Stop Making Assumptions Quotes

How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.

I think there's a difference between (a) offending people for its own sake, which I don't necessarily want to do, because some people are good and decent and it would be unkind to upset them simply to indulge my own self-importance, and (b) challenging their prejudices, their preconceptions, or their comfortable assumptions. I'm very happy to do that. But we need to be on our guard when people say they're offended. No one actually has the right to go through life without being offended. Some people think they can say "such-and-such offends me" and that will stop the "offensive" words or behaviour and force the "offender" to apologise. I'm very much against that tactic. No one should be able to shut down discussion by making their feelings more important than the search for truth. If such people are offended, they should put up with it.

Assuming can trip us up in other ways too. It can stop us seeing people for who they really are and make us lose sight of the people we know.

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstacy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.

Thomas Edison said in all seriousness: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labour of thinking"-if we bother with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts that bolster up what we already think-and ignore all the others! We want only the facts that justify our acts-the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justify our preconceived prejudices! As Andre Maurois put it: "Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage." Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five-or maybe five hundred!

We assume things because it’s easier, lazier. It stops us thinking too hard…usually about stuff that makes us feel uncomfortable. But not thinking can lead to misunderstandings and in some cases, tragedies.

No, see what I’m trying to say is that I watch people organizing themselves into these neat little conflicts: Atheists versus Christians Jews versus Muslims Fundamentalists versus basically everybody and I feel like a kid in a broken home who can’t get Mom and Dad to stop fighting. The assumption that every one of these groups is making— and I think it’s important to acknowledge that every group, from scientist to Sikh, assumes this—is that they are right. That they are somehow behaving rationally. But the fact that we can get so angry about this stuff means that it’s not rational and I think we could get a hell of a lot further by synthesizing these beliefs than by finding more and more nuanced ways to call each other dicks.

My point is this — you don't know. When I was first here, people looked at my hair, noticed apples on my tray, and thought 'hippie.' Then, from 'hippie' they thought 'druggie.' From there it went to 'will get me in trouble' and 'not worth my time,' and then they stopped thinking at all. No one bothered to find out if what they thought about me was true. No one wanted to hear what I thought. No one cared what I believed in. No one cared about talking to me or asking what my plans were for the day or night. And then came you. Don't let what you think you know make him into what I could have been. Don't become someone who doesn't think, just because you don't like him for some reason. Because, quite frankly, I like how you think. Except for now, of course.

But as Austen delineates so clearly, you can't stop people from making assumptions if they're so inclined. You can only do your best to show your character through your actions and hope that other people will be capable of forming sound opinions. And if you're a realist like Austen, you'll also be wise enough to realize how many people aren't up to it.

But though there are frequent misunderstandings between the Europeans and the Americans, at least we’ve had decades of shared movies and TV to help us get used to each other. Outside those bounds you can’t make any assumptions at all. In China, for instance, the poet James Fenton was once stopped for having a light on his bicycle. “How would it be,” the police officer asked him severely, “if everybody did that?

Speaking truth to bullshit and practicing civility start with knowing ourselves and knowing the behaviors and issues that both push into our own BS or get in the way of being civil. If we go back to BRAVING and our trust checklist, these situations require a keen eye on: 1. Boundaries. What’s okay in a discussion and what’s not? How do you set a boundary when you realize you’re knee-deep in BS? 2. Reliability. Bullshitting is the abandonment of reliability. It’s hard to trust or be trusted when we BS too often. 3. Accountability. How do we hold ourself and others accountable for less BS and more honest debate? Less off-loading of emotion and more civility? 4. Vault. Civility honors confidentiality. BS ignores truth and opens the door to violations of confidentiality. 5. Integrity. How do we stay in our integrity when confronted with BS, and how do we stop in the midst of our own emotional moment to say, “You know what, I’m not sure this conversation is productive” or “I need to learn more about this issue”? 6. Nonjudgment. How do we stay out of judgment toward ourselves when the right thing to do is say, “I actually don’t know much about this. Tell me what you know and why it’s important to you.” How do we not go into “winner/loser” mode and instead see an opportunity for connection when someone says to us, “I don’t know anything about that issue”? 7. Generosity. What’s the most generous assumption we can make about the people around us? What boundaries have to be in place for us to be kinder and more tolerant? I know that the practice of speaking truth to bullshit while being civil feels like a paradox, but both are profoundly important parts of true belonging.

Screens of tumbling water, breaking the world beyond them into glittering lines and smeared shadows. Kellhus had ceased trying to penetrate them. “Power,” Anasûrimbor Moënghus said, “is always power over. When an infant may be either, what is the difference between a Fanim and an Inrithi? Or between a Nansur and a Scylvendi? What could be so malleable in Men that anyone, split between circumstances, could be his own murderer? “You learned this lesson quickly. You looked across Wilderness and you saw thousands upon thousands of them, their backs bent to the field, their legs spread to the ceiling, their mouths reciting scripture, their arms hammering steel … Thousands upon thousands of them, each one a small circle of repeating actions, each one a wheel in the great machine of nations … “You understood that when men stop bowing, the emperor ceases to rule, that when the whips are thrown into the river, the slave ceases to serve. For an infant to be an emperor or a slave or a merchant or a whore or a general or whatever, those about him must act accordingly. And Men act as they believe. “You saw them, in their thousands, spread across the world in great hierarchies, the actions of each exquisitely attuned to the expectations of others. The identity of Men, you discovered, was determined by the beliefs, the assumptions, of others. This is what makes them emperors or slaves … Not their gods. Not their blood. “Nations live as Men act,” Moënghus said, his voice refracted through the ambient rush of waters. “Men act as they believe. And Men believe as they are conditioned. Since they are blind to their conditioning, they do not doubt their intuitions …” Kellhus nodded in wary assent. “They believe absolutely,” he said.

Our hurts and wounds can make our self-centeredness even more intractable. When you point out selfish behavior to a wounded person, he or she will say, “Well, maybe so, but you don’t understand what it is like.” The wounds justify the behavior. There are two ways to diagnose and treat this condition. In our culture, there is still a widespread assumption of basic human goodness. If people are self-absorbed and messed up, it is argued, it is only because they lack healthy self-esteem. So what we should do is tell them to be good to themselves, to live for themselves, not for others. In this view of things, we give wounded people almost nothing but support, encouraging them to stop letting others run their lives, urging them to find out what their dreams are and take steps to fulfill them. That, we think, is the way to healing. But this approach assumes that self-centeredness isn’t natural, that it is only the product of some kind of mistreatment. That is a very popular understanding of human nature, but it is worth observing that it is an article of faith—a religious belief, as it were. No major religion in the world actually teaches that, yet this is the popular view of many people in the West.

Here's what I want you to learn from this: Never let someone answer a question for you. Jump in with anything at all to make sure hat you're the one talking. Say, 'That's an interesting question', or 'I'm glad you asked that question,' or 'Oh goody, my favorite subject.' Say anything that will guarantee that you're in the conversation about yourself and not out of it like a teenager standing next to her mother at a cocktail party. You must tell your own story, never let someone, even someone as familiar to you as your sister-in-law think she knows you better than you know yourself. She only sees what you do, she doesn't' see who you are inside. If I regret anything when I look back, it's how often I allowed people to think what they wanted to thing. I should've stopped them sort. I should've laughed at their assumptions. I should've hooted with laughter, 'Hoo hoo hoo,' and followed with twinkling, mischievous smile just to throw them off, just to keep them guessing, The problem is they watch what you do, who you love, how you cook, what you read and what you don't read, and they decide what it means, and sometimes you're not there to stop them, or you get the timing wrong. I've always wondered why people look so much to action for meaning. When people tell you a story, something that happened to them, something important, don't ask them what they did , ask them what they wanted to do, what they want to do is who they are. Actions are whispers compared to dreams.

the effort to try to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. And that it is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative – insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness – that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy. They didn’t see this conclusion as depressing, though. Instead, they argued that it pointed to an alternative approach, a ‘negative path’ to happiness, that entailed taking a radically different stance towards those things that most of us spend our lives trying hard to avoid. It involved learning to enjoy uncertainty, embracing insecurity, stopping trying to think positively, becoming familiar with failure, even learning to value death. In short, all these people seemed to agree that in order to be truly happy, we might actually need to be willing to experience more negative emotions – or, at the very least, to learn to stop running quite so hard from them. Which is a bewildering thought, and one that calls into question not just our methods for achieving happiness, but also our assumptions about what ‘happiness’ really means. These

Scientific truth is characterized by its exactness and the rigorous quality of its assumptions. But experimental science wins these admirable qualities at the cost of maintaining itself on a plane of secondary problems and leaving the decisive and ultimate questions intact. Out of this renunciation it makes its essential virtue, and for this, if for nothing else, it deserves applause. But experimental science is only a meager portion of the mind and the organism. Where it stops, man does not stop. If the physicist stays the hand with which he delineates things at the point where his methods end, the human being who stands behind every physicist prolongs the line and carries it on to the end, just as our eye, seeing a portion of a broken arch, automatically completes the missing airy curve.

Intolerance of uncertainty: I must be 100% certain. Perfectionism: I must not make mistakes. Over-responsibility: I am responsible for everyone’s happiness and safety. These assumptions are impossible standards. The more we attempt to live by them, the more anxious we will be, and the less likely we will be to take the risks that are necessary to take in order to live freely and follow our dreams.

our designated experts cling to the delicate nurturer assumption to disguise their anti-human goal to themselves. Very few human beings can admit to themselves that they are fundamentally anti-human—even if their whole lives are devoted to stopping the high-impact productive activities that make human flourishing possible. The more one clings to the belief that Earth is “delicate,” and that we’re always one impact away from collapse, the more one can convince oneself: I don’t hate and want to destroy humans, I just want to save human beings from themselves.

