Things Fall Apart Strength Quotes

Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength.

It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.

Some can be more intelligent than others in a structured environment—in fact school has a selection bias as it favors those quicker in such an environment, and like anything competitive, at the expense of performance outside it. Although I was not yet familiar with gyms, my idea of knowledge was as follows. People who build their strength using these modern expensive gym machines can lift extremely large weights, show great numbers and develop impressive-looking muscles, but fail to lift a stone; they get completely hammered in a street fight by someone trained in more disorderly settings. Their strength is extremely domain-specific and their domain doesn't exist outside of ludic—extremely organized—constructs. In fact their strength, as with over-specialized athletes, is the result of a deformity. I thought it was the same with people who were selected for trying to get high grades in a small number of subjects rather than follow their curiosity: try taking them slightly away from what they studied and watch their decomposition, loss of confidence, and denial. (Just like corporate executives are selected for their ability to put up with the boredom of meetings, many of these people were selected for their ability to concentrate on boring material.) I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man.

You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried—children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive.

To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.

It is a curious thing, watching a strong man fall to pieces.

I just want to say one thing. If I ever write a novel again, it's going to be in defense of weak women, inept and codependent women. I'm going to talk about all the great movies and songs and poetry that focus on such women. I'm going to toast Blanche DuBois. I'm going to celebrate women who aren't afraid to show their need and their vulnerabilities. To be honest about how hard it can be to plow your way through a life that offers no guarantees about anything. I'm going to get on my metaphorical knees and thank women who fall apart, who cry and carry on and wail and wring their hands because you know what, Midge? We all need to cry. Thank God for women who can articulate their vulnerabilities and express what probably a lot of other people want to say and feel they can't. Those peoples' stronghold against falling apart themselves is the disdain they feel for women who do it for them. Strong. I'm starting to think that's as much a party line as anything else ever handed to women for their assigned roles. When do we get respect for our differences from men? Our strength is our weakness. Our ability to feel is our humanity. You know what? I'll bet if you talk to a hundred strong women, 99 of them would say 'I'm sick of being strong. I would like to be cared for. I would like someone else to make the goddamn decisions, I'm sick of making decisions.' I know this one woman who's a beacon of strength. A single mother who can do everything - even more than you, Midge. I ran into her not long ago and we went and got a coffee and you know what she told me? She told me that when she goes out to dinner with her guy, she asks him to order everything for her. Every single thing, drink to dessert. Because she just wants to unhitch. All of us dependent, weak women have the courage to do all the time what she can only do in a restaurant.

When you’re in the midst of a crisis, in the heart of the storm, the only thing you can and should focus on is your present. Focus on the day you’re in. If this day feels too big, focus on the next hour and how to care for yourself for those sixty minutes inside of it. Once you gain strength in your present, then you will find the space and energy you need to dream about the future. Only

Don’t strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else. Admitting a weakness is a sign of strength. Acknowledging weakness doesn’t make a leader less effective. Everybody in your organization benefits when you delegate responsibilities that fall outside your core competency. Thoughtful delegation will allow someone else in your organization to shine. Your weakness is someone’s opportunity. Leadership is not always about getting things done “right.” Leadership is about getting things done through other people. The people who follow us are exactly where we have led them. If there is no one to whom we can delegate, it is our own fault. As a leader, gifted by God to do a few things well, it is not right for you to attempt to do everything. Upgrade your performance by playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses. There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination. Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing. My competence in these areas defines my success as a pastor. A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don’t show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor). In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time. To develop a competent team, help the leaders in your organization discover their leadership competencies and delegate accordingly. Once you step outside your zone, don’t attempt to lead. Follow. The less you do, the more you will accomplish. Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed. Accepting the status quo is the equivalent of accepting a death sentence. Where there’s no progress, there’s no growth. If there’s no growth, there’s no life. Environments void of change are eventually void of life. So leaders find themselves in the precarious and often career-jeopardizing position of being the one to draw attention to the need for change. Consequently, courage is a nonnegotiable quality for the next generation leader. The leader is the one who has the courage to act on what he sees. A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act on what he sees, to speak up when everyone else is silent. Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside. The first person to step out in a new direction is viewed as the leader. And being the first to step out requires courage. In this way, courage establishes leadership. Leadership requires the courage to walk in the dark. The darkness is the uncertainty that always accompanies change. The mystery of whether or not a new enterprise will pan out. The reservation everyone initially feels when a new idea is introduced. The risk of being wrong. Many who lack the courage to forge ahead alone yearn for someone to take the first step, to go first, to show the way. It could be argued that the dark provides the optimal context for leadership. After all, if the pathway to the future were well lit, it would be crowded. Fear has kept many would-be leaders on the sidelines, while good opportunities paraded by. They didn’t lack insight. They lacked courage. Leaders are not always the first to see the need for change, but they are the first to act. Leadership is about moving boldly into the future in spite of uncertainty and risk. You can’t lead without taking risk. You won’t take risk without courage. Courage is essential to leadership.

