The Hand I Was Dealt Quotes

You look lousy,' he said. Jace blinked. 'Seems an odd time to start an insult contest, but if you insist, I could probably think up something good.' 'No I mean it. You don't look good.' 'This is from a guy ho has all the sex appeal of a penguin. Look, I realize you may be jealous that the good Lord didn't deal you the same chiseled hand he dealt me, but that's no reason to-' 'I am not trying to insult you.' Simon snapped.

respect the hand that I was dealt. And to be grateful I was even dealt a hand.

Fang snorted in disbelief. "On one hand, we have a mythical nice family that wants to adopt me. On the other, we have a gang of insane scientists desperate to do genetic experiments on innocent children. Guess which hand I get dealt?

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.

I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with the heart they are given and the hand they are dealt. Our best is all we can do, and all we can hold on to is each other.

I suspect that God’s plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we’re dealt.

When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves,” he said. “Your whole world ceases to exist and you’re nothing but a shell of the person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it in her way, me in mine, and you in yours.” He lifted his hand off John’s gravestone and rose. “Your mom hates the world, I avoid it, and you try to save it.

What do you think I’m trying to do? Not my fault I was dealt a shitty hand.” “No, the deal is never anyone’s fault. But you control the way you play.

But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons.

Well, yes, ma'am, I do... I mean, I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen or, who I'm gonna meet, where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count.

I got schooled this year. By everyone. By my little brother... by The Avett Brothers... by my mother, my best friend, my teacher, my father, and by a boy. a boy that I'm seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with... I got so schooled this year. By a nine-year-old. He taught me that it's okay to live life a little backwards. And how to laugh At what you would think is un-laughable. I got schooled this year By a Band! They taught me how to find that feeling of feeling again. They taught me how to decide what to be And go be it. I got schooled this year. By a cancer patient. She taught me so much. She's still teaching me so much. She taught me to question. To never regret. She taught me to push my boundaries, Because that's what they're there for. She told me to find a balance between head and heart And then she taught me how... I got schooled this year By a Foster Kid She taught me to respect the hand that I was dealt. And to be grateful I was even dealt a hand. She taught me that family Doesn't have to be blood. Sometimes your family are your friends. I got schooled this year By my teacher He taught me That the points are not the point, The point is poetry... I got schooled this year By my father. He taught me that hero's aren't always invincible And that the magic is within me.. I got schooled this year by a Boy. a boy that I'm seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with. And he taught me the most important thing of all... To put the emphasis On life.

I can't bury another friend." "You won't." "If anything ever happened to you, Rowan-" "Don't" he breathed. "Don't even say it. We dealt with that enough the other night." He lifted a hand - hesitated, and then brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. His callused fingers scrapped against her cheekbone, then caressed the shell of her ear. It was foolish to even start down that road, when every other man she'd let in had left some wound, in one way or another, accidentally or not. There was nothing tender in his face. Only a predator's glittering gaze. "When we get back," he said, "remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head." She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?" He gave her a sly smile that made thinking impossible. Exactly what he wanted - to distract her from the horrors of tomorrow. "I'll even let you decide how I tell you: with words"- his eyes flickered once to her mouth- "or with my teeth and tongue.

Life will deal me many different hands, some good, some bad (maybe they've already been dealt), but from here on in, I'll be turning my own cards. —Alton Richard

At LeakyCon, a young lady asked me how I dealt with bullying. I wasn’t able to give her a very good answer, which troubles me. Well, there were lots of shouts of “It gets better” and “Stay strong” and “We love you”. But when I put myself back in time to when I was being bullied, none of those things would’ve helped me. Yes, absolutely it does get better. But when you are being physically and psychologically tortured, it is difficult to remove yourself from the pressingness of the moment at hand. Here’s how I dealt with bullying: I cried, I hated myself, I hated my life. I didn’t deal with it, I survived it, but I never dealt with it. So here are two tips from someone with lots of experience. 1: It’s not about you, it has nothing to do with you, it’s about the assholes doing it to you. 2: Your job is not to deal with it, your job is to survive it, which you CAN do because it WILL end. And then yes, it will get better.

As far as I can see, in this world, you’re a fool for not using whatever gifts you’re given. It’s not as though you lied or cheated or stole to get Howard Marlowe as your father. That’s who he is; that’s who you are. You got dealt a bad card when you were bitten—so use one of the better cards you have in your hand to make up for it.

I think I’m going to skip all of my classes today because I need a “me” day. The problem with “me” days is that I need them four times a week. The problem with me is that I’m very smart and very capable (or so I’ve been told) but my laziness hinders me. Laziness. They forgot to add procrastination, self-destruction, and the inability to leave my bed to the list. The problem with me is that I’ve dealt with this before but have no idea what to do next. I should email my past teachers and ask them what I did after I sent them messages excusing my week-long absences from class due to “personal reasons.” I should stop scratching my hand in case my mom asks me if I’m okay again. I am okay. I am doing fine. But I have an itch that I cannot place, an itch that changes locations when my fingers find it. The problem with me is that I will focus on it completely until it goes away. The problem with this feeling is that it never goes away. It has always been one large itch that I cannot place.

In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I’ve done work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught. But I’ve often been invited by universities to speak on mathematical linguistics at mathematics seminars and colloquia. No one has ever asked me whether I have the appropriate credentials to speak on these subjects; the mathematicians couldn’t care less. What they want to know is what I have to say. No one has ever objected to my right to speak, asking whether I have a doctor’s degree in mathematics, or whether I have taken advanced courses in the subject. That would never have entered their minds. They want to know whether I am right or wrong, whether the subject is interesting or not, whether better approaches are possible… the discussion dealt with the subject, not with my right to discuss it. But on the other hand, in discussion or debate concerning social issues or American foreign policy…. The issue is constantly raised, often with considerable venom. I’ve repeatedly been challenged on grounds of credentials, or asked, what special training do I have that entitles you to speak on these matters. The assumption is that people like me, who are outsiders from a professional viewpoint, are not entitled to speak on such things. Compare mathematics and the political sciences… it’s quite striking. In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials, particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for credentials, and the greater is the concern for content.

For Isildur would not surrender it to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin night at hand... But Isildur refused this counsel, saying: 'This I will have as weregild for my father's death, and my brother's. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?' And the Ring that he held seemed to him exceedingly fair to look on; and he would not suffer it to be destroyed.

I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with their heart they are given and the hand they are dealt.

I said before, that I have learnt much by guiding others. In the first place I see that all souls have more or less the same battles to fight, and on the other hand, that one soul differs widely from another, so each must be dealt with differently.

But all that's hugely unlikely -- with the exception of mosquito bites and sunburn. And yet even experienced travelers are still afraid. "What everyone forgets -- even me -- is the people who actually live here. In places like Central America, I mean. Southeast Asia. India. Africa. Millions, even billions, of people, who live out their whole lives in these places -- the places so many people like us fear. Think about it: they ride chicken buses to work every day. Their clothes are always damp. Their whole lives, they never escape the dust and the heat. But they deal with all these discomforts. They have to. "So why can't travelers? If we've got the means to get here, we owe it to the country we're visiting not to treat it like an amusement park, sanitized for our comfort. It's insulting to the people who live here. People just trying to have the best lives they can, with the hands they've been dealt.

It’s to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It’s what lovers trust each other with. Knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Every other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy ... we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around, to friends and family with a momentary sense of indecency perhaps, to strangers without hesitation. Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What’s left? What else is there that hasn’t been dealt out like a pack of cards? Carnal knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that. Having that is being rich, you can be generous about what’s shared – she walks, she talks, she laughs, she lends a sympathetic ear, she kicks off her shoes and dances on the tables, she’s everybody’s and it don’t mean a thing, let them eat cake; knowledge is something else, the undealt card, and while it’s held it makes you free-and-easy and nice to know, and when it’s gone everything is pain. Every single thing. Every object that meets the eye, a pencil, a tangerine, a travel poster. As if the physical world has been wired up to pass a current back to the part of your brain where imagination glows like a filament in a lobe no bigger than a torch bulb. Pain.

