Starting With A Clean Slate Quotes

What’s broken is broken—and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live…I’m too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over.

I once spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda, and she said to me that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was. No one who remembered her girlhood and her early mischief and family lore; no sibling or boon companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, exam results, illnesses, friendships, kinships—gone. She went on living, but with a tabula rasa as her diary and calendar and notebook. I think of this every time I hear of the callow ambition to 'make a new start' or to be 'born again': Do those who talk this way truly wish for the slate to be wiped? Genocide means not just mass killing, to the level of extermination, but mass obliteration to the verge of extinction. You wish to have one more reflection on what it is to have been made the object of a 'clean' sweep? Try Vladimir Nabokov's microcosmic miniature story 'Signs and Symbols,' which is about angst and misery in general but also succeeds in placing it in what might be termed a starkly individual perspective. The album of the distraught family contains a faded study of Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about.

I loved him in that moment, loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone, and I wanted to to tell them all that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.

Who needs to be a Phoenix for rebirth? One simply requires themselves and an instrument to clean the slate and start over, perhaps create their own world where everything is better..

Because sometimes it’s easier to start over with a clean slate than to drag the baggage of your past with you wherever you go.

Tomorrow when I awaken, the slate will be clean, and a new day will stretch before me. God's mercies are new every morning.

You’ve got a chance to start out all over again. A new place, new people, new sights. A clean slate. See, you can be anything you want with a fresh start.

You’re safe here and you can start fresh. Your slate is clean with me.

I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again.

Like—getting a new start doesn’t mean you have to wipe the slate clean. Just pick up the pieces. Begin again.

Each new breath and moment is a gift. We can choose to start with a clean slate in the here and now.

Making a fresh start isn't just a matter of having a new address in a new town. It isn't a matter of having a new job or a new phone number or even a new name.A fresh start requires a cleaning of the slate and that means paying off all that you owe and collecting all that you are due.

Starting anew with a clean slate has been one of the most harmful ideas in history. It treats previous knowledge as an impediment and imagines that only present knowledge deployed in theoretical purity can make real the wondrous new vision.

By then I had moved often enough not to have the usual illusions about a clean slate or a fresh start or a new life. I knew that I could not escape myself. And the idea of beginning again, with no furniture and no friends, was exhausting. So my happiness then is hard to explain. I am tempted now to believe that entering the life one is meant to inhabit is a thrilling sensation and that is all.

Life says: " Write down your experiences in a notebook, not on a blackboard. Don't start with a clean slate, but with a new page, so you can look back.

Once you’ve truly forgiven someone, wipe the slate clean. So often we form judgments about people and then, no matter what they do, we see them through the lens of that judgment. Which means we’re just waiting for them to piss us off again. Which means we’re still in the Forvginess-lite stage; we’re pretending we’re cool but we’re really still holding on to some resentment. Release all expectations, let everyone off the hook, treat people as a blank slate over and over again, expect only the best from them regardless of what they’ve done in the past

Truth in theatre is always on the move. As you read this book, it is already moving out of date. it is for me an exercise, now frozen on the page. but unlike a book, the theatre has one special characteristic. It is always possible to start again. In life this is myth, we ourselves can never go back on anything. New leaves never turn, clocks never go back, we can never have a second chance. In the theatre, the slate is wiped clean all the time. In everyday life, "if" is a fiction, in the theatre "if" is an experiment. In everyday life, "if" is an evasion, in the theatre "if" is the truth. When we are persuaded to believe in this truth then the theatre and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To plays needs much work. But when we experiences the work as play, then it is not work anymore. A play is play.

What a thing it is to live in New York City. To move here and not know a soul. A clean slate, a chance to walk away from the past and start anew...I will feign coolness. I will slowly learn the art of not showing that I am surprised or impressed or moved. I will feel the elation that comes from anonymity. I will feel the comfortable loneliness of wandering the avenues in the rush of humanity, the side streets by myself.

Jaeshawn!” I screamed. My hips bucked off the bed, as the sucking grew more intense. I could feel a tightening sensation in my stomach that sent tingles to the ends of my toes. He stopped sucking and roughly dragged his tongue over my love button, over and over again, until I felt like I was going to explode. "Jaeeee!” I screamed as I started to ride his tongue.

Everyone starts out with a clean slate to soil.' (Daisy, 'Friendship on Fire', p. 280)

What makes me think I could start clean slated? The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Like—getting a new start doesn’t mean you have to wipe the slate clean. Just pick up the pieces. Begin again.

The man thinks of multiverses, of splits, of the momentous moments when there is a new reality created. He wonders about retroactive continuity and reboots, the opportunity, in comic books, to start with clean slates, to write fresh, to correct the mistakes that were made. He feels now, looking at the new Shopwise, that it cannot offer the same kind of happiness as Fiesta Carnival, that the rifts and tears in his reality are things he must accept, and that he is happy with the girl, in another multiverse.

Same day, 11 o'clock p. m..—Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything, except of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital `severe tea' at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little oldfashioned inn, with a bow window right over the seaweedcovered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the `New Woman' with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls.