He was a man of between sixty and seventy. From a little distance he had the bland aspect of a philanthropist. His slightly bald head, his domed forehead, the smiling mouth that displayed a very white set of false teeth, all seemed to speak of a benevolent personality. Only the eyes belied this assumption. They were small, deep set and crafty. Not only that. As the man, making some remark to his young companion, glanced across the room, his gaze stopped on Poirot for a moment, and just for that second there was a strange malevolence, and unnatural tensity in the glance. Then

Hume concluded that many of the questions that philosophers asked were pseudo questions—that is, questions that cannot be answered with the likes of logic, mathematics, and pure reason because their answers will always be founded at some level on an unprovable belief, on an axiom. He thought that philosophers should stop wasting everyone’s time writing copiously about pseudo questions, dump their a priori assumptions, and rein in their speculations, as the scientists had. They had to reject everything that was not founded on fact or observation, and that included eliminating any appeal to the supernatural.

A central part of the problem is that our bodies evolved to deal with the challenge of dietary paucity, not overabundance. So leptin isn’t programmed to tell you to stop eating. Nothing chemical in your body is. That’s a big part of why you tend to just keep on consuming. We are habituated into devouring foods greedily whenever we are able on the assumption that abundance is an occasional condition. When leptin is completely absent, you just keep on eating and eating because your body thinks you are starving. But when it is added to the diet, in normal circumstances it makes no discernible difference to appetite. What leptin is there for essentially is to tell the brain whether you have enough energy reserves to undertake comparatively demanding challenges like getting pregnant or starting puberty. If your hormones think you are starving, those processes will not be allowed to begin. That’s why young people who are anorexic often have a very delayed start to puberty. “It’s also almost certainly why puberty starts years earlier now than it did in historic times,” says Wass. “In Henry VIII’s reign, puberty started at sixteen or seventeen. Now it is more commonly eleven. That’s almost certainly because of improved nutrition.

We have been programmed to not suspect or doubt. We have been programmed to trust the assumptions that have been put into us by our tradition, culture, society, and religion. That’s another part of society’s brainwashing. If we are attached to power, money, property, fame, and success—if we seek these things as if our happiness depended on them—we will be considered a productive member of society, dynamic, and hardworking. In other words, if we pursue these things with a driving ambition that destroys the symphony of our life and makes us hard and cold and insensitive to others and to ourselves, society will look upon us as a dependable citizen, and our relatives and friends will be proud of the status that we have achieved.

Speaking truth to bullshit and practicing civility start with knowing ourselves and knowing the behaviors and issues that both push into our own BS or get in the way of being civil. If we go back to BRAVING and our trust checklist, these situations require a keen eye on: 1. Boundaries. What’s okay in a discussion and what’s not? How do you set a boundary when you realize you’re knee-deep in BS? 2. Reliability. Bullshitting is the abandonment of reliability. It’s hard to trust or be trusted when we BS too often. 3. Accountability. How do we hold ourself and others accountable for less BS and more honest debate? Less off-loading of emotion and more civility? 4. Vault. Civility honors confidentiality. BS ignores truth and opens the door to violations of confidentiality. 5. Integrity. How do we stay in our integrity when confronted with BS, and how do we stop in the midst of our own emotional moment to say, “You know what, I’m not sure this conversation is productive” or “I need to learn more about this issue”? 6. Nonjudgment. How do we stay out of judgment toward ourselves when the right thing to do is say, “I actually don’t know much about this. Tell me what you know and why it’s important to you.” How do we not go into “winner/loser” mode and instead see an opportunity for connection when someone says to us, “I don’t know anything about that issue”? 7. Generosity. What’s the most generous assumption we can make about the people around us? What boundaries have to be in place for us to be kinder and more tolerant? I know that the practice of speaking truth to bullshit while being civil feels like a paradox, but both are profoundly important parts of true belonging. Carl Jung wrote, “Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.” We are complex beings who wake up every day and fight against being labeled and diminished with stereotypes and characterizations that don’t reflect our fullness. Yet when we don’t risk standing on our own and speaking out, when the options laid before us force us into the very categories we resist, we perpetuate our own disconnection and loneliness. When we are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness, and even becoming our own wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters the most.

Which philosophers would Alain suggest for practical living? Alain’s list overlaps nearly 100% with my own: Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. * Most-gifted or recommended books? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Essays of Michel de Montaigne. * Favorite documentary The Up series: This ongoing series is filmed in the UK, and revisits the same group of people every 7 years. It started with their 7th birthdays (Seven Up!) and continues up to present day, when they are in their 50s. Subjects were picked from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Alain calls these very undramatic and quietly powerful films “probably the best documentary that exists.” TF: This is also the favorite of Stephen Dubner on page 574. Stephen says, “If you are at all interested in any kind of science or sociology, or human decision-making, or nurture versus nature, it is the best thing ever.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would have said, ‘Appreciate what’s good about this moment. Don’t always think that you’re on a permanent journey. Stop and enjoy the view.’ . . . I always had this assumption that if you appreciate the moment, you’re weakening your resolve to improve your circumstances. That’s not true, but I think when you’re young, it’s sort of associated with that. . . . I had people around me who’d say things like, ‘Oh, a flower, nice.’ A little part of me was thinking, ‘You absolute loser. You’ve taken time to appreciate a flower? Do you not have bigger plans? I mean, this the limit of your ambition?’ and when life’s knocked you around a bit and when you’ve seen a few things, and time has happened and you’ve got some years under your belt, you start to think more highly of modest things like flowers and a pretty sky, or just a morning where nothing’s wrong and everyone’s been pretty nice to everyone else. . . . Fortune can do anything with us. We are very fragile creatures. You only need to tap us or hit us in slightly the wrong place. . . . You only have to push us a little bit, and we crack very easily, whether that’s the pressure of disgrace or physical illness, financial pressure, etc. It doesn’t take very much. So, we do have to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster.

Can I tell you a funny story?” Gina asked. She didn’t wait for him to say yes or no. “It’s about, well . . . You know the whole age-issue thing?” “The age-issue thing,” Max repeated. “Are you sure this is a funny story?” “Does it still bother you?” she asked. “Being a little bit older than me? And it’s more funny weird than funny ha-ha.” “Twenty years isn’t exactly ‘a little bit,’” he said. “Tell that to a paleontologist,” she countered. Okay, he’d give her that one. “Just tell me the story.” “Once upon a time, when Jones first came to Kenya,” Gina said, “I didn’t know who he was. Molly didn’t tell me, and he came to our tent for tea, and . . . Maybe this isn’t even a funny weird story. Maybe it’s more of an ‘I’m an asshole’ story, because I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was there because he was all hot for me. It never occurred to me—it never even crossed my narrow little mind—that he might’ve been crushing on Molly. And she’s only maybe ten years older than he is. I remember sitting there after I figured it out, and thinking, shoot. People do make assumptions based on age. Max wasn’t just being crazy.” She smiled at him. “Or at least not crazier than usual. I guess . . . I just wanted to apologize for mocking you all those times.” “It’s okay,” Max said. “I just keep reminding myself that love doesn’t always stop to do the math.” He looked at her. “I’m trying to talk myself into that. How’d I sound? Convincing?” “That was pretty good.” They sat in silence for a moment, then Gina spoke again. “Maybe I could get a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m not his daughter, I’m his wife.’” Max nodded as he laughed. “Yet still you mock me.

In 1976, a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham in England demonstrated that randomizing letters in the middle of words had no effect on the ability of readers to understand sentences. In tihs setncene, for emalxpe, ervey scarbelmd wrod rmenias bcilasaly leibgle. Why? Because we are deeply accustomed to seeing letters arranged in certain patterns. Because the eye is in a rush, and the brain, eager to locate meaning, makes assumptions. This is true of phrases, too. An author writes “crack of dawn” or “sidelong glance” or “crystal clear” and the reader’s eye continues on, at ease with combinations of words it has encountered innumerable times before. But does the reader, or the writer, actually expend the energy to see what is cracking at dawn or what is clear about a crystal? The mind craves ease; it encourages the senses to recognize symbols, to gloss. It makes maps of our kitchen drawers and neighborhood streets; it fashions a sort of algebra out of life. And this is useful, even essential—X is the route to work, Y is the heft and feel of a nickel between your fingers. Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We’d pass out every time we saw—actually saw—a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there’d be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the fields on their backs. We need habit to get through a day, to get to work, to feed our children. But habit is dangerous, too. The act of seeing can quickly become unconscious and automatic. The eye sees something—gray-brown bark, say, fissured into broad, vertical plates—and the brain spits out tree trunk and the eye moves on. But did I really take the time to see the tree? I glimpse hazel hair, high cheekbones, a field of freckles, and I think Shauna. But did I take the time to see my wife? “Habitualization,” a Russian army-commissar-turned-literary-critic named Viktor Shklovsky wrote in 1917, “devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war.” What he argued is that, over time, we stop perceiving familiar things—words, friends, apartments—as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time. To have sex with somebody for the thousandth time is nothing like having sex with that person for the first time. The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we’re not careful, pretty soon we’re gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack. In the Tom Andrews Studio I open my journal and stare out at the trunk of the umbrella pine and do my best to fight off the atrophy that comes from seeing things too frequently. I try to shape a few sentences around this tiny corner of Rome; I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry—like a good song, or sketch, or photograph—ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought be a love letter to the world. Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience—buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello—become new all over again.

