me, while believing in the grace and magnanimity of Time who takes Time but eventually shows and leads us to where we belong. And I hear my heart smiling, Let Life happen to me just as Life has planned. I am in no rush.
Debatrayee Banerjee
I stepped back suddenly, snapping the band of energy that had seemed to be drawing me closer to her as I unbuckled my belt and unbuttoned my fly. “What are you doing?” she gasped, staring at me as I dropped my jeans, knocking my boxers off with them and letting her get a good eyeful of the full length of my cock. Her gaze stayed glued on it and blood began to rush that way at the feeling of her attention, like that part of me still hadn't agreed to my decision to have nothing more to do with her beyond making sure she left this place. I gritted my teeth as my dick continued to get all kinds of ideas about the things it could do with her if I just made her bow for me now and I tried not to let my gaze linger on her mouth while I considered how much I'd like to fuck it. “When you stop eye-fucking me I’ll show you what you’re so desperate to know,” I mocked, forcing her attention back up to my face and earning myself a scowl. “People don’t tend to whip their junk out in the middle of a conversation,” she snapped like she was pissed at me for it. “So if you didn’t want me catching an eyeful of little Darius then you shouldn’t have brought him into our discussion.” I released a breath of laughter before I could help myself, my mind and dick wandering down all kinds of out of bounds roads as I gave myself two seconds to consider whether or not I could convince her to bow for me after all. I leaned closer to her as she scowled back, but her breaths were speeding up and her pupils were wide with what I could have sworn was desire of her own. I wanted that. I wanted it more than I could say and it was so fucking tempting to just step forward, catch her by the back of the neck and kiss her roughly until she gave in and bowed to me the way I ached for her to. I could see it in her eyes. The temptation despite the hatred and I wanted to hate fuck her so much that I almost took that final step. But as my own pulse thundered like a war drum in my ears, I knew it wouldn't be so simple. One taste of her and I'd be addicted. And I couldn't afford that no matter how tempting a sin she might have been. “If you come to my room uninvited again then it had better be because you’re ready to bow to us or to beg me to bend you over that headboard and make you scream my name,” I said with all the confidence I felt in knowing that she was getting as wet for me as I was getting hard for her. She pressed herself back against my door, her thighs clenching together like she was trying to fight her reaction, but I felt it humming in the air between us no matter how deeply she scowled. (Darius POV)
Caroline Peckham (The Awakening as Told by the Boys (Zodiac Academy, #1.5))
I suppose it means that I will be free to travel with my maid, or to live in the country while you are in town, or I may live in town while you are in the country if I wish. I mean if I find your company...er...unpleasant." "I see," Daniel said dryly. "And if we are always apart, how exactly are we to gain heirs?" "Oh." Suzette flushed. "Well, I suppose we could arrange for occasional visits for...er...procreative purposes." "Occasional visits for procreative purposes?" he achoed with disbelief, and then muttered dryly, "My, how scintillating that sounds." Suzette frowned, for really it did sound rather cold, nothing like the passionate delirium she had read about in one of Lisa's novels. But then, truthfully,she simply couldn't fathom the ecstasies described in that book. She'd never even been kissed and what if she didn't enjoy his kisses? Just because he didn't have bad breath didn't mean she would enjoy these visits she spoke of so boldly. Coming to a decision, she straightened abruptly, and said, "We must kiss." That caught his attention and he asked with amazement, "What?" "Well, we should see if we would deal well together in...er...that regard," she muttered, blushing hotly. Swallowing, she forced herself to add firmly, "You should kiss me. Then we will know." "My dear young lady," Daniel began seeming half amused and half horrified, "I really do not think-" "Oh,for pity's sake," Suzette interuppted impatiently, and then leaned forward again,this time pressing her lips to his. In her rush to get it over with, she lost her balance a bit and had to catch a hold of his jacket to steady herself as she smooshed her mouth against his. She then waited for the warm and wonderful commotion she'd read about to assault her. Unfortunately, there wasn't any commotion. Really this was no more exciting than pressing her mouth to a cup, Suzette thought with dismay, and released him to sit back again with a most disappointed sigh. "Oh dear, I fear you're no good at this." "Excuse me? I am no good at this?" Daniel asked with amazed disbelief. "My dear girl, if you think that was a kiss-" "Do stop calling me a girl," Suzette snapped a bit impatiently and got to her feet, too agitated now to sit. "You sound like you're old enough to be my father and you aren't quite that old." "Not quite that old? For pity's sake! What a charmer you are," he said with irritation, and then stood up as well and informed her with some dignity, "That was not a proper kiss." "Well if you are such an expert, why do you not show me how to do it right?" she suggested, glowering with frustration at this turn of events.