Sorry does not turn back the clock. It allows a rewind for a clean slate for a fresh start.

I want to start over. I want a clean slate. I can’t bear it. Everything that makes me happy hurts someone.

Whatever the mistakes or faults of the past have been, I feel that on New Years and birthdays, and even on Mondays, I can clean off the slate, so to speak, and start all over.

Learn to travel light. Do anything necessary to start each new relationship with a clean slate.

Anyway, I wanted to get rid of it all & start a new life in Tokyo with a clean slate as a brand-new person. Try out the new possibilities of a new me.

Have you ever experienced a shattering in your own personal life? Where death, divorce, financial loss, failure, or disaster changed your world to such an extent that you weren’t sure how to rebuild again? Clearing the debris from the aftermath is a great first step. It enables you to start with a clean slate so you can rebuild exactly what you desire. Where can you begin?

Our goodness, our badness all develop from social experience, the company we keep, the things we're taught when we're young. We start with a clean slate. It's everyone else who fucks us up.

Outside there's a chill in the air that reminds me autumn is on the way, even though it's still only September. This time of year is my absolute favourite; the leaves start to turn golden and wither away after their summer of hard work, and the sun seems to shine a lot more clearly as the mist from the summer heat disappears. Everything just seems a little brighter and fresher--a clean slate. That's exactly what I need.

We stared at each other in silence until she looked away. I won. I always won, because I had my daddy’s eyes and she could only stare for so long, without looking away. I had my own ways of getting to Baby-Sweet.

Any beginning is a time of special power for habit creation, and at certain times we experience a clean slate, in which circumstances change in a way that makes a fresh start possible—if we’re alert for the opportunity.

This is an important test of maturity: to seek to avoid error, to accept the consequences of error when it comes (as it surely will), and learn from it and to wipe the slate clean and start afresh, free from feelings of guilt.

We’re starting out with a clean slate. Both of us. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But in our home, in our bed, it’s just you and me for as long as you want me.” He places his hand on my heart. “No more yesterdays. Only right now and the future. Together.

Your patterns of thought, existing bodies of knowledge, beliefs, predispositions, etc. are the 'stuff of your mental universe'. We are always subject to the power of our mental inertia. The waves in our mental oceans can never be magically stilled, and are therefore always impacting our new beliefs, even when we become scrutinizing adults. It is simply impossible to 'wipe the slate clean' and start over. These effects remain with us throughout our entire lives. Even the beliefs that we later discard are difficult to completely negate, and leave their own residual effects.

We all agree that those in Washington aren’t serving the will of either side. Let’s set aside our differences for the moment, agree that those in power are scoundrels, if not outright traitors, throw the bastards out, and then, once we have a clean, honest slate, start squabbling about the small stuff again.

I wish we could start over. I wish we were meeting for the first time. Clean slate.’ Haley considers this. It’s such a little-kid term. ‘Do-over!’ they’d shriek on the four-square court. The kickball field. Back when there was no mistake you couldn’t fix, no hurt you couldn’t heal with Band-Aids, hugs, and snacks. She’d love a do-over as well.

Elder Tad R. Callister said, “The Atonement was designed to do more than restore us to the ‘starting line’—more than just wipe the slate clean. [Its] crowning purpose [is] to endow us with power so that we might overcome each of our weaknesses and acquire the divine traits that would make us like God” (“How Can I Lead a More Saintly Life?” 89).

Quitting is actually incredibly empowering. It’s a reminder that you control the situation and can leave whenever you like. You don’t have to be your own prison guard, keeping yourself locked up in a place that isn’t working. But that doesn’t mean quitting is easy. I’ve quit jobs that were a bad match and abandoned failing projects, and in each case it was terribly difficult. We’re taught that quitting is a sign of weakness, although in many circumstances, it’s just the opposite. Sometimes quitting is the bravest alternative, because it requires you to face your failures and announce them publicly. The great news is that quitting allows you to start over with a clean slate. And, if you take the time to evaluate what happened, quitting can be an invaluable learning experience.

I’m not exaggerating. I didn’t want to remember any of it—it was so pathetic. The more I thought about my life up to then, the more I hated myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a few good memories—I did. A handful of happy experiences. But if you added them up, the shameful, painful memories far outnumbered the others. When I thought of how I’d been living, how I’d been approaching life, it was all so trite, so miserably pointless. Unimaginative middle-class rubbish, and I wanted to gather it all up and stuff it away in some drawer. Or else light it on fire and watch it go up in smoke (though what kind of smoke it would emit I had no idea). Anyway, I wanted to get rid of it all and start a new life in Tokyo with a clean slate as a brand-new person. Try out the new possibilities of a new me.

I had a plan for when I saw Sutton. That plan was to meet her at the door–which I accomplished by waiting in the parking lot for her–and tell her she looked beautiful. Then I was going to open the door for her and say I wanted to start over and ask for a clean slate. But when I saw her standing there I just couldn’t help but tease her. Something about seeing her brown eyes narrow at me gets my blood pumping.

