Temporary Fixes Quotes

We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory.

I was in error when I saw him as fixed and stable and thought I would have him forever. He was never fixed, nor stable, but always just a passing, temporary energy-burst.

The library knows that it is a temporary fix. We have a stamp for the inside front cover: BROKEN SPINE NOTED. It is like a bracelet worn by a diabetic. When you return the book with this message stamped inside, we know you're not the one responsible for this horrible thing. It was some other bastard before you. The book has a preexisting condition.

Because you’re looking for something temporary. Something fun to play with.” I leaned even closer to deliver my punch line—the one that would deter even the horniest of men. “And I get attached.” I stood back up to my full height so I could take in his reaction. “Now doesn’t that just scare you shitless?

When I look at you, I see something broken that isn’t worth fixing. And you look at me like I’m a cheap thing to replace the expensive one that’s been stolen from you. See, we’re all vases. And you’re the one scattered on the floor, shattered beyond repair. So I’ll let someone else pick you up. It’s really that simple. Have fun with your temporary glue.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

If the stars in the sky are not fixed, then nothing is fixed. Nothing is eternal, all is temporary and ever-changing.” She turned away from the stars, meeting his gaze. “Nothing is fixed, my lord. No course is so set it cannot be changed.

it has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. i learned everything is temporary. moments. feelings. people. flowers. i learned love is about giving. everything. and letting it hurt. i learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe. it has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. making friends out of strangers. making strangers out of friends. learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. and for the pains it can’t there will always be my mother’s arms. we must learn to focus on warm energy. always. soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. for if we can’t learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.

Law is only a temporary fix for chaos, not the cure. The only cure for chaos is individual responsibility.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 CORINTHIANS 4:18

I was in error when I saw him as fixed and stable and thought I would have him forever. He was never fixed, nor stable, but always just a passing, temporary energy-burst. I had reason to know this. Had he not looked this way at birth, that way at four, another way at seven, been made entirely anew at nine? He had never stayed the same, even instant to instant. He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. Only I did not think it would be so soon. Or that he would precede us. Two passing temporarinesses developed feelings for one another. Two puffs of smoke became mutually fond. I mistook him for a solidity and now must pay.

I was in error when I saw him as fixed and stable and thought I would have him forever. He was never fixed, nor stable, but always just a passing, temporary energy-burst.

First, nothing is as permanent as a temporary fix. Most of these remained in place for the next year or two.

The only real problem is a lack of love. To address the world’s problems on any other level is a temporary palliative—a fix but not a healing, a treatment of the symptom but not a cure.

Reorganizing doesn’t actually constitute change in our lives. It is only a temporary fix which we will continually revisit. If organizing your stuff worked, wouldn’t you be done by now?

Then what is true love?” she asked audaciously. Derian leaned forward, his focus powerfully fixed on her. His voice turned delicate and compelling as he spoke. “Love is so much more than a feeling. True love, Eena, is something that develops over time. It’s not that initial infatuation nor the shivers and butterflies that take your breath away when you’re first attracted to someone. Those things are nice, but they are barely the beginning of what could become true love. The emotions you speak of are temporary and unreliable, elicited when two people come together. The power I speak of grows ever stronger over time until it is steadfast, even in separation. Then, reunited, it solidifies unshakably.” She shook her head. “I don’t quite follow.” The captain inched closer, fixing her with the sincerest of gazes. His hands cupped as if he were holding his very heart within them. “True love is a developed and intense appreciation for someone. It’s that perfect awareness that you are finally whole when she’s with you, and that hollow incompleteness you suffer when she’s gone. True love takes time, Eena. It’s an earned comfort that tells you she’ll be right there beside you no matter what you do, not necessarily happy with your every action, but faithful to you just the same. Love is knowing someone so deeply, understanding her so completely, that you can finish her thoughts without hesitation, confident in reading her face, her body, even her slightest gesture means something to you. Love is years of devotion, sacrifice, commitment, loyalty, trust, faith, and friendship all wrapped up in one. True love does more than cause your heart to flutter, Eena. It upholds your heart when the infatuation no longer makes it flutter.” “Wow.

She was warm and silky. Delicious, really. I wanted to take her like a drug. All at once, in one gulp. I wanted to overdose on her like cocaine, and heroin, and crack, knowing the destruction I was willingly inhaling into my body. Because Indie, like drugs, was a temporary fix.

I know feelings are temporary, that they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, to an addict like me, they feel overwhelming, unbearable, and endless. Therein lies the violent urgency to fix or escape them.

Margaux was older and wiser now and knew the waves couldn't fix what was wrong in her life, but at least they might give her some temporary respite.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Corinthians 4:16–18 says: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day . . . our light and momentary struggles are achieving for us an eternal glory . . . So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

out of sight, out of mind, right? That motto is just a temporary fix—until you’re forced to come face to face with what you’ve been running from. That’s when the mental walls you’ve built to hide behind come crashing down in one hard blow.

Invasive plants were like all evil things; the only way to ensure that they wouldn't return was to face them head-on, battle it out, and win. Anything else was only a temporary fix. I sighed, thinking of my own life. I was letting the weeds grow all over me. They were threatening my happiness and, in some ways, my life. So why couldn't I face them?

I was learning in rehab that I could no longer allow things to get to me so bad that I tried to fix it with temporary happiness. “Hey,

18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

there are three kinds of people you’re going to meet in the dating world. There are the freeloaders who come in and take everything you give with no expectation of ever having to give anything back to you. There are renters—people who give you something in exchange for something else. They aren’t freeloaders, but they aren’t permanent either. The second the deal isn’t working for them, they’re gone. And then there are buyers. “Buyers are serious. They aren’t flipping houses. They buy into the relationship to stay. They invest in the relationship. They have a stake in it. They see things as permanent or at least that they could turn into permanent. Buyers aren’t in it for some temporary fix. They are about forever.

Mr. Codro's destiny is Ptolemaic; in other words, based on fiction. Ptolemaic says it all; it means above all fixed and unchanging, that is to say different from real life which is by nature changing and temporary. It means: not according to natural truth, but according to man's desire and the pretense inspired by his fear of dying and his desire for permanence.

In a hyper materialist environment where everything is reduced to mere economic considerations, what we deem to be important is often trivial, a temporary fix for deeper and more profound yearnings. This has given rise to what some may describe as a unique pathology common to modern wealthy societies: moral and spiritual emptiness among opulence and material luxury.

