Taking Inventory Quotes

He grinned. "You're jealous." I considered it. "No. But when you stared at that woman like she was made of diamonds, it didn't feel very good." "I stared at her because she smelled strange." "Strange how?" "She smelled like rock dust. Very strong dry smell." Curran put his arms around me. "I love it when you get all fussy and possessive." "I never get fussy and possessive." He grinned, showing his teeth. His face was practically glowing. "So you're cool if I go over and chat her up?" "Sure. Are you cool if I go and chat up that sexy werewolf on the third floor?" He went from casual and funny to deadly serious in half a blink. "What sexy werewolf?" I laughed. Curran's eyes focused. He was concentrating on something. "You're taking a mental inventory of all people working on the third floor, aren't you?" His expression went blank. I'd hit the nail on the head. I slid off him and put my head on his biceps. The shaggy carpet was nice and comfortable under my back. "Is it Jordan?" "I just picked a random floor," I told him. "You're nuts, you know that?" He put his arm around me. "Look who is talking.

When that slow-motion, silent explosion of love takes place in me, unfolding its melting fringes and overwhelming me with the sense of something much vaster, much more enduring and powerful than the accumulation of matter or energy in any imaginable cosmos, then my mind cannot but pinch itself to see if it is really awake. I have to make a rapid inventory of the universe, just as a man in a dream tries to condone the absurdity of his position by making sure he is dreaming. I have to have all space and all time participate in my emotion, in my mortal love, so that the edge of its mortality is taken off, thus helping me to fight the utter degradation, ridicule, and horror of having developed an infinity of sensation and thought within a finite existence.

There will be times in your life when things simply have to be replaced because they are tired, broken, worn out, harmful, outdated, or irrelevant. Take an inventory of the things that no longer serve your best and highest good so you can replace them with things which do.

Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go.

A victim evokes sympathy, right? Victims are not responsible, right? Victims have the moral high ground… someone else is causing the misery, right? Victims can easily justify why they are right. Victims allow themselves to be stuck in the status quo and they excel at seeing the faults in others, ignoring their own re-sponsibility. They love to take others’ inventory of faults and are excellent at blaming. Victims become hypersensitive to real and perceived injustice, where any slight becomes a reason to reject. Victimization is the toxic wind blowing through families, fanning the fires of dysfunction.

innovators need to be disagreeable. By disagreeable, I don’t mean obnoxious or unpleasant. I mean that on that fifth dimension of the Big Five personality inventory, “agreeableness,” they tend to be on the far end of the continuum. They are people willing to take social risks—to do things that others might disapprove of.

Once I began taking inventory of ALL I was Grateful for, the warehouse I had packed with notebooks listing all I lacked became obsolete.

He likes to know things. He checks out book and record collections when he visits people, looks in medicine cabinets, takes inventory in refrigerators. He eaves drops on conversations at public phone booths. He reads murder victims' mail.

Take inventory for a second. What do you dislike? Whose name fills you with revulsion and rage? Now ask: Have these strong feelings really helped you accomplish anything? Take an even wider inventory. Where has hatred and rage ever really gotten anyone? Especially because almost universally, the traits or behaviors that have pissed us off in other people—their dishonesty, their selfishness, their laziness—are hardly going to work out well for them in the end. Their ego and shortsightedness contains its own punishment. The question we must ask for ourselves is: Are we going to be miserable just because other people are?

Don't kid yourself.Be honest with yourself.Take your own inventory".

If you don't take inventory of your blessings, ingratitude will try to steal them from you.

life can be organized like a business plan. First you take an inventory of your gifts and passions. Then you set goals and come up with some metrics to organize your progress toward those goals. Then you map out a strategy to achieve your purpose, which will help you distinguish those things that move you toward your goals from those things that seem urgent but are really just distractions. If you define a realistic purpose early on and execute your strategy flexibly, you will wind up leading a purposeful life. You will have achieved self-determination, of the sort captured in the oft-quoted lines from William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus”: “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.

Open up. Ask for help. Accept help. Accept yourself. Be completely honest. Take a daily inventory. Whenever you are in the wrong, make amends. Face reality. Reach out. Communicate. Show kindness. Share your concerns and your worries with another human being. Help another human being, on a daily basis. Count your blessings, not your failures. Don’t live in regret or in yesterday. Don’t project your fears into tomorrow. Take action, when action is needed. Deal with your feelings if and when they arise. Don’t sit on them.

I’ve done this job for centuries On every student’s head I’ve sat Of thoughts I take inventories For I’m the famous Sorting Hat I’ve sorted high, I’ve sorted low, I’ve done the job through thick and thin So put me on and you will know Which House you should be in 

When your company is contemplating change, it's important to take inventory of employees perception. Does everyone in the company understand the need for making the changes being contemplated? And is everyone in the company committed to the changes? These are important considerations.

When the chaos settles and the smoke clears, take inventory of who's still by your side. Walk into the light together.

When you feel overwhelmed, sad or confused about life. Take inventory, look around with gratitude for everything from the sun, trees, birds, water and angels that watch over you. Be mindful of this safe place and your troubles will melt away.

I felt gluttonous taking inventory of the men in my life, yet I couldn't ignore the fullness they gave me. Their protection, their devotion, settled deep inside me, taking up space in the lonely places of my heart, making me feel a lot less lonely.

When I was a young philosopher, I asked a senior colleague, Pat Suppes (then and now a famous philosopher of science and an astute student of human nature), what the secret of happiness was. Instead of giving me advice, he made a rather droll observation about what a lot of people who were happy with themselves seem to have done, namely: 1. Take a careful inventory of their shortcomings and flaws 2. Adopt a code of values that treats these things as virtues 3. Admire themselves for living up to it Brutal people admire themselves for being manly; compulsive pedants admire themselves for their attention to detail; naturally selfish and mean people admire themselves for their dedication to helping the market reward talent and punish failure, and so on.

Taking an inventory of mental assets and liabilities, you will discover that your greatest weakness is lack of self-confidence. This handicap can be surmounted - and timidity translated into courage - through the aid of the principle of autosuggestion.

Our mind takes an inventory of past events and uses them to project the probability of success in the future. Depending on the information it gathers, we either move forward—or the fear response is triggered and forward progress is circumvented. Page 48

It is a sad moment when I sit back and take a critical inventory of my life. I have never allowed myself to dwell on it.

Always take an inventory of your life

It was as if, after years of setting aside memories,the pile had grown too high, and had tumbled, obliging her to take an inventory of her life.

At the end of each day, as you prepare for the next, take an inventory of your life, your thoughts and where you’re headed.