Lynsay Sands (The Heiress (Madison Sisters, #2))
supposed weakness on national security. Ours was a brief exchange, filled with unspoken irony—the elderly Southerner on his way out, the young black Northerner on his way in, the contrast that the press had noted in our respective convention speeches. Senator Miller was very gracious and wished me luck with my new job. Later, I would happen upon an excerpt from his book, A Deficit of Decency, in which he called my speech at the convention one of the best he’d ever heard, before noting—with what I imagined to be a sly smile—that it may not have been the most effective speech in terms of helping to win an election. In other words: My guy had lost. Zell Miller’s guy had won. That was the hard, cold political reality. Everything else was just sentiment. MY WIFE WILL tell you that by nature I’m not somebody who gets real worked up about things. When I see Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously; I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses. When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal. Still, I am not immune to distress. And like most Americans, I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry. It’s not simply that a gap exists between our professed ideals as a nation and the reality we witness every day. In one form or another, that gap has existed since America’s birth. Wars have been fought, laws passed, systems reformed, unions organized, and protests staged to bring promise and practice into closer alignment. No, what’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem. We know that global competition—not to mention any genuine commitment to the values
Barack Obama (The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream)
In 2009, Kahneman and Klein took the unusual step of coauthoring a paper in which they laid out their views and sought common ground. And they found it. Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform. The domains Klein studied, in which instinctive pattern recognition worked powerfully, are what psychologist Robin Hogarth termed “kind” learning environments. Patterns repeat over and over, and feedback is extremely accurate and usually very rapid. In golf or chess, a ball or piece is moved according to rules and within defined boundaries, a consequence is quickly apparent, and similar challenges occur repeatedly. Drive a golf ball, and it either goes too far or not far enough; it slices, hooks, or flies straight. The player observes what happened, attempts to correct the error, tries again, and repeats for years. That is the very definition of deliberate practice, the type identified with both the ten-thousand-hours rule and the rush to early specialization in technical training. The learning environment is kind because a learner improves simply by engaging in the activity and trying to do better. Kahneman was focused on the flip side of kind learning environments; Hogarth called them “wicked.” In wicked domains, the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both. In the most devilishly wicked learning environments, experience will reinforce the exact wrong lessons. Hogarth noted a famous New York City physician renowned for his skill as a diagnostician. The man’s particular specialty was typhoid fever, and he examined patients for it by feeling around their tongues with his hands. Again and again, his testing yielded a positive diagnosis before the patient displayed a single symptom. And over and over, his diagnosis turned out to be correct. As another physician later pointed out, “He was a more productive carrier, using only his hands, than Typhoid Mary.” Repetitive success, it turned out, taught him the worst possible lesson. Few learning environments are that wicked, but it doesn’t take much to throw experienced pros off course. Expert firefighters, when faced with a new situation, like a fire in a skyscraper, can find themselves suddenly deprived of the intuition formed in years of house fires, and prone to poor decisions. With a change of the status quo, chess masters too can find that the skill they took years to build is suddenly obsolete.
David Epstein (Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World)
The decisions we make lead us to complex behavioral sets, and what we decide to do can be consciously and unconsciously motivated. The human being, however, is a small-group decision-making animal, a small pack animal, with a will to life, who engages in sex and the food quest to propagate and maintain that life, and who needs acceptance and recognition from group members.