The stars in the night sky are a long way from the surface of the earth, so even the nearest seem to move little, if at all. They appear to be fixed against the firmament from day to day and year to year, permitting us to think them into shapes and symbols. But astronomers know that every star is in motion, that each moves along its own trajectory, according to its own properties. The constellations we see are temporary creations, our effort to draw order and meaning from a mostly unknowable universe, to tell ourselves stories, to guide our way home across oceans.

Mass media is the food for our eyes, ears, and minds. When we watch television, read a magazine, watch a film, or play a video game, we are consuming sensory impressions. Many of the images we are exposed to through the media water unwholesome seeds of craving, fear, anger, and violence in our consciousness. The images, sounds, and ideas that are toxic can rob our body and consciousness of their well-being. If you feel anxious, fearful, or depressed, it may be because you have taken in too many toxins through your senses without even knowing it. Be mindful of what you watch, read, and listen to, and protect yourself from the fear, despair, anger, craving, anxiety, or violence they promote. The material goods they promise are only quick, temporary fixes.

His starched blue denim shirt caught my eye only seconds before his equally blue eyes did. “Hello,” he said, smiling. Those eyes. They were fixed on mine, and mine on his, for more seconds than is customary at the very beginning of a first date. My knees--the knees that had turned to rubber bands that night four months earlier in a temporary fit of illogical lust--were once again as firm as cooked spaghetti.

If this is so, why should any man bother about moral rules and regulations? Why should any man conform to laws formulated by a people whose outlook on the universe probably differed diametrically from his own? Why should any man obey a regulation which is denounced, by his common-sense, as a hodge-podge of absurdities, and why should he model his whole life upon ideals invented to serve the temporary needs of a forgotten race of some past age? These questions Nietzsche asked himself. His conclusion was a complete rejection of all fixed codes of morality, and with them of all gods, messiahs, prophets, saints, popes,

As C. S. Lewis observed, “All that is not eternal is eternally useless.” The Bible says, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”12

To go beyond our normal identities and become closer than close is to lose our sense of self in temporary joy: a form of arrival that only opens us to deeper forms of intimacy that blur our fixed, controlling, surface identity.

THE URGENCY ADDICTION Some of us get so used to the adrenaline rush of handling crises that we become dependent on it for a sense of excitement and energy. How does urgency feel? Stressful? Pressured? Tense? Exhausting? Sure. But let’s be honest. It’s also sometimes exhilarating. We feel useful. We feel successful. We feel validated. And we get good at it. Whenever there’s trouble, we ride into town, pull out our six shooter, do the varmint in, blow the smoke off the gun barrel, and ride into the sunset like a hero. It brings instant results and instant gratification. We get a temporary high from solving urgent and important crises. Then when the importance isn’t there, the urgency fix is so powerful we are drawn to do anything urgent, just to stay in motion. People expect us to be busy, overworked. It’s become a status symbol in our society—if we’re busy, we’re important; if we’re not busy, we’re almost embarrassed to admit it. Busyness is where we get our security. It’s validating, popular, and pleasing. It’s also a good excuse for not dealing with the first things in our lives. “I’d love to spend quality time with you, but I have to work. There’s this deadline. It’s urgent. Of course you understand.” “I just don’t have time to exercise. I know it’s important, but there are so many pressing things right now. Maybe when things slow down a little.

Thanks for getting me out of there,” I murmur, lacing my fingers around my knees, and looking up at him on his step. “Yeah. You looked a little green. “ “I don’t handle crowds too well. I’ve always been that way, I guess.” “You might get in trouble,” he warns, staring at me in that strange, hungry way that unravels me. He strokes his bottom lip with a finger. For a flash of a second, his eyes look strange. Different. All glowing irises and thin dark pupils. Almost drake-like. I blink to clear my vision. His eyes are normal again. Just my imagination in overdrive. I’m probably projecting missing home and Az—everything--onto him. “Pep rallies are mandatory,” he continues. “A lot of people saw you leave. Teachers included.” “They saw you leave, too,” I point out. He leans to the side, propping an elbow on one of the steps behind him. “I’m not worried about that. I’ve been in trouble before.” He smiles a crooked grin and holds up crossed fingers. “The principal and I are like this. The guy loves me. Really.” Laughter spills from me, rusty and hoarse. His grin makes me feel good. Free. Like I’m not running from anything. Like I could stay here in this world, if only I have him. The thought unsettles me. Sinks heavily in my chest. Because I can’t have him. Not really. All he can ever be for me is a temporary fix. “But you’re worried I’ll get in trouble?” I try not to show how much this pleases me. I’ve managed to ignore him for days now and here I sit. Lapping up his attention like a neglected puppy. My voice takes on an edge. “Why do you care? I’ve ignored you for days.” His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. “Yeah. You got to stop that.” I swallow back a laugh. “I can’t.” “Why?” There’s no humor in his eyes now, no mockery. “You like me. You want to be with me.” “I never said—” “You didn’t have to.” I inhale sharply. “Don’t do this.” He looks at me so fiercely, so intently. Angry again. “I don’t have friends. Do you see me hang with anyone besides my jerk cousins? That’s for a reason. I keep people away on purpose,” he growls. “But then you came along . . .” I frown and shake my head. His expression softens then , pulls at some part of me. His gaze travels my face, warming the core of me. “Whoever you are, Jacinda, you’re someone I have to let in.

The Air Loom, for all its florid craziness, can be seen to have a function and a rationale: as a miraculous, if temporary, fix for a breaking mind, a coping strategy for a life that had become too brutally contradictory to sustain otherwise.