Everett and his mom broke up with me,thank you very much." "You shouldn't have made out with him in his mother's scrapbooking room," Liz said sagely. "We're seventeen,"I snapped, "and Everett and I had been dating for two months when that happened.What were we supposed to do,eat dinner with his family and keep our hands on the table where everyone could see them?I mean, you and Davis are Mr. and Mrs. Polite Reserve, and even you were macking in the hot tub an hour ago." I picked up a pink fuzzy pillow that had fallen from he bed and threw it at Liz. "You were?" Chloe gushed. "You what? Hello,I need the details of Liz and Davis." "Hayden!" Liz squealed, ducking behind Chloe. "I'm not saying you shouldn't have made out with Everett.I'm saying you shouldn't have done it in his mother's scrapbooking room.Location, location,location.You might have disorganized her supplies.Some people are very particular about their chipboard getting mixed up with their cardstock." I closed my eyes,inhaled through my nose,and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body. "Watch out,"Chloe whispered to Liz. "She's doing yoga." My eyes snapped open.So much for controlling my temper. "Why the hell didn't you tell me Nick's mother left before I went into the sauna with him?" I hollered at Chloe. "We didn't know he was here!" Liz came to Chloe's defense. "And if we'd warned you about him before he got here," Chloe explained, "You would have known he was coming.We didn't want you to leave.The two of you are surprisingly hard to throw together,let me tell you." "I'm not buying it," I informed Chloe. "You were distracted.You had your mind on taking inventory." Liz giggled,turned red, and fell back to the pillows. "Taking inventory requires enormous concentration!" Chloe said with a straight face,but she was blushing,too.

I wouldn’t so much as stick my head in a pool hall. Oh, look, this is as far as I go explaining what I am and am not like. I will not explain myself one more time. I will not make an inventory of my attributes for people or mention my goddamn sense of duty. I will not take one more round of his ridiculous, nonsensical crap!” Whereupon,

Wasn't this rugged business of taking your life apart, looking at all of it and admitting and remembering and reminding yourself of all the bad - wasn't the big result of it your getting to be honest? "Exactly that," said Ferguson.

As I have reviewed the past [several] years, I have made some discoveries. One is that countless experiences I have had were not necessarily those one would consider extraordinary. In fact, at the time they transpired, they often seemed unremarkable and even ordinary. And yet, in retrospect, they enriched and blessed lives—not the least of which was my own. I would recommend this same exercise to you—namely, that you take an inventory of your life and look specifically for the blessings, large and small, you have received.

I recommend you come to know your Father in Heaven. Come to love Him. Always remember that He loves you and will give you guidance and support if you will but give Him the chance. Include Him in your decision making. Include Him in your heartaches and heartbreaks. Include Him when you take inventory of your personal worth.

Next, take inventory of your mind and body on the eve of battle. List out your insecurities and weakness, as well as your opponent’s.

Take inventory. Invent a story about the people you have hurt. Begin with yourself.

I am not describing what will happen if we don’t take action, or warning of some future threat. This is the current inventory: more thunder, more lightning, less ice.

In the church, this is the season of Advent. It’s superficially understood as a time to get ready for Christmas, but in truth it’s the season for contemplating the judgment of God. Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness. As our Lord Jesus tells us, unless we see the light of God clearly, what we call light is actually darkness: “how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within.

Love Others Today: Take an honest inventory of your relationships. Are you trying to buy anyone’s friendship for your own benefit instead of blessing that person out of sincere love?

I don't think this place was everything my mother hoped for that day when she asked God where she should go to give her son the world. Though she didn't ford a river or hike across mountains, she still did what so many pioneers before had done, traveled recklessly, curiously, into the unknown of finding something just a little bit better. And like them she suffered and persevered, perhaps in equal measure. Whenever I looked at her, a castaway on the island of my queen-sized bed, it was hard for me to look past the suffering. It was hard for me not to take inventory of all that she had lost -- her home country, her husband, her son. The losses just kept piling up. It was hard for me to see her there, hear her ragged breath, and think of how she had persevered, but she had. Just lying there in my bed was a testament to her perseverance, to the fact that she survived, even when she wasn't sure she wanted to. I used to believe that God never gives us more than we can handle, but then my brother died and my mother and I were left with so much more; it crushed us. It took me many years to realize that it's hard to live in this world. I don't mean the mechanics of living, because for most of us, our hearts will beat, our lungs will take in oxygen, without us doing anything at all to tell them to. For most of us, mechanically, physically, it's hard to die than it is to live. But still we try to die. We drive too fast down winding roads, we have sex with strangers without wearing protection, we drink, we use drugs. We try to squeeze a little more life out of our lives. It's natural to want to do that. But to be alive in the world, every day, as we are given more and more and more, as the nature of "what we can handle" changes and our methods for how we handle it change, too, that's something of a miracle.

Rule 1. Take Inventory Rule 2. Look for Easy Moves Rule 3. Make a List of Three Choices Rule 4. Know Which Pieces You Can and Cannot Move Rule 5. Do One Thing Rule 6. Listen to Feedback Rule 7. Celebrate

Marx, should you take a weapon?" This is the question of a serious gamer. A gamer should never enter a potential combat situation without checking one's inventory and confirming the availability of a weapon.

Paying attention to what nourishes and stimulates your heart, soul, and imagination leads to listening to your instincts. In turn, listening to your instincts jump-starts the process of creating the fabric of your destiny. Like a designer sewing a garment, you take the vision within you and bring it to life in a suit to be worn for your next season of life. You are instinctively best at inventing what is in your inventory!

Before I became a Christian, I remember looking into the mirror and taking inventory of my face, my eyes, the shape of my nose, skin color, hair texture, height and weight, then thinking, ‘how could a random process or chance explosion be responsible for this level of detail? I am unique, and there is no one else like me. Just like my father intentionally thought of my unique name, someone must have intentionally thought of my unique frame.

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.

Taking inventory of mental assets and liabilities, you will discover that your greatest weakness is lack of self-confidence. This handicap can be surmounted, and timidity translated into courage, through the aid of the principle of auto-suggestion. The application of this principle may be made through a simple arrangement of positive thought impulses stated in writing, memorized, and repeated, until they become a part of the working equipment of the subconscious faculty of your mind.

Madame de Pompadour never seems to have sold any of the objects which belonged to her. They accumulated in their thousands, and filled all her many houses to overflowing; after her death Marigny was obliged to take two big houses in Paris which, as well as the Elysée and the Réservoirs, contained her goods until the sale of them began. Furniture, china, statues, pictures, books, plants, jewels, linen, silver, carriages, horses, yards and hundreds of yards of stuff, trunks full of dresses, cellars full of wine; the inventory of all this, divided into nearly three thousand lots, very few lots containing less than a dozen objects, took two lawyers more than a year to make. Few human beings since the world began can have owned so many beautiful things.

Gratitude become the unexpected benefit of the extreme vulnerability I felt. Once my heart opened up to how vulnerable I was, a path cleared and gratitude was quick to enter. An open heart take inventory. It's also what you do when you're on an adventure.

Only when we acknowledge ourselves as we really are can we begin to take inventory of the physical, mental, and emotional clutter that no longer serves us. Then we can choose to no longer judge ourselves for what we’ve become and focus on who we’d like to be.