Most people I meet are stupid. Now, nobody likes to be labeled as stupid because they don’t want to know the truth about themselves, that they’re more useful dead than alive. The vast majority of those that meet me for the first time don’t believe that I’ve worked as a College Professor, or that I make a living as a writer. In fact, many have stopped talking to me because they believe I make a living doing something illegal, something criminal. It’s easier for them to believe that I’m just a criminal, than to accept that I’m one of the most famous bestselling writers in the entire planet. The ones that reach the next level, will ask me if I belong to any secret organization, if I speak to demons or if I channel the dead, or even if I steal information from the internet and other authors. Now, what they can’t see, is that the more they talk such things, the more they show me their real nature. They are very, really very, stupid. They can’t see an elephant in front of their nose; they can’t see an intelligent human being in front of their face; they are indeed very stupid and that’s a fact, not an assumption.

I heard her walking away. Lincoln stayed where he was for a while and then sat down beside me again. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t touch me. He knew I couldn’t have handled it right then. I turned toward the window and pretended to sleep while trying to ignore the hundreds of thoughts bombarding my mind, fighting for attention. It wasn’t long before I felt him move away, and the first twinge of my soul stirring within, warning me. “Let me by.” “I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’m sure there is a lot that needs to be discussed, but right now, she’s exhausted. You have no idea what she’s been through.” Lincoln’s voice caught, but he covered it, clearing his throat. “She needs to rest…and so do you, I imagine.” “You’re her partner?” she asked confrontationally. “I am.” “You’re from a Power?” It was an odd question. “How did you know?” Lincoln asked. “At least some things were done right,” she mumbled. “I suppose if I were to make a point of passing you now, you’d be willing to use force?” “A fair assumption,” he said, and I could tell he wasn’t joking. My soul stirred again. “Would you die for her?” I almost stopped breathing. I could feel his eyes on me. “I do. Every day.

All my life, everything’s been smooth and easy. My family loves me, lots of friends, I never wanted for anything. Nothing bad has ever happened to me. I knew God loved me. But now . . .” “He still loves you, sweetheart.” Hutch winced, and his cheeks flamed. Why on earth did he call her sweetheart? “I know. But I’ve always been good, and my life’s always been good, and now . . .” “Now your life stinks.” She lifted her face to look at him, so close he’d barely have to move to kiss her. He wouldn’t mind the taste of tears. “It does stink.” She buried her face in his shoulder again. “And you haven’t stopped being good.” “No. I know the Lord doesn’t make bargains like that. I know good people suffer and the wicked prosper, but I always thought . . .” Hutch sighed and rubbed her back. “You always thought you were the exception.” “It sounds stupid.” “No. It was a reasonable assumption based on observation.” Georgie sagged in his arms. “I also thought God spared me because I’m weak. He knows I can’t handle tragedy.” “Well, then.” He gave her a squeeze. “This tragedy shows you what I already know. You are strong enough. This is hard, the hardest thing you’ve ever gone through, but you can handle it if you lean on God. You’ll come through stronger and wiser and even more compassionate because of it.” “Thank you. You’re such a good friend.” Her arms loosened around his waist, and she pulled back slightly, staring at his chest. “I should get going. I just wanted to say good-bye.

The three main mediaeval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism. Realism, as the word is used in connection with the mediaeval controversy over universals, is the Platonic doctrine that universals or abstract entities have being independently of the mind; the mind may discover them but cannot create them. Logicism, represented by Frege, Russell, Whitehead, Church, and Carnap, condones the use of bound variables to refer to abstract entities known and unknown, specifiable and unspecifiable, indiscriminately. Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made. Intuitionism, espoused in modern times in one form or another by Poincaré, Brouwer, Weyl, and others, countenances the use of bound variables to refer to abstract entities only when those entities are capable of being cooked up individually from ingredients specified in advance. As Fraenkel has put it, logicism holds that classes are discovered while intuitionism holds that they are invented—a fair statement indeed of the old opposition between realism and conceptualism. This opposition is no mere quibble; it makes an essential difference in the amount of classical mathematics to which one is willing to subscribe. Logicists, or realists, are able on their assumptions to get Cantor’s ascending orders of infinity; intuitionists are compelled to stop with the lowest order of infinity, and, as an indirect consequence, to abandon even some of the classical laws of real numbers. The modern controversy between logicism and intuitionism arose, in fact, from disagreements over infinity. Formalism, associated with the name of Hilbert, echoes intuitionism in deploring the logicist’s unbridled recourse to universals. But formalism also finds intuitionism unsatisfactory. This could happen for either of two opposite reasons. The formalist might, like the logicist, object to the crippling of classical mathematics; or he might, like the nominalists of old, object to admitting abstract entities at all, even in the restrained sense of mind-made entities. The upshot is the same: the formalist keeps classical mathematics as a play of insignificant notations. This play of notations can still be of utility—whatever utility it has already shown itself to have as a crutch for physicists and technologists. But utility need not imply significance, in any literal linguistic sense. Nor need the marked success of mathematicians in spinning out theorems, and in finding objective bases for agreement with one another’s results, imply significance. For an adequate basis for agreement among mathematicians can be found simply in the rules which govern the manipulation of the notations—these syntactical rules being, unlike the notations themselves, quite significant and intelligible.

And so, when I tell stories today about digital transformation and organizational agility and customer centricity, I use a vocabulary that is very consistent and very refined. It is one of the tools I have available to tell my story effectively. I talk about assumptions. I talk about hypotheses. I talk about outcomes as a measure of customer success. I talk about outcomes as a measurable change in customer behavior. I talk about outcomes over outputs, experimentation, continuous learning, and ship, sense, and respond. The more you tell your story, the more you can refine your language into your trademark or brand—what you’re most known for. For example, baseball great Yogi Berra was famous for his Yogi-isms—sayings like “You can observe a lot by watching” and “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s not just a hook or catchphrase, it helps tell the story as well. For Lean Startup, a best-selling book on corporate innovation written by Eric Ries, the words were “build,” “measure,” “learn.” Jeff Patton, a colleague of mine, uses the phrase “the differences that make a difference.” And he talks about bets as a way of testing confidence levels. He’ll ask, “What will you bet me that your idea is good? Will you bet me lunch? A day’s pay? Your 401(k)?” These words are not only their vocabulary. They are their brand. That’s one of the benefits of storytelling and telling those stories continuously. As you refine your language, the people who are beginning to pay attention to you start adopting that language, and then that becomes your thing.

SELF-MANAGEMENT Trust We relate to one another with an assumption of positive intent. Until we are proven wrong, trusting co-workers is our default means of engagement. Freedom and accountability are two sides of the same coin. Information and decision-making All business information is open to all. Every one of us is able to handle difficult and sensitive news. We believe in collective intelligence. Nobody is as smart as everybody. Therefore all decisions will be made with the advice process. Responsibility and accountability We each have full responsibility for the organization. If we sense that something needs to happen, we have a duty to address it. It’s not acceptable to limit our concern to the remit of our roles. Everyone must be comfortable with holding others accountable to their commitments through feedback and respectful confrontation. WHOLENESS Equal worth We are all of fundamental equal worth. At the same time, our community will be richest if we let all members contribute in their distinctive way, appreciating the differences in roles, education, backgrounds, interests, skills, characters, points of view, and so on. Safe and caring workplace Any situation can be approached from fear and separation, or from love and connection. We choose love and connection. We strive to create emotionally and spiritually safe environments, where each of us can behave authentically. We honor the moods of … [love, care, recognition, gratitude, curiosity, fun, playfulness …]. We are comfortable with vocabulary like care, love, service, purpose, soul … in the workplace. Overcoming separation We aim to have a workplace where we can honor all parts of us: the cognitive, physical, emotional, and spiritual; the rational and the intuitive; the feminine and the masculine. We recognize that we are all deeply interconnected, part of a bigger whole that includes nature and all forms of life. Learning Every problem is an invitation to learn and grow. We will always be learners. We have never arrived. Failure is always a possibility if we strive boldly for our purpose. We discuss our failures openly and learn from them. Hiding or neglecting to learn from failure is unacceptable. Feedback and respectful confrontation are gifts we share to help one another grow. We focus on strengths more than weaknesses, on opportunities more than problems. Relationships and conflict It’s impossible to change other people. We can only change ourselves. We take ownership for our thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. We don’t spread rumors. We don’t talk behind someone’s back. We resolve disagreements one-on-one and don’t drag other people into the problem. We don’t blame problems on others. When we feel like blaming, we take it as an invitation to reflect on how we might be part of the problem (and the solution). PURPOSE Collective purpose We view the organization as having a soul and purpose of its own. We try to listen in to where the organization wants to go and beware of forcing a direction onto it. Individual purpose We have a duty to ourselves and to the organization to inquire into our personal sense of calling to see if and how it resonates with the organization’s purpose. We try to imbue our roles with our souls, not our egos. Planning the future Trying to predict and control the future is futile. We make forecasts only when a specific decision requires us to do so. Everything will unfold with more grace if we stop trying to control and instead choose to simply sense and respond. Profit In the long run, there are no trade-offs between purpose and profits. If we focus on purpose, profits will follow.