If you have had an unfortunate experience, forget it. If you have made a failure in speech, your song, your book, your article, if you have been placed in an embarrassing position, if you have fallen and hurt yourself by a false step, if you have been slandered and abused, do not dwell upon it. There is not a single redeeming feature in these memories, and the presence of their ghosts will rob you of many a happy hour. There is nothing in it. Drop them. Forget them. Wipe them out of your mind forever. If you have been indiscreet, imprudent, if you have been talked about, if your reputation has been injured so that you fear you can never outgrow it or redeem it, do not drag the hideous shadows, the rattling skeletons about with you, Rub them off from the shite of memory. Wipe them out. Forget them. Start with a clean slate and spend all your energies in keeping it clean for the future.

But the benefit of starting from rock bottom is that you've basically been handed a gift: a clean slate. Your pride's been demolished, your ego is pulverized, your fear of failure has been realized in its most brutal forms, you are...free. Suddenly you're able to shake the judgment of others in a way you never could before, because you no longer give a shit what they think! You've entered a primal survival stage, one you didn't even realize existed. Now all your energy must be reserved for action, for making things happen.

I’m sorry,” she said, wishing she could say something more meaningful. “I’m not. If he’d been a good uncle, I’d have stayed in Boston. Never would have found my way to San Francisco,” he said. Camille knew where the rest of his story led and grinned. “And you never would have rescued my father from a pickpocket,” she added. He started to laugh, a quiet, almost personal chuckle, like he was thinking about some funny memory. Camille caught the bug of laughter and wanted to join in. “What is it?” she asked. “Your father didn’t need a rescuer. He caught the pickpocket himself,” Oscar answered, a hand on his abdomen from all his laughter. “And then he invited him inside for dinner.” Her smile fell flat. She stared at him, trying to comprehend what he’d just said. “You?” she asked, dumbfounded. “You were the pickpocket?” Oscar nodded, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah. I wasn’t very good at it.” Her father could have had him arrested or shooed him away without thinking twice. But he’d invited Oscar inside. He gave him work, food…a real chance. “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked, feeling like she’d been duped once again. All the lies her father had woven to cover up his secrets had become so frayed, Camille wondered if she had truly known him at all. “To give me a clean slate with everyone. Even you.” Oscar moved toward her in cautious, deliberate steps. “We’re alone. We should talk.” The pantry was cramped and dismal despite the oil lamp, and Camille had a sudden urge to flee. “About what?” she asked, her ears burning. She still reeled with the knowledge that the pickpocket story hadn’t been real, just like her mother’s story hadn’t been real. Oscar stopped within a few inches from her and reached a hand around her waist. “About our night together, Camille,” he answered, his dimples forming. “There’s a lot to say.

He did it for us. He took the form of man, took all our sins upon Himself, and died on a Roman cross two thousand years ago.” Sally examined the passage again. “So tell me: did it work?” Bernice leaned forward and said, “You be the judge. The Bible says that the penalty for sin is death, but after Jesus paid that penalty He rose from the dead on the third day, so something was different. He conquered sin, so He was able to conquer sin’s penalty. Sure, it worked. It always works. Jesus satisfied divine justice on that Cross. He bore the punishment in full, and God never had to bend the rules. That’s why we call Jesus our Savior. He shed His own blood in our place, and died, and then rose from the grave to prove He’d won over sin and could set us free.” Now Bernice started getting excited. “And you know what thrills me about that? It means we’re special to Him; He really does love us, and we . . . we mean something, we’re here for a reason! And you know what else? No matter what our sins are, no matter where we are or what condition we’re in, we can be forgiven, free and clear, a clean slate!

Well, forgive the fuck out of me for being shocked senseless when I realized he wasn’t dead. Why didn’t you tell me he was the beast, Ryodan? Why did we have to kill him? I know it’s not because he can’t control himself when he’s the beast. He controlled himself last night when he rescued me from the Book. He can change at will, can’t he? What happened in the Silvers? Does the place have some kind of effect on you, make you uncontrollable?” I almost slapped myself in the forehead. Barrons had told me that the reason he tattooed himself with black and red protection runes was because using dark magic called a price due, unless you took measures to protect yourself against the backlash. Did using IYD require the blackest kind of magic to make it work? Would it grant his demand to magically transport him to me no matter where I was but devolve him into the darkest, most savage version of himself as the price? “It was because of how he got there, wasn’t it?” I said. “The spell you two worked sent him to me like was it was supposed to, but the cost was that it turned him into the lowest common denominator of himself. An insane killing machine. Which he figured was all right, because if I was dying, I’d probably need a killing machine around. A champion to show up and decimate all my enemies. That was it, wasn’t it?” Ryodan had gone completely still. Not a muscle twitched. I wasn’t sure he was breathing. “He knew what would happen if I pressed IYD, and he made plans with you to handle it.” That was Barrons, always thinking, always managing risks where I was concerned. “He tattooed me so he would sense his mark on me and not kill me. And you were supposed to track him—that’s why you both wear those cuffs, so you can find each other—and kill him so he’d come back as the man form of himself, and I’d never be any wiser. I’d get rescues and have no clue it was Barrons who’d done it or that he sometimes turns into a beast. But you screwed up. And that’s what he was mad at you about this morning on the phone. It was your failure to kill him that let the cat out of the bag.” A tiny muscle twitched in his jaw. He was pissed. I was definitely right. “He can always circumvent the price of black magic,” I marveled. “When you kill him, he comes back exactly the same as before, doesn’t he? He could tattoo his whole body with protection runes and, when he ran out of skin, kill himself so he could come back with a clean slate, to start all over.” That was why his tattoos weren’t always the same. “Talk about your ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card! And if you hadn’t botched the plan, I would never have known. It’s your fault I know, Ryodan. I think that means it’s not me you should kill, it’s yourself. Oh, gee, wait,” I said sarcastically, “that wouldn’t work, would it?