Eric Greitens says that there are three primary forms of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and the happiness of excellence5. He compares them to the primary colors, the basis on which the entire spectrum is created. The happiness of pleasure is largely sensory. It’s a good meal when you’re hungry, the smell of air after it rains, waking up warm and cozy in your bed. The happiness of grace is gratitude. It’s looking over to see the love of your life sleeping next to you and whispering, “thank you.” It’s taking inventory of what you do have. It’s when you speak to something greater than yourself, expressing humility and awe. And then there is the happiness of excellence. The kind of happiness that comes from the pursuit of something great. Not the moment you arrive at the top of the mountain and raise your fists in victory, but the process of falling in love with the hike. It is meaningful work. It is flow. It is the purpose that sears identity and builds character and channels our energy toward something greater than the insatiable, daily pursuit of our fleeting desires.

Amidst the normal hard stuff is the abnormal hard stuff. You may be doing great, but no one great always had it great. At the end of each day, as you prepare for the next, I hope you take an inventory of your life, your thoughts and where you’re headed. The wind can take you some cool places, but so can your paddle.

One of Coin's men lays a hand on my arm. Its not an aggressive move, really, but after the arena's I react defensively to any unfamiliar touch. I jerk my arm free and take off running down the halls. My mind does a quick inventory of my odd little hiding places and i wind up in the supply closet, curled up against a crate of chalk.

It’s not simply a matter of accumulating data points, though in the early stages there is a necessity to take the raw material on-board. If anything, rather than carrying a large inventory, knowledge arrives “just in time”, without the expensive overhead of warehousing, in response to the needs of time, place, people and circumstances.

The best things occur when you challenge yourself and face your fears. If you think of your greatest achievements and take an inventory of the times you have demonstrated to yourself (and others) just how strong you are, you will notice it has never been while remaining within your comfort zone doing things that are easy and familiar to you.

Decades after that day in the therapist’s office, Donald Trump was elected president. A friend called me and said, “This is the apocalypse. This is the end of our country as we know it.” I said, “I hope so. Apocalypse means uncovering. Gotta uncover before you can recover.” She said, “Oh, God, not more recovery talk. Not now.” “No, listen—this feels to me like we’ve hit rock bottom! Maybe that means we’re finally ready for the steps. Maybe we’ll admit that our country has become unmanageable. Maybe we’ll take a moral inventory and face our open family secret: that this nation—founded upon ‘liberty and justice for all’—was built while murdering, enslaving, raping, and subjugating millions. Maybe we’ll admit that liberty and justice for all has always meant liberty for white straight wealthy men. Then maybe we’ll gather the entire family at the table—the women and the gay and black and brown folks and those in power—so that we can begin the long, hard work of making amends. I’ve seen this process heal people and families. Maybe our nation can heal this way, too.

Perhaps you need to look up and around instead of back and down. Lift your eyes and see the amazing future which bursts with hope for you in God! Don’t spend your life mourning over what you have lost and what is already gone; take an inventory of what you have left and keep going, one foot in front of the other, one step of faith at a time. Remember, God is on your side!

Remember that we deal with alcohol—cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now! Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Her uneasy gaze skittered along the length of his arms, which were exposed by his rolled-up shirtsleeves... and stopped at the astonishing sight of a design that had been inked onto his right forearm. It was a small black horse with wings. Noticing her mesmerized stare, Rohan lowered his arm to give her a better view. "An Irish symbol," he murmured. "A nightmare horse, called a pooka." The absurd-sounding word brought a faint smile to Daisy's lips. "Does it wash off?" she asked hesitantly. He shook his head, his lashes half lowering over his remarkable eyes. "Is a pooka like the Pegasus of the Greek myths?" Daisy asked, flattening herself as close to the wall as possible. Rohan glanced down her body, taking a kind of leisurely inventory that no man ever had before. "No. He's far more dangerous. He has eyes of yellow fire, a stride that clears mountains, and he speaks in a human voice as deep as a cave. At midnight, he may stop in front of your house and call out your name if he wants to take you for a ride. If you go with him, he'll fly you across earth and oceans... and if you ever return, your life will never be the same.

A man who steals my pocketbook loses much more than I do. I can afford to let him have my pocketbook more than he can afford to take it. Consider how much he loses. Perhaps he will get a few dollars, or he may steal my coat, but he does not get much. See how much he has lost. Take an inventory of what that man loses if he loses heaven. Think of it. No thief shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Every person has a secret inventory of "things". I call them objects of attachment - things that refuse to be forgotten. Perhaps it's a place, a smell, a business card. Whatever it is, they refuse to go unnoticed. These objects are enchanted, taking us back to another time or another place, where things are very different from the way they are now. They make us nostalgic. Playing back memories like old black and white movies, flickering with shimmer and warmth. They are hard to avoid - popping up when your mind is distracted. And regardless of what you threw away, or donated to charity, that is where you find yourself - staring at the game of Scrabble, wondering exactly how each piece used to fit. While I know my inventory and have studied it well, I often wonder which objects I am attached to. And I find myself hoping that one day you find me, unexpectedly tucked away in the back of your closet, or a messy desk drawer - and remember exactly what we once were.

Writing is a cerebral journey where the writer molds experience into useful thought capsules and thoughtfully takes recitative inventory of their spiritual depot. The act of personal essay writing is a subtle search to track and discover how a contiguous chain of occurrences links the essayist’s case history of rational and irrational behavior. Writing a person’s life story fosters acceptance of their prior personal failures and serves to open a doorway to living modestly and harmoniously.

By the way, I've just learned that Countess Ramsay and her daughter Miss Darvin wish to come for a visit. We received a letter from them earlier today." "The devil you say!" Leo was outraged. "For what purpose? To gloat? Take inventory? I've still got a year left before they can lay claim to the place." "Perhaps they wish to make peace and find an acceptable solution for all of us," Win suggested. Win was always inclined to think the best of people and believe in the essential goodness of human nature.

From the twelve apostles to the Auca missionaries of our generation, the history of the Christian church is the history of “wasted” lives. The Christian may tabulate all the assets of his personality and take inventory of his preferences, but he casts all these at the feet of Christ. He is not seeking fulfillment but expendability. He counts not his life dear to himself, for he holds it in trust for Christ. His goal is beyond the grave; the crown of his high calling is in the hand of his risen Lord. (14-15)

Read the notes.Never buy a stock without reading the footnotes to the financial statements in the annual report. Usually labeled “summary of significant accounting policies,” one key note describes how the company recognizes revenue, records inventories, treats installment or contract sales, expenses its marketing costs, and accounts for the other major aspects of its business.7 In the other footnotes, watch for disclosures about debt, stock options, loans to customers, reserves against losses, and other “risk factors” that can take a big chomp out of earnings

1. We admitted we were powerless over our emotions, that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to emotionally and mentally ill persons and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Because the other way wasn’t working. The waking up just to get the day over with until it was time for bed. The grinding it out was a disgrace, an affront to the honor and long shot of being alive at all. The ghost-walking, the short-tempered distraction, the hurried fog. (All of this I’m just assuming, because I have no idea how I come across, my consciousness is that underground, like a toad in winter.) The leaving the world a worse place just by being in it. The blindness to the destruction in my wake. The Mr. Magoo. If I’m forced to be honest, here’s an account of how I left the world last week: worse, worse, better, worse, same, worse, same. Not an inventory to make one swell with pride. I don’t necessarily need to make the world a better place, mind you. Today, I will live by the Hippocratic oath: first do no harm. How hard can it be? Dropping off Timby, having my poetry lesson (my favorite part of life!), taking a yoga class, eating lunch with Sydney Madsen, whom I can’t stand but at least I can check her off the list (more on that later), picking up Timby, and giving back to Joe, the underwriter of all this mad abundance. You’re trying to figure out, why the agita surrounding one normal day of white-people problems? Because there’s me and there’s the beast in me.