No matter what philosophical standpoint people may adopt nowadays, from every point of view the falsity of the world in which we think we live is the most certain and firmest thing which our eyes are still capable of apprehending: - for that we find reason after reason, which would like to entice us into conjectures about a fraudulent principle in the "essence of things." But anyone who makes our very thinking, that is, "the spirit," responsible for the falsity of the world - an honourable solution which every conscious or unconscious advocatus dei [pleader for god] uses -: whoever takes this world, together with space, time, form, and movement as a false inference, such a person would at least have good ground finally to learn to be distrustful of all thinking itself. Wouldn’t it be the case that thinking has played the greatest of all tricks on us up to this point? And what guarantee would there be that thinking would not continue to do what it has always done? In all seriousness: the innocence of thinkers has something touching, something inspiring reverence, which permits them even today still to present themselves before consciousness with the request that it give them honest answers: for example, to the question whether it is "real," and why it really keeps itself so absolutely separate from the outer world, and similar sorts of questions. The belief in "immediate certainties" is a moral naivete which brings honour to us philosophers - but we should not be "merely moral" men! Setting aside morality, this belief is a stupidity, which brings us little honour! It may be the case that in bourgeois life the constant willingness to suspect is considered a sign of a "bad character" and thus belongs among those things thought unwise. Here among us, beyond the bourgeois world and its affirmations and denials - what is there to stop us from being unwise and saying the philosopher has an absolute right to a "bad character," as the being who up to this point on earth has always been fooled the best - today he has the duty to be suspicious, to glance around maliciously from every depth of suspicion. Forgive me the joke of this gloomy grimace and way of expressing myself. For a long time ago I myself learned to think very differently about and make different evaluations of deceiving and being deceived, and I keep ready at least a couple of digs in the ribs for the blind anger with which philosophers themselves resist being deceived. Why not? It is nothing more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance. That claim is even the most poorly demonstrated assumption there is in the world. People should at least concede this much: there would be no life at all if not on the basis of appearances and assessments from perspectives. And if people, with the virtuous enthusiasm and foolishness of some philosophers, wanted to do away entirely with the "apparent world," assuming, of course, you could do that, well then at least nothing would remain any more of your "truth" either! In fact, what compels us generally to the assumption that there is an essential opposition between "true" and "false"? Is it not enough to assume degrees of appearance and, as it were, lighter and darker shadows and tones for the way things appear - different valeurs [values], to use the language of painters? Why could the world about which we have some concern - not be a fiction? And if someone then asks "But doesn’t an author belong to a fiction?" could he not be fully answered with Why? Doesn’t this "belong to" perhaps belong to the fiction? Is it then forbidden to be a little ironic about the subject as well as about the predicate and the object? Is the philosopher not permitted to rise above a faith in grammar? All due respect to governesses, but might it not be time for philosophy to renounce faith in governesses?-

He squeezed his eyes shut tight and let out a groan of his own. Birthing kit. Just add that to the growing list of banned words. Okay. He took a deep breath and let it out. Someone had to take control of the situation, and obviously she was too exhausted to do so. Someone had to man up and set her straight. There was no one else. “Then stop. Right now. Just stop.” “Stop?” she echoed in a near shriek. “Look, Rose.” He used his most soothing, reasonable tone. “Doing this now would just be illogical. The baby isn’t quite ready, and we’re too far from help. Just think about something else. You’re upset and worried and you need to rest.” Her mouth opened and closed twice. She looked at him as if he’d grown two heads. “Are you kidding me?” she demanded. “Because this isn’t the time to be joking around.” She looked as if she was contemplating ripping his belly open with a knife and proving something to him. He took a cautionary step back and held up a hand to placate her. It was clear to him that pregnancy made women insane. “I’m trying to help you, Rose. These—these ...” Hell. He wasn’t going to use the word contractions ; that would make it too real. “These pains you’re experiencing, maybe they’re something else. The fall from the car could have caused them.” And that was more than a reasonable assumption. “They started before the jump from the car.” His stomach tightened into half a dozen hard knots. “Then why the hell didn’t you get on that helicopter where we could get you medical help?” he demanded, angry all over again. “Damn it, woman, do you have any sense at all?” Now she was making him just as insane as she obviously was.

Prayer is spending time with God. ~ Sharon Espeseth         Covered     “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18).     Looking back, I recall the many times that I had done stupid things, yet somehow I didn’t get hurt. Specifically, I remember my university days as being full of stupidity. For instance, one cold November evening I decided to leave a house party and walk home. This wouldn’t have been so bad, however, it was 2:00 in the morning, I hadn’t told anyone I was going, and I had to walk 45 minutes to get home. When I think back, I shudder. Any number of bad things could have happened to me.   I made some poor choices, and although I suffered the consequences I sometimes felt as if the consequences were not as bad as they could have been. It recently occurred to me that I was being watched over and protected. I now know that my family frequently prayed for me.   Although I wasn’t serving God at the time, I was being covered in prayer by those who were. I am now led to believe that people I didn’t even know were praying for me. I make this assumption, not because I now know these people, but because I witnessed people praying for complete strangers.   In church and at Bible studies, prayer requests are often made for those we do not know. As part of a Christian writer’s group, I receive prayer requests via email for people I may never meet in my lifetime. Listening to Christian radio stations, prayer requests are voiced for others throughout the country and the world. As a member of many Christian associations, I receive newsletters and phone calls requesting prayer for strangers.   More recently, I witnessed first hand the outpouring of love for strangers through prayer. I was traveling east with a van full of women. We were excited about the conference we were going to together. However, on our drive we saw a slowdown of traffic on the opposite highway. There were police cars, ambulance, and fire truck lights flashing. In the centre of it all was a car, overturned on its roof. Another car was near with a smashed front end. The accident scene looked horrible. We automatically stopped our chatter and took a moment to pray aloud for the victims in the accident. We prayed for complete strangers. Although we may never know who they were, we followed Jesus’ directive to love our neighbours.   It’s comforting to know that my family and I are being prayed for. And I will continue to pray for people I don’t even know.       Prayer is my "alone" time with God. ~ Ruth Smith Meyer        

At last I said good-night and stepped into the corridor, startled to find London waiting for me. “I was told you were here,” he said, by way of explanation. “It’s late, and you’re off duty,” I pointed out, bewildered. “I’m sure I can make it to my quarters unharmed.” “Nonetheless, I’ll accompany you.” There was no humor in his tone, no desire to engage me, and my apprehension grew. When we arrived at my quarters, he followed me into the parlor, and I wondered why everyone was behaving so strangely tonight, for despite how well London and I knew each other, he would normally have waited for an invitation before entering. “London, what are you--” He cut me off, closing the door. “Alera, you must know that this war is far from over.” “What are you talking about?” He considered me for a moment, then approached to lay his hands on my shoulders, gazing into my uneasy brown eyes. “I realize that since Narian came into our lives, you and I have not always been on the best of terms. You have not always agreed with me, and you have not always trusted me. But I beg of you to do so now.” I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, for his intensity was disconcerting. “Please, London. Just tell me what’s going on.” “I know that you and Narian are betrothed,” he said, confirming my suspicion. “This increases the difficulty of your position, but it is imperative that you do as I say.” He released me and untied a small pouch from his belt, then took my hand, pressing it into my palm. “Pour this into a goblet of wine and give it to Narian when he comes to you tonight.” “Why?” I choked, feeling faint. “Because he is the only one who can stop us. And because you are the only one he won’t suspect. Please, Alera, you must do this for me. For Hytanica.” “But what are you going to do?” I demanded. “What exactly is it I’m doing for Hytanica?” He strode to the window, gazing out at the last streaks of light cast by the setting sun before turning around, his face in shadow. “Tonight, we will take back our kingdom. Halias and his men are positioned to take care of the Cokyrian sentries on the city wall. Once that’s done, we’ll lock down the gate.” His voice was calm, but forceful. “We’re ready for them, Alera--do you realize we outnumber them? We’ve been planning this for months, but Narian can thwart us. The magic the Overlord taught him is too great. He is unnaturally strong, as quiet as the mist, can conjure fire, cause pain with a wave of his hand and has an array of potions at his disposal. You are our only hope of success.” I bristled at his assumption that our goals were the same. “Why would I do this?” I angrily demanded. “People will die. My people, Narian’s people. You’re setting them up to die, and for what? An attempt that will fail! Let me talk to Narian, negotiate for more freedoms. I love Hytanica as much as you do, but this is foolish--no, this is reckless.” “This is going to happen. Just think of how many people will die if Narian is unleashed.” “Narian is not a monster.” “Narian is a weapon.” We glared at each other until it seemed time had stopped altogether, then London stepped toward me. “Sides aren’t easy to pick. But you know which one needs you the most.” “And what if Narian doesn’t come to me tonight? What then?” “He will.