The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep. They could see how love might control you, from your head to your toes, not to mention every single part of you in between. A woman could want a man so much she might vomit in the kitchen sink or cry so fiercly blood would form in the corners of her eyes. She put her hand to her throat as though someone were strangling her, but really she was choking on all that love she thought she’d needed so badly. What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for it’s sake. She refused to believe in superstition, she wouldn’t; yet it was claiming her. Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene. After all I’ve done for you is lodged somewhere in her brain, and far worse, it’s in her heart as well. She was bad luck, ill-fated and unfortunate as the plague. She is not worth his devotion. She wishes he would evaporate into thin air. Maybe then she wouldn’t have this feeling deep inside, a feeling she can deny all she wants, but that won’t stop it from being desire. Love is worth the sum of itself and nothing more. But that’s what happens when you’re a liar, especially when you’re telling the worst of these lies to yourself. He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything so badly. It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None if it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop. What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She’d have to feel so much, and she’s not that kind. The greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself. She preferred cats to human beings and turned down every offer from the men who fell in love with her. They told her how sticks and stones could break bones, but taunting and name-calling were only for fools. — & now here she is, all used up. Although she’d never believe it, those lines in *’s face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she’s gone through and what she’s survived and who exactly she is, deep inside. She’s gotten back some of what she’s lost. Attraction, she now understands, is a state of mind. If there’s one thing * is now certain of, it’s house you can amaze yourself by the things you’re willing to do. You really don’t know? That heart-attack thing you’ve been having? It’s love, that’s what it feels like. She knows now that when you don’t lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that’s one recipe that can’t be tampered with. Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life.

No longer was I consumed by being a prisoner in my mind. I was not willing to give in to the cards I was dealt. I took my power back and I had control of the cards, and as I held the cards in my hand, I shuffled them to my liking. I knew I wasn’t always going have the best hand every single time, but I knew I had the power to shuffle when I needed to reexamine my hand.

No, I mean it. You don't look good." "This from a guy who has all the sex appeal of a penguin. Look I realize you may be jealous that the good Lord didn't deal you the same chiseled hand he dealt me, but that's no reason to-

The truth is, I’ve never been a big believer in destiny. I worry that it encourages resignation in the down-and-out and complacency among the powerful. I suspect that God’s plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we’re dealt.

It’s really a rather simple thing to bring balance to my anger. All I need to do is remember that the ‘hand of cards’ that have been dealt to me pale in comparison to the ‘deck of cards’ that I’ve thrown at others.

Brother—” “I thought we’d already decided we weren’t that, either.” Grabbing his shoulder, I stopped him before he could reach the door. “Look, I’m sorry! I’m sorry I did this to you.” He turned to look at me, his brow raised high. “You’re sorry. So, what . . . we go back to being cool again?” “I don’t know, man. But we can’t do this.” “And why can’t we? You couldn’t stand to let me have one normal day with her. Have I done anything to you since she and I broke up?” He paused, but I didn’t respond. “No. I haven’t. You dealt with it by being an ass, so let me deal with this my way. And my way doesn’t include acting like you didn’t steal my girl from me.” “I didn’t steal Harper!” He opened the door and took a step outside, his shaking hand gripping the outer knob. When he looked back at me, his eyes were flat and lifeless. “You stole my entire world.

Would I ever have the courage to tell Wills the truth? That he wasn't just imagining the world was a more difficult place for him to understand than for some of his buddies - that it was, in fact, more difficult for him. That he'd been dealt a rotten hand in that regard, but only in that one regard. Because I wouldn't change one freckle, one misunderstood moment, one tiny piece of him for anything in the world. I would change myself. I would change the things other people said or thought out of ignorance or fear. I would change so many things, but I would absolutely never, in a million years, change him.

It could not be that a free citizen of New-York, who had wronged no man, nor violated any law, should be dealt with thus inhumanly. The more I contemplated my situation, however, the more I became confirmed in my suspicions. It was a desolate thought, indeed. I felt there was no trust or mercy in unfeeling man; and commending myself to the God of the oppressed, bowed my head upon my fettered hands, and wept most bitterly.

Unwilling to play the hand that is dealt [to] him, the borderline keeps folding every time, losing his ante, waiting to be dealt four aces. If he cannot be assured of winning, he won't play out the hand. Improvement comes when he learns to accept the hand for what it is, and recognize that, skillfully played, he can still win.

In the end, the world didn't owe me anything, not even half a chance. That was the hand I'd been dealt in life, and while detachment was enough for me to withstand hatred, extricating myself from the jaws of suffering called for enough detachment to exercise cruelty.

I've been thrown into a turbulent triangle, but even though I have deep feelings for Shiray doesn't mean my feelings will disappear for Melanie immediately. Fate has really dealt me a cruel hand of cards.

I gave you too much power because I always yearned for your love, but I guess the love card wasn’t meant for me to have in my life. I always thought I was dealt a bad hand because that card never appeared in the deck.

Early in my career I had learned the wisdom of not gripping over the hand I was dealt. I had a mentor who taught me lessons about business and life that served me for years. He looked at business the way a grand master might look at a chessboard. There’s nothing you can do about where the pieces are. It’s only your next move that matters.

Bad things don't happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn't work that way. It's just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we're dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there's a purpose to the journey we're on. I grabbed his hands in mine for a second and then let go so that I could continue. And try to believe that maybe more light shines out of those who have the most cracks.

I think you’re doing the best you can with the shit hand life dealt you. Just like the rest of us.

I can’t change the cards I’ve been dealt, but I can change the way I approach my hand.

I wished that things had been different, but it was what it was. Sometimes you have to look at the hand you’ve been dealt and throw in

Release my horse!" I ordered, infuriated with him and wary of both the large, energetic beast and its rider. "No," Steldor snapped. "You're coming back with me." Gripping my reins, he permitted his stallion to move forward in the direction of the city, my mount obediently following. Unwilling to give in to him, I slid from my horse's back. "I don't think I will return just yet, Your Majesty." With an exasperated sigh, he dismounted and strode toward me.As he did, he took in my preposterous appearance. "What are you doing?" he demanded, stopping in his tracks. "You're out in the middle of nowhere, by yourself, dressed like a man and riding your father's horse! Have you gone mad, woman?" He continued to scrutinize me, and his incredulity transformed itself into a frown. "And just where did you get the belt and breeches?" As realizatin struck, he sarcastically added, "Just my luck that you would decide to get into my trousers when I wasn't there yo enjoy it." My cheeks burned at his crude comment, and had I been a little closer, I would likely have dealt him a second slap. At the same time, I knew his assessment was accurate. "I was just going for a ride.I have the right to some fresh air," I asserted, hands upon my hips. Steldor gave a short, scathing laugh. "Not like this you don't.Now get on your horse.

For much of our time together I wished for a better relationship than the one we have, but I’ve come to understand this is the hand I have been dealt. And now I am showing you all my cards. Our game is complete.

You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding. And, dear one, you and I both were granted a mighty generous hand.

Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school, Chris thought. "I think the cruelest form of prejudice is... if I ever said, 'Clarence is poor, so I'll expect less of him than Alice.' Maybe he won't do what Alice does. But I want his best." She knew that precept wasn't as simple as it sounded. Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means bringing the same moral force to bear on all of them, saying, in effect, to Clarence that you matter as much as Alice and won't get away with not working, and to Alice that you won't be allowed to stay where you are either.

There is no why. You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding. And, dear one, you and I both were granted a mighty generous hand.

You may be thinking, But life really has dealt me a bad hand. It’s really not my fault that my life sucks. Just hold on a second. I’m not saying taking responsibility means controlling all the things life throws at you—none of us can do that. And there are times when we are victimized. Allowing yourself to accept that reality frees you to release any guilt or shame you might be carrying for tragedies and hardships that befell you in the past.

Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost. Life would split asunder without them. "Come to tea, come to dinner, what's the truth of the story? have you heard the news? life in the capital is gay; the Russian dancers...." These are our stays and props. These lace our days together and make of life a perfect globe. And yet, and yet... when we go to dinner, when pressing finger-tips we hope to meet somewhere soon, a doubt insinuates itself; is this the way to spend our days? the rare, limited, so soon dealt out to us - drinking tea? dining out? And the notes accumulate. And the telephones ring. And everywhere we go wires and tubes surround us to carry the voices that try to penetrate before the last card is dealt. "Try to penetrate" for as we lift the cup, shake the hand, express the hope, something whispers, Is this all? Can I never know, share, be certain? Am I doomed all my days to write letters, send voices, which fall upon the tea-table, fade upon the passage, making appointments, while life dwindles, to come and dine? Yet letters are venerable; and the telephone valiant, for the journey is a lonely one, and if bound together by notes and telephones we went in company, perhaps- who know? - we might talk by the way.

Do you . . .” “Do I steal, cheat, and smuggle now?” He turned and touched a hand to her face. “Oh, you’d hate that, wouldn’t you? I almost wish I could say yes, then give it all up for you. I learned a long time ago that there are gambles more exciting for their legitimacy. And winning is so much more satisfying when you’ve dealt from the top of the deck.