Vincent casually reclined as he looked out into the night. Jason put a bowl and fork down on the table next to him, before taking a seat himself. He pulled a couple of glasses from his inventory, along with a bottle. He poured a little bit of blue liquid into each glass. “I think you’ll like this,” Jason said. “It has a fresh, crisp flavour that should go nicely with the salad.” “Thank you,” Vincent said. “For being so handsome?” Jason asked. “It’s attached to my face, so I had to bring it with me.” Vincent shook his head. “Rufus told me you’d be trouble,” Vincent said. “He told me you were worth showing respect,” Jason said. “Sounds like disparate treatment to me.

In the civilian world almost nothing has lasting consequences, so you can blunder through life in a kind of daze. You never have to take inventory of the things in your possession and you never have to calculate the ways in which mundane circumstances can play out—can, in fact, kill you. As a result, you lose a sense of the importance of things, the gravity of things. Back home mundane details also have the power to destroy you, but the cause and effect are often spread so far apart that you don’t even make the connection; at Restrepo, that connection was impossible to ignore. It was tedious but it gave the stuff of one’s existence—the shoelaces and the water and the lost shirt—a riveting importance.

Come on, Bob, kill it!” “I’m trying, Tom. It won’t stop moving.” I looked at Wolf and whispered, “What do you think they are trying to kill?” Wolf shrugged. “Let’s go check it out.” We snuck forward until we could get a visual on what was happening. We saw that there were two large slimes and one baby slime. Judging by the way the large slimes were protecting the baby, I assumed it was their child rather than a random baby slime. The two players were slashing at the large slimes who were trying to defend themselves but failing. Eventually the players chopped the two large slimes into medium slimes, then into small slimes until they had finally killed all the pieces. That left the baby slime all alone. Bob and Tom looked at each other. “I think we should kill it,” said Tom. “Otherwise, it’s going to grow into an adult slime and try to get its revenge on us.” Where have I heard this story before? Bob laughed. “Slimes are stupid. It won’t be able to get revenge because it will be dead.” The players began to move forward to the baby slime. And that’s when something snapped in me. I was reminded of the night my parents sacrificed their lives for me. I couldn’t let this baby slime be killed. I jumped up and rushed to the players. Wolf shout-whispered, “No! Don’t do it!” I didn’t care. I ran up to the two players and without giving them a chance to surrender, mercilessly assassinated them. The baby slime looked at me with fear in its eyes and backed away, fearful that I would kill it too. But I didn’t. I put my sword back into my inventory and reached down and gently picked up the slime. “Can you talk?” I asked. The slime made cooing and booping noises, but apparently was too young to be able to speak yet. “I wish I could talk to you, Child. I would tell you that everything is going to be alright. I’ll be your new guardian.” Wolf arrived by my side a moment later. “It’s not part of the Way to kill players unless the killing falls under a specific rule or arises from self-defense.” I shot a look at Wolf. “I was defending the life of another. Is that not the same as self-defense?” “I guess, but it’s … hurrr … it’s a slime.” “Are you saying a slime has less right to be alive than us?” “I’m not saying that, but now that you mention it….” “Shut up. I’m taking charge of this child.” Wolf shook his head. “You realize that according to the Way, if you take the life of an orphan into your hands you have to protect it and see that it makes it to adulthood, just as I have with you.

The same thing, notes Brynjolfsson, happened 120 years ago, in the Second Industrial Revolution, when electrification—the supernova of its day—was introduced. Old factories did not just have to be electrified to achieve the productivity boosts; they had to be redesigned, along with all business processes. It took thirty years for one generation of managers and workers to retire and for a new generation to emerge to get the full productivity benefits of that new power source. A December 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute on American industry found a “considerable gap between the most digitized sectors and the rest of the economy over time and [found] that despite a massive rush of adoption, most sectors have barely closed that gap over the past decade … Because the less digitized sectors are some of the largest in terms of GDP contribution and employment, we [found] that the US economy as a whole is only reaching 18 percent of its digital potential … The United States will need to adapt its institutions and training pathways to help workers acquire relevant skills and navigate this period of transition and churn.” The supernova is a new power source, and it will take some time for society to reconfigure itself to absorb its full potential. As that happens, I believe that Brynjolfsson will be proved right and we will start to see the benefits—a broad range of new discoveries around health, learning, urban planning, transportation, innovation, and commerce—that will drive growth. That debate is for economists, though, and beyond the scope of this book, but I will be eager to see how it plays out. What is absolutely clear right now is that while the supernova may not have made our economies measurably more productive yet, it is clearly making all forms of technology, and therefore individuals, companies, ideas, machines, and groups, more powerful—more able to shape the world around them in unprecedented ways with less effort than ever before. If you want to be a maker, a starter-upper, an inventor, or an innovator, this is your time. By leveraging the supernova you can do so much more now with so little. As Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media, observed in a March 3, 2015, essay on TechCrunch.com: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.

To follow this thought a little further in order that we may get additional light upon it, turn to the letter of Paul to the Php 4:8: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." The Greek word translated "think" here is a word which means "Take an inventory." What are the things of which men, as a rule, take an inventory? Things which they value; and Paul, in writing, is practically saying, "Do not reckon as riches things perishing; but those things which make you rich indeed, the things which are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, take an inventory of these, keep your mind upon them, set a value upon them.

Richard Price: One of my favorite things that David (Simon) did - one of the sentimental tropes - is that if you take a kid on the street corner, and this kid is dealing and he's holding together the business, he's got the inventory, he's got sales, he's got police pressure, he's got higher-ups pressure. If this kid can keep numbers in his head and make money, they say, "Well, if this was a white kid and you put him in Wharton and he came out, he'd be running the world." What David did, and it's very sentimental to say that, but what David did, he took Stringer Bell - and of course you'd see Stringer Bell in a corporate setting - he took him to the cleaners, everything but his underwear robbed. I loved that, because everybody wants to feel good and say, "If you took this young kid," but no. It might be true if the kid was born in another body, in another world, but he wasn't. There's a ceiling. There's a very low ceiling. (207)

Present the sacraments so as to make the gospel clear. Baptism, and especially adult baptism, should be given great significance in evangelistic worship. Consider providing an opportunity for the baptized to offer their personal testimony as well as to respond to certain questions. Make the meaning of baptism clear through a moving, joyous, personal charge to the baptized (and to all baptized Christians present). In addition, the Lord’s Supper can also become a converting ordinance. If it is explained properly, the nonbeliever will have a specific and visible way to see the difference between walking with Christ and living for oneself. The Lord’s Supper confronts every individual with the question, “Are you right with God today? Right now?” There is perhaps no more effective way to help a person take a spiritual inventory. Many seekers in churches in the United States will only realize they are not truly Christians during the “fencing of the table.”12

There have been a few times in my life when I have experienced extreme loss and it seemed like I lost everything. If you're at a place in your life where it seems like you've lost everything, just first of all know that you haven't lost everything. Look around and take inventory of your life at this exact moment - think about the resources that you still have, whether its skills, money, a network of friends and family, a brand with a good reputation, a top quality resume, money in savings, your house, your car, your computer or whatever it may be. Then think about how you can leverage whatever resources you have remaining after your loss and figure out how to utilize those resources and convert them into streams of income by adding value to other peoples lives or adding value to a marketplace. The money will begin to flow back in and you will begin to gain back the equivalent and more of everything you lost. Then when you've rebounded and it seems like you have it all, do everything in your power to protect it all and to keep it all and to avoid loss.