He had worked damn hard and prospered. Now it was time to live. He even thought he might get it up tonight and surprise his gorgeous Maggie; then it was Israel and the Pharaohs. Stopping at his front door he took a deep intake of the free English air and smiled contentedly; England was home and so was he, this time for good. He went in the front door and called out for her as he had done so many times before, 'Maggie . . . I'm home sweetheart!' He closed the door and hesitated for a moment, she was usually in his arms by now, planting a sweet little kiss on his expectant, eager lips. She had not been her best lately, complaining of headaches and spending a lot of time down at the library; but today was different, it was retirement day. Aha! This could be a surprise, he thought hanging up his coat. Calling out again, he rubbed his hands together and started to climb the stairs to wash up before tea. This is definitely a surprise . . . no smell of any grub! His whistling stopped abruptly half way up when he saw a darkened figure appear on the landing, pointing a gun at him. A finger tightened and the weapon jolted, sending screeching Belarusian memories echoing across his subconscious. The blast lifted him off his feet sending him to the floor below. The last image of Cedric Boban's life on earth was the flash of a sawn-off shotgun; which fired from a few feet, took his life and most of his upper torso away. The slate was clean, the screeching culled. His assailant moved halfway down before jumping over the banister to avoid the bloody mess on the stairs. Maggie walked steadily into the hall from the living room. She gave a little smile and took the small sawn-off shotgun from the gloved hands of the assassin,

On October 15, 1959, the day after we arrived at Western Shore, we rented a boat to get over to the island. It was a raw, windy day and by the time we reached the dock, my husband closed the throttle with a firm twist. It snapped clean off. “That’s a good start,” I thought. An omen? Well we were here, so off we went to see the pits. It had been four years since I last saw the pits, and standing there looking down at them I was shocked at their condition. One pit had partially collapsed, leaving broken and twisted timbers around; you could no longer see the water (at the bottom of the pit). In the other, the larger of the two, rotting cribbing was visible, as all the deck planking had been ripped off, exposing it to the weather. Even my son’s face fell momentarily. Looking across the slate grey sea at the black smudges of other islands, I felt utterly wretched. I don’t think I have ever seen a place so bleak and lonely as that island, that day. I just wanted to go home. Soon Bobby’s eyes began to sparkle as he and his dad walked around, talking. They walked here, they walked there, son asking questions, my husband answering…all about the history of the place. I trailed after them, ignored and unnoticed. Finally Bob said it was time for us to go back. Catching sight of my face with its woebegone expression, he started to laugh, “Look,” he said to Bobby, pointing to me, “The reluctant treasure hunter.” They both thought that was hilarious and went off down the hill, roaring with laughter.

The proper approach to ethics, the start from a metaphysically clean slate, untainted by any touch of Kantianism, can best be illustrated by the following story. In answer to a man who was telling her that she’s got to do something or other, a wise old Negro woman said: “Mister, there’s nothing I’ve got to do except die.

Once you’ve truly forgiven someone, wipe the slate clean. So often we form judgments about people and then, no matter what they do, we see them through the lens of that judgment. Which means we’re just waiting for them to piss us off again. Which means we’re still in the Forgiveness-lite stage; we’re pretending we’re cool but we’re really still holding on to some resentment. Release all expectations, let everyone off the hook, treat people as a blank slate over and over again, expect only the best from them regardless of what they’ve done in the past and you may be surprised. What you focus on, you create more of, and if you keep expecting people to annoy you they will not let you down. Focus on their finer points and encourage their good behavior if you want to create more of it.

Starting over didn’t have to be scary or painful if you looked at it for what it was—a clean slate, a chance to create something entirely different, a chance to discard all things that weren’t in sync with personal philosophies. Hope. That’s what it gave her most.

Compulsively tidy people, one is told, are always wiping the slate clean, trying to give themselves what life denies all of us, a fresh start.

Now, let’s focus on one aspect of another female superstar’s greatness that you should bring into your game, or rather into your head; Serena Williams (and Venus too) have serious short-term memory loss. By that I mean when things go bad in a point, game, set, or match, they have this ability to mentally wipe the slate clean—to forget about it immediately and not get ruined. Club players? We miss a few shots and lose a couple of games and it gets in our mind; we lose confidence, get rattled, and dial it down. Believe me, I know. That was me on tour plenty of times. As you’ll read later in Winning Ugly, when you get down on yourself—start beating yourself up mentally—there are now two players on the court trying to take you down. And one of them is you.