As noted before, bare attention is impartial, nonjudgmental, and open. It is also deeply interested, like a child with a new toy. The key phrase from the Buddhist literature is that it requires “not clinging and not condemning,” an attitude that Cage demonstrated with regard to the car alarms, that Winnicott described in his “good enough mothering” notion, that Freud counseled for the psychoanalyst at work, and that meditation practitioners must develop toward their own psychic, emotional, and physical sufferings. The most revealing thing about a first meditation retreat (after seeing how out of control our minds are) is how the experience of pain gives way to one of peacefulness if it is consistently and dispassionately attended to for a sufficient time. Once the reactions to the pain—the horror, outrage, fear, tension, and so on—are separated out from the pure sensation, the sensation at some point will stop hurting. The psychoanalyst Michael Eigen, in a paper entitled “Stones in a Stream,” describes his own first mystical experience in just these characteristic terms: I remember once being in emotional agony on a bus in my 20’s. I doubled over into my pain and focused on it with blind intensity. As I sat there in this wretched state, I was amazed when the pain turned to redness, then blackness (a kind of blanking out), then light, as if a vagina in my soul opened, and there was radiant light. The pain did not vanish, but my attention was held by the light. I felt amazed, uplifted, stunned into awareness of wider existence. Of course I did not want the light to go away, and was a bit fearful that it would, but above all was reverence, respect: it could last as long as it liked, and come and go as it pleased. It was an unforgettable moment. Life can never be quite the same after such experiences.9 This kind of experience can truly come as a revelation. When we see that staying with a pain from which we habitually recoil can lead to such a transformation, it makes us question one of our basic assumptions: that we must reject that which does not feel good. Instead, we discover, even pain can be interesting.

Just a simple premise, back in San Diego DUI Lawyer arrested for drunk Style, this time in the direction of DUI and DWI generally unwanted, then little effect of alcohol is considered a leading progressive life. Americans in the second half of the US states, the sin just because the rules and stricter drunk driving laws more quickly hold. In addition, the results of all DUI lawyers in reality very difficult drive under the influence towards an unattainable production, to begin in San Diego that idea. The crime of DUI evaluation Provide always stops short of energy, but in reality because of traffic law enforcement to detect beautiful website, or you attack affects themselves can take to throw noted "checkpoints drinking water.” In some cases, the federal government said, but if you can do it in your own direction. Perhaps many car hit the rear part of the food as a result, the impact is recorded, your visit to show you the direction of your wine. Sometimes, someone reported an unstable support. Testing and observation around the federal government s decision in the same direction, it is not possible because most almost certainly to predict a jump back in their element. One or suspected poisoning at an affordable price set is designed to bring cases, their own rules and objectives, and with violation of traffic rules and the management style of the design more I can do for others the problem of selection that. They probably own the actual direction of their own drug, think about the purpose of the implementation of a user, then the friendly and with respect to speed, self-revealed the reason behind the purple party, appreciate it is also possible to DUI . San Diego right outcome for prison several internal unique opportunity, California expert is passed on to its customers and the code of .08% blood only a small car in California 23 152 (B) to answer good article Content (BAC) Assumption. Some of the inspiration for a special person for a month was necessary direction behind a person s mood, depends on you in the direction 23 § 152, may continue to be withheld because (). But in general, if not more, the sales people and just keep moving to stay DUI by police and they are removed direction or enough I began to feel, "personal involvement" is more than if under strict bail. Own all presentation of their work is to show. It s just maybe you just conditions, it is deposited in jail until eventually show itself may not be able to move allows. Expenses and income are affected by lead you affects costs, which child to leave behind, if not more than 0.08 per cent BAC does. Orientation, under the influence of the value of his research, the car broke into the possibility that some 23 152 have been found still proof (s). This is a normal move, and then the authority to suspend the system 6 is due to the fact that - 10 weeks, including perceived importance. Speaking of the court will have to apply for leave to the invention apparently drunk over in his address. Need him inside, a number of situations, the judge called a good time without alcohol can be. It is a matter, as long as the direction before the costly DUI do not experience a period of several weeks is legal. Worse, if there is only a repeat show that only a lawyer in San Diego drunk orientation. Too many of the legal rights of citizens under such guidelines as privatization and arms, vote. You own run for the benefit of all to make the removal of the time, which likely cost drivers behind the repeat drink. It is strong enough to get to San Diego recommends a good DUI is for that reason that the domestic legal experts. Obviously, the motivation many cases immediately, in simplest terms, is not swallowed. Self re direction is not the same thing, so you really recommended maximum future problem is to apply to yourself. This is a perfect example of the court had been found.

track, each one mile long, laid end to end (see figure 1). The tracks are nailed down at their end points but simply meet in the middle. Now, suppose it gets hot and the railroad tracks expand, each by one inch. Since they are attached to the ground at the end points, the tracks can only expand by rising like a drawbridge. Furthermore, these pieces of track are so sturdy that they retain their straight, linear shape as they go up. (This is to make the problem easier, so stop complaining about unrealistic assumptions.) Here is your problem: Consider just one side of the track. We have a right triangle with a base of one mile, a hypotenuse of one mile plus one inch. What is the altitude? In other words, by how much does the track rise above the ground?

Don’t go into things with your mind closed before you’ve even started, making assumptions about what results you’ll receive. Be playfully curious, and let things emerge rather than wrangle them out.   Exercise

A straightforward way of defining metaphysics is as the set of assumptions and practices present in the scientist’s mind before he or she begins to do science. There is nothing wrong with making such assumptions, as it is not possible to do science without them. The lepidopterist who records in her notebook that a butterfly is blue may not stop to consider that this is true only because the giant ball of nuclear fuel 93 million miles away happens to maintain a surface temperature just right for shedding certain wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation on the earth; that the eyes of humans have evolved to be sensitive to those wavelengths; that the eye can discriminate slightly different wavelengths as colors; that one of those colors has, by cultural consensus, been defined as “blue,” and so on. Nevertheless, science benefits from the lepidopterist’s note that the butterfly is blue.

Learn to identify your problems and issues more concretely Become more aware of your mood and emotions Develop an understanding of negative automatic thoughts Learn to challenge the assumptions that you make in your mind Start to distinguish between what is fact and what is just a thought Make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable parts Begin to look at situations from a different and more positive perspective Learn strategies for facing your fears and anxieties Stop hiding behind avoidance techniques Learn to avoid cognitive distortions, generalizations, and “black and white” ways of thinking Stop being so hard on yourself and taking the blame for things that are not your fault nor your responsibility Stop focusing on how you think things should be and learn to appreciate how they actually are Set and achieve goals for better, long-term mental health

1. Find the Fringe: Cast a wide enough net to harness information from the fringe. This involves creating a map showing nodes and the relationships between them, and rounding up what you will later refer to as “the unusual suspects.” 2. Use CIPHER: Uncover hidden patterns by categorizing data from the fringe. Patterns indicate a trend, so you’ll do an exhaustive search for Contradictions, Inflections, Practices, Hacks, Extremes, and Rarities. 3. Ask the Right Questions: Determine whether a pattern really is a trend. You will be tempted to stop looking once you’ve spotted a pattern, but you will soon learn that creating counterarguments is an essential part of the forecasting process, even though most forecasters never force themselves to poke holes into every single assumption and assertion they make. 4. Calculate the ETA: Interpret the trend and ensure that the timing is right. This isn’t just about finding a typical S-curve and the point of inflection. As technology trends move along their trajectory, there are two forces in play—internal developments within tech companies, and external developments within the government, adjacent businesses, and the like—and both must be calculated. 5. Create Scenarios and Strategies: Build scenarios to create probable, plausible, and possible futures and accompanying strategies. This step requires thinking about both the timeline of a technology’s development and your emotional reactions to all of the outcomes. You’ll give each scenario a score, and based on your analysis, you will create a corresponding strategy for taking action. 6. Pressure-Test Your Action: But what if the action you choose to take on a trend is the wrong one? In this final step, you must make sure the strategy you take on a trend will deliver the desired outcome, and that requires asking difficult questions about both the present and the future.

Buddy didn’t want to go at first and this time the enticement of Herobrine didn’t seem to work either. Maybe he has stopped caring about Herobrine? I don’t think I should be making that assumption this early on, Buddy might still be inclined to burn me till I’m human toast. It’s Buddy, I wouldn’t be so surprised.

The bugs that cause these kinds of software faults often lie dormant for a long time until they are triggered by an unusual set of circumstances. In those circumstances, it is revealed that the software is making some kind of assumption about its environment — and while that assumption is usually true, it eventually stops being true for some reason [11

Learn how to ask and choose to listen. When it comes to other people lives, don’t make assumptions, but ask them and choose to listen to them. Choose to stop projecting your thoughts, life experiences, feelings or what you went through to other peoples lives.

WE HAVE A SIMPLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF RACISM The final challenge we need to address is our definition of “racist.” In the post–civil rights era, we have been taught that racists are mean people who intentionally dislike others because of their race; racists are immoral. Therefore, if I am saying that my readers are racist or, even worse, that all white people are racist, I am saying something deeply offensive; I am questioning my readers’ very moral character. How can I make this claim when I don’t even know my readers? Many of you have friends and loved ones of color, so how can you be racist? In fact, since it’s racist to generalize about people according to race, I am the one being racist! So let me be clear: If your definition of a racist is someone who holds conscious dislike of people because of race, then I agree that it is offensive for me to suggest that you are racist when I don’t know you. I also agree that if this is your definition of racism, and you are against racism, then you are not racist. Now breathe. I am not using this definition of racism, and I am not saying that you are immoral. If you can remain open as I lay out my argument, it should soon begin to make sense. In light of the challenges raised here, I expect that white readers will have moments of discomfort reading this book. This feeling may be a sign that I’ve managed to unsettle the racial status quo, which is my goal. The racial status quo is comfortable for white people, and we will not move forward in race relations if we remain comfortable. The key to moving forward is what we do with our discomfort. We can use it as a door out—blame the messenger and disregard the message. Or we can use it as a door in by asking, Why does this unsettle me? What would it mean for me if this were true? How does this lens change my understanding of racial dynamics? How can my unease help reveal the unexamined assumptions I have been making? Is it possible that because I am white, there are some racial dynamics that I can’t see? Am I willing to consider that possibility? If I am not willing to do so, then why not? If you are reading this and are still making your case for why you are different from other white people and why none of this applies to you, stop and take a breath. Now return to the questions above, and keep working through them. To interrupt white fragility, we need to build our capacity to sustain the discomfort of not knowing, the discomfort of being racially unmoored, the discomfort of racial humility.