An inventory of instruments was then begun. The thermometers and barometers had resisted, all but one minimum thermometer, the glass of which was broken. An excellent aneroid was drawn from the wadded box which contained it and hung on the wall. Of course it was only affected by and marked the pressure of the air inside the projectile, but it also showed the quantity of moisture which it contained. At that moment its needle oscillated between 25.24 and 25.08. It was fine weather. Barbicane had also brought several compasses, which he found intact. One must understand that under present conditions their needles were acting wildly, that is without any constant direction. Indeed, at the distance they were from the earth, the magnetic pole could have no perceptible action upon the apparatus; but the box placed on the lunar disc might perhaps exhibit some strange phenomena. In any case it would be interesting to see whether the earth’s satellite submitted like herself to its magnetic influence. A hypsometer to measure the height of the lunar mountains, a sextant to take the height of the sun, glasses which would be useful as they neared the moon, all these instruments were carefully looked over, and pronounced good in spite of the violent shock.

I turn from the window and see Ringer across the aisle, staring at me. She holds up two fingers. I nod. Two minutes to the drop. I pull the headband down to position the lens of the eyepiece over my left eye and adjust the strap. Ringer is pointing at Teacup, who’s in the chair next to me. Her eyepiece keeps slipping. I tighten the strap; she gives me a thumbs-up, and something sour rises in my throat. Seven years old. Dear Jesus. I lean over and shout in her ear, “You stay right next to me, understand?” Teacup smiles, shakes her head, points at Ringer. I’m staying with her! I laugh. Teacup’s no dummy. Over the river now, the Black Hawk skimming only a few feet above the water. Ringer is checking her weapon for the thousandth time. Beside her, Flintstone is tapping his foot nervously, staring forward, looking at nothing. There’s Dumbo inventorying his med kit, and Oompa bending his head in an attempt to keep us from seeing him stuff one last candy bar into his mouth. Finally, Poundcake with his head down, hands folded in his lap. Reznik named him Poundcake because he said he was soft and sweet. He doesn’t strike me as either, especially on the firing range. Ringer’s a better marksman overall, but I’ve seen Poundcake take out six targets in six seconds.

It's very difficult to change your nature. For me it's too late, there's nothing for it but to accept myself the way I am. I'm eighty years old: it was my birthday the day you arrived. That's the age of memory, Ingrid. The age of making an inventory of life,' he said. 'Forgive me if I'm intruding, but can you tell me what's in your inventory?' 'My life has been a series of journeys. I've traveled from one side of the world to the other. I've been a foreigner without realizing I had deep roots... My spirit has sailed as well. But I don't see the point in making these observations now; I should have done so a long time ago.' 'I don't think anybody reflects on their life when they're young, Victor, and most people never do. It would never occur to my parents, for example, and they're almost ninety. They simply live for the day and are happy.' 'It's a shame we only make this kind of inventory when we're old, Ingrid, when there's no time left to make amends.' 'You can't change the past, but perhaps you can banish the worst memories...' 'Listen, Ingrid, the most important events, the ones that determine our fate, are almost always completely beyond our control. In my case, when I take stock, I see my life was marked by the Spanish Civil War in my youth, and later on by the military coup, by the concentration camps and my exiles. I didn't choose any of that: it simply happened to me.

Liturgy gathers the holy community as it reads the Holy Scriptures into the sweeping tidal rhythms of the church year in which the story of Jesus and the Christian makes its rounds century after century, the large and easy interior rhythms of a year that moves from birth, life, death, resurrection, on to spirit, obedience, faith, and blessing. Without liturgy we lose the rhythms and end up tangled in the jerky, ill-timed, and insensitive interruptions of public-relations campaigns, school openings and closings, sales days, tax deadlines, inventory and elections. Advent is buried under 'shopping days before Christmas.' The joyful disciplines of Lent are exchanged for the anxious penitentials of filling out income tax forms. Liturgy keeps us in touch with the story as it defines and shapes our beginnings and ends our living and dying, our rebirths and blessing in this Holy Spirit, text-formed community visible and invisible. When Holy Scripture is embraced liturgically, we become aware that a lot is going on all at once, a lot of different people are doing a lot of different things. The community is on its feet, at work for God, listening and responding to the Holy Scriptures. The holy community, in the process of being formed by the Holy Scriptures, is watching, listening to God's revelation taking shape before an din them as they follow Jesus, each person playing his or her part in the Spirit.

Our two taco specials get shoved up on the serving counter, crispy, cheesy goodness in brown plastic baskets lined with parchment paper, sour cream and guacamole exactly where they should be. On the side. There is a perfect ratio of sour cream, guac, and salsa on a shredded chicken tostada. No one can make it happen for you. Many restaurants have tried. All have failed. Only the mouth knows its own pleasure, and calibration like Taco Heaven cannot be mass produced. It simply cannot. Taco Heaven is a sensory explosion of flavor that defies logic. First, you have to eye the amount of spiced meat, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and tomatillos. You must consider the size and crispiness of the shells. Some people–I call them blasphemers–like soft tacos. I am sitting across from Exhibit A. We won’t talk about soft tacos. They don’t make it to Taco Heaven. People who eat soft tacos live in Taco Purgatory, never fully understanding their moral failings, repeating the same mistakes again and again for all eternity. Like Perky and dating. Once you inventory your meat, lettuce, tomato, and shell quality, the real construction begins. Making your way to Taco Heaven is like a mechanical engineer building a bridge in your mouth. Measurements must be exact. Payloads are all about formulas and precision. One miscalculation and it all fails. Taco Death is worse than Taco Purgatory, because the only reason for Taco Death is miscalculation. And that’s all on you. “Oh, God,” Fiona groans through a mouthful of abomination. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?” “Doing what?” I ask primly, knowing damn well what she’s talking about. “You treat eating tacos like you’re the star of some Mythbusters show.” “Do not.” “Do too.” “Even if I do–and I am notconceding the point–it would be a worthwhile venture.” “You are as weird about your tacos as Perky is about her coffee.” “Take it back! I am not that weird.” “You are.” “Am not.” “This is why Perky and I swore we would never come here with you again.” Fiona grabs my guacamole and smears the rounded scoop all over the outside of her soft taco. I shriek. “How can you do that?” I gasp, the murder of the perfect ratio a painful, almost palpable blow. The mashed avocado has a death rattle that rings in my ears. Smug, tight lips give me a grimace. “See? A normal person would shout, ‘Hey! That’s mine!’ but you’re more offended that I’ve desecrated my inferior taco wrapping with the wrong amount of guac.” “Because it’s wrong.” “You should have gone to MIT, Mal. You need a job that involves nothing but pure math for the sake of calculating stupid shit no one else cares about.” “So glad to know that a preschool teacher holds such high regard for math,” I snark back. And MIT didn’t give me the kind of merit aid package I got from Brown, I don’t add. “Was that supposed to sting?” She takes the rest of my guacamole, grabs a spoon, and starts eating it straight out of the little white paper scoop container thing. “How can you do that? It’s like people who dip their french fries in mayonnaise.” I shudder, standing to get in line to buy more guac. “I dip my french fries in mayo!” “More evidence of your madness, Fi. Get help now. It may not be too late.” I stick my finger in her face. “And by the way, you and Perky talk about my taco habits behind my back? Some friends!” I hmph and turn toward the counter.