Yes, Phebe was herself now, and it showed in the change that came over her at the first note of music. No longer shy and silent, no longer the image of a handsome girl, but a blooming woman, alive and full of the eloquence her art gave her, as she laid her hands softly together, fixed her eye on the light, and just poured out her song as simply and joyfully as the lark does soaring toward the sun. "My faith, Alec! that's the sort of voice that wins a man's heart out of his breast!" exclaimed Uncle Mac, wiping his eyes after one of the plaintive ballads that never grow old. "So it would!" answered Dr. Alec, delightedly. "So it has," added Archie to himself; and he was right: for just at that moment he fell in love with Phebe. He actually did, and could fix the time almost to a second: for at a quarter past nine, he thought merely thought her a very charming young person; at twenty minutes past, he considered her the loveliest woman he ever beheld; at five and twenty minutes past, she was an angel singing his soul away; and at half after nine he was a lost man, floating over a delicious sea to that temporary heaven on earth where lovers usually land after the first rapturous plunge. If anyone had mentioned this astonishing fact, nobody would have believed it; nevertheless, it was quite true: and sober, business-like Archie suddenly discovered a fund of romance at the bottom of his hitherto well-conducted heart that amazed him. He was not quite clear what had happened to him at first, and sat about in a dazed sort of way; seeing, hearing, knowing nothing but Phebe: while the unconscious idol found something wanting in the cordial praise so modestly received, because Mr. Archie never said a word.

Every passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating; they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion. It neither abates of its vigor nor changes its object; and the reason why it does not is founded in the nature of things, for wealth has not a rival where avarice is a ruling passion. One beauty may excel another, and extinguish from the mind of man the pictured remembrance of a former one: but wealth is the phoenix of avarice, and therefore it cannot seek a new object, because there is not another in the world.

She leaned forward, and she kissed him. Call it an instinct or a moment of weakness. Call it her bleeding Gryffindor heart that hated to see someone so broken. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was in pain, and it was the only way she could think of to fix it. A band-aid, a temporary remedy, but a remedy nonetheless.

And you can ease up on the worry there, Pretty Boy. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to your sweet girl.” “Uh, you’re still going to give her something she’s deathly allergic to, right?” Fitz asked. Livvy’s smile faded. “Okay, I guess what I should say is that I’m only going to let some temporary bad stuff happen to your sweet girl—and then I’m going to fix it all and make her a thousand times better. So you don’t have to worry, even though I get that you’re all going to. And while we’re being honest here, I’ll tell you what I just told the worrying-adult brigade inside: Moments of this definitely aren’t going to be pretty. So if you don’t want to see that, you might want to skedaddle.

DAY 6 Thinking about My Purpose POINT TO PONDER: This world is not my home. VERSE TO REMEMBER: “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 CORINTHIANS 4:18 (NIV) QUESTION TO CONSIDER: How should the fact that life on earth is just a temporary assignment change the way I am living right now?

Every construction is temporary, including the fire altar. It is not a fixed object, but a vehicle. Once the voyage is complete, the vehicle can be destroyed. Thus the Vedic ritualists did not develop the idea of the temple. If such care was given to constructing a bird, it was to make it fly. What remained on earth was an inert shell of dust, dry mud, and bricks. It could be left behind, like a carcass.

Contrary to what your culture and religion have taught you, nothing—but absolutely nothing of the world—can make you happy. The moment you see that, you will stop moving from one job to another, one friend or lover to another, one place, one spiritual technique, one guru to another. None of these things can give you a single minute of happiness. They can only offer you a temporary thrill, a pleasure, that initially grows in intensity then turns into pain if you lose them and boredom if you keep them.

Everyone knows that a quick-fix usually doesn’t work, yet we have all been sold on the idea time and time again. Most of us would like to believe in miracle drugs and fast relief. The truth is that most of the quick fixes for stress focus on temporary relief from tension or pain. Temporary, as in, the problem will return with a vengeance. This doesn’t mean we should never take drugs to alleviate tension or pain, it just means that taking drugs is not a viable permanent solution; it’s just a temporary relief.

In the Pavlovian strategy, terrorizing force can finally be replaced by a new organization of the means of communication. Ready made opinions can be distributed day by day through press, radio, and so on, again and again, till they reach the nerve cell and implant a fixed pattern of thought in the brain. Consequently, guided public opinion is the result, according to Pavlovlian theoreticians, of a good propaganda technique, and the polls a verification of the temporary successful action of the Pavlovian machinations on the mind.

We all face difficulties, but they should not become our core. We grieve, we suffer, we weep. Challenges are experiences that help us to grow like the winds that help strengthen the roots of the apple trees in the Cider Orchard. Storms are always temporary and should never distract us from the beautiful days that were before or will come after. Do not become so fixed on a single injustice that you can no longer remember others may be suffering near you. Like the healing of the body when it is ill, the healing of the heart requires patience.

We all face difficulties, but they should not become our core. We grieve, we suffer, we weep. Challenges are experiences that help us to grow, like the winds that help strengthen the roots of the apple trees in the Cider Orchard. Storms are always temporary and should never distract us from the beautiful days that were before or will come after. Do not become so fixed on a single injustice that you can no longer remember others may be suffering near you. Like the healing of the body when it is ill, the healing of the heart requires patience.

What the working man sells is not directly his labour, but his labouring power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. this is so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Laws, but certainly by some Continental Laws, the maximum time is fixed for which a man is allowed to sell his labouring power. If allowed to do so for any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example, would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.

The practice is to train in not following the thoughts, not in getting rid of thought altogether. That would be impossible. You may have thought-free moments and, as your meditation practice deepens, longer expanses of time that are thought free, but thoughts always come back. That’s the nature of mind. You don’t have to make thoughts the villain, however. You can just train in interrupting their momentum. The basic instruction is to let the thoughts go—or to label them “thinking”—and stay with the immediacy of your experience. Everything in you will want to do the habitual thing, will want to pursue the story line. The story line is associated with certainty and comfort. It bolsters your very limited, static sense of self and holds out the promise of safety and happiness. But the promise is a false one; any happiness it brings is only temporary. The more you practice not escaping into the fantasy world of your thoughts and instead contacting the felt sense of groundlessness, the more accustomed you’ll become to experiencing emotions as simply sensation—free of concept, free of story line, free of fixed ideas of bad and good.

I opened the front door of my parents’ house the next evening. His starched blue denim shirt caught my eye only seconds before his equally blue eyes did. “Hello,” he said, smiling. Those eyes. They were fixed on mine, and mine on his, for more seconds than is customary at the very beginning of a first date. My knees--the knees that had turned to rubber bands that night four months earlier in a temporary fit of illogical lust--were once again as firm as cooked spaghetti. “Hello,” I answered. I was wearing sleek black pants, a violet V-necked sweater, and spiked black boots--a glaring contrast to the natural, faded denim ensemble he’d chosen. Fashionwise, we were hilariously mismatched. I could sense that he noticed this, too, as my skinny heels obnoxiously clomped along the pavement of my parents’ driveway. We talked through dinner; if I ate, I wasn’t aware of it. We talked about my childhood on the golf course; about his upbringing in the country. About my dad, the doctor; about his dad, the rancher. About my lifelong commitment to ballet; about his lifelong passion for football. About my brother Mike; about his older brother, Todd, who had died when he was a teenager. About Los Angeles and celebrities; cows and agriculture. By the end of the evening, I had no idea what exactly I’d even said. All I knew was, I was riding in a Ford F250 diesel pickup with a cowboy--and there was nowhere else on earth I wanted to be.