The universe is forever falling apart -- No need to push the button, It collapses at a finger's touch: Why, it barely hangs on the tail of a sparrow's eye. The universe is so much eye secretion, Hordes leap from the tips Of your nostril hairs. Lift your right hand: It's in your palm. There's room enough On the sparrow's eyelash for the whole. A paltry thing, the universe: Here is all the strength, here the greatest strength. You and the sparrow are one And, should he wish, he can crush you. The universe trembles before him.

That's something to be proud of, to be able to stand up for yourself despite all the things that are falling apart.

If you have ever belonged to such a community, however, you may have discovered that the trouble starts when darkness falls on your life, which can happen in any number of unsurprising ways: you lose your job, your marriage falls apart, your child acts out in some attention getting way, you pray hard for something that does not happen, you begin to doubt some of the things you have been taught about what the Bible says. The first time you speak of these things in a full solar church, you can usually get a hearing. Continue to speak of them and you may be reminded that God will not let you be tested beyond your strength. All that is required of you is to have faith. If you still do not get the message, sooner or later it will be made explicit for you: the darkness is your own fault, because you do not have enough faith.

It's strange isn't it? Everything is blowing up around us, but there are still those who care about a broken lock, & others who are dutiful enough to try to fix it... But maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe working on the little things as dutifully & honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.

Accepting who we are is a practice of non-harming. Sadly, much self-help literature contains seeds of harm: We are urged to remake ourselves into someone who will be spiritually or psychologically acceptable, and that acceptance is conditional on our performance in the areas of therapy, growth, or meditation. We are still not accepting ourselves unconditionally, just as we are in this moment, with a full and joyful heart. A more merciful practice begins with acceptance. It begins with the assumption that we were never broken, never defective. By surrendering into a deep acceptance of our own nature—rather than by tearing apart who we are—we actually make more room for genuine, rich, merciful, playful growth and change. If we feel our fundamental strength, creativity, and wisdom, then change is not frightening at all. Things simply fall away when they are ready, making room for the rich harvest underneath.

Necessity and valor formed the Vanguard. It was born from the courage of all who took up arms against tyranny and all those who decided to stand by our standard. When things began to fall apart, I just used the tools my Creator gave me to improve the lives of my family and the people that choose to follow me. Why allow people to live in fear, poverty, and bondage when I had the tools will and desire to change it? I didn’t want to be that servant who buried his talents. My goal is to build a nation that is free, and just, with prosperous and happy people.

The main ones are the symbolists, connectionists, evolutionaries, Bayesians, and analogizers. Each tribe has a set of core beliefs, and a particular problem that it cares most about. It has found a solution to that problem, based on ideas from its allied fields of science, and it has a master algorithm that embodies it. For symbolists, all intelligence can be reduced to manipulating symbols, in the same way that a mathematician solves equations by replacing expressions by other expressions. Symbolists understand that you can’t learn from scratch: you need some initial knowledge to go with the data. They’ve figured out how to incorporate preexisting knowledge into learning, and how to combine different pieces of knowledge on the fly in order to solve new problems. Their master algorithm is inverse deduction, which figures out what knowledge is missing in order to make a deduction go through, and then makes it as general as possible. For connectionists, learning is what the brain does, and so what we need to do is reverse engineer it. The brain learns by adjusting the strengths of connections between neurons, and the crucial problem is figuring out which connections are to blame for which errors and changing them accordingly. The connectionists’ master algorithm is backpropagation, which compares a system’s output with the desired one and then successively changes the connections in layer after layer of neurons so as to bring the output closer to what it should be. Evolutionaries believe that the mother of all learning is natural selection. If it made us, it can make anything, and all we need to do is simulate it on the computer. The key problem that evolutionaries solve is learning structure: not just adjusting parameters, like backpropagation does, but creating the brain that those adjustments can then fine-tune. The evolutionaries’ master algorithm is genetic programming, which mates and evolves computer programs in the same way that nature mates and evolves organisms. Bayesians are concerned above all with uncertainty. All learned knowledge is uncertain, and learning itself is a form of uncertain inference. The problem then becomes how to deal with noisy, incomplete, and even contradictory information without falling apart. The solution is probabilistic inference, and the master algorithm is Bayes’ theorem and its derivates. Bayes’ theorem tells us how to incorporate new evidence into our beliefs, and probabilistic inference algorithms do that as efficiently as possible. For analogizers, the key to learning is recognizing similarities between situations and thereby inferring other similarities. If two patients have similar symptoms, perhaps they have the same disease. The key problem is judging how similar two things are. The analogizers’ master algorithm is the support vector machine, which figures out which experiences to remember and how to combine them to make new predictions.