I want to be normal.” “Jesus Christ. You might as well want to be taller. Normal wasn’t the hand you were dealt. You and I, we’re not normal. That’s not a choice we have.

All right,” I said. “That is what it is. We can’t change it. We just have to decide how we’ll respond. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

I’ve come to understand this is the hand I have been dealt. And now I am showing you all my cards. Our game is complete.

I turned around and there he was, Edward Curtis Baldwin. My best friend's father. My Sweet Pea's Papa. And my heart's true desire. I had loved this man for the better part of my adult life.

I’ve blamed Julián for my daughter’s fate. The reality is that everyone is responsible for their own life. We’re dealt certain cards at birth, and we play our hand; some of us lose, but others may play skillfully from the same bad hand and triumph. Our cards determine who we are: age, gender, race, family, nationality, etc., and we can’t change them, only play them to the best of our abilities.

This time I watch him carefully, calculating everyone of his movements. Everything seems flawless, until I go to pick up my dealt cards. I noticed some shift his weight forward and scratch his leg. I swear to God it looks if you take something out from underneath his ass. "Wait a minute." I raise a finger, setting my cards down as I lean forward. "Did you just take the card out from under your ass?" "No why would I do that?" He lifts the two cards he has as he presses his hands innocently to his chest. "Besides, where would I put the other cards I dealt?" "How the hell should I know," I say. "Maybe if your ass.

I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or, who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you… to make each day count.

He called me Jess because that is the name of the hood which restrains the falcon. I was his falcon. I hung on his arm and fed at his hand. He said my nose was sharp and cruel and that my eyes had madness in them. He said I would tear him to pieces if he dealt softly with me. At night, if he was away, he had me chained to our bed. It was a long chain, long enough for me to use the chamber pot or to stand at the window and wait for the late owls. I love to hear the owls. I love to see the sudden glide of wings spread out for prey, and then the dip and the noise like a lover in pain. He used the chain when we went riding together. I had a horse as strong as his, and he’d whip the horse from behind and send it charging through the trees, and he’d follow, half a head behind, pulling on the chain and asking me how I liked my ride. His game was to have me sit astride him when we made love and hold me tight in the small of my back. He said he had to have me above him, in case I picked his eyes out in the faltering candlelight. I was none of these things, but I became them. At night, in June I think, I flew off his wrist and tore his liver from his body, and bit my chain in pieces and left him on the bed with his eyes open. He looked surprised, I don’t know why. As your lover describes you, so you are.

The Perfect Friend © Today I found a friend Who knew everything I felt She knew my every weakness And the problems I’ve been dealt She understood my wonders And listened to my dreams She listened to how I felt about life and love And knew what it all means Not once did she interrupt me Or tell me I was wrong She understood what I was going through And promised she'd stay long I reached out to this friend To show her that I care To pull her close and let her know How much I need her there I went to hold her hand To pull her a bit nearer And I realized this perfect friend I found Was nothing but a mirror Copyright © 1995 Shannen Wrass. All Rights Reserved

I has always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy. But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was. Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back.

I’ve always dealt fairly in business, even when I believed someone was trying to take advantage of me. That’s one reason I have had to grind away incessantly to achieve success. In some ways I guess I’m naive. I always take a man at his word unless he’s given me a reason not to, and I’ve worked out many a satisfactory deal on the strength of a handshake. On the other hand, I’ve been taken to the cleaners often enough to make me a certified cynic.

Davenport stood in the middle of it with her arms out from her sides, her fingers spread as the creek churned around her. She was crying now, long sobs that made her whole body shake. I had always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy. But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was. Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back. "Yes," I said to the fiend, water spilling out of my mouth. "Yes - whatever she needs. Give her whatever she needs.

I let the slide linger, so the audience could follow the arrows and count my tumors. “All right,” I said. “That is what it is. We can’t change it. We just have to decide how we’ll respond. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

Still, this moment belongs to the two of them, Mom and this handsome stranger. He reaches the passenger side door and stares down at her with steely violet eyes-down at my mother who never cries, down at my mother who’s now bawling like a spanked child-his face contorted in a rainbow of so many emotions, some that I can’t even name. Then Grom the Triton king sinks to his knees in front of her, and a single tear spills down his face. “Nalia,” he whispers. And then my mother slaps him. It’s not the kind of slap you get for talking back. It’s not the kind of punch she dealt Galen and Toraf in our kitchen. It’s the kind of slap a woman gives a man when he’s hurt her deeply. And Grom accepts it with grace. “I looked for you,” she shouts, even though he’s inches from her. Slowly, as if in a show of peace, he takes the hand that slapped him and sandwiches it between his own. He seems to revel in the feel of her touch. His face is pure tenderness, his voice like a massage to the nerves. “And I looked for you.” “Your pulse was gone,” she insists. By now she chokes back sobs between words. She’s fighting for control. I’ve never seen my mother fight for control. “As was yours.” I realize Grom knows what not to say, what not to do to provoke her. He is the complete opposite of her, or maybe just a completion of her. Her eyes focus on his wrist, and tears slip down her face, leaving faint trails of mascara on her cheeks. He smiles and slowly pulls his hand away. I think he’s going to show her the bracelet he’s wearing, but instead he rips it off his wrist and holds it out for her inspection. From where I’m standing it looks like a single black ball tied to some sort of string. By my mom’s expression, this black ball has meaning. So much meaning that I think she’s forgotten to breathe. “My pearl,” she whispers. “I thought I’d lost it.” He encloses it in her hand. “This isn’t your pearl, love. That one was lost in the explosion with you. For almost an entire season, I scoured the oyster beds, looking for another one that would do. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe if I found another perfect pearl, I would somehow find you, too. When I found this though, it didn’t bring me the peace I’d hoped for. But I couldn’t bring myself to discard it. I’ve worn it on my wrist ever since.” This is all it takes for my mom to throw herself into his arms, bringing Rachel partially with her. Even so, it’s probably the most moving moment I’ve ever encountered in my eighteen years. Or at least it would be, if my mom weren’t clinging to a man who is not my dad.

I feel something nagging at me, boring into me. I can’t go on living like a plant; I need to move, I have to act, start doing something. I feel as though I’ve been dealt a good hand of cards but don’t know whether I’ll be able to play them. And who am I playing with?

Just when a jaundiced view of humanity was about to infect my soul with cynicism and resentment, fate dealt me the opposite hand to mess yet again with my worldview. The contrasts I regularly deal with would be so much more fun if I could just learn to roll with them

Friends, Grecian Heroes, Ministers of Mars! Grievous, and all unlook’d for, is the blow Which Jove hath dealt me; by his promise led I hop’d to raze the strong-built walls of Troy, And home return in safety; but it seems 130 He falsifies his word, and bids me now Return to Argos, frustrate of my hope, Dishonour’d, and with grievous loss of men. Such now appears th’ o’er-ruling sov’reign will Of Saturn’s son; who oft hath sunk the heads 135 Of many a lofty city in the dust, And yet will sink; for mighty is his hand. ’Tis shame indeed that future days should hear How such a force as ours, so great, so brave, Hath thus been baffled, fighting, as we do, 140 ’Gainst numbers far inferior to our own, And see no end of all our warlike toil. For should we choose, on terms of plighted truce, Trojans and Greeks, to number our array; Of Trojans, all that dwell within the town, 145 And we, by tens disposed, to every ten, To crown our cups, one Trojan should assign, Full many a ten no cup-bearer would find: So far the sons of Greece outnumber all That dwell within the town; but to their aid 150 Bold warriors come from all the cities round, Who greatly harass me, and render vain My hope to storm the strong-built walls of Troy. Already now nine weary years have pass’d; The timbers of our ships are all decay’d, 155 The cordage rotted; in our homes the while Our wives and helpless children sit, in vain Expecting our return; and still the work, For which we hither came, remains undone. Hear then my counsel; let us all agree 160 Home to direct our course, since here in vain We strive to take the well-built walls of Troy.” Thus as he spoke, the crowd, that had not heard The secret council, by his words was mov’d; So sway’d and heav’d the multitude, as when 165 O’er the vast billows of th’ Icarian sea Eurus and Notus from the clouds of Heav’n Pour forth their fury; or as some deep field Of wavy corn, when sweeping o’er the plain The ruffling west wind sways the

It is my conviction that, with the spread of true scientific culture, whatever may be the medium, historical, philological, philosophical, or physical, through which that culture is conveyed, and with its necessary concomitant, a constant elevation of the standard of veracity, the end of the evolution of theology will be like its beginning—it will cease to have any relation to ethics. I suppose that, so long as the human mind exists, it will not escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its intellectual conceptions. The science of the present day is as full of this particular form of intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience of ignorant ages. The difference is that the philosopher who is worthy of the name knows that his personified hypotheses, such as law, and force, and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, while the ignorant and the careless take them for adequate expressions of reality. So, it may be, that the majority of mankind may find the practice of morality made easier by the use of theological symbols. And unless these are converted from symbols into idols, I do not see that science has anything to say to the practice, except to give an occasional warning of its dangers. But, when such symbols are dealt with as real existences, I think the highest duty which is laid upon men of science is to show that these dogmatic idols have no greater value than the fabrications of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have replaced.