The importance of self-discovery and cocreation doesn’t stop with purpose. They are just as essential for making sense of challenges and for developing solutions that are likely to be adopted, adaptable, and successful. What is standard in most organizations is importing best practices or imposing practices from above. The assumption that a best practice will work everywhere is just too convenient to resist. So is the assumption that local context and people, though important, will not matter enough to make the difference. Plus, best practices fit nicely with the deep-seated notion that reinventing the wheel is a waste of time and money. Unfortunately, importing or imposing best practices usually involves trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Context, culture, and people do matter more than we like to admit, and resistance inevitably emerges when we discount them.

Bucky lived and worked to help the world. He didn’t live to pay his bills, to plan for retirement, to make sure he had enough at any time, to make sure he could afford the next project, or to do anything. He felt that if he were doing the things that he was inspired to do to help the world, all those things would be taken care of by the One that commissioned him to do the work. I know that most people on hearing this are prone to think, of course it works fine when you are a Buckminster Fuller, but Bucky knew that it works for everyone. The individual may not have Bucky’s talents to bring them world prominence, but they can do what is theirs to do and not have to think of earning a living if they want to make a pact with God as Bucky did. That sounds as if God is in to bargaining, but it is not that, it is simply the way it is, a spiritual principle. We were created to be channels for God and when we assume that role and expect to be prospered in so doing, it will be that way for us—for anyone! That is why Bucky’s life and message have to be heard, because the answer to the world’s need for prosperity is to stop living to make a living and start living to give the gift of your unique self to the world. Bucky affirmed this: “Yes I am quite confident there is nothing that I have undertaken to do that others couldn’t do equally well or better under the same economic circumstances. I was supported only by my faith in God and my vigorously pursued working assumption that it is God’s intent to make humans an economic success so that they can and may in due course fulfill an essential—and only mind-renderable—functioning in Universe....This would terminate humanity’s need to ‘earn a living,’ i.e., doing what others wanted done only for others’ ultimately selfish reasons. This attending only to what needs to be done for all humanity in turn would allow humanity, the time to effectively attend to the Universe-functioning task for the spontaneous performance of which God—the eternal, comprehensive, intellectual integrity usually referred to as ‘nature’ or as ‘evolution’—had included humans in the grand design of eternally regenerative Universe.(1) In

Know what problem you’re solving. Often, people work on the wrong problem entirely by making some implicit assumption about what’s causing it. Great problem-solvers invest time upfront to make sure the problem they’re working on is well defined, measurable as a variable, and represents precisely what is wrong with the system or process.

Perhaps many aid organizations make assumptions about the problem they are solving, and throw hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem to little or no effect.

Referral consultant Paul McCord says, “The traditional method of ‘do a good job and ask for referrals’ does not give your client a reason to give you referrals. We make the assumption that if we have done a good job, the client will like and respect us and be willing to give us referrals. Again, this is far from the case. Most clients will not give good, quality referrals just because they like you or because you have done a good job for them. You must give them a reason to give you referrals. They need to understand why it is in their best interest to give you referrals.”7

As André Maurois put it: “Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage.” Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn’t we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five—or maybe five hundred!

Morisu, on the other hand, could feel passionate about things in a different way from Kawaminami, yet it was rare to see that side of him in his everyday life. He was the type who kept his thoughts to himself, thinking everything over until he was satisfied before taking any action. To Kawaminami, his friend Morisu was a wise advisor, who would stop him from making rash assumptions or jumping to wrong conclusions.

It is our destiny to transform chaos into order. If the past has not been ordered, the chaos it still constitutes haunts us. There is information—vital information—resting in the memories that affect us negatively. It is as if part of the personality is still lying latent, out in the world, making itself manifest only in emotional disruption. What is traumatic but remains inexplicable indicates that the map of the world that guides our navigation is insufficient in some vital manner. It is necessary to understand the negative well enough so that it can be circumvented as we move into the future if we do not wish to remain tormented by the past. And it is not the expression of emotion associated with unpleasant events that has curative power. It is the development of a sophisticated causal theory: Why was I at risk? What was it about the world that made it dangerous? What was I doing or not doing to contribute to my vulnerability? How can I change the value hierarchy I inhabit to take the negative into account so that I can see and understand it? How much of my old map do I have to let crumble and burn—with all the pain dying tissue produces—before I can change enough to take my full range of experience into account? Do I have the faith to step beyond what should and must die and let my new and wiser personality emerge? To some great degree, we are our assumptions. They structure the world for us. When basic axioms of faith are challenged (“People are basically good”), the foundation shakes and the walls crumble. We have every reason to avoid facing the bitter truth. But making what is—and what was—clear and fully comprehended can only protect us. If you are suffering from memories that will not stop tormenting you, there is possibility—possibility that could be your very salvation—waiting there to be discovered. If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely.

When they use punishments on their own children, they cease to see the behavior they’re punishing.  They make the rather naïve assumption that the punishment stopped the behavior,

To understand why sludge matters, let’s begin with the assumption that people are fully rational and that in deciding whether to wade through sludge, they make some calculation about costs and benefits. Even if the benefits of that wading are high, the costs might prove overwhelming.

First, never stop finding creative ways to integrate your kids into more elements of your normal daily life. The underlying assumption of Deuteronomy 6 is that your kids are with you a lot. Anytime I go anywhere, my base assumption is I should take one of my kids with me. That could be a walk to the convenience store or on an international business trip. This is not always possible but I work really hard to be with my kids as much as I possibly can. I’m highly introverted so this can be costly in terms of my energy but it’s really worth it and is a critical part of their education. Our culture has developed this strange dichotomy between quality time and quantity time—maybe to make us feel better about the decreasing amount of time we spend with our kids—but there’s no substitute for quantity time. The most basic secret to increasing quality time is to increase quantity time.

However, in giving up the idea of transcendence, Foucault also gives up the hope of ever uncovering the roots of power. This is why Joan Copjec sees Foucault’s refusal of transcendence as the fundamental stumbling block within his thought. Foucault aims at conceiving how power arises, but his studies consistently stop short of arriving at this. Copjec claims, “despite the fact that [Foucault] realizes the necessity of conceiving the mode of a regime of power’s institution, he cannot avail himself of the means of doing so and thus, by default, ends up limiting that regime to the relations that obtain within it.” This limitation stems from his refusal of any notion of transcendence, “his disallowance of any reference to a principle or a subject that ‘transcends’ the regime of power he analyzes.” Without the moment of transcendence, one cannot grasp the regime of power in its incipience, and hence Foucault necessarily posits the regime of power as always already existing, which makes any attempt to counter it fundamentally impossible. The result of this rejection of transcendence is Foucault’s historicism—a mode of analysis that eschews the search for truth in favor of uncovering the presuppositions of regimes of truth, in favor of “pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest.” This type of uncovering of historical presuppositions is one of Foucault’s chief legacies today, and it indicates the extent to which any idea of transcendence has become an anathema. In the wake of Foucault, contemporary cultural criticism has largely taken up this contextualizing mode. Today, the predominant response to any articulation of truth claims is a demand for the historicization of these claims: one must reveal the cultural context out of which they emerge. This has become the fundamental operation of contemporary cultural studies. In The Ticklish Subject, Slavoj Zizek describes this intellectual situation: “the basic feature of cultural studies is that they are no longer able or ready to confront religious, scientific or philosophical works in terms of their own inherent Truth, but reduce them to a product of historical circumstances, to an object of anthropologico-psychoanalytic interpretation.” This reduction of every truth claim to the circumstances of its enunciation represents the ultimate rejection of transcendence: nothing escapes the immanence of history itself. According to this prevailing historicism, no truth claim ever touches the Real; instead, the very pretension to truth is itself imaginary. The popularity of this kind of historicism today indicates the extent to which transcendence has become theoretically untenable. It also highlights the link between contemporary theory and the command to enjoy: the operations of both work to reduce what appears as transcendence to conditions of immanence.

Let’s take a break from Johnny’s learning for a moment, because this is where many entrepreneurs make the mistake of stopping. They take their assumptions (Johnny’s hypotheses) as fact. Some reckless entrepreneurs embrace this naïveté, having heard that “entrepreneurship is all about tenacity, so I’m going to barrel down this highway at one hundred miles per hour, because my Plan A is wonderful!” Their ventures are the wrecked cars you spot on the side of the road.

the atmosphere as if it’s free. In classic economic terms, that makes it an unpriced externality. It means we’ve built trillions of dollars of capital infrastructure that makes a false assumption every day. And we’re continuing to build infrastructure today that makes that same false assumption. We need to stop doing that and take care of our planet.