Any relationship will have its difficulties, but sometimes those problems are indicators of deep-rooted problems that, if not addressed quickly, will poison your marriage. If any of the following red flags—caution signs—exist in your relationship, we recommend that you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor. Part of this list was adapted by permission from Bob Phillips, author of How Can I Be Sure: A Pre-Marriage Inventory.1 You have a general uneasy feeling that something is wrong in your relationship. You find yourself arguing often with your fiancé(e). Your fiancé(e) seems irrationally angry and jealous whenever you interact with someone of the opposite sex. You avoid discussing certain subjects because you’re afraid of your fiancé(e)’s reaction. Your fiancé(e) finds it extremely difficult to express emotions, or is prone to extreme emotions (such as out-of-control anger or exaggerated fear). Or he/she swings back and forth between emotional extremes (such as being very happy one minute, then suddenly exhibiting extreme sadness the next). Your fiancé(e) displays controlling behavior. This means more than a desire to be in charge—it means your fiancé(e) seems to want to control every aspect of your life: your appearance, your lifestyle, your interactions with friends or family, and so on. Your fiancé(e) seems to manipulate you into doing what he or she wants. You are continuing the relationship because of fear—of hurting your fiancé(e), or of what he or she might do if you ended the relationship. Your fiancé(e) does not treat you with respect. He or she constantly criticizes you or talks sarcastically to you, even in public. Your fiancé(e) is unable to hold down a job, doesn’t take personal responsibility for losing a job, or frequently borrows money from you or from friends. Your fiancé(e) often talks about aches and pains, and you suspect some of these are imagined. He or she goes from doctor to doctor until finding someone who will agree that there is some type of illness. Your fiancé(e) is unable to resolve conflict. He or she cannot deal with constructive criticism, or never admits a mistake, or never asks for forgiveness. Your fiancé(e) is overly dependant on parents for finances, decision-making or emotional security. Your fiancé(e) is consistently dishonest and tries to keep you from learning about certain aspects of his or her life. Your fiancé(e) does not appear to recognize right from wrong, and rationalizes questionable behavior. Your fiancé(e) consistently avoids responsibility. Your fiancé(e) exhibits patterns of physical, emotional or sexual abuse toward you or others. Your fiancé(e) displays signs of drug or alcohol abuse: unexplained absences of missed dates, frequent car accidents, the smell of alcohol or strong odor of mouthwash, erratic behavior or emotional swings, physical signs such as red eyes, unkempt look, unexplained nervousness, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has displayed a sudden, dramatic change in lifestyle after you began dating. (He or she may be changing just to win you and will revert back to old habits after marriage.) Your fiancé(e) has trouble controlling anger. He or she uses anger as a weapon or as a means of winning arguments. You have a difficult time trusting your fiancé(e)—to fulfill responsibilities, to be truthful, to help in times of need, to make ethical decisions, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has a history of multiple serious relationships that have failed—a pattern of knowing how to begin a relationship but not knowing how to keep one growing. Look over this list. Do any of these red flags apply to your relationship? If so, we recommend you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor.

Whenever I start thinking of my love for a person, I am in the habit of immediately drawing radii from my love – from my heart, from the tender nucleus of a personal matter – to monstrously remote points of the universe. Something impels me to measure the consciousness of my love against such unimaginable and incalculable things as the behavior of nebulae (whose very remoteness seems a form of insanity), the dreadful pitfalls of eternity, the unknowledgeable beyond the unknown, the helplessness, the cold, the sickening involutions and interpenetrations of space and time. It is a pernicious habit, but I can do nothing about it. It can be compared to the uncontrollable flick of an insomniac’s tongue checking a jagged tooth in the night of his mouth and bruising itself in doing so but still persevering. I have known people who, upon accidentally touching something – a doorpost, a wall – had to go through a certain very rapid and systematic sequence of manual contacts with various surfaces in the room before returning to a balanced existence. It cannot be helped; I must know where I stand, where you and my son stand. When that slow-motion, silent explosion of love takes place in me, unfolding its melting fringes and overwhelming me with the sense of something much vaster, much more enduring and powerful than the accumulation of matter or energy in any imaginable cosmos, then my mind cannot but pinch itself to see if it is really awake. I have to make a rapid inventory of the universe, just as a man in a dream tries to condone the absurdity of his position by making sure he is dreaming. I have to have all space and all time participate in my emotion, in my mortal love, so that the edge of its mortality is taken off, thus helping me to fight the utter degradation, ridicule, and horror of having developed an infinity of sensation and thought within a finite existence.

Where is Albert?" "He'll be here momentarily. I asked our housekeeper to fetch him." Christopher blinked. "She's not afraid of him?" "Of Albert? Heavens, no, everyone adores him." The concept of someone, anyone, adoring his belligerent pet was difficult to grasp. Having expected to receive an inventory of all the damage Albert had caused, Christopher gave her a blank look. And then the housekeeper returned with an obedient and well-groomed dog trotting by her side. "Albert?" Christopher said. The dog looked at him, ears twitching. His whiskered face changed, eyes brightening with excitement. Without hesitating, Albert launched forward with a happy yelp. Christopher knelt on the floor, gathering up an armful of joyfully wriggling canine. Albert strained to lick him, and whimpered and dove against him repeatedly. Christopher was overwhelmed by feelings of kinship and relief. Grabbing the warm, compact body close, Christopher murmured his name and petted him roughly, and Albert whined and trembled. "I missed you, Albert. Good boy. There's my boy." Unable to help himself, Christopher pressed his face against the rough fur. He was undone by guilt, humbled by the fact that even though he had abandoned Albert for the summer, the dog showed nothing but eager welcome. "I was away too long," Christopher murmured, looking into the soulful brown eyes. "I won't leave you again." He dragged his gaze up to Beatrix's. "It was a mistake to leave him," he said gruffly. She was smiling at him. "Albert won't hold it against you. To err is human, to forgive, canine." To his disbelief, Christopher felt an answering smile tug at the corners of his lips. He continued to pet the dog, who was fit and sleek. "You've taken good care of him." "He's much better behaved than before," she said. "You can take him anywhere now." Rising to his feet, Christopher looked down at her. "Why did you do it?" he asked softly. "He's very much worth saving. Anyone could see that." The awareness between them became unbearably aware. Christopher's heart worked in hard, uneven beats. How pretty she was in the white dress. She radiated a healthy female physicality that was very different from the fashionable frailty of London women. He wondered what it would be like to bed her, if she would be as direct in her passions as she was in everything else.