John Rush (Entheogens and the Development of Culture: The Anthropology and Neurobiology of Ecstatic Experience)
Do encourage movement: “Let’s swing our arms to the beat of this music. I always feel better when I stretch, don’t you?” Movement always improves sensory processing. Do encourage the child to try a new movement experience: “If you’re interested in that swing, I’ll help you get on.” Children with dyspraxia may enjoy new movement experiences but need help figuring out how to initiate them. Do offer your physical and emotional support: “I’m interested in that swing. Want to try it with me? You can sit on my lap, and we’ll swing together.” The child who is fearful of movement may agree to swing at the playground if he has the security of a loving lap. (Stop if he resists.) Do allow your child to experience unhappiness, frustration, or anger: “Wow, it really hurts when you don’t get picked for the team.” Acknowledging his feelings allows him to deal with them, whereas rushing in to make it better every time he’s hurt prevents him from learning to cope with negative emotions. Do provide appropriate outlets for negative emotions: Make it possible to vent pent-up feelings. Give her a ball or a bucketful of wet sponges to hurl against the fence. Designate a “screaming space” (her room, the basement, or garage) where she can go to pound her chest and shout. Do reinforce what is good about your child’s feelings and actions, even when something goes wrong: “You didn’t mean for the egg to miss the bowl. Cracking eggs takes practice. I’m glad you want to learn. Try again.” Help her assess her experience positively by talking over what she did right and what she may do better the next time. How wonderful to hear that an adult is sympathetic, rather than judgmental! Do praise: “I noticed that you fed and walked the dog. Thanks for being so responsible.” Reward the child for goodness, empathy, and being mindful of the needs of others. “You are a wonderful friend,” or “You make animals feel safe.” Do give the child a sense of control: “If you choose bed now, we’ll have time for a long story. If you choose to play longer, we won’t have time for a story. You decide.” Or, “I’m ready to go to the shoe store whenever you are. Tell me when you’re ready to leave.” Impress on the child that others don’t have to make every decision that affects him. Do set reasonable limits: To become civilized, every child needs limits. “It’s okay to be angry but not okay to hurt someone. We do not pinch.
Carol Stock Kranowitz (The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder)
As Goblin rushes forward to reconnoiter, Mustard approaches him with a large fear-grin and tries to embrace him for reassurance. Goblin moves forward quickly to a vantage spot to peer across the valley, and Mustard now emulates him. As Goblin (alpha), Satan (number two), and Evered (number three) scan the valley, they break off several times to look at one another quickly. After nearly 60 seconds Goblin suddenly makes his decision, and begins to vocalize and display. The entire group, which includes adolescents Freud and Beethoven, immediately follows suit, and the result is the usual one: both groups vocalize and display ferociously, then slowly retreat into their home ranges.
Christopher Boehm (Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior)
I sit here with one foot on either side of the ledge, looking down from twelve stories above the streets of Boston, I can’t help but think about suicide. Not my own. I like my life enough to want to see it through. I’m more focused on other people, and how they ultimately come to the decision to just end their own lives. Do they ever regret it? In the moment after letting go and the second before they make impact, there has to be a little bit of remorse in that brief free fall. Do they look at the ground as it rushes toward them and think, “Well, crap. This was a bad idea.
Colleen Hoover (It Ends With Us)
Daniel Gilbert once said: At every stage of our lives we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we’re going to become, and then when we become those people, we’re not always thrilled with the decisions we made. So young people pay good money to get tattoos removed that teenagers paid good money to get. Middle-aged people rushed to divorce people who young adults rushed to marry. Older adults work hard to lose what middle-aged adults worked hard to gain. On and on and on.
Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
achieved an outcome that he could call a victory by capturing fifty-three women and children. But in the process, he failed to support his detachment of scouts led by Major Joel Elliott. The detachment was killed and butchered by an army of warriors that Custer didn’t know was there. Benteen, for one, never forgave Custer for failing to make a stronger effort to save Elliott and the scouts. Now, Custer faced a similar problem. He believed the noncombatants were running north from the village. But to his south, Reno’s battalion was in danger of being destroyed. He couldn’t capture the noncombatants and save Reno at the same time. As Custer deliberated, his youngest brother, Boston, rode up. Boston had ridden back to the pack train to exchange his horse for a fresh mount. Along the way, he passed Benteen’s battalion, and now he told his brother that Benteen’s men were on the trail to the battlefield and the pack train was only a mile behind them. Custer decided he needed a better view of the landscape. He led his column farther north, across a wide ravine and up onto a high ridge. From there, he saw even more of the village and realized it was even larger than he’d previously believed. He also saw a dust cloud to the south that he thought was a sign of Benteen’s battalion. If Benteen hurried as ordered, he could reunite with Custer in less than half an hour. That thought solidified the decision in Custer’s mind, and Custer explained his plan to his senior officers. Custer split his command into two wings. He told his old friend Captain George Yates to lead the smaller wing, with two of the five companies, over the hills and down a ravine toward the river. Yates would make a big show of acting like he was going to charge across the river and into the village, but in reality, he would secure a place to cross for the rest of the column. Custer would stay with the larger wing—the three companies commanded by Captain Myles Keogh—and wait for Benteen. If Benteen arrived soon, his three companies would join with Keogh’s three companies and rush down to Yates’s position. Then all eight companies would cross the river together and storm the village. If Benteen was delayed, then Keogh’s companies would fire
Chris Wimmer (The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West)
The Creator works in a thousand ways, but one central way is through people—people who think, who pray, who make difficult decisions, who work hard, especially in prayer. That is part of what it means to be image-bearers. The question of divine action and human action is seldom a zero-sum game. If the worlds of heaven and earth have rushed together in Jesus and the spirit, one should expect different layers of explanation to reside together, to reinforce one another.