The contemptuous person is likely to experience feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy, and shame. In a March 2019 New York Times opinion piece entitled Our Culture of Contempt, Arthur C. Brooks writes: “political scientists have found that our nation is more polarized than it has been at any time since the civil war. One in six Americans has stopped talking to a family member or close friend because of the 2016 election. Millions of people organized their social lives and their news exposure along with ideological lines to avoid people with opposing viewpoints.” What's our problem? A 2014 article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on motive attribution asymmetry, the assumption that your ideology is based in love while your opponent’s is based in hate suggests an answer. The researchers found that the average republican and the average democrat today suffer from a level of motive attribution asymmetry that is comparable with that of Palestinians and Israelis. Each side thinks it's driven by a benevolence while the other side is evil and motivated by hatred, and is therefore an enemy with whom one cannot negotiate or compromise. People often say that our problem in America today is incivility or intolerance. This is incorrect. Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse – contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust, and not just contempt for other people's ideas but also for other people. In the words of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.” Brooks goes on to say contempt makes political compromise and progress impossible. It also makes us unhappy as people. According to the American Psychological Association, “the feelings of rejection so often experienced after being treated with contempt increases anxiety, depression, and sadness. It also damages the contemptuous person by stimulating two stress hormones -- cortisol and adrenaline -- in ways both public and personal. Contempt causes us deep harm.

it is about a thoughtful and purposeful courage, it is also, as noted, necessarily a book about the assumptions and temptations that keep us from courageous leadership. One of the realities that I will explore is that in times of great turmoil, leaders are always asked to produce change—to make things different in their systems so that others will find a better future. But if asked for change, leaders will not be rewarded for the change produced, only for how well they keep things the same—following the known ways and the established rules so that they don’t make people uncomfortable. It is the difference between management and leadership, following the old adage that management asks the question of whether we are doing things right, while leadership asks the question of whether we are doing right things. Doing things right is comforting because it is a known and familiar path, even if it doesn’t lead to a viable future. Being asked if we are doing right things is, by contrast, deeply disturbing. Because now the people must stop to figure out, again, who they are, what their purpose is, and how they will live out that purpose in the context that has changed around them. It is, I suppose, as natural as it is disconcerting that we ask our leaders for change that will prepare our way into the future but then reward them for the comfort of continuing to do things in the old, known ways that make us feel secure but lock us into the limits of the present. It takes courage to make people purposefully uncomfortable.

For some of us, we judge in little ways: rolling our eyes at the way someone is dressed, frowning at a badly behaved child in the grocery store, or making assumptions about another mother at school pickup who has a serious expression and wears a suit every day and seems uptight.

Perhaps you are confused at why I, your humble storyteller, would make such a fuss about this. Tress stopped, wondered if she'd jumped to a conclusion, and decided to reconsider? Nothing special, right? Wrong. So very, soul-crushingly wrong. Worldbringers like myself spend decades combing through folk tales, legends, myths, histories, and drunken bar songs looking for the most unique stories. We hunt for bravery, cleverness, heroism. And we find no shortage of such virtues. Legends are silly with them. But the person who is willing to reconsider their assumptions? The hero who can sit down and reevaluate their life? Well, now that is a gemstone that truly glitters, friend.

the real game changer is when you stop making assumptions about what your partner is saying and simply ask them for clarification this can prevent false narratives that cause arguments from sneaking into your mind and save your feelings from getting hurt

these fears and the insecurities that protect us influence: The rules we force ourselves to follow The opportunities we justify avoiding The excuses we give into The stories we tell ourselves about others The assumptions we make about the world  The generalizations about the world The unhealthy narratives we subscribe to The beliefs we hold about what is possible The limitations we place on others The logic and reasoning we insist are correct The best practices we follow  The self-sabotaging behaviors we engage in

I believe in travel. I believe that by disorienting us, it rearranges us. Travel builds character and ignites imagination, nurtures independence and humility, catalyzes curiosity and self-examination. It can be a bulwark against stagnation, and a call to action. It widens our worldview and brings us face-to-face with our privilege, as it forces us to reassess entrenched beliefs and long-held concepts. Of course, travel is no magical elixir. I've stopped believing it's 'fatal to prejudice,' as Mark Twain famously declared (if only it were that simple), but I do hold that it's a solid start toward upending our biases and assumptions, because it compels us to see beyond the abstractions of a foreign land to its humanity. But travel has a shadow side, too: there's the environmental impact of flying and cruising, the crowding of our planet's most wondrous places, the littering of sacred sites, the pricing-out of locals. And it has dreadful roots (colonialism, capitalism) and gruesome side effects (exploitation, exoticism, saviorism). I wrestle with this duality. How do I reconcile the damage travel does with the awareness that it profoundly enriches my life; that it is not only my livelihood but also, at time, my sanity? It's another area in which I get hopelessly lost. And while I may never navigate this ethical tangle, I recognize that travel itself is what helps me make sense of - or at least pay more attention to - a world both exquisite and unbearably cruel.

People struggle with creativity because they tend to connect the same set of dots and, therefore, end up getting the same run-of-the-mill ideas. A wow idea happens when you connect completely diverse dots the way no one has ever done. To be able to make such connections, you need lots of dots as well as different types of dots. To get both the above, you need to look for different frames. Your assumptions are the invisible barriers that stop you from seeing beyond your existing frames. Questions that you ask determine in which frame answers will fall. If you keep asking the same set of questions, you will keep struggling inside the same frame. Changing your questions is a powerful way to i. Break the invisible barrier of assumptions ii. Discover new frames.

steps that you need to follow: Reversing assumptions: Earlier, you did the exercise of reversing the assumption. In that exercise, after writing down the opposite statement. You asked yourself, “Why might it be true?” and “How can I make these ideas happen”? When you answer these questions, you find new frames. How many new frames did you find earlier? Please list them down. Now do the same exercise one more time. Try to find a few more new frames. What is your total now? Changing your questions: Like above, earlier at the end of the chapter, “Change Your Frame, Change Your Game”, you did the exercise of finding new frames by changing your question. How many new frames did you find earlier? Please list them down. Now do the same exercise one more time. Here you can use the technique of “wearing different hats” to your advantage. Try to find a few more new frames. The more the hats of different people you wear, the more frames you can discover. What is your total now? Random Words Technique: In this chapter, by using the random word “bicycle”, we created 11 frames, and after connecting the diverse dots from different frames, we created 5 more frames. So, with one random word, we could generate 16 frames. By following the same technique, how many random words would you need to create One hundred frames? You can use as many random words as you can to generate the maximum number of frames. Adding dots to the frames: As seen in this chapter, it is easy to add dots (ideas) to reach the magic figure of one hundred once you have enough frames. Allow your mind to wander: You have understood how our subconscious mind feeds us with ideas. At any point in time, you feel that the task has become too daunting for you, allow your mind to wander. When it comes back, it will bring a few golden nuggets (more frames) for you. Flex your ideas muscle: You have built strong ideas muscle by doing so many exercises after every chapter. It’s time to demand more from it. Sleep on your challenge: After a night’s sleep, your subconscious mind will not let you stop at one hundred ideas. It will keep on bringing you more and more. Always keep your notepad and pen ready.

Stop making assumptions and start asking questions. It will change everything. 59 Don’t Take Anything Personally

I know I make too many assumptions. I know I need to stop thinking the worst every time I don't understand something. I'm really, truly sorry....

To help with that, I suggested some new agreements—what I would come to call “The Four Agreements”—to alter old behavior patterns. I told them not to take things personally, and to stop making assumptions. I asked them to be impeccable with the wondrous gift of language: the words they spoke and the words that comprised their innermost thoughts. I asked them to do their best in every effort. Four simple agreements. I also reminded them again and again not to believe, but to listen. Put into practice, these new agreements would cause a disturbance that would alter their reality.

While Nigel helped her rearrange the contents of the basket, the door to the drawing room opened and Lord Broadmore came charging out. “Amelia, I must insist that you remain with me in the drawing room. You’re making a cake of yourself and I don’t like it one blasted bit.” Nigel’s eyes narrowed in warning as he took a step forward. Amelia shot out a hand to stop him. “I do not appreciate your tone of voice, my lord, nor your ungenerous implication,” she said. “I have my aunt’s approval. I certainly do not need yours.” Broadmore drew himself up to his full, outraged height. For once, Amelia didn’t care if she offended him. She was tired of his rudeness and resented his assumption that they were already engaged. “Amelia,” Broadmore said through clenched teeth, “I will not countenance this sort of behavior from the woman I expect to marry. Everyone will think you prefer Dash’s company to mine, which is bloody ridiculous. Even you can’t be that much of a birdwit.” Amelia sucked in a harsh breath, dumbfounded by the vile insult. She darted a quick glance at Nigel, expecting to find a seething male. Nigel’s blue eyes had gone so cold and flinty it made her shiver, but instead of ripping up at Broadmore he seemed to be waiting for her to respond. His eyebrows arched in polite inquiry as if to say to her, well, what are you going to do about that? It took Amelia a few moments to realize Nigel was deferring to her judgment instead of simply assuming the right to defend her regardless of her feelings. Good for you, dear Mr. Dash. She handed Nigel the sweets basket, then faced Broadmore. “My lord, I have had quite enough of your outrageously rude behavior. Rest assured that I will be escorting Mr. Dash upstairs to see my sister, and you are not to say another word about it.” Then, giving into an impulse that had been building within her for a long time, she jabbed Broadmore sharply in the chest with her index finger. “Please go back into the drawing room and do not dare to pass judgment on my behavior to anyone. In fact, if you say another word about this I will never speak to you again.” Then she whirled around, her anger propelling her like a cannonball up the staircase. Nigel caught up to her outside the nursery. “Well done, Miss Easton.” It sounded like he was choking back laughter. “You routed the enemy with commendable aplomb.” Amelia let her forehead thunk against the thick oak panel of the door. Now that her anger was cooling, her display of temper mortified her. “You must think me completely mad, Mr. Dash. I apologize for acting so disgracefully.” When he leaned in to whisper in her ear, she shivered at the exhalation of his breath on her neck. “Actually, I thought you quite splendid, Miss Easton. I was hard-pressed not to give a resounding cheer.” She tilted her head sideways to look at him. His eyes, tender and amused, smiled back at her. “Shall we?” he asked. Reaching around her, he opened the door. Amelia

When the time came for the session, I headed downstairs to the foyer only to find the security guards blocking the way out—two medieval knights I’d nicknamed Frank and Igor. They weren’t actual people but rather animated suits of armor as hollow on the inside as a chocolate Easter bunny. They turned their masked faces toward me, swords pointed. “Whoa, hey guys,” I said, coming to a stop. “I’ve got a dream-feeding session. Um … may I pass?” This wasn’t something I normally had to ask. They kept staring for a moment. It was a little creepy to sense they were staring even though they didn’t have eyes, just black slits in their helmets. Finally, they moved aside, and I hurried past them with a friendly wave. I always tried to be as nice to the knights as possible. As a Nightmare, I thought it a good idea to make sure they liked me so as to avoid any accidental maiming when I came and went for dream-feeding sessions. Of course, I was working under the assumption that empty suits of armor were capable of such feelings as liking.