It is 1908. The stars shone above in the night sky as a steamship floated among the clouds. It's captain, Captain Otra, looked at his watch. He was ahead of his delivery schedule by 30 minutes to deliver the British Government it's much-needed order of concentrated milk and goat cheese from the shores of New Zealand. He had inherited the business from his wife's father. His wife had passed roughly 5 years ago. His daughter Lux Otra was tinkering for the hundredth time on her grandfather's sky faring compass, taking it apart and putting it back together. Each time she fixed, the compass worked perfectly again. Memorizing these intricate steps would give her a temporary satisfaction but now she couldn't do it anymore. She set the compass down and sighed in frustration.

CLOSE is what we almost always are: close to happiness, close to another, close to leaving, close to tears, close to God, close to losing faith, close to being done, close to saying something, or close to success, and even, with the greatest sense of satisfaction, close to giving the whole thing up. Our human essence lies not in arrival, but in being almost there, we are creatures who are on the way, our journey a series of impending anticipated arrivals. We live by unconsciously measuring the inverse distances of our proximity: an intimacy calibrated by the vulnerability we feel in giving up our sense of separation. To go beyond our normal identities and become closer than close is to lose our sense of self in temporary joy, a form of arrival that only opens us to deeper forms of intimacy that blur our fixed, controlling, surface identity. To consciously become close is a courageous form of unilateral disarmament, a chancing of our arm and our love, a willingness to hazard our affections and an unconscious declaration that we might be equal to the inevitable loss that the vulnerability of being close will bring. Human beings do not find their essence through fulfillment or eventual arrival but by staying close to the way they like to travel, to the way they hold the conversation between the ground on which they stand and the horizon to which they go. What makes the rainbow beautiful, is not the pot of gold at its end, but the arc of its journey between here and there, between now and then, between where we are now and where we want to go, illustrated above our unconscious heads in primary colour. We are in effect, always, close; always close to the ultimate secret: that we are more real in our simple wish to find a way than any destination we could reach: the step between not understanding that and understanding that, is as close as we get to happiness.

Why does it bother me to tell people I have health problems? Doesn’t everybody at some point? I suppose that’s the crux right there. For most people, the difference is in the “some point” part. They have a problem. They go to the doctor. Doctor fixes it. Life moves on. It was a small, annoying inconvenience. For me, and likely for you since you’re reading this, your problem is not so temporary. You’ve got it for life, or until science finds a cure, which for some diseases is as likely as winning the lottery when you haven’t even bought a ticket. So we make people nervous. Nobody wants to have a condition that affects their social outings, work choices, family life, and just general day-to-day stuff. Nobody picks that for what they want to be when they grow up. “Oh teacher!” The kindergartener excitedly raises his hand. “When I grow up, I want to have a chronic illness and have people say how strong and courageous I am for enduring it even though I don’t have any choice in the matter! Woo-hoo.” Instead,

Both men and women of the race were extremely handsome; the former tall and strong, with fine features, curly hair, and a clear bronze complexion. They wore long tunics and turbans, and carried lances, bucklers, or round shields, and large swords slung across their shoulders, the latter, also very tall and well formed, were dressed in becoming bodices with full skirts, a loose mantle enveloping the whole form in graceful drapery. They wore jewels in their ears, and necklaces, bracelets, bangles, and anklets, made of gold, ivory, or shells.   Thousands of oxen paced quietly along with these men, women, old men, and children. They had neither harness nor halter, only bells or red tassels on their heads, and double packs thrown across their backs, which contained wheat and other grains.   A whole tribe journeyed in this manner, under the directions of an elected chief, called the “naik,” whose power is despotic while it lasts. He controls the movements of the caravan, fixes the hours for the start and the halt, and arranges the dispositions of the camp.   I was struck by the magnificent appearance of a large bull, who with superb and imperial step led the van. He was covered with a bright coloured cloth, ornamented with bells and shell embroidery, and I asked Banks if he knew what was the special office of this splendid animal.   “Kâlagani will of course be able to tell us,” answered he. “Where is the fellow?”   He was called, but did not make his appearance, and search being made, it was found he had left Steam House.   “No doubt he has gone to renew acquaintance with some old comrade,” said Colonel Munro. “He will return before we resume our journey.”   This seemed very natural. There was nothing in the temporary absence of the man to occasion uneasiness, but somehow it haunted me uncomfortably.   “Well,” said Banks, “to the best of my belief this bull represents, or is an emblem of, their deity. Where he goes they follow; where he stops, there they encamp; but of course we are to suppose he is in reality under the secret control of the ‘naik.’ Anyhow, he is to these wanderers an embodiment of their religion.”   The cortege seemed interminable, and for two hours there was no sign of an approaching end.