But peace, too, is a living thing and like all life it must wax and wane, accommodate, withstand trials, and undergo changes. Such was the case with the peace Josephus Famulus enjoyed. It was unstable, visible one moment, gone the next, sometimes near as a candle carried in the hand, sometimes as remote as a star in the wintry sky. And in time a new and special kind of sin and temptation more and more often made life difficult for him. It was not a strong, passionate emotion such as indignation or a sudden rush of instinctual urges. Rather, it seemed to be the opposite. It was a feeling very easy to bear in its initial stages, for it was scarcely perceptible; a condition without any real pain or deprivation, a slack, luke-warm, tedious state of the soul which could only be described in negative terms as a vanishing, a waning, and finally a complete absence of joy. There are days when the sun does not shine and the rain does not pour, but the sky sinks quietly into itself, wraps itself up, is gray but not black, sultry, but not with the tension of an imminent thunderstorm. Gradually, Joseph's days became like this as he approached old age. Less and less could he distinguish the mornings from the evenings, feast days from ordinary days, hours of rapture from hours of dejection. Everything ran sluggishly long in limp tedium and joylessness. This is old age, he thought sadly. He was sad because he had expected aging and the gradual extinction of his passions to bring a brightening and easing of his life, to take him a step nearer to harmony and mature peace of soul, and now age seemed to be disappointing and cheating him by offering nothing but this weary, gray, joyless emptiness, this feeling of chronic satiation. Above all he felt sated: by sheer existence, by breathing, by sleep at night, by life in his cave on the edge of the little oasis, by the eternal round of evenings and mornings, by the passing of travelers and pilgrims, camel riders and donkey riders, and most of all by the people who came to visit him, by those foolish, anxious, and childishly credulous people who had this craving to tell him about their lives, their sins and their fears, their temptations and self-accusations. Sometimes it all seemed to him like the small spring of water that collected in its stone basin in the oasis, flowed through grass for a while, forming a small brook, and then flowed on out into the desert sands, where after a brief course it dried up and vanished. Similarly, all these confessions, these inventories of sins, these lives, these torments of conscience, big and small, serious and vain, all of them came pouring into his ear, by the dozens, by the hundreds, more and more of them. But his ear was not dead like the desert sands. His ear was alive and could not drink, swallow, and absorb forever. It felt fatigued, abused, glutted. It longed for the flow and splashing of words, confessions, anxieties, charges, self-condemnations to cease; it longed for peace, death, and stillness to take the place of this endless flow.

Differentiating Yourself  Pursuing a differentiation strategy has merit over pursuing a low-cost strategy. Focusing and sharpening your strengths is a major step in developing competitive advantage—the thing that you can do better than anyone else.  The first step is to take stock of your resources and capabilities and assess whether they match your intentions. Do you have what is called “strategic fit”? Aligning your resources and capabilities with your intentions puts you in the best position for crafting and executing a successful strategy.  To help you achieve this, develop a personal USP, a one-sentence description of what you offer people that few others can match. Now do the same for a trusted friend and exchange the results. This is sometimes the best way of taking your personal skills inventory.

I discovered that creativity need not be limited to the canvas, that opportunities to create abound all around us. For example, reinventing leftovers for dishes, and repairing have been sources of creativity, and our yard, compost, and recycling, of materials. Since the latter keep recurring and are always on hand, the kids and I do not need to collect or store them but simply reach for them when needed. Just as “the clothes do not make the man,” I believe that the art supplies do not make the artist. It is not a wealth of supplies that gave van Gogh’s work power, but rather his vision and execution. After all, “creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun” (Mary Lou Cook); none of it depends on supply inventory.

A person whom moves across country takes inventory of what they lost and what they gained.

Taking inventory of mental assets and liabilities, you will discover that your greatest weakness is lack of self-confidence. This handicap can be surmounted, and timidity translated into courage, through the aid of the principle of autosuggestion. The application of this principle may be made through a simple arrangement of positive thought impulses stated in writing, memorized, and repeated, until they become a part of the working equipment of the subconscious faculty of your mind. SELF-CONFIDENCE FORMULA First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life, therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.

Take an inventory of the people to whom you are indebted for the good life you have. Honor them with a good thought, a thank you note, or an act of service. There’s nothing more empowering than the human connection.

True, there's an aisle devoted to foreign foods, and then there are familiar foods that have been through the Japanese filter and emerged a little bit mutated. Take breakfast cereal. You'll find familiar American brands such as Kellogg's, but often without English words anywhere on the box. One of the most popular Kellogg's cereals in Japan is Brown Rice Flakes. They're quite good, and the back-of-the-box recipes include cold tofu salad and the savory pancake okonomiyaki, each topped with a flurry of crispy rice flakes. Iris and I got mildly addicted to a Japanese brand of dark chocolate cornflakes, the only chocolate cereal I've ever eaten that actually tastes like chocolate. (Believe me, I've tried them all.) Stocking my pantry at Life Supermarket was fantastically simple and inexpensive. I bought soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, rice, salt, and sugar. (I was standing right in front of the salt when I asked where to find it This happens to me every time I ask for help finding any item in any store.) Total outlay: about $15, and most of that was for the rice. Japan is an unabashed rice protectionist, levying prohibitive tariffs on imported rice. As a result, supermarket rice is domestic, high quality, and very expensive. There were many brands of white rice to choose from, the sacks advertising different growing regions and rice varieties. (I did the restaurant wine list thing and chose the second least expensive.) Japanese consumers love to hear about the regional origins of their foods. I almost never saw ingredients advertised as coming from a particular farm, like you'd see in a farm-to-table restaurant in the U.S., but if the milk is from Hokkaido, the rice from Niigata, and the tea from Uji, all is well. I suppose this is not so different from Idaho potatoes and Florida orange juice. When I got home, I opened the salt and sugar and spooned some into small bowls near the stove. The next day I learned that Japanese salt and sugar are hygroscopic: their crystalline structure draws in water from the air (and Tokyo, in summer, has enough water in the air to supply the world's car washes). I figured this was harmless and went on licking slightly moist salt and sugar off my fingers every time I cooked.

Do not store your linens together in a central location. It is more efficient to store them near the bed for which they are intended. Reducing your linen inventory to two sets or fewer for each bed should make it easy to fit the linens on the closet shelf of their respective bedrooms. Finally, assign each bed a color to clear up any confusion about which sheets fit which bed.