N.T. Wright (Paul: A Biography)
Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert once said: At every stage of our lives we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we’re going to become, and then when we become those people, we’re not always thrilled with the decisions we made. So young people pay good money to get tattoos removed that teenagers paid good money to get. Middle-aged people rushed to divorce people who young adults rushed to marry. Older adults work hard to lose what middle-aged adults worked hard to gain. On and on and on.48
Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
We want our circumstances to change, to start again, to be brand-new. But when they change, we often don’t give ourselves permission to be new within them. Instead, we want to rush ahead to mastery. We think we ought to know how to navigate the newness, especially if it’s something we wanted, something we prayed for, waited for, asked for, or planned.
Emily P. Freeman (The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions)
She had always been unpredictable. She rushed decisions based on her current mood and said things she quickly regretted. If she had been any other way, they would’ve never met. But this was something even her idiosyncrasies couldn’t justify.
Federico Tritscheler (Sad Song)
Well, an unthreatened man, thinking of nothing in particular, is not being prompted to remove doubt through rushing to some decision. As we shall see later when we get to Social-Proof Tendency and Stress-Influence Tendency, what usually triggers Doubt-Avoidance Tendency is some combination of (l) puzzlement and (Z) stress. And both of these factors naturally occur in facing religious issues.Thus, the natural state of most men is in some form of religion. And this is what we observe.
Peter D. Kaufman (Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition)
She had made no attempt to see him. Every morning, for a month, on entering her office, she had been conscious, not of the room around her, but of the tunnels below, under the floors of the building—and she had worked, feeling as if some marginal part of her brain was computing figures, reading reports, making decisions in a rush of lifeless activity, while her living mind was inactive and still, frozen in contemplation, forbidden to move beyond the sentence: He’s down there. The only inquiry she had permitted herself had been a glance at the payroll list of the Terminal workers. She had seen the name: Galt, John. The list had carried it, openly, for over twelve years. She had seen an address next to the name—and, for a month, had struggled to forget it.
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
with everything you need to know about the ins and outs of data mining. This book has been laid out in straightforward and clear chapters with each chapter focusing on a particular part of data science for business to be able to ensure that you gain the maximum amount to knowledge without having to weed through unnecessary information. I hope this book answers any question you have and leaves you feeling confident on the subject of data science, data analytics and business intelligence. Chapter 1 Wholeness of Data Analytics There is a lot of data that comes rushing towards an organization of any type and sometimes it can be hard to decipher just what it means to the team and how they can use it to benefit them. This is where data analytics is the more helpful. The data is analyzed through a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming and modeling that makes the information easier to look at and read. By narrowing down the amount of information, an organization is looking at they are going to be better able to utilize the relevant information and use the conclusions the data suggests to make decisions that are most likely to bring rewards. Although data analytics are most frequently used in business to consumer applications, there are many different facets of the data analysis. Some of the most common places data analytics are utilized in the worlds of business, science, and social science, in a variety of ways. Regardless of the type of organization, you are involved with, and even in your personal life, there are ways to make data analysis work for you. An example of where data analytics would be used in regards to a social networking site. A social networking website collects the information which relates to user preferences as well as the community interested and can segment according to the criteria that have been specified
George Letton (Data Analytics. Fast Overview.)