The chorus of criticism culminated in a May 27 White House press conference that had me fielding tough questions on the oil spill for about an hour. I methodically listed everything we'd done since the Deepwater had exploded, and I described the technical intricacies of the various strategies being employed to cap the well. I acknowledged problems with MMS, as well as my own excessive confidence in the ability of companies like BP to safeguard against risk. I announced the formation of a national commission to review the disaster and figure out how such accidents could be prevented in the future, and I reemphasized the need for a long-term response that would make America less reliant on dirty fossil fuels. Reading the transcript now, a decade later, I'm struck by how calm and cogent I sound. Maybe I'm surprised because the transcript doesn't register what I remember feeling at the time or come close to capturing what I really wanted to say before the assembled White House press corps: That MMS wasn't fully equipped to do its job, in large part because for the past thirty years a big chunk of American voters had bought into the Republican idea that government was the problem and that business always knew better, and had elected leaders who made it their mission to gut environmental regulations, starve agency budgets, denigrate civil servants, and allow industrial polluters do whatever the hell they wanted to do. That the government didn't have better technology than BP did to quickly plug the hole because it would be expensive to have such technology on hand, and we Americans didn't like paying higher taxes - especially when it was to prepare for problems that hadn't happened yet. That it was hard to take seriously any criticism from a character like Bobby Jindal, who'd done Big Oil's bidding throughout his career and would go on to support an oil industry lawsuit trying to get a federal court to lift our temporary drilling moratorium; and that if he and other Gulf-elected officials were truly concerned about the well-being of their constituents, they'd be urging their party to stop denying the effects of climate change, since it was precisely the people of the Gulf who were the most likely to lose homes or jobs as a result of rising global temperatures. And that the only way to truly guarantee that we didn't have another catastrophic oil spill in the future was to stop drilling entirely; but that wasn't going to happen because at the end of the day we Americans loved our cheap gas and big cars more than we cared about the environment, except when a complete disaster was staring us in the face; and in the absence of such a disaster, the media rarely covered efforts to shift America off fossil fuels or pass climate legislation, since actually educating the public on long-term energy policy would be boring and bad for ratings; and the one thing I could be certain of was that for all the outrage being expressed at the moment about wetlands and sea turtles and pelicans, what the majority of us were really interested in was having the problem go away, for me to clean up yet one more mess decades in the making with some quick and easy fix, so that we could all go back to our carbon-spewing, energy-wasting ways without having to feel guilty about it. I didn't say any of that. Instead I somberly took responsibility and said it was my job to "get this fixed." Afterward, I scolded my press team, suggesting that if they'd done better work telling the story of everything we were doing to clean up the spill, I wouldn't have had to tap-dance for an hour while getting the crap kicked out of me. My press folks looked wounded. Sitting alone in the Treaty Room later that night, I felt bad about what I had said, knowing I'd misdirected my anger and frustration. It was those damned plumes of oil that I really wanted to curse out.

Place has ceased to be of importance now that power no longer lives at a fixed address. ... Power's location is less important than its velocity through temporary obstacles. The speed of a tank ramming through the baricade of history.

In this era of instant everything, it is unsurprising that music is a choice stress release for hyperactive Americans. Increasing social isolationism and the decline in traditional family life goads anxious Americans to feel a need to zone out in a musical blur, addictively listening to ear splitting music while performing ordinary activities such as walking, doing the laundry, driving a car, waiting at a bus stop, or fixing and eating dinner. A soundless environment is terrifying to Americans. When we listen to music, we receive absolution from our autobiographical history; we take a temporary reprieve from the grind of daily life.

There were in fact bugs," he recalls, "But the essential difference was in the obviousness of bugs, the repeatability of bugs, and potential for fixing bugs oneself. In this environment, bugs were only temporary delays on a steady road towards excellence and stability.

Military ferocity is not a fixed quality of any race or culture, but a temporary condition that usually bears the seeds of it own destruction. FRONTIERS

Everything in you will want to do the habitual thing, will want to pursue the story line. The story line is associated with certainty and comfort. It bolsters your very limited, static sense of self and holds out the promise of safety and happiness. But the promise is a false one; any happiness it brings is only temporary. The more you practice not escaping into the fantasy world of your thoughts and instead contacting the felt sense of groundlessness, the more accustomed you’ll become to experiencing emotions as simply sensation—free of concept, free of story line, free of fixed ideas of bad and good.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death. We suffer, not because we are basically bad or deserve to be punished, but because of three tragic misunderstandings. First, we expect that what is always changing should be graspable and predictable. We are born with a craving for resolution and security that governs our thoughts, words, and actions. We are like people in a boat that is falling apart, trying to hold on to the water. The dynamic, energetic, and natural flow of the universe is not acceptable to conventional mind. Our prejudices and addictions are patterns that arise from the fear of a fluid world. Because we mistakenly take what is always changing to be permanent, we suffer. Second, we proceed as if we were separate from everything else, as if we were a fixed identity, when our true situation is egoless. We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer. Third, we look for happiness in all the wrong places. The Buddha called this habit “mistaking suffering for happiness,” like a moth flying into the flame. As we know, moths are not the only ones who will destroy themselves in order to find temporary relief. In terms of how we seek happiness, we are all like the alcoholic who drinks to stop the depression that escalates with every drink, or the junkie who shoots up in order to get relief from the suffering that increases with every fix.

No one deserves to be a temporary fix, no one deserves to be the rebound, no one deserves to come second. No one deserves to be treated less than, no one deserves to be treated unfairly, no one deserves to be treated badly. No one should be bad in love, no one should be selfish in love, no one should be abusive in love

He was thinking of politicians too greedy or blind to know what they were doing, white collar sharpies who had swindled the life’s savings from thousands of investors, mothers and fathers too stupid to know you shouldn’t beat your children to death. What happened to these people and to the millions of screw-ups, evil screw-ups, in human society? Were all truly equal, duplicated a million times, or did the noocytes exercise a little judgment? Did they quietly delete a few personalities, edit them out … or alter them? And if the noocytes took the liberty of altering the real screw-ups, perhaps fixing them or immobilizing them some way, going into their thought processes and using a kind of grand consensus of right thinking as a pattern for corrections Then who was to say they weren’t altering others, people with minor problems, people with all the complexes of little screw-ups and errors and temporary nastiness … things all humans have.

MONKEY MIND MONK MIND Overwhelmed by multiple branches Focused on the root of the issue Coasts in the passenger seat Lives intentionally and consciously Complains, compares, criticizes Compassionate, caring, collaborative Overthinks and procrastinates Analyzes and articulates Distracted by small things Disciplined Short-term gratification Long-term gain Demanding and entitled Enthusiastic, determined, patient Changes on a whim Commits to a mission, vision, or goal Amplifies negatives and fears Works on breaking down negatives and fears Self-centered and obsessed Self-care for service Multitasking Single-tasking Controlled by anger, worry, and fear Controls and engages energy wisely Does whatever feels good Seeks self-control and mastery Looks for pleasure Looks for meaning Looks for temporary fixes Looks for genuine solutions