And, insofar as the Freudian name for this radical negativity is the death drive, Schuster is right to point out how, paradoxically, what Sade misses in his celebration of the ultimate Crime of radical destruction of all life is, precisely, the death drive: “for all its wantonness and havoc, the Sadeian will-to-extinction is premised on a fetishistic denial of the death drive. The sadist makes himself into the servant of universal extinction precisely in order to avoid the deadlock of subjectivity, the “virtual extinction” that splits the life of the subject from within. The Sadeian libertine expels this negativity outside himself in order to be able to slavishly devote himself to it; the apocalyptic vision of an absolute Crime thus functions as a screen against a more intractable internal split. What the florid imagination of the sadist masks is the fact that the Other is barred, inconsistent, lacking, that it cannot be served for it presents no law to obey, not even the wild law of its accelerating auto-destruction. There is no nature to be followed, rivalled or outdone, and it is this void or lack, the non-existence of the Other, that is incomparably more violent than even the most destructive fantasm of the death drive. Or as Lacan argues, Sade is right if we just turn around his evil thought: subjectivity is the catastrophe it fantasizes about, the death beyond death, the “second death.” While the sadist dreams of violently forcing a cataclysm that will wipe the slate clean, what he does not want to know is that this unprecedented calamity has already taken place. Every subject is the end of the world, or rather this impossibly explosive end that is equally a “fresh start,” the unabolishable chance of the dice throw.”[6] Kant characterized the free autonomous act as an act that cannot be accounted for in the terms of natural causality, of the texture of causes and effects: a free act occurs as its own cause, it opens up a new causal chain from its zero-point. So, insofar as “second death” is the interruption of the natural life-cycle of generation and corruption, no radical annihilation of the entire natural order is needed for this—an autonomous free act already suspends natural causality, and the subject as such is already this cut in the natural circuit, the self-sabotage of natural goals. The mystical name for this end of the world is “the night of the world,” while the philosophical name is “radical negativity” as the core of subjectivity. And, to quote Mallarmé, a throw of the dice will never abolish the hazard, i.e., the abyss of negativity remains forever the unsublatable background of subjective creativity. We may even risk here an ironic version of Gandhi’s famous motto “be the change you want to see in the world”: the subject is itself the catastrophe it fears and tries to avoid.

December 3 Only one who continually reexamines himself and corrects his faults will grow. The Hagakure Anyone seeking to perfect his character has to continually examine himself in order to correct the things in his life that need to be corrected. All men have faults. Every man has his own personal shortcomings, yes, even the best trained warriors and men of honor have faults that they need to continually keep in check and correct. This is just part of being human. One of the differences between the warrior and other men is that he continually tries to correct his faults, instead of just ignoring them. He is not satisfied allowing them to control his life or parts of his life. He continually examines himself and molds his life in the way that he knows he should live. Every morning, recall the code that you strive to live by, and every night reflect on whether or not you have been successful in living up to your code of honor. Look for ways in which you have fallen short in your quest and determine what you should have done differently, and know that you will handle that situation differently the next time. Strive to improve your life and your character every day. Little by little your character will be perfected, just as drop by drop the water wears away the stone. Be patient with yourself and continue with your quest. Successes, whether in the warrior lifestyle or any other endeavor, consist of not giving up. Don’t quit, just continue to press on with each new day. Every day is a new chance to start with a clean slate. I reexamine myself regularly and correct my faults.

The soul wants to forget all other realities to create the appearance of starting with a clean slate and then act like it is “discovering” and “learning” and what’s most important: Experiencing surprise – a concept that has little meaning for the infinite-self. The benefit of this existence is the joy of discovery and not knowing what’s going to come next. Do you recall situations from your childhood in which you were absolutely thrilled that you didn’t know what is behind the curtain? Isn’t it a bit dull of this society to want to have everything planned and figured out beforehand for reasons of “security” (which is actually fear). If you say “no” to your joy for reasons of “security”, the only security you are going to get is the security of joylessness and boredom. Therefore, take part in the “movie” willingly. The more you love life as it is, the more it will love you as you are. “Paradoxically”, the more you love “normal” life, the more you will “ascend” spiritually. Wanting to get away from here, as many “spiritual” teachings propose, binds you to this reality even more…as all resistance binds you.

I started weeping out loud as the scenes of my past replayed through my head. I’d always seen God’s interventions as freebies, as nice gestures from an all-powerful genie-like figure. I was finally beginning to see not only what it meant to have a clean slate, but also how much it cost Him to give me one.

Harper Shaw was a single snack-getting-stuck-in-a-vending-machine away from an anxiety attack. But hey, that was what happened when you decided nothing in your life sparked joy. You wiped your slate clean like an Etch A Sketch and started over.

when it comes to Make Time. Don’t even try to do it perfectly—there’s no such thing! But there’s also no way to screw it up. And you won’t have to start over if you “fall off the wagon,” because each day is a clean slate.