I have been vehemently accused by people who didn’t understand me of not believing in anything. I don’t believe in anything. This is not a statement of existential hopelessness for which you should light a candle for me at night. It’s a strategy for not getting bogged down in some weird trip. After all, what is the basis for believing anything? I mean, you have to understand: You’re a monkey. In some kind of a biological situation where everything has been evolved to serve the economy of survival—this is not a philosophy course. So belief is a curious reaction to the present at hand. It isn’t to be believed, it’s to be dealt with—experienced and modeled.

Slavery. Did there ever exist a more annoying way to try to make a modern-day black man feel like his troubles were insignificant, that he should be satisfied with the sorry hand society dealt him? Cha-Cha thought not. The line of reasoning was faulty; it was precisely because his grandfather’s father was born a slave that he should expect more from life, and more from this country, to make up for lost time at the very least. “I’m

I’ve always believed that if something was meant to happen, you’d have a second chance at it. But never have I been so bold as to believe in a third or even a fourth chance. Almost like the world was trying to hand you something good after all it had dealt you your whole life was heartache, like it had changed its position on who you were and what you could have. Call it what you will: karma or good luck or maybe something more. Grace.

You were having a nightmare. I was the one who put myself in the way of your flailing arms. I knew what I was getting into. I have dealt with children having nightmares before.” “Oh my God, Aunt Lillian,” said Jared, and she let him have his hand back so he could scrub it exasperatedly over his face. “You probably give children nightmares,” he added accusingly. Aunt Lillian shrugged, as if conceding that she might have given a few children a nightmare or two in her time.

Why do we bury our dead?” His nose was dented in at the bridge like a sphinx; the cause of which I could only imagine had been a freak archaeological accident. I thought about my parents. They had requested in their will that they be buried side by side in a tiny cemetery a few miles from our house. “Because it’s respectful?” He shook his head. “That’s true, but that’s not the reason we do it.” But that was the reason we buried people, wasn’t it? After gazing at him in confusion, I raised my hand, determined to get the right answer. “Because leaving people out in the open is unsanitary.” Mr. B. shook his head and scratched the stubble on his neck. I glared at him, annoyed at his ignorance and certain that my responses were correct. “Because it’s the best way to dispose of a body?” Mr. B. laughed. “Oh, but that’s not true. Think of all the creative ways mass murderers have dealt with body disposal. Surely eating someone would be more practical than the coffin, the ceremony, the tombstone.” Eleanor grimaced at the morbid image, and the mention of mass murderers seemed to wake the rest of the class up. Still, no one had an answer. I’d heard Mr. B. was a quack, but this was just insulting. How dare he presume that I didn’t know what burials meant? I’d watched them bury my parents, hadn’t I? “Because that’s just what we do,” I blurted out. “We bury people when they die. Why does there have to be a reason for everything?” “Exactly!” Mr. B. grabbed the pencil from behind his ear and began gesticulating with it. “We’ve forgotten why we bury people. “Imagine you’re living in ancient times. Your father dies. Would you randomly decide to put him inside a six-sided wooden box, nail it shut, then bury it six feet below the earth? These decisions aren’t arbitrary, people. Why a six-sided box? And why six feet below the earth? And why a box in the first place? And why did every society throughout history create a specific, ritualistic way of disposing of their dead?” No one answered. But just as Mr. B. was about to continue, there was a knock on the door. Everyone turned to see Mrs. Lynch poke her head in. “Professor Bliss, the headmistress would like to see Brett Steyers in her office. As a matter of urgency.” Professor Bliss nodded, and Brett grabbed his bag and stood up, his chair scraping against the floor as he left. After the door closed, Mr. B. drew a terrible picture of a mummy on the board, which looked more like a hairy stick figure. “The Egyptians used to remove the brains of their dead before mummification. Now, why on earth would they do that?” There was a vacant silence. “Think, people! There must be a reason. Why the brain? What were they trying to preserve?” When no one answered, he answered his own question. “The mind!” he said, exasperated. “The soul!” As much as I had planned on paying attention and participating in class, I spent the majority of the period passing notes with Eleanor. For all of his enthusiasm, Professor Bliss was repetitive and obsessed with death and immortality. When he faced the board to draw the hieroglyphic symbol for Ra, I read the note Eleanor had written me. Who is cuter? A. Professor Bliss B. Brett Steyers C. Dante Berlin D. The mummy I laughed. My hand wavered between B and C for the briefest moment. I wasn’t sure if you could really call Dante cute. Devastatingly handsome and mysterious would be the more appropriate description. Instead I circled option D. Next to it I wrote Obviously! and tossed it onto her desk when no one was looking.

Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just…life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway…to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on. I grabbed his hands in mine for a second and then let go so I could continue. And try to believe that maybe more light shines out of those who have the most cracks.

Do you remember when we played cards and you told me about how your father said everyone is dealt a hand and they have to play it all the way out?” “Yes.” “I don’t think he’s right. I think you get cards, and you play them, but then you get more cards. I don’t think it’s all predestined from the beginning. All along the way, you could have made a different choice and this all could have ended up differently.” I pause. “Failure isn’t absolute. Just because you couldn’t save everyone doesn’t mean you didn’t save anyone.

The average household income in America is right around $50,000 per year, according to the Census Bureau. Joe and Suzy Average would invest $7,500 (15 percent) per year or $625 per month. If you make $50,000 per year and have no payments except the house mortgage and live on a budget, can you invest $625 per month? Follow me here. If Joe and Suzy invest $625 per month with no match into Roth IRAs from age thirty to age seventy, they will have $7,588,545 tax-FREE! That is almost $8 million. What if I’m half-wrong? What if you end up with only $4 million? What if I’m six times wrong? Sure beats the 97 out of 100 sixty-five-year-olds who can’t write a check for $600! I would submit to you that Joe and Suzy are well below average. Why? In our example they started at the average household income in America, and in forty years of work never got a raise. They saved 15 percent of income and never increased it by one dollar. There is no excuse to retire without financial dignity in the United States today. Most of you will have well over $2 million pass through your hands in your working lifetime, so do something about catching some of that money. Gayle asked me one day if it was too late for her to start saving. Gayle wasn’t twenty-seven like Joe and Suzy. She was fifty-seven years old, but with her attitude you would have thought this lady was 107. Harold Fisher had a much better outlook at age one hundred than Gayle did at age fifty-seven. Life had dealt her some blows and had knocked most of the hope out of her. A Total Money Makeover is not a magic show. You start where you are, and you do the steps. These steps work if you are twenty-seven or fifty-seven, and they don’t change. Gayle might be starting the retirement investing step at sixty that Joe and Suzy start at thirty years old. Gayle was unwise to enter her sixties without an emergency fund and with credit-card debt and a car payment. She, like all of us, couldn’t save when she has debt and no umbrella for when it rains. Would it have been better for Gayle to start when she was twenty-seven or even forty-seven? Obviously. But once she was done with the pity party, she still needed to start with Baby Step One and follow The Total Money Makeover step-by-step to put herself in the best position possible.

This is what I see,” she tells me, standing chest to chest with me. I look down at her as she looks up. “I see someone who was dealt a bad fucking hand.” My eyes stare straight into hers. “I see a man who has risen from the hell he has been in. I see a man who deserves all the colors in the world.” She steps even closer to me. “I see a man who deserves all the love in the world.” A hand comes up to cup my face. “I see a man who deserves people who stand with him and protect him.” I want to say something to her, but nothing comes out. “I see a man who deserves everything.