In a Car Crash Just Relax! If you are involved in a car crash you should use the services of MVAA. They will take care of all the necessary formalities for you and even provide you with a replacement car. Yes, that's true. The accident management solutions offered by them include Taking care of insurance claims Finding a replacement car for the time being Getting your damaged car fixed Located in Melbourne with over 12 years of experience, an expert team of legal staff and access to a skilled force of technicians they can have you back on the road in no time. They have more than 30000 settled claims with a success rate of over 98 percent to their name, you can have free estimates just call them or go online discuss your situation with them and get a quote from them , then just relax ! They are a one stop shop for multiple jobs, and you do not have to do any paperwork they will take care of everything for you. The claims, consultation and compensation process is done at a no win no fee cost. Their specialist legal experts will guide you at each step and ensure that your rights are respected and you do not have to suffer any post-accident hassle, at an astonishing pace. They will find a replacement vehicle for you that will try to match the life style you were enjoying with your own car that you crashed so that the change in your daily life is minimal even if temporary. Auto insurance claims are also settled here and we know the bureaucracy of paperwork associated with that but you do have to go through that, it will be taken care of by them. Last but not the least “Panel Beating”, you do not want to part with your old car, it always has a significant emotional value for you. MVAA has a pool of 5 star rated body shops lined up to have your vehicle fixed in no time they will have it up and running back in your hands. These body shops employ outstanding and professional workmanship. You will have your car back in your hands as good as new in no time. They are a multiple services one provider service, you should look no further, if you are in a car collision and it’s not your fault they should be the one you call with all the details and they will guide you with the due process to follow and you can go back to your regular life activities that you have to take care of, and they are conveniently located in one the largest Australian cities of Melbourne. Call them 1300 682 200 or visit their website for all your needs today!

As you're listening, watch. As your preschooler cries for his beloved plastic blue spoon ("No, Mom, not the yellow one!") or you hear the beginnings of a long night via the static of the baby monitor, look through these windows of grace with the eyes of your heart. See evidence of God's grace to give and sustain life in our fallen world. Believe God is with you in your good work of mothering. I know this is difficult and often painful work. But since "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18), then let's not fix our eyes on these temporary pains but on Christ. Respond to God's calls to worship throughout your days and nights, serving and nurturing helpless little ones and worshiping the author of life.

The manufacturer always knows how to fix the mess, even with the most complex problems. He never uses shortcuts, cheap fixes, or temporary solutions that cause more problems in the long run; he gets to the root of things and addresses them at their core. In the same way, if we were designed, then our manufacturer understands us entirely, and is able to address and heal every single one of our vast array of intimate complexities. If God is who He says He is, the Bible is the instruction manual for the human race, and He is the manufacturer.

You have to be willing to be surpassed, to become dated, to be wrong, if you want to contribute to something, if you want to inspire anyone. You have to be okay with the fact that your role is temporary, that your convictions are temporary and will most likely change, and that when they do, the old you will be… embarrassing. You won’t always be the hero, but that’s the magic of trying to be one. If you’re not gonna be surpassed, it means there will be no progress after you; no one walked the path you walked on, which means your contribution wasn’t that meaningful. So… I just want to do meaningful things, even if they’re incomplete. That’s all. If someone cares enough to see where I went wrong and fixes this and continues from where I stopped, I’ll be honored.

I finally realized who really ran the show at home; my mom. I just didn't realize how toxic it was until I saw him crumble under her will and joined forces with her when I was violated. I had no idea at the time what this kind of dysfunction was, but I knew it was wrong and unfair treatment. My dad was a decent hard-working man who found himself caught in a web of an extremely controlling wife he loved but who emasculated him. He found her difficult to live with, and so the best way he could try to keep peace in the marriage was to play the role of “go along to get along”. That grew into a whole different branch of coping mechanism; enabling.  Mom was the boss and he accepted it by withdrawing and avoiding the big elephant in the family. His little girl, his only girl, his “little shadow” no longer was his priority; pleasing mom at all cost was the main vein that fed his insufficiency to step into his authority as the head of the home. As time passed, I witnessed repeatedly, that his needs were not a priority and he accepted my mom's behavior no matter how it infected us or the atmosphere of the home. He did all this just to keep her pleased and so he didn't have to hear the constant bickering, even though it was a temporary fix.

I read all morning". The simple words spoke of the purest and most rewarding kind of leisure. The Buddha had placed no value on prayer or belief in a deity, he had not spoken of creation, original sin or the last judgement. The quality of all human experience depends on the mind and so the Buddha had been concerned with analyzing and transforming the individual mind. India's intellectual backwardness, her inability to deal rationally with her past, which seemed no less damaging than her economic and political underdevelopment. With its literary and philosophical traditions, China was well equipped to absorb and disseminate Buddhism. The Chinese eagerness to distribute Buddhist texts was what gave birth to both paper and printing. There are places on which history has worked for too long and neither the future nor the past can be seen clearly in their ruins or emptiness. In the agrarian society of the past, the Brahminic inspired human hierarchy had proposed itself as a complete explanation not only for what human beings did but also what they were. So, for instance, a Brahmin was not just a priest because he performed rituals; he was innately blessed with virtue, learning and wisdom. A servant wasn't just someone who performed menial tasks, his very essence was poverty and weakness. Meditation was one of the methods used to gain control over one's emotions and passions. Sitting still in a secluded place, the yogi attempted to disengage his perennially distracted mind and force it to dwell upon itself. The discipline of meditation steadily equips the individual with a new sensibility. It shows him how the craving for things that are transient, essence-less and flawed leads to suffering. Regular meditation turns this new way of looking into a habit. it detaches the individual from the temptations of the world and fixes him in a state of profound calm. Mere faith in what the guru says isn't enough and you have to realize and verify it through your own experience. The mind determines the way we experience the world, the way in which we make it our world. The ego seeks to gratify and protect itself through desires. But the desires create friction when they collide with the ever-changing larger environment. They lead only to more desires and more dissatisfaction. How human beings desiring happiness and stability were undermined slowly, over the course of their lives, by the inconstancy of their hearts and the intermittence of their emotions. Buddhism in America could be seen to meet every local need. It had begun as a rational religion which found few takers in America before being transformed again, during the heady days of the 1960s, through the mysticism of Zen, into a popular substitute for, or accessory to, psychotherapy and drugs. It was probably true that greed, hatred and delusion, the source of all suffering, are also the source of life and its pleasures, however temporary and that to vanquish them may be to face a nothingness that is more terrifying than liberating. Nevertheless, the effort to control them seemed to me worth making.

There’s nothing worse than watching something happen to the person you love most in the world and knowing there’s nothing you can do to fix it.