Because in Western Christian circles worship is largely regarded as a matter of personal taste, Orthodox worship—indeed, traditional Christian worship—tends to be understood as just one of many preferences for how to worship. “Smells and bells,” as it were. It is assumed to be some form of Greek, Russian, Middle Eastern, or other arcane cultural expression of Christian worship. This, however, is far from the truth. The patterns, and even details, of Orthodox worship are based on a consistent interpretation of God’s commandments in the Torah, now grasped more fully and deeply in Christ. New Testament worship did not start over with a clean slate after abandoning the worship of the Old Testament. The apostles applied the commandments of the Torah regarding worship to the Christian communities they founded. This apostolic worship is continued in the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church. This is the worship that God has given to humanity to allow them to make a pleasing offering to the Father, united to the Son, in the communion of the Holy Spirit.

This isn’t enough, Nadia. To repay you for the way you’ve brought me back? It will never be enough. I’ll spend the rest of my goddamn life repaying the favor, and I’ll do it with a smile. This place is yours whenever you want it. With me. Without me. No strings attached. I want you to have it. I want to see you spread your wings and soar. To see all your dreams come true.” I pause, sucking in a deep, centering breath, and then I forge ahead like I planned. “But right now, I’m going to beg you to give me another shot. Before? That was a false start. This? This is a clean slate. I want all your right nows. All your tomorrows. I want it all with you.

The lovely thing about money is that it really doesn't discriminate. Each and every day starts with a clean slate.

We write one thing we're going to leave behind in the old season and then we burn it. We start off every year with a clean slate.

crooners, the onetime murderers—they built this town. Nothing in nature disappears. Helium becomes carbon becomes diamonds become rings. Bodies become bones become dust becomes earth. And in Vegas, murderers become patriarchs, card sharks become benefactors, the unredeemed become the redeemers. And cops are not convicted of excessive force. It’s true: it’s not a small town anymore. For decades, people have been streaming in from all over the world, from every country on the planet: stateless people, desperate people, eager people, ambitious people. They come for easy work, for the ability to pay someone off, for the chance to start over. They come because they are rich, they come because they are poor, and some day, maybe even some day soon, all these hundreds of thousands, millions, of newcomers may even wipe clean the slate drawn by Vegas’s earliest dreamers. But not yet. Not yet. Arjeta Ahmeti has no chance of vindication in that coroner’s inquest. Not in this town. Not

Men dream of starting over. Not even necessarily with another woman. They dream of a clean slate, of disappearing, of walking off a plane on a layover and making a new life for themselves in a strange city--Grand Rapids say, or Nashville. They dream of an apartment all of their own, of silence, of joining Delta Force and fighting in Iraq, of introducing themselves by the nickname they'd always wished they had. Of a time and place where they can use everything they know now that they hadn't known then--that is, before they were married. And then they might be happy.

Redemption doesn’t mean scrapping what’s there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved. And because of the analysis of evil not as materiality but as rebellion, the slavery of humans and of the world does not consist in embodiment, redemption from which would mean the death of the body and the consequent release of the soul or spirit. The slavery consists, rather, in sin, redemption from which must ultimately involve not just goodness of soul or spirit but a newly embodied life.

Lily loved rain. She loved the sound, the smell, the feeling it gave her of a fresh start. Every time it rained, she felt as though it was a cleansing, cathartic experience. A new beginning. The old was washed away and there was a clean slate.

Starting over didn’t have to be scary or painful if you looked at it for what it was—a clean slate, a chance to create something entirely different, a chance to discard all things that weren’t in sync with personal philosophies. Hope.

For God acknowledged that it is not good that man should be alone. Marriage is a new beginning to a new life now shared with another person. A fresh start. It is not humanly possible to forget what came before, but as new couples, you should strive to lay to rest the pain, affliction, and strife of the past and move forward into your new life with a clean slate. Hold onto the good memories you have already created together but let go of the bad things. Begin again, not as two separate persons, but two halves of one whole. Allow the old things to pass away as all things become new.” Soft amens sifted through the couples. William

Redemption doesn’t mean scrapping what’s there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved. And because of the analysis of evil not as materiality but as rebellion, the slavery of humans and of the world does not consist in embodiment, redemption from which would mean the death of the body and the consequent release of the soul or spirit. The slavery consists, rather, in sin, redemption from which must ultimately involve not just goodness of soul or spirit but a newly embodied life. This

Because Jesus was forsaken, we are forgiven. Because He was beaten, we are healed. Because He was thirsty, we're awash in the water of life. Because He died, we have an eternal home. No matter how deep our regrets, how searing our conscience, how messy our past, we start each day with a clean slate. All our failures are washed away in His blood.

You can start on a clean slate or make excuses, but you can't do both.

We were about to make love in the same bed I shared with my husband, and the extent of our immorality was weighing in on both of us, but not enough to stop us.

Closing her eyes, she sat perfectly still, listening to the tap-tap-tapping of the rain as it landed on the aluminum carport that sheltered her. Slowly her body relaxed as the melodic beat began to lull her. She allowed herself the luxury to just take a moment and simply…be. Lily loved rain. She loved the sound, the smell, the feeling it gave her of a fresh start. Every time it rained, she felt as though it was a cleansing, cathartic experience. A new beginning. The old was washed away and there was a clean slate.