After my shower, I found him shuffling cards he bought at the convenience store we stopped at before the hotel. Grinning, I sat across from him. “You told me that you’re good at cards,” Judd said, recalling my reaction to passing a casino on the drive. “I said I liked cards. I never claimed to be good.” “The only people who like cards are gambling addicts and those who are good at it. You’re not an addict.” “Do you like cards?” I asked while he dealt. “Sure.” “Do you like me?” I asked softly, looking over my cards. Judd never looked up from his hand. “I’m playing cards, ain’t I?

but I have had some delightful thoughts of late from just hearing the title of a book, God’s Method with the Maladies of the Soul. It gives one such a conception of the seeming ills of life: to think of Him as our Physician, the ills all remedies, the deprivations only a wholesome regimen, the losses all gains. Why, as I study this individual case and that, see how patiently and persistently He tries now this remedy now that, and how infallibly He cures the souls that submit to His remedies, I love Him so! I love Him so! And I am so astonished that we are restive under His unerring hand! Think how He dealt with me. My soul was sick unto death, sick with worldliness and self-pleasing folly. There was only one way of making me listen to reason and that was just the way He took. He snatched me right out of the world and shut me up in one room, crippled, helpless, and alone, and set me to thinking, thinking, thinking till I saw the emptiness and shallowness of all in which I had hitherto been involved. And then He sent you and your mother to show me the reality of life and to reveal to me my invisible, unknown Physician. Can I love Him with half my heart? Can I be asking questions as to how much I am to pay toward the debt I owe Him?

There was nothing wrong with being able to handle things herself. Nothing wrong with wanting to.And she did appreciate Brian's help. And she didn't need caffeine. "I like caffeine," she grumbled. "I enjoy it, and that's entirely different from needing it.Entirely.I could give it up anytime I wanted, and I'd barely miss it." Annoyed,she snagged the soft drink she'd left on a shelf and guzzled. All right,so maybe she would miss it. But only beause she liked the taste. It wasn't like a craving or an addiction or... She couldn't say why Brian popped into her head just then.She was certain if he'd seen her staring in a kind of horror at a soft drink bottle, he'd have been amused.It was debatable what his reaction would be if he'd realized she wasn't actually seeing the bottle, but his face. No,that wasn't a need, either, she thought quickly. She did not need Brian Donnelly. It was attraction.Affection-a cautious kind of affection.He was a man who interested her, and whom she admired in many ways. But it wasn't as if she needed... "Oh God." It had to be overreaction, she decided, and set the bottle aside as carefully as she would have a container of nitro. What she was going through was something as simple as overromanticizing an affair. That would be natural enough, she told herself, particularly sice this was her first. She didn't want to be in love with him. She began wielding the pitchfork vigorously now, as if to sweat out a fever.She didn't choose to be in love with him. That was even more important.When her hands trembled she ignored them and worked harder still. By the time her mother joined her, Keeley had herself under control enough to casually ask Adelia to work in the office while she exervised Sam. Keeley Grant had never run from a problem in her life,and she wasn't about to start now.She saddled her mount,then rode off to clear her head before she dealt with the problem at hand.

Here we’ll describe four signs that you have to disengage from your autonomous efforts and seek connection. Each of these emotions is a different form of hunger for connection—that is, they’re all different ways of feeling lonely: When you have been gaslit. When you’re asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or is there something completely unacceptable happening right now?” turn to someone who can relate; let them give you the reality check that yes, the gaslights are flickering. When you feel “not enough.” No individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone. We are built to do them together. When you experience the empty-handed feeling that you are just one person, unable to meet all the demands the world makes on you, helpless in the face of the endless, yawning need you see around you, recognize that emotion for what it is: a form of loneliness. ... When you’re sad. In the animated film Inside Out, the emotions in the head of a tween girl, Riley, struggle to cope with the exigencies of growing up.... When you are boiling with rage. Rage has a special place in women’s lives and a special role in the Bubble of Love. More, even, than sadness, many of us have been taught to swallow our rage, hide it even from ourselves. We have been taught to fear rage—our own, as well as others’—because its power can be used as a weapon. Can be. A chef’s knife can be used as a weapon. And it can help you prepare a feast. It’s all in how you use it. We don’t want to hurt anyone, and rage is indeed very, very powerful. Bring your rage into the Bubble with your loved ones’ permission, and complete the stress response cycle with them. If your Bubble is a rugby team, you can leverage your rage in a match or practice. If your Bubble is a knitting circle, you might need to get creative. Use your body. Jump up and down, get noisy, release all that energy, share it with others. “Yes!” say the people in your Bubble. “That was some bullshit you dealt with!” Rage gives you strength and energy and the urge to fight, and sharing that energy in the Bubble changes it from something potentially dangerous to something safe and potentially transformative.

Gary Hallet is getting leg cramps sitting in the Honda, but he’s not going anywhere yet. His grandfather used to tell him that most folks had it all wrong: The truth of the matter was, you could lead a horse to water, and if the water was cool enough, if it was truly clear and sweet, you wouldn’t have to force him to drink. Tonight Gary feels a whole lot more like the horse than the rider. He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything too badly. Well, he does now. He looks out at the parking lot. By afternoon he’ll be back where he belongs; his dogs will go crazy when they see him, his mail will be waiting outside his front door, the milk in his refrigerator will still be fresh enough to use in his coffee. The hitch is, he doesn’t want to go. He’d rather be here, crammed into this tiny Honda, his stomach growling with hunger, his desire so bad he doesn’t know if he could stand up straight. His eyes are burning hot, and he knows he can never stop himself when he’s going to cry. He’d better not even try. “Oh, don’t,” Sally says. She moves closer to him, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces she couldn’t begin to control. “I just do this,” Gary says in that sad, deep voice. He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. This time he’d prefer to do almost anything but cry. “Pay no attention.” But she does. She can’t help herself. She shifts toward him, meaning to wipe at his tears, but instead she loops her arms around his neck, and once she does that, he holds her closer. “Sally,” he says. It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None of it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She’s halfway onto his lap, facing him, and when he touches her, his hands are so hot on her skin she can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop.

And so, by means both active and passive, he sought to repair the damage to his self-esteem. He tried first of all to find ways to make his nose look shorter. When there was no one around, he would hold up his mirror and, with feverish intensity, examine his reflection from every angle. Sometimes it took more than simply changing the position of his face to comfort him, and he would try one pose after another—resting his cheek on his hand or stroking his chin with his fingertips. Never once, though, was he satisfied that his nose looked any shorter. In fact, he sometimes felt that the harder he tried, the longer it looked. Then, heaving fresh sighs of despair, he would put the mirror away in its box and drag himself back to the scripture stand to resume chanting the Kannon Sutra. The second way he dealt with his problem was to keep a vigilant eye out for other people’s noses. Many public events took place at the Ike-no-o temple—banquets to benefit the priests, lectures on the sutras, and so forth. Row upon row of monks’ cells filled the temple grounds, and each day the monks would heat up bath water for the temple’s many residents and lay visitors, all of whom the Naigu would study closely. He hoped to gain peace from discovering even one face with a nose like his. And so his eyes took in neither blue robes nor white; orange caps, skirts of gray: the priestly garb he knew so well hardly existed for him. The Naigu saw not people but noses. While a great hooked beak might come into his view now and then, never did he discover a nose like his own. And with each failure to find what he was looking for, the Naigu’s resentment would increase. It was entirely due to this feeling that often, while speaking to a person, he would unconsciously grasp the dangling end of his nose and blush like a youngster. And finally, the Naigu would comb the Buddhist scriptures and other classic texts, searching for a character with a nose like his own in the hope that it would provide him some measure of comfort. Nowhere, however, was it written that the nose of either Mokuren or Sharihotsu was long. And Ryūju and Memyoō, of course, were Bodhisattvas with normal human noses. Listening to a Chinese story once, he heard that Liu Bei, the Shu Han emperor, had long ears. “Oh, if only it had been his nose,” he thought, “how much better I would feel!

It’s to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek, knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It’s what lovers trust each other with. Knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Every other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy… we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around, to friends and family with a momentary sense of indecency perhaps, to strangers without hesitation. Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What’s left? What else is there that hasn’t been dealt out like a deck of cards? Carnal knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that. Having that is being rich, you can be generous about what’s shared — she walks, she talks, she laughs, she lends a sympathetic ear, she kicks off her shoes and dances on the tables, she’s everybody’s and it don’t mean a thing, let them eat cake; knowledge is something else, the undealt card, and while it’s held it makes you free-and-easy and nice to know, and when it’s gone everything is pain. Every single thing. Every object that meets the eye, a pencil, a tangerine, a travel poster. As if the physical world has been wired up to pass a current back to the part of your brain where imagination glows like a filament in a lobe no bigger than a torch bulb. Pain.