There is serious need for a new principle of effective administration under which every act, every agency, and every program of government is conceived as temporary and as expiring automatically after a fixed number of years—maybe ten—unless specifically prolonged

Until you light one side, a candle has the potential to burn at both ends. The tragedy for me at the time was it was getting harder to it hold with both ends lit. I decided that pleasing people was a form of abusing myself. Like most of my temporary lovers, the longer I loved someone who didn’t love me, the longer I delayed meeting who or what I should love and will love me. If I went back in time to fix all the mistakes I made, I would need to erase myself. I was proud of what I had built, but recognized it needed an upgrade. This trip gave me a lot of time to think.

The crisis of American evangelicalism comes down to an obsession with that worldly identity. Instead of fixing our eyes on the unseen, “since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal,” as Paul writes in Second Corinthians, we have become fixated on the here and now. Instead of seeing ourselves as exiles in a metaphorical Babylon, the way Peter describes the first-century Christians living in Rome, we have embraced our imperial citizenship. Instead of fleeing the temptation to rule all the world, like Jesus did, we have made deals with the devil. Why? Or as my wife might ask: What the hell is wrong with us? In

How could I fool myself and say I don’t have an addictive personality while lying on your floor for the third time this week, waiting for you to kiss me? I sit at home, reluctant in my own company, itching for a fix of your regards even if it’s only temporary.

There seems no reason why a Textile industry on the grand scale should be a success in Palestine, with labour paid at the rates fixed by the General Federation of Jewish Labour, while the mills of Japan and of Bombay, equipped with the most modern machinery, and employing the cheapest of labour, are unable to find sufficient markets for their goods. From the point of view of those whose ardent desire it is to import Jews from Poland and Russia and the Yemen into Palestine in large numbers, and whose object is gained when the immigrant has arrived in Palestine, it may be sufficient that temporary employment is assured. But the Government is responsible not only for the present, while the imported capital is supporting the new population, but for the future, when spending of the imported capital will be at an end and the immigrant will have to live on employment, which will then be dependent on the success of the mill in competition with the mills of the world.

Reading has become my new relaxation technique. It helps me forget about everything, just for a few hours, and gives me a break from reality. It is a temporary fix, but it does the trick.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Hey! I have a temporary fix. Come to semi-formal with me this weekend.” I’m pretty sure I look at her as if she just sprouted a dick on her face because she instantly clarifies.

In the befogging pain of grief, we are able to see only part of the message, and as a result, death often seems like the ultimate insult. It appears to be the final indignity that makes a mockery of our faith. But when the fog of grief begins to clear even just a little—when at last we are able to perceive the whole truth—it becomes obvious that death is a defeated enemy, one that God uses for His eternal purposes until He ultimately destroys it: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. —2 Corinthians 4:16–18

Icy fingers walked down my spine, and I realized I was trembling. I wanted this to stop. Wanted Jas to stop before he made this whole situation a million times worse, but I couldn’t speak.

Was it really just an hour ago that he’d licked me into nirvana at the top of the hill? We’d been buying condoms and planning an afternoon of hot sex, and now we were on a witch-hunt. Seeking retribution. Out for blood.

His mother was as frosty as the polar icecaps. His sister was gone. Who did he have that cared about him? Who would remind him that he mattered?

He would only be here one more night. And then back on deployment, whispered the dark part of my soul. He might never come back. You might be the last woman he ever has.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18, NIV).

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. —2 CORINTHIANS 4:18

My involvement, from my very first days in Haiti, caused me to rethink the common practice of American groups coming in and building, or supporting, orphanages without truly understanding the situation in Haiti. Especially since the plague of unemployment is so huge that it is believed 80 percent of all orphans end up in orphanages as a result of poverty. These “poverty orphans” are brought to orphanages mostly because their parents are unable to pay for food and school. Normally, American orphanages, or American-supported orphanages, pay for schooling for the children as well as for food, so to struggling parents these institutions look like the best and only option. However, with as many as 80 percent of orphans having a living parent, the rage to come to Haiti and build orphanages for these children seemed both broken and incongruous. I realized that often what America thinks is the best for children is sometimes just a quick fix, a temporary Band-Aid that may ultimately exacerbate the situation. I knew there had to be a better way.

We all face difficulties, but they should not become our core. We grieve, we suffer, we weep. Challenges are experiences that help us to grow, like the winds that help strengthen the roots of the apple trees in the Cider Orchard. Storms are always temporary and should never distract us from the beautiful days that were before or will come after. Do not become so fixed on a single injustice that you can no longer remember others may be suffering near you. Like the healing of the body when it is ill, the healing of the heart requires patience. —Richard Syon, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV) What does Scripture mean when it tells us to fix our eyes on what we can’t even see? How do we begin to do that? Even though as Christians we affirm the reality of the spiritual realm, sometimes we succumb to naturalistic assumptions that what we see is real and what we don’t see isn’t. Many people conclude that God can’t be real, because we can’t see Him. And Heaven can’t be real, because we can’t see it. But we must recognize our blindness. The blind must take by faith that there are stars in the sky. If they depend on their ability to see, they will conclude there are no stars. Sitting here in what C. S. Lewis called the Shadowlands, we must remind ourselves what Scripture tells us about Heaven. We will one day be delivered from the blindness that obscures the light of God’s world. For many people—including many believers—Heaven is a mysterious word describing a place that we can’t understand and therefore don’t look forward to. But Scripture tells us differently. What we otherwise could not have known about Heaven, God says He has revealed to us through His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10). God tells us about our eternal home in His Word, not so we can shrug our shoulders and remain ignorant, but because He wants us to anticipate what awaits us and those we love, and because it has the power to transform the way we live today. Life on earth matters not because it’s the only life we have, but precisely because it isn’t—it’s the beginning of a life that will continue without end. It’s the precursor of life on the New Earth. Eternal life doesn’t begin when we die; it has already begun. With eternity in view, nearly any honest activity—whether building a shed, driving a bus, pruning trees, changing diapers or caring for a patient—can be an investment in God’s kingdom. God is eternal. His Place is eternal. His Word is eternal. His people are eternal. Center your life around God, His Place, His Word, and His people, and reach out to those eternal souls who desperately long for His person and His place. Then no matter what you do for a living, your days here will make a profound difference for eternity—and you will be fulfilling the biblical admonition to fix your eyes on what is unseen.     This book includes 60 daily devotionals on a variety of topics related to living each day purposefully with an eternal perspective. (My thanks to Stephanie Anderson for compiling things I’ve written and quotations I’ve collected.) I hope they will encourage you to live with eternity in mind as you follow Jesus with all your heart.   —Randy Alcorn