Leave the Trash Behind" (Verse 1) I've been down that road, where the past lingers on, Holding onto memories, till the break of dawn. But I've learned my lesson, won't repeat that crime, When you take out the trash, don't go digging back through it, it's time. (Chorus) I'm moving on, got my sights set on the new, I've cleared the clutter, my skies are turning blue. I won't be a part of letting you destroy me, I'm leaving the past, where it's meant to be. (Verse 2) You can't recycle, what's meant to stay gone, Old habits, old hurts, it's all been withdrawn. I'm setting my boundaries, I'm drawing the line, When you take out the trash, it's a sign. (Bridge) I'm not a collector of yesterday's news, I'm an architect of the life I choose. No more digging through what's been declined, I'm building a future, one day at a time. (Chorus) I'm moving on, got my sights set on the new, I've cleared the clutter, my skies are turning blue. I won't be a part of letting you destroy me, I'm leaving the past, where it's meant to be. (Outro) So here's to the clean slates, the fresh starts, To the unburdened hearts, playing brand new parts. I'm walking away, from the mess, the grind, 'Cause when you take out the trash, you leave it behind.

If you're in doubt about something that's not in your life, try it. Things are so different in practice versus in theory. The only way to know is to experience it yourself. ... Err on the side of yes. Try it. If it was a mistake, at least you’ll know first-hand, instead of always wondering. If you're in doubt about something that's in your life already, get rid of it. Not just things, this goes for identities, habits, goals, relationships, technology, and anything else. Default to not having it, then see how you do without. ... Err on the side of no. Get rid of it. Start with a clean slate. If it was a mistake, you'll get it back with a renewed enthusiasm.

A geographical change in sobriety is one of the most undervalued recovery techniques. It gives you the clean slate needed to start a new life which is a prudent solution for someone with a relapse problem.

Often we would take a few days to drive to a nearby city and almost always we would observe small French idiosyncrasies—not at all the right word if you are French. Oddities isn’t any better. As examples: a small store may have just one escalator, set to go down, not up; a door into a supermarket opens automatically when going in, but you must use a non-automatic one when exiting with your cart or packages; peanut butter is in the gourmet section; drivers start with 10 points on their licenses and lose points, and their license, when infractions lower their number of points to zero. To me, it makes more sense to start with zero, a clean slate. The highway billboards warn, in French: you

If you feel that you have already made progress in some way, you are more likely to continue. This is known as the endowed progress effect. Instead of trying to start out on a clean slate, think in terms of what you already have and build on that. In any endeavor, you are not starting at zero; you have skills, abilities, and past experiences that equip you in some way as you pursue your goal.

When a conversation was turning to conflict, my mother used to gesture wiping a slate clean and say, “Erase and start again!

Before? That was a false start. This? This is a clean slate. I want all your right nows. All your tomorrows. I want it all with you.

We want to be able to peacefully start a new state for the same reason we want a bare plot of earth, a blank sheet of paper, an empty text buffer, a fresh startup, or a clean slate. Because we want to build something new without historical constraint.

How did the Wright brothers achieve their world-changing feat? They neither relied on divine inspiration nor started with a clean slate. You could best describe the first plane as a recombination of known ideas and technologies. 1 As management professor Andrew Hargadon says, all innovations represent some break from the past, built from pieces of the past. The Wrights’s genius was the insight that combining a light gasoline engine, some cables, a propeller, and Bernoulli’s principle would result in a flying contraption.

Because life didn’t just come with better . . . it came with worse, too. A worse that God could have fixed, perhaps, if she’d let Him, so long ago. She hadn’t wanted to take the risk of a broken heart. Of getting hurt over and over again. But wasn’t that the nature of love? Risking betrayal? Forgiving? Wiping the slate clean and starting over? Wasn’t that the nature of God?

that isn’t how the world works. There are no blank slates, no fresh starts, no clean cuts. There is only the messy aftermath of every decision you ever make. Because – and this is one of my greatest frustrations – life moves in only one direction. Every decision that you ever make will be written in stone, permanent, never to be undone. They are all entirely irrevocable. Even if you find a way to unwind a specific decision, to unpick those threads, that decision will always have been made.

Forgiveness is wonderful. It wipes the slate clean. It clears up guilt. It brings peace and harmony

Sometimes,” my mother went on, “I think of white dresses as a way of starting over. They’re sort of a way of wiping the whole slate clean. Just like what happens in the wintertime when the snow comes. It wipes away everything in preparation for a new year, a new spring.

That's why I envy Justin here in no small way. Despite her unfortunate room, and all those milkmaids threatening to swallow her with their smiles ... she can start her life over and be anything she chooses to be. Nobody knows what she was like back in Fredericksburg. She has lost all the props that defined her. Nobody knows all the peculiarities and character traits of her forebears so they can pretend to recognize those traits in her. She's a clean slate. When she meets new people, or new challenges, she is free to respond to the unique demands of the moment. Whereas I often feel I have been playing the same part in a show that's been running too long.

As it turns out, we don’t “all” have to pay our debts. Only some of us do. Nothing would be more important than to wipe the slate clean for everyone, mark a break with our accustomed morality, and start again.