This might baffle you, but despite not being a physician, I do have some pride. Although most certainly not enough to withstand the kind of beating you're capable of dealing it. The kind of beating you've repeatedly dealt it from the first time we've met. You're right, I value honesty, so I'll tell you that I make it a practice not to find women who insult me at every opportunity attractive." Color flooded her cheeks and traveled down her neck. Finally, she stepped away from him, too, and found the back of a chair to clutch. She looked entirely devastated. Had no one ever denied her anything? He hated the hurt in her eyes. But it was done now. "How is telling you I'm attracted to you an insult?" He pressed the back of his hand into his forehead. It made him feel like a drama queen in some sort of musical farce. Which this had to be. "Telling me how unworthy I am of your attraction, that's the insulting part. And, no, that's not all it is. Even if you hadn't told me at every opportunity how inferior to you I am... all I do is cook... every assumption you've made about me is insulting. Culinary school is definitely college. And Le Cordon Bleu is one of the most competitive institutions in the world. The fact that that's so wholly incomprehensible to you... that's the insulting part. And it wasn't thrown in my overly privileged lap either. I had to work my bottom off to make it in." Ammaji had sold her dowry jewels to pay for his application, something her family would have thrown her out on the street for had they found out. Trisha squared her shoulders, the devastation draining fast from her face, leaving behind the self-possession he was so much more used to. And the speed with which she gathered herself shook something inside him. "I might not do what you see as important work, but I work hard at being a decent human being, and I would need anyone I'm with to be that first and foremost. Even if I didn't find snobbery in general incredibly unattractive, I would never go anywhere near a person as self-absorbed and arrogant as you, Dr. Raje. I would have to be insane to subject myself to your view of me and the world." "Wow." She was panting, or maybe it was him. He couldn't be sure. "You wanted honesty. I'm sorry if I hurt you." She cleared her throat. "I'm surprised you think someone as... as... self-absorbed and arrogant as me is even capable of being hurt.

I am Ra. Let us give the example of the man who sees all the poker hands. He then knows the game. It is but child’s play to gamble, for it is no risk. The other hands are known. The possibilities are known and the hand will be played correctly but with no interest. In time/space and in the true-color green density, the hands of all are open to the eye. The thoughts, the feelings, the troubles: all these may be seen. There is no deception and no desire for deception. Thus much may be accomplished in harmony, but the mind/body/spirit gains little polarity from this interaction. Let us re-examine this metaphor and multiply it into the longest poker game you can imagine: a lifetime. The cards are love, dislike, limitation, unhappiness, pleasure, etc. They are dealt, and re-dealt, and re-dealt continuously. You may, during this incarnation begin—and we stress begin—to know your own cards. You may begin to find the love within you. You may begin to balance your pleasure, your limitations, etc. However, your only indication of other-selves’ cards is to look into the eyes. You cannot remember your hand, their hands, perhaps even the rules of this game. This game can only be won by those who lose their cards in the melting influence of love; can only be won by those who lay their pleasures, their limitations, their all upon the table face up and say inwardly: “All, all of you players, each other-self, whatever your hand, I love you.” This is the game: to know, to accept, to forgive, to balance, and to open the self in love. This cannot be done without the forgetting, for it would carry no weight in the life of the mind/body/spirit beingness totality.

I would like to see you cheat,” Elizabeth said impulsively, smiling at him. His hands stilled, his eyes intent on her face. “I beg your pardon?” “What I meant,” she hastily explained as he continued to idly shuffle the cards, watching her, “is that night in the card room at Charise’s there was mention of someone being able to deal a card from the bottom of the deck, and I’ve always wondered if you could, if it could…” She trailed off, belatedly realizing she was insulting him and that his narrowed, speculative gaze proved that she’d made it sound as if she believed him to be dishonest at cards. “I beg your pardon,” she said quietly. “That was truly awful of me.” Ian accepted her apology with a curt nod, and when Alex hastily interjected, “Why don’t we use the chips for a shilling each,” he wordlessly and immediately dealt the cards. Too embarrassed even to look at him, Elizabeth bit her lip and picked up her hand. In it there were four kings. Her gaze flew to Ian, but he was lounging back in his chair, studying his own cards. She won three shillings and was pleased as could be. He passed the deck to her, but Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t like to deal. I always drop the cards, which Celton says is very irritating. Would you mind dealing for me?” “Not at all,” Ian said dispassionately, and Elizabeth realized with a sinking heart that he was still annoyed with her. “Who is Celton?” Jordan inquired. “Celton is a groom with whom I play cards,” Elizabeth explained unhappily, picking up her hand. In it there were four aces. She knew it then, and laughter and relief trembled on her lips as she lifted her face and stared at her betrothed. There was not a sign, not so much as a hint anywhere on his perfectly composed features that anything unusual had been happening. Lounging indolently in his chair, he quirked an indifferent brow and said, “Do you want to discard and draw more cards, Elizabeth?” “Yes,” she replied, swallowing her mirth, “I would like one more ace to go with the ones I have.” “There are only four,” he explained mildly, and with such convincing blandness that Elizabeth whooped with laughter and dropped her cards. “You are a complete charlatan!” she gasped when she could finally speak, but her face was aglow with admiration. “Thank you, darling,” he replied tenderly. “I’m happy to know your opinion of me is already improving.” The laughter froze in Elizabeth’s chest, replaced by warmth that quaked through her from head to foot. Gentlemen did not speak such tender endearments in front of other people, if at all. “I’m a Scot,” he’d whispered huskily to her long ago. “We do.” The Townsendes had launched into swift, laughing conversation after a moment of stunned silence following his words, and it was just as well, because Elizabeth could not tear her gaze from Ian, could not seem to move. And in that endless moment when their gazes held, Elizabeth had an almost overwhelming desire to fling herself into his arms. He saw it, too, and the answering expression in his eyes made her feel she was melting. “It occurs to me, Ian,” Jordan joked a moment later, gently breaking their spell, “that we are wasting our time with honest pursuits.” Ian’s gaze shifted reluctantly from Elizabeth’s face, and then he smiled inquisitively at Jordan. “What did you have in mind?” he asked, shoving the deck toward Jordan while Elizabeth put back her unjustly won chips. “With your skill at dealing whatever hand you want, we could gull half of London. If any of our victims had the temerity to object, Alex could run them through with her rapier, and Elizabeth could shoot him before he hit the ground.” Ian chuckled. “Not a bad idea. What would your role be?” “Breaking us out of Newgate!” Elizabeth laughed. “Exactly.

I now found that, in the social democratic papers, I could study the inner nature of their thought-process far better than in all their theoretical literature... And what a striking difference there was between the two! In the literary text that dealt with the Social Democrat theory, there was a display of high-sounding phraseology about liberty, human dignity, and beauty. It was all promoted with an air of profound wisdom and calm prophetic assurance-a meticulously-woven glitter of words to dazzle and mislead the reader. On the other hand, the daily press hammered out this new doctrine of human redemption in a most brutal fashion. No means were too crude, provided they could be exploited in the slanderous campaign. These journalists were experts in the art of deception and twisting facts. The theoretical literature was intended for the middle- and upper-class 'intellectuals,' whereas the newspaper was intended for the masses... With an understanding of the workings of the colossal system for poisoning the popular mind, only a fool could blame the victims.

I couldn’t feel guilty any longer for misdeeds committed by another incarnation. I wouldn’t. “I’m sorry for your past, Aric. I wish it had been different. I wish I had been. But I refuse to keep paying for what I did in past games.”“Do you, then?” “In our first meeting, you skewered me with your sword. In other words: you started it. You didn’t ask me to marry you, just ordered it. I played the hand I was dealt.” “I take your point.” “Let’s begin anew, Empress.” (He expects her to ‘forgive/forget’ for him but not Jack?) “The mortal can’t provide for you like I can. I offer you a home. Defensive, I said, “Jack plans to rebuild Haven House for me.” Anger flashed across Aric’s face. He schooled his reactions as quickly as he did everything else, leaving his emotions to seethe beneath the surface. “If you desire something, all you have to do is tell me. It will shortly be yours. You’ll see soon enough.” (Bribery for her to favor him?) What if Aric could straight-up end the game? Blow up the machine? “Deveaux will never understand you as I do. As only another Arcana can.” “Maybe not. But we have other ties.” I thought of the ribbon he’d kept all this time, the one now in my pocket. “As do we. We are wed.” (after Aric ordered her to do so.) “I think of you as mine. “When I recognized that you weren’t over your infatuation with the mortal, I might have been . . . testing you.” He’d tested me the other night as well! “What if I’d surrendered?” “Testing me doesn’t excuse what you did. Coercion is not cool.” “Then teach me what is! “I don’t think something like that can be taught. It’s part of your makeup, part of who you are.” “Aric, selfless acts might be beyond you. And even sex with you would come with strings. What if I hadn’t realized you were minus one condom?” The memory stoked my fury. “You were about to trick me—to betray me.” “You had my entire future mapped out—with me knocked up—and you never mentioned it to me.” (keeping secrets). “It’s been this way between husbands and wives for thousands of years. At the time, I thought if we were so blessed, then all the better.” Because his concepts about marriages and families were from a different epoch.