If you don’t understand something, it is better for you to ask and be clear, instead of making an assumption. The day you stop making assumptions you will communicate cleanly and clearly, free of emotional poison. Without making assumptions your word becomes impeccable. With

Grabbing the bowl with both hands, I stepped right up behind him, reached my arms up high, and tipped it over. The sense of glee I got as I watched his entire body stiffen and all that batter fall onto his head was kind of alarming. No wonder he’d been so proud of his suction-cup hickey. I was damn proud of this mess. When only a little dribble was falling from the bowl, I brought the bowl away from his head, set it on the counter, and had only taken two steps when he grabbed me around my waist and hauled me back to him. The movement made him lose his footing on the now-slippery tile and we both crashed down to the floor. Quickly getting up on my hands and knees, I slip-crawled a few feet before my legs went out and I fell back to the floor. Kash dragged me back by my legs and I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even attempt to try to crawl away as he flipped me over on my back and slipped toward me until he was covering my body. I laughed harder and wiped at his cheek, which was completely covered. “You, uh, got a little something there.” His eyes were silver as he growled, “Now do you feel better?” “Much!” “I probably deserved that.” “A little bit.” My laughter finally quieted and I smiled widely at him. “Rachel . . .” His voice dropped and the huskiness alone caused my breathing to deepen. When I realized that our bodies were flush, mine started warming again, and my eyelids fluttered shut when he brought one hand up to cup my cheek. When he repeated my name, I could feel his breath against my lips and they parted in anticipation. His hand left my cheek and he leaned closer to whisper in my ear, “Your hickey looks really lonely.” Wait. What?! My eyes flew open just as he wiped a hand covered in batter across my face. “You son of a bitch!” Kash laughed loudly and attempted to move some of the batter so it wasn’t in my eyes. “I will end you,” I said, making him laugh harder. “I hate you.” “Don’t lie, Sour Patch, you love me.” He was joking, I knew he was joking—but my heart still took off at his assumption. Kash must have noticed the change somehow, because he immediately stopped laughing and his gray eyes turned silver. “Rachel?” “I, uh—we should clean this up.” I attempted to slide out from under him, but he kept his weight on me and brought his hand up to my cheek again. I stopped moving beneath him and locked up my body as his gaze held mine. His silver eyes fell over my face as his head inched down, and in the torturous seconds where his lips hovered over mine again, I told myself a dozen times I needed to push him away. But needing and wanting are two completely different things. Kash closed the distance between us and pressed his lips to mine, and in that instant, I felt like I was exactly where I belonged and my body relaxed between him and the tile floor.

we do not know the physics of climate system responses to warming well enough to blame most of the warming on human activities. Human causation is simply assumed. The models are designed with the assumption that the climate system was in natural balance before the Industrial Revolution, despite historical evidence to the contrary. They only produce human-caused climate change because that is the way they are designed. This is in spite of abundant evidence of past warm episodes, such as 1,000- to 2,000-year-old tree stumps being uncovered by receding glaciers; temperature proxy evidence for the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods covering that same time frame; and Arctic sea ice proxy evidence for a natural decrease in sea ice starting well before humans could be blamed. Natural warming since the Little Ice Age of a few hundred years ago is simply ignored in the design of climate models, since we do not know what caused it. Simply put, the computerized climate models support human causation of climate change because that’s what they assume from the outset. They are an example of circular reasoning. There is little to no evidence of long-term increases in heat waves, droughts, or floods. Wildfire activity has, if anything, decreased, even though poor land management practices are now making some areas more vulnerable to wildfires even without climate change. Contrary to popular perception and new reports, there is little to no evidence of increased storminess resulting from climate change. This includes tornadoes and hurricanes. Long-term increases in monetary storm damages have indeed occurred, but are due to increasing development, not worsening weather. Sea level has been rising naturally since at least the mid-1800s, well before humans could be blamed. Land subsidence in some areas (e.g. Norfolk, Miami, Galveston-Houston, New Orleans) would result in increasing flooding problems even without any sea-level rise, let alone human-induced sea-level rise causing thermal expansion of the oceans. Some evidence for recent acceleration of sea-level rise might support human causation, but the magnitude of the human component since 1950 has been only 1 inch every 30 years. Ocean acidification is now looking like a non-problem, as the evidence builds that sea life prefers somewhat more CO2, just as vegetation on land does. Given that CO2 is necessary for life on Earth, yet had been at dangerously low levels for thousands of years, the scientific community needs to stop accepting the premise that more CO2 in the atmosphere is necessarily a bad thing. Global greening has been observed by satellites over the last few decades, which is during the period of most rapid rises in atmospheric CO2. The benefits of increasing CO2 to agriculture have been calculated to be in the trillions of dollars. Crop yields continue to break records around the world, due to a combination of human ingenuity and the direct effects of CO2 on plant growth and water use efficiency. Much of this evidence is not known by our citizens, who are largely misinformed by a news media that favors alarmist stories. The scientific community is, in general, biased toward alarmism in order to maintain careers and support desired governmental energy policies. Only when the public becomes informed based upon evidence from both sides of the debate can we expect to make rational policy decisions. I hope my brief treatment of these subjects provides a step in that direction. THE END

Economic theory textbooks would stop on the first page if the assumption of well-ordered preferences had to be abandoned, because without stable preferences there is nothing to be optimized.

and then the scene sped forward once more. ‘NO!’ I yelled, only it came out as a barely audible whisper. Like one of those nightmares where you try to scream for help but nothing more than a rasping breath escapes your lips. It was beyond cruel. My life had ended, and yet I wasn’t given time to mourn, or even process what had just happened. Murmurs rose and fell, and the court went on. ‘How many of you agreed to the verdict and how many dissented?’ It didn’t even matter. It meant nothing that one person argued in my favour while the rest casually sealed my fate with their assumptions. I was guilty. I would be sent back to prison with all hope of escaping from this nightmare extinguished. And the person who killed Calum would carry on as though nothing had happened. I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was sit, silent, blood lining the inside of my mouth, and wait to learn how many years of my life would be stolen from me. Chapter Fifty-five Calum had told me, moments before he died, that I needed to choose. ‘It’s time for you to make a decision,’ he’d said. I’d needed to decide whether I loved Jason or not. Whether I wanted my marriage to be riddled with lies, or whether I wanted to make it work with the man I’d promised to be faithful to forever. I’d known he was right, but I’d been a coward. For so long I had been waiting for life to make the hard choices for me.

Too often we parents make assumptions about our children’s actions and motives. We lecture instead of listening. We always have an answer, instead of stopping to listen.2

Nick curled his lip in obvious hatred. "I'm not going anywhere with him. I'd rather be dead." Urian forced Nick to look down at Satara's body. “I’m going to make the wildly unfounded assumption that Satara’s dead by your hand and not Tory’s." Gripping Nick's chin, he forced him to meet his gaze. "Now, stay with me on this, Cajun. My father slit my throat and murdered my wife because he thought I’d betrayed him by getting married. Before that, he loved me more than his life and I was his last surviving child. His second in command. Now what do you think he’s going to do to you once he sees her body? I can assure you, it won’t be a fun-filled trip to Chuck E. Cheese. For all their animosity toward each other, Satara is his sister and she's served him well over the centuries. If you really want to stay here and have some fun with Stryker, I won't stop you. But I really wouldn't recommend it.

Establishing your core priorities is, unfortunately, not the same as binding yourself to them.     •  MIT study: Managers had done no work on their core priorities in the previous week! 5. To carve out space to pursue our core priorities, we must go on the offense against lesser priorities.     •  On the USS Benfold, the crew actively fought the List B items like repainting (e.g., by using stainless-steel bolts that wouldn’t leave rust stains).     •  Jim Collins’s “stop-doing list”: What will you give up so that you have more time to spend on your priorities?     •  Bregman’s hourly beep: Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now? Widen Your Options Reality-Test Your Assumptions Attain Distance Before Deciding Prepare to Be Wrong

Maybe Mercy was as guilty of making assumptions about the wealthy as they were of forming their views of the poor. She’d do well to stop rushing to judge and instead see beyond the surface to the real person.

To make a goal effective, you’ve got to test its outer-limits. Push it out as far as you can. Only once you make your goal impossible will you stop operating based on your current assumptions and knowledge.

The day you stop making assumptions you will communicate cleanly and clearly, free of emotional poison.