New Beginnings – New Moon Spiritually: New moon is representative of a woman’s menstrual cycle and throughout history, women lived away from other people during this time. Don’t think about the new moon as a fresh start but a time to retreat. During this time you can start over and renew your strength. Clean slates, fresh starts, and new beginnings surround the new moon. You need to use this time to “reboot.” Imagine your “battery” getting recharged under the new moon’s energy. Throw all your unwanted junk and thoughts away. In order to do this, you have to unplug yourself and take some time alone. You might begin to feel introverted and anti-social. Watch for these feelings and just embrace them. When the moon turns her dark side toward us, turn away from other people’s draining energy and turn inward. Never feel bad if you have to cancel plans, you don’t want to answer phone calls, or be around other people. Turning off and tuning out is the best way to make it through a new moon. Scientifically: The new moon begins when the moon and sun are both on the exact same side of the Earth. Since the sun isn’t facing the moon, from our view on Earth, it looks as if the moon’s dark side is facing us.

This is going to sound…” I shake my head and smile as I turn toward where he was headed. “When you say grounds…?” He smiles and mutters, “Fucking Bea.” Taking a deep inhale, with frustration on the exhale, he says, “That woman likes to leave nothing but questions in her wake. You’re at Foxx Bourbon. That includes the distillery, cooperage, and rackhouses, and all of it happens on this land. It also happens to be my home. And well”—he winks at me, lightening the mood—“looks like it’s your home now, too.” If you’re any kind of bartender in any large city where the patrons like to throw money around on expensive alcohol and not just happy-hour drafts, then you’ve poured Foxx Bourbon. I’m good at a few things and exceptional at a handful of others. Bartending fell into the exceptional category before I started planning events with limitless budgets. Foxx Bourbon isn’t some up-and-coming brand or only popular in certain places. No, if you know the difference between scotch, whiskey, and bourbon, then you’ve heard the name Foxx. I’ve ended up in the heart of Bourbon Country with a new name and a clean slate. And for some reason, when Ace calls this place my home too, my shoulders relax, the weight of what I’m hiding from easing up just enough that I feel lighter than I have in a long

But right now, I’m going to beg you to give me another shot. Before? That was a false start. This? This is a clean slate. I want all your right nows. All your tomorrows. I want it all with you.

an instant apart, and every meeting is a fresh start. A clean slate.

starting over is not a clean slate it is the messy rebirth of everything you thought you lost it is learning to walk again with bruised knees and a heart that still remembers how to break

starting over is not a clean slate it is the messy rebirth of everything you thought you lost it is learning to walk again with bruised knees and a heart that still remembers how to break

I wonder what we mean by a new year. Is it a year that is totally fresh, something that has never happened before? When we say something new-- though we know that there is nothing new under the sun-- when we talk about a happy New Year, is it really a new year for us? Or is it the same old pattern repeated over and over again? Same old rituals, same old traditions, same old habits, a continuity of what we have been doing, still are doing, and will be doing this year. So, is there anything new? Is there anything that is really afresh, something that you have never seen before? This is rather an important question, if you will follow it-- to turn all the days of our life into something which you have never seen before. That means a brain that has freed itself from its conditioning from its characteristics, from its idiosyncrasies, the opinions, the judgments, and the convictions. Can we put all that aside and really start a new year? It would be marvelous if we could do that. Because our lives are rather shallow, superficial, and have very little meaning. We are born, whether we like it or not we are born, educated--which may be a hindrance too. Can we change the whole direction of our lives? Is that possible? Or are we condemned forever to lead rather narrow, shoddy, meaningless lives? We fill our brains and our lives with something which thought has put together. This is not a sermon. Probably in all the churches of the world, and in all the temples and the rest of it-- New Year will continue in the same old way, the same old rituals, pujas and so on and so on. Can we drop all that and start anew with a clean slate and see what comes out of that, with our hearts and minds?

I wonder what we mean by a new year. Is it a year that is totally fresh, something that that has never happened before? When we say something new-- though we know that there is nothing new under the sun-- when we talk about a happy New Year, is it really a new year for us? Or is it the same old pattern repeated over and over again? Same old rituals, same old traditions, same old habits, a continuity of what we have been doing, still are doing, and will be doing this year. So, is there anything new? Is there anything that is really afresh, something that you have never seen before? This is rather an important question, if you will follow it-- to turn all the days of our life into something which you have never seen before. That means a brain that has freed itself from its conditioning from its characteristics, from its idiosyncrasies, the opinions, the judgments, and the convictions. Can we put all that aside and really start a new year? It would be marvelous if we could do that. Because our lives are rather shallow, superficial, and have very little meaning. We are born, whether we like it or not we are born, educated--which may be a hindrance too. Can we change the whole direction of our lives? Is that possible? Or are we condemned forever to lead rather narrow, shoddy, meaningless lives? We fill our brains and our lives with something which though has put together. This is not a sermon. Probably in all the churches of the world, and in all the temples and the rest of it-- New Year will continue in the same old way, the same old rituals, pujas and so on and so on. Can we drop all that and start anew with a clean slate and wee what comes out of that, with our hearts and minds?