I have stopped loving you. I have stopped caring about you. I have stopped worrying about you. I have simply . . . stopped. This might come as news to you but despite everything, despite the cruelty, the selfishness and the pain you have caused, I still found a way to care. But not any more. Now, I am putting you on notice. I no longer need you. I don’t think fondly of our early days, so I am erasing these memories and all that followed. For much of our time together I wished for a better relationship than the one we have, but I’ve come to understand this is the hand I have been dealt. And now I am showing you all my cards. Our game is complete. You are the person I share this house with, nothing more, nothing less. You mean no more to me than the shutters that hide what goes on in here, the floorboards I walk over or the doors we use to separate us. I have spent too much of my life trying to figure out your intricacies, of suffering your deeds like knives cutting through scar tissue. I am through with sacrificing who I should have been to keep you happy as it has only locked us in this status quo. I have wasted too much time wanting you to want me. I ache when I recall the opportunities I’ve been too scared to accept because of you. Such frittered-away chances make me want to crawl on my hands and knees to the end of the garden, curl up into a ball on a mound of earth and wait until the nettles and the ivy choke and cover me from view. It’s only now that I recognise the wretched life you cloaked me in and how your misery needed my company to prevent you from feeling so isolated. There is just one lesson I have learned from the life we share. And it is this: everything that is wrong with me is wrong with you too. We are one and the same. When I die, your flame will also extinguish. The next time we are together, I want one of us to be lying stiff in a coffin wearing rags that no longer fit our dead, shrunken frame. Only then can we separate. Only then can we be ourselves. Only then do I stand a chance of finding peace. Only then will I be free of you. And should my soul soar, I promise that yours will sink like the heaviest of rocks, never to be seen again.

Your arguments were convincing, though I wonder if behind them didn’t lurk a poorly thought out romance with the handicapped child: one of those clumsy but sweet-tempered emissaries of God who teaches his parents that there’s so much more to life than smarts, a guileless soul who is smothered in the same hair-tousling affection lavished on a family pet. Thirsty to quaff whatever funky genetic cocktail our DNA served up, you must have flirted with the prospect of all those bonus points for self-sacrifice: Your patience when it takes our darling dunderhead six months of daily lessons to tie his shoes proves superhuman. Unstinting and fiercely protective, you discover in yourself a seemingly bottomless well of generosity on which your I’m-leaving-for-Guyana-tomorrow wife never draws, and at length you abandon location scouting, the better to devote yourself full-time to our five-foot-something three-year-old. The neighbors all extol your make-the-best-of-it resignation to the hand Life has dealt, the roll-with-the-punches maturity with which you face what others in our race and class would find a crippling body blow.

Let us look at the bright side of life and believe that God means us to be always ascending, always getting nearer to Himself, always learning something new about Him, always loving Him better and better... It gives one such a conception of the seeming ills of life: to think of Him as our Physician, the ills all remedies, the deprivations only a wholesome regimen, the losses all gains... see how patiently and persistently He tries now this remedy now that, and how infallibly He cures the souls that submit to His remedies, I love Him so! ...I am so astonished that we are restive under His unerring hand! Think how He dealt with me. My soul was sick unto death, sick with worldliness and self-pleasing folly. There was only one way of making me listen to reason and that was just the way He took. He snatched me right out of the world and shut me up in one room, crippled, helpless, and alone and set me to thinking, thinking, thinking till I saw the emptiness and shallowness of all in which I had hitherto been involved. And then He sent you and your mother to show me the reality of life and to reveal to me my invisible, unknown Physician. Can I love Him with half my heart?

Although I am an optimist, my imagination can conjure countless deadly hands from any shuffled deck before the cards are dealt. I am, therefore, perplexed by so many people who, whether they’re optimists or pessimists, trust any dealer as long as he claims to share their vision of how all things ought to be, who trust their own vision to the extent that they never question it, and who believe that four of a kind and royal flushes always fall by chance in a world without meaning. To such folks, Hitler was a distant and half-comic figure—until he wasn’t; and mad mullahs promising to use nuclear weapons as soon as they obtain them are likewise harmless—until they aren’t. I, on the other hand, believe life has profound meaning and that the meaning of Creation itself is benign, but I also know that there are such things as card mechanics who can manipulate any deck to their great advantage. In life, little happens by chance, and most bad hands we’re dealt are the consequence of our actions, which are shaped by our wisdom and our ignorance. In my experience, survival depends on hoping for the best while recognizing that disaster is more likely and that it can’t be averted if it can’t be imagined.

Your grandmother thought--no, she believed, it was like a faith for her. She believed it the way some people believe in God or science. She believed that it was the rules that made her life so easy. She thought life was about the rules people make for it, as if life was some kind of a board game and if you had a little luck, and you kept to the rules, you'd end up winning. Or maybe she thought it was like a game of solitaire and once the cards had been shuffled and laid out, if you had a good draw you were safe, as if it was arranged for you to win. Or to lose, although Grandmother considered herself someone who had won, since all she had to do once she was born was follow the rules. But really, life's like a game of bridge: You're dealt a hand and it can be a winning hand or a losing one, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll win or lose because there are other people at the table, your partner for one, and the other ream for another, that's three people...playing too, and people make mistakes, multiply that times three too, or you can just be smarter than they are. And luckier too, because anybody who sits down to play bridge or life without figuring out how much luck is involved is making a Big Mistake. I don't want you girls doing that.

A postscript on Ryan: Ryan did recover, but he was left permanently blind. His girlfriend Kelly stayed by his side through his recovery, and they soon married. I’m happy to say that we all became good friends. Ryan had an indomitable spirit that infected everyone he met. He used to say that he suspected God had chosen him to be wounded, rather than someone else, because He knew he could bear it. If so, it was an excellent choice, for Ryan inspired many others to deal with their own handicaps as he dealt with his. He went hunting with the help of friends and special devices. His wound inspired the logo Chris would later use for his company; it was a way for Chris to continue honoring him. Ryan and his wife were expecting their first child in 2009 when Ryan went into the hospital for what seemed like a routine operation, part of follow-up treatment for his wounds. Tragically, he ended up dying. I remember looking at his wife at the funeral, so brave yet so devastated, and wondering to myself how we could live in such a cruel world. My enduring vision of Ryan is outside one of the hospitals where he was recovering from an operation. He was in his wheelchair with some of the Team guys. Head bandaged and clearly in pain, he asked to be pointed toward the American flag that flew in the hospital yard; once there, he held his hand up in a long and poignant salute, still a patriot.

And while I was writing this review, I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House. It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her — you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House. I will describe her as shortly as I can. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it — in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all — I need not say it —-she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty — her blushes, her great grace. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: “My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure.” And she made as if to guide my pen. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing. For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex. And all these questions, according to the Angel of the House, cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women; they must charm, they must conciliate, they must — to put it bluntly — tell lies if they are to succeed. Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing or the radiance of her halo upon my page, I took up the inkpot and flung it at her. She died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. But it was a real experience; it was an experience that was bound to befall all women writers at that time. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.

Come here, little one.” “I want to go back.” He hoped she stood there arguing for a time. “Obey your husband.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s broad daylight.” “Keemah, come.” Growing tired of just looking when he could be touching, Hunter cocked his head and let her see him leering. He was awarded a fetching glimpse of slender, creamy thighs and honey gold. She gasped and dropped to her knees as if someone had dealt a blow to the backs of her legs. Tucking her skirt under her knees, she cried, “Have you no shame?” His answer was a slow grin. Seizing her wrist, he drew her toward him. “There is no shame. You are my woman.” Pulled off balance, she fell across his chest. Squirming, but halfheartedly, she said, “There’s a time and a place for everything, and this isn’t it.” “No?” He ran a hand under her blouse. “I say it is a very good time.” She jerked when his fingers scaled her ribs. “That tickles.” Without warning he rolled with her, coming out on top. He kissed her lightly on the lips while he moved his hand from her ribs to her breast. The small mound of warm flesh fit perfectly in his hand, the crest springing taut against his palm. Scarlet flamed on her cheeks. Unable to resist, Hunter lifted her blouse and moved off her to look, one thigh slanted across both of hers to keep her still. He had guessed right; when she was shy, she grew pink all over. “Hunter!” She tried to shove the leather down. “Someone might come!” “No one comes.