There is only a temporary fix, but the permanent solution=Jesus.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Generally, the conditioned soul is mad because he is always engaged in activities that are the causes of bondage and suffering.” The spirit soul in his original condition is joyful, blissful, eternal and full of knowledge. Only by his implication in material activities has he become miserable, temporary and full of ignorance. This is due to vikarma. Vikarma means “actions which should not be done.” Therefore, we must practice sādhana-bhakti – which means to offer maṅgala-ārati (Deity worship) in the morning, to refrain from certain material activities, to offer obeisances to the spiritual master and to follow many other rules and regulations that will be discussed here one after another. These practices will help one become cured of madness. As a man’s mental disease is cured by the directions of a psychiatrist, so this sādhana-bhakti cures the conditioned soul of his madness under the spell of māyā, material illusion. Nārada Muni mentions this sādhana-bhakti in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Seventh Canto, first chapter, verse 32. He says there to King Yudhiṣṭhira, “My dear King, one has to fix his mind on Kṛṣṇa by any means.” That is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Shelby, you should run for your life, I’m not kidding. I’ve never been reliable where women are concerned. And I’m not real well fixed with brakes, either. God, I really don’t want to hurt you.” “Are you trying to scare me again, Luke?” “Yeah, I’m trying to scare you. Warn you. Use your head, Shelby. You’re young, you’re sweet, and I’m just an irresponsible, horny bastard. You’d be making a mistake, getting mixed up with me.” She traced his ear with a finger. “Well, Luke, I’m already a little mixed up with you. And you got yourself mixed up with me.” “Shelby, I’m temporary at best. I’m not staying here.” “Me, neither. Is that it?” He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve been known to run through women like sharks run through scuba divers. I wouldn’t be good for you.” “Are you sleeping with a lot of women right now?” she asked him. He hadn’t been with a woman in so long, he had a hard time remembering the last one. That fact alone made him even more vulnerable to Shelby’s incredibly seductive charm. “There has been only one woman on my mind. My brain is like a frickin’ missile and if you don’t move out of the target, I’m afraid I’m going to end up doing some things you might hate me for later. And then your Uncle Walt is going to shoot me.” It only made her chuckle. “Do you always warn your women not to get involved with you before you swoop down and devour them?” “Never. That could keep me from getting laid. But I worry about you. You need to fall in love, I can smell it on you. And I don’t fall in love. I don’t put down roots and I don’t make commitments.” “You know something, Luke?” she asked, smiling. “I think maybe you’re more worried you might fall in love with me than the other way around.” “See, you shouldn’t think like that—” “I just said maybe. It’s not like I expect it.” “You don’t?” “I’m going to travel and go to school. You’re going to fix up your cabins and sell them. You’ve been very clear. You’ve warned me a hundred times. And now, I’m just warning you.” “You want a fling? With a guy like me? Who’s too old for you?” She just laughed and he wanted to shake her. “You are pretty old,” she said. “Pretty soon, all these long warnings won’t even be necessary.” She tilted her head back and laughed. His

We could talk about it.” “Talk about what?” “Why you look like someone shot your dog. Shelby, I assume.” “Nah,” Luke said, taking a drink. “That’s not serious.” “I guess that has nothing to do with your sleeplessness or your mood then. Trouble with the cabins? The town? Your tenant/helper?” “Aiden, there’s nothing bothering me, except maybe that I’ve been working my ass off for three months getting a house and six cabins rebuilt and furnished.” Aiden took a sip of his drink. “Twenty-five, so Sean and Mom say. And gorgeous.” “Sean’s an idiot who can’t mind his own business. She’s just a girl.” “She’s just a girl who has you looking a little uptight.” “Thanks,” he said, standing. “You don’t look that great yourself—I’m going to bed.” He threw back the rest of his drink. “Nah, don’t,” Aiden said. “Fix another one. Give me ten minutes, huh? I can just ask a couple of questions, right? I’m not like Sean, I’m not going to get up your ass about this. But you haven’t talked about it much and I’m a little curious.” Luke thought about that for a second and against his better judgment, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a short shot. He went back and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees. “What?” he asked abruptly. Aiden chuckled. “Okay. Relax. Just a girl? Not serious?” “That’s right. A town girl, sort of. She’s visiting her family and she’ll be leaving pretty soon.” “Ah—I didn’t know that. I guess I thought she lived there.” “Long visit,” Luke said. “Her mother died last spring. She’s spending a few months with her uncle until she gets on with things—like where she wants to live. College and travel and stuff. This is temporary, that’s all.” “But—if you felt serious, there isn’t any reason you wouldn’t let it…you know…evolve…?” “I don’t feel serious,” he said, his mouth in a firm line. “Okay, I get that. Does she? Feel serious?” “She has plans. I didn’t trap her, Aiden. I made sure she knew—I’m not interested in being a family man. I told her she could do better, I’m just not built that way. But when I’m with a woman, I know how to treat her right. If she needed something permanent, she was in the wrong place. That’s how it is.” “Never?” “What do you mean, never? No one in this family is interested in that.” “Bullshit. I am. Sean says he’s having too much fun, but the truth is he has the attention span of a cabbage. But me? I’d like a wife, a family.” “Didn’t you already try that once?” Luke asked, sitting back in his chair, relaxing a little bit since the attention had shifted to Aiden’s life. “Oh, yeah—I tried hard. Next time I try, I’m going to see if I can find a woman who’s not certifiable and off her meds.” He grinned. “Really, that’s what happens when you ignore all the symptoms because she’s such a friggin’ miracle in bed, it causes brain damage.” He shrugged. “I’m on the lookout for that.” Luke grinned. “She was hot.” “Oh, yeah.” “She was worse than nuts.” “Nightmare nuts,” Aiden agreed.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV)

Being a football fan entitles us to a temporary, recurring retreat, a short holiday from real existence. Our lives can be in chaos and nothing seem fixed. Nothing except how we feel on a Saturday at 3pm, when we are elevated into blissful and infuriating distraction. What a privilege that is.

First, nothing is as permanent as a temporary fix.