Step by step, inch by inch, time paced around my mangled body. It circled me, slowly, inspecting the scene, taking inventory.

One day I found myself at a local flea market, talking to a guy who was selling refurbished printers for $50. I had seen identical printers on eBay for $300, so I bought his entire inventory, put them on eBay for an unbeatable $200, and made $150 on each one. Every week I would go back to the flea market and take the printers off the guy’s hands, and every week I was making money. Not much, mind you, but more than I would have been making at McDonald’s. Still,

There was little science to Amazon’s earliest distribution methods. The company held no inventory itself at first. When a customer bought a book, Amazon ordered it, the book would arrive within a few days, and Amazon would store it in the basement and then ship it off to the customer. It took Amazon a week to deliver most items to customers, and it could take several weeks or more than a month for scarcer titles.

With an objective eye, take an inventory of your successes and enlist the honest feedback of a trusted and respected mentor or peer. Chances are they see you in a better light than you see yourself!

Take a moral inventory of ways you may be self-sabotaging and then take proactive steps to change them.

Take a quick inventory: “How do I feel? Is my energy level low; am I sleep deprived or worried about a few things in particular? What is on my mind (job, kids, health, finances, politics)? Am I hungry, hangry (low blood sugar levels), or did I just get up on the wrong side of the bed?” All these things, though seemingly inconsequential, really can influence how you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally, and how you react to what’s to come.

Enemies & Stamps Romans 12:17-21 Postage stamps cost a lot. Funny thing, loving our enemies costs a lot too. We have to invest in forgiveness. And put aside the wealth of anger we feel. We foreclose on any resentment. We subtract harsh words. We look beyond the person’s debt of wrongs. We credit them as one of God’s children. We spend time to express that love. And finally we count our blessings. Loving our enemies costs us plenty, much more than pocket change to change our attitudes. As Christians we are called to look beyond the balance sheet and what we can profit and what we have lost. God asks us to take inventory of the price Jesus paid for us. God credits us depositing grace upon grace so that our account is never bankrupt. Out of these great riches we are to repay evil with good. Is there an enemy’s bad debt you can negate today?

Describe your street. Describe another street. Compare. Make an inventory of your pockets, of your bag. Ask yourself about the provenance, the use, what will become of each of the objects you take out. Question your tea spoons. What is there under your wallpaper? How many movements does it take to dial a phone number? Why? Why don’t you find cigarettes in grocery stores? Why not?

John Fordham, eighty-three, has been married to his wife, Elaine, for thirty-three years. When asked what the secret to a long, happy marriage was, he responded: “Well, I think that one should know oneself. And then I suppose there’s a semiconscious table of attitudes and values that one uses to find kindred spirits.” He explained that you should begin by taking an inventory of what you value and what you believe in. Only then can you understand what would make another person compatible.

REACH” PRINCIPLES • Respect for the unknown • Ethics in our use of precognition • Accuracy of our precognitive skills • Compassion for ourselves and others • Honesty in all our dealings How to truly practise the REACH principles How can James or anyone in an unsupportive environment practise the REACH principles? It’s an important question to ask – not just for James, but for anyone who has already run into disorientation or destabilization as a result of their spontaneous precognitive abilities. We have heard from some of these people, and they tend to be desperate to control their abilities so they do not feel like “freaks” at the mercy of their gift. As we explore what James could do, we are also exploring what anyone could do to turn their relationship with precognition in a positive direction if they feel it has become disorientating for them. The first change would be to take a thorough inventory of your relationships – are they supportive of who you are and the gifts you have to offer? If not, the first change you need to make is to find one or two people whom you trust, and talk with them in confidence about your practice of controlled precognition. Tell them about your intention to be a Positive Precog and share with them what that means to you. Tell them why it is important to you to try out your gifts in this area. This will be a different conversation for each person, but the basic idea is that you need a few people in your life who accept and love you for who you are, especially when who you are is someone who has something controversial to offer. If precognition is a big part of your life, you need to tell them about that. You can expect three responses – scepticism (from science-minded people who haven’t read the literature about precognition or don’t believe it), concern (from people who fear you are messing with things you don’t understand), and support (from people who are open enough to support what you are interested in). Dealing with scepticism is easy – don’t try to convince anyone. Just let them know that controlled precognition is important to you, you feel that it is likely to be real, and you would like their support in trying this out. If they don’t support you, move on to the next person. Concern is a little tricky, because anyone concerned about you is already in your corner, so that’s a start. But if their concern is so great that they can’t be supportive, consider thanking them and moving on to the next person. Your goal is not to find someone who agrees with you about precognition, but someone who is supportive of you pursuing controlled precognition responsibly.

Read the notes.Never buy a stock without reading the footnotes to the financial statements in the annual report. Usually labeled “summary of significant accounting policies,” one key note describes how the company recognizes revenue, records inventories, treats installment or contract sales, expenses its marketing costs, and accounts for the other major aspects of its business.7 In the other footnotes, watch for disclosures about debt, stock options, loans to customers, reserves against losses, and other “risk factors” that can take a big chomp out of earnings. Among the things that should make your antennae twitch are technical terms like “capitalized,” “deferred,” and “restructuring”—and plain-English words signaling that the company has altered its accounting practices, like “began,” “change,” and “however.” None of those words mean you should not buy the stock, but all mean that you need to investigate further. Be sure to compare the footnotes with those in the financial statements of at least one firm that’s a close competitor, to see how aggressive your company’s accountants are. Read more. If you are an enterprising investor willing to put plenty of time and energy into your portfolio, then you owe it to yourself to learn more about financial reporting. That’s the only way to minimize your odds of being misled by a shifty earnings statement. Three solid books full of timely and specific examples are Martin Fridson and Fernando Alvarez’s Financial Statement Analysis, Charles Mulford and Eugene Comiskey’s The Financial Numbers Game, and Howard Schilit’s Financial Shenanigans. 8

You can run from your demons, but they will always find you. In fact, they were never gone at all, but remained lurking in the shadows, nipping at your heels, until you could no longer ignore them. What brings us all to this understanding—this impasse—is unique for each of us. It may be the loss of a job, a sudden illness, a tough-love confrontation from a lifelong friend, or even your nemesis. It is something that stops you in your tracks and causes you to take inventory of your life and its direction. It may even be a perfect stranger who steps on the scene at just the right time.

There is as well a two-way interaction between virtue and discipline. As we continue to practice the discipline of self-examination and continue to take inventory, we grow in the virtues of humility and honesty, and, conversely, as we grow in these virtues we become better at looking at ourselves and discerning our shortcomings. Promptly admitting our wrongs to those we have harmed will become a habit with time, disposing us to justice, and, the more just we become, the more readily and openly will we admit to such wrongs.

All those hours Gabe had put in at the store, stocking shelves, creating displays, prepping the bank deposits, and taking inventory. The endless tasks, on top of homework and baseball practice, had taught Gabe to focus his attention and manage his time, and had prepared him to run his own business when it came to it.