Then took they both to their swords, and went at it with a will, blow upon blow. Atli gave no ground. They smote fast and hard, and full soon their shields were becoming useless. And when Atli's shield was of no use, then he cast it from him, and, grasping his sword with both hands, dealt blows as quickly as possible. Egil fetched him a blow on the shoulder, but the sword bit not. He dealt another, and a third. It was now easy to find parts in Atli that he could strike, since he had no cover; and Egil brandished and brought down his sword with all his might, yet it bit not, strike he where he might. Then Egil saw that nothing would be done this way, for his shield was now rendered useless. So Egil let drop both sword and shield, and bounding on Atli, gripped him with his hands. Then the difference of strength was seen, and Atli fell right back, but Egil went down prone upon him and bit through his throat. There Atli died. Egil leapt up at once and ran to where the victim stood; with one hand he gripped his lips, with the other his horn, and gave him such a wrench, that his feet slipped up and his neck was broken; after which Egil went where his comrades stood, and then he sang: 'I bared blue Dragvandill, Who bit not the buckler, Atli the Short so blunted All edge by his spells. Straining my strength I grappled, Staggered the wordy foeman; My tooth I bade bite him, Best of swords at need.' Then Egil got possession of all those lands for which he had contended and claimed as rightfully coming to his wife Asgerdr from her father.

Henry had taught Eddie how to play basketball in the playground near the apartment building where they lived--this was in a cement suburb where the towers of Manhattan stood against the horizon like a dream and the welfare check was king. Eddie was eight years younger than Henry and much smaller, but he was also much faster. He had a natural feel for the game; once he got on the cracked, hilly cement of the court with the ball in his hands, the moves seemed to sizzle in his nerve-endings. He was faster, but that was no big deal. The big deal was this: he was BETTER than Henry. If he hadn't known it from the results of the pick-up games in which they sometimes played, he would have known it from Henry's thunderous looks and the hard punches to the upper arm Henry often dealt out on their way home afterwards. These punches were supposedly Henry's little jokes--"Two for flinching!" Henry would cry cheerily, and then whap-whap into Eddie's bicep with one knuckle extended--but they didn't FEEL like jokes. They felt like warnings. They felt like Henry's way of saying You better not fake me out and make me look stupid when you drive for the basket; you better remember that I'm Watching Out for You. The same was true with reading...baseball...Ring-a-Levio...math...even jump-rope, which was a girl's game. That he was better at these tings, or COULD be better, was a secret that had to be kept at all costs. Because Eddie was the younger brother. Because Henry was Watching Out for him. But the most important part of the underneath reason was also the simplest: these things had to be kept secret because Henry was Eddie's big brother, and Eddie adored him.

ANNA •   •   • SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2013 MORNING I drove to the gym in Northcote for my spin class this morning, then dropped into the Matches store on the way back and treated myself to a very cute Max Mara minidress (Tom will forgive me once he sees me in it). I was having a perfectly lovely morning, but as I parked the car there was some sort of commotion outside the Hipwells’ place—there are photographers there all the time now—and there she was. Again! I could hardly believe it. Rachel, barrelling past a photographer, looking rough. I’m pretty sure she’d just left Scott’s house. I didn’t even get upset. I was just astounded. And when I brought it up with Tom—calmly, matter-of-factly—he was just as baffled as I was. “I’ll get in touch with her,” he said. “I’ll find out what’s going on.” “You’ve tried that,” I said as gently as I could. “It doesn’t make any difference.” I suggested that maybe it was time to take legal advice, to look into getting a restraining order or something. “She isn’t actually harassing us, though, is she?” he said. “The phone calls have stopped, she hasn’t approached us or come to the house. Don’t worry about it, darling. I’ll sort it.” He’s right, of course, about the harassment thing. But I don’t care. There’s something up, and I’m not prepared to just ignore it. I’m tired of being told not to worry. I’m tired of being told that he’ll sort things out, that he’ll talk to her, that eventually she’ll go away. I think the time has come to take matters into my own hands. The next time I see her, I’m calling that police officer—the woman, Detective Riley. She seemed nice, sympathetic. I know Tom feels sorry for Rachel, but honestly I think it’s time I dealt with that bitch once and for all.

When we made up our minds to leave for Medina,” one emigrant would remember, “three of us arranged to meet in the morning at the thorn trees of Adat,” about six miles outside Mecca. “We agreed that if one of us failed to appear, that would mean that he had been kept back by force, and the other two should go on without him.” Only two of them reached Adat. The third was intercepted halfway there by one of his uncles, accompanied by abu-Jahl, who told him that his mother had vowed she would neither comb her hair nor take shelter from the sun until she had seen him again. On the way back, they pushed him to the ground, tied him up, and forced him to recant islam. This was how it should be done, the uncle declared: “Oh men of Mecca, deal with your fools as we have dealt with this fool of ours.” Women were not dealt with much more kindly. Umm Salama, who was later to become Muhammad’s fourth wife after she was widowed, told how her kinsmen were enraged when they saw her setting out by camel with her then husband and their infant son. “You can do as you like,” they told her husband, “but don’t think we will let you take our kinswoman away.” “They snatched the camel’s rope from my husband’s hand and took me from him,” she remembered. Then to make matters worse, her in-laws turned up, and a tussle developed over who would take custody of the child she was cradling in her arms—her family or her husband’s family. “We cannot leave the boy with you now that you have torn his mother from our kinsman,” her in-laws declared, and to her horror, both sides “dragged at my little boy between them until they dislocated his shoulder.” In the end, her husband’s family took the child, Umm Salama’s family took her, and her husband left alone for Medina. “Thus was I separated from both my husband and my son,” she would say. There was nothing she could do but “sit in the valley every day and weep” until both families finally relented. “Then I saddled my camel and took my son in my arms, and set forth for my husband in Medina. Not a soul was with me.

This is painfully obvious at a poker table. Even weak players know, in principle, that seeing through the eyes of opponents is critical. She raised the bet $20? What does that tell me about her thinking—and the cards she has? Each bet is another clue to what your opponent is holding, or wants you to think she is holding, and the only way to piece it together is to imagine yourself in her seat. Good perspective-takers can make a lot of money. So you might suppose that anyone who takes poker seriously would get good at it, quickly, or take up another hobby. And yet they so often don’t. “Here’s a very simple example,” says Annie Duke, an elite professional poker player, winner of the World Series of Poker, and a former PhD-level student of psychology. “Everyone who plays poker knows you can either fold, call, or raise [a bet]. So what will happen is that when a player who isn’t an expert sees another player raise, they automatically assume that that player is strong, as if the size of the bet is somehow correlated at one with the strength of the other person’s hand.” This is a mistake. Duke teaches poker and to get her students to see like dragonflies she walks them through a game situation. A hand is dealt. You like your cards. In the first of several rounds of betting, you wager a certain amount. The other player immediately raises your bet substantially. Now, what do you think the other player has? Duke has taught thousands of students “and universally, they say ‘I think they have a really strong hand.’” So then she asks them to imagine the same situation, except they’re playing against her. The cards are dealt. Their hand is more than strong—it’s unbeatable. Duke makes her bet. Now, what will you do? Will you raise her bet? “And they say to me, ‘Well, no.’” If they raise, Duke may conclude their hand is strong and fold. They don’t want to scare her off. They want Duke to stay in for each of the rounds of betting so they can expand the pot as much as possible before they scoop it up. So they won’t raise. They’ll only call. Duke then walks them through the same hypothetical with a hand that is beatable but still very strong. Will you raise? No. How about a little weaker hand that is still a likely winner? No raise. “They would never raise with any of these really great hands because they don’t want to chase me away.” Then Duke asks them: Why did you assume that an opponent who raises the bet has a strong hand if you would not raise with the same strong hand? “And it’s not until I walk them through the exercise,” Duke says, that people realize they failed to truly look at the table from the perspective of their opponent. If Duke’s students were all vacationing retirees trying poker for the first time, this would only tell us that dilettantes tend to be naive. But “these are people who have played enough poker, and are passionate about the game, and consider themselves good enough, that they’re paying a thousand dollars for a seminar with me,” Duke says. “And they don’t understand this basic concept.”22