Then one day John came in very excited, made me cover my eyes and led me outside. Standing on the drive was a gold Porsche for me. A few weeks later I got up to find the Porsche gone and in its place a red Ferrari. Now that he, too, was able to drive, John had part-exchanged my car for one for himself. Generous as he was, this impulsive act was typically thoughtless: he hadn’t stopped to consider whether I might mind, just rushed ahead. Once he’d taken a decision everyone and everything had to fall into line with it. He had little time for negotiation, considering or planning, preferring to act on impulse and hang the consequences
Cynthia Lennon (John)
Day 61 – The Beta Dimension The Rainbow Creeper, bless his heart, placed us right in the middle of the control room of the beta dimension. In fact, the Creeper was standing there waiting for us. He was, of course, surrounded by his guard of six destroyer endermen. “My Lord, what are you doing here?” asked Claire. “We are at a decisive moment in history. A tipping point. It could be the end of days or the start of something new. I am here to offer my wisdom.” And yet, he sounded humble when uttering these words. “Thanks, RC,” I said. “Have you seen Notch? We need to talk to him.” The destroyer endermen in the Rainbow Creeper’s guard shook their heads at me. I knew they wanted to kill me for being so familiar, but they also knew the Rainbow Creeper wouldn’t allow it, so they didn’t bother to make a move towards me. “He’s on the other side of the control room. He’s asleep.” I was incensed. I rushed
Dr. Block (Diary of a Surfer Villager, Book 20 (Diary of a Surfer Villager #20))
assessing this with a trusted advisor will help this be a practical decision based on health and bathed in prayer, not an emotional response too easily rushed into.
Lysa TerKeurst (Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again)
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. But you’re not one of them. You’re the happiest accident I’ve ever known. The very best decision I’ve ever made. My reason.
Elsie Silver (A False Start (Gold Rush Ranch, #4))
What’s the matter?” “I know you want Providence Cards,” I said, the words rushing out of my mouth. “I also know you don’t want the King to find out. Otherwise, you would not have bothered disguising yourself on the forest road.” I steadied my voice. “I’ll help you find Cards. I won’t tell anyone you and the Prince moonlight as highwaymen, and you, in turn, will keep my secret. But I need something else.” Ravyn crossed his arms over his chest, surveying me anew. “The decision regarding how to handle your magic does not rest solely with me, I’m afraid.” I stuck out my chin. Even reclined, calm in his seat, Ravyn Yew frightened me. Taking my silence in stride, the Captain asked, “What precisely do you want, Miss Spindle?” My fingers shook. “I want you to leave my family alone. Do not punish them for hiding my infection.” He nodded slowly. “If that is your wish.” “And don’t go back to my uncle’s house,” I added. “He carries no Card you have not already shown me today.” “I thought you didn’t know anything about your uncle’s Cards.” I blinked. “I wasn’t about to tell a man with a knife to my chest how to steal from my own family.” “Brave of you.” Ravyn shifted in his chair. “Anything else?” He’ll give anything to have your magic, the Nightmare cooed. Ask for something extravagant. Like a magical procedure to remove the parasite from my head? I kept my face neutral and my eyes on the Captain of the Destriers. “One last thing.” “Yes?” I put my hands on the table and leaned forward without breaking our gaze. “You must swear, Captain, no matter the circumstance, you will never use that Nightmare Card on me again.
Rachel Gillig (One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1))
We want our circumstances to change, to start again, to be brand-new. But when they change, we often don’t give ourselves permission to be new within them. Instead, we want to rush ahead to mastery.
Emily P. Freeman (The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions)
These were all simple acts of obedience I missed. But not missed because I was unaware. They were missed because I was busy—caught in the rush of endless demands. And the rush makes us rebellious. I knew what to do and blatantly ignored it. Ignoring God's leading doesn't seem like such a big deal in these cases. In the grand scheme of the world, how big a thing is it that I didn't pick up that cup? After all, how can I be sure it was really God? I think a better question would be, How can I be sure it wasn't God?
Lysa TerKeurst (The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands)
I was so caught up in the rush of superficial things in my world that I missed hearing the cries for help in someone else’s world.
Lysa TerKeurst (The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands)
As Obama would tell me one occasion, "I can't defend it unless I understand it." I rarely saw him rush to a decision when circumstances allowed him time to gather information, analyze, and reflect...When the occasion demand it, though, Obama could make a big decision - a life-and-death decision - very fast." Page 299
Robert M. Gates (Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War)