You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth' and strength2 Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not. heard the song they sing when a woman dies? "'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' "I have no more to say to you.” ― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

give up believing that being able to escape our loneliness is going to bring any lasting happiness or joy or sense of well-being or courage or strength.

You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? 1, had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth' and strength2 Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not. heard the song they sing when a woman dies? "'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' "I have no more to say to you.

What is it?” he asked quietly, his eyes full of concern. “What have you been doing that’s so terrible?” A great shudder of anguish moved through Velvet. Once he learned the truth Hank would never forgive her, but there had been enough running away, and she couldn’t bring herself to lie. Not to this man. She accepted the handkerchief he offered and dried her face. “Things was hard after Pa and Eldon died,” she managed to say, mopping at her eyes again. Hank nodded, his gaze tender, silently urging her to go on. Velvet drew in a deep breath and gripped a picket of the gate in one hand. For the first time in her life she thought she might faint. “I did cleanin’ work mostly till I came to Fort Deveraux. I’d heard I could make a lot of money here, washin’ clothes for the soldiers.” She paused and looked away for a moment, drawing strength from the orange and crimson blaze of the setting sun. “I found out soon enough that there were a lot of other women here lookin’ to wash clothes—there just wasn’t enough work to go around. I—I ended up takin’ money from men.” For a moment Hank just stood there, the color draining out of his skin. “For what?” he asked, his voice a low rasp. Velvet felt as though she was being torn apart piece by piece, organ by organ. She lowered her eyes for a moment, then met Hank’s gaze squarely. He knew—she could see that—but he was going to make her tell him. “For sleepin’ with me,” she said. With a muttered exclamation Hank turned away, his broad shoulders stiff beneath the rough, plain fabric of his shirt. Velvet reached out her hand, then let it fall helplessly to her side. She’d lost him a second time, and the experience was a cruel one. She doubted she’d ever recover from it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. He whirled so suddenly that Velvet was startled and leapt backward. His face was taut with anger and pain. “You were my woman,” he whispered with hoarse fury. “How could you have let another man touch you?” The resilience that had allowed Velvet to survive the many hardships life had dealt her surged to the fore. She advanced on Hank, raging. “I wasn’t your woman. I wasn’t anybody’s woman. I was all alone in this world, and I did what I had to do!” Hesitantly Hank lifted his hand to her face. His thumb brushed away a tear. “There wasn’t a day or a night that I didn’t think about you, Velvet.” She hugged herself, afraid to hope or trust. “I didn’t love none of those men,” she said miserably. “I could only stand lettin’ them touch me because I pretended they was you.” Hank’s smile was soft and infinitely sad. “I’m not going to lose you again because of pride,” he said. “I don’t like that you took money from those men, but I figure I love you enough to get by that in time. All that really matters to me is now, Velvet. Now and next week and next year, and all the years after that, when you and I are going to be together.” Velvet hardly dared to believe her ears. She’d had very little good fortune in her life; she didn’t know how to deal with much besides trouble. “Folks around here won’t ever forget—there’ll be talk—” He laid two fingers to her lips, silencing her. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’ve found you. That’s all that’s important.” With a sob, Velvet let her head drop against Hank’s sturdy chest. Tenderly he enfolded her in his arms. “Hush, now,” he said. “Things are going to be different after this. Very different.” An

THE REALITY OF TRYING TO BE BIGGER AND smarter than we are is that it sort of works, and then falls apart. It’s true people are attracted to intelligence and strength and even money, but attraction isn’t intimacy. What attracts us doesn’t always connect us. I can’t tell you how many friends I have who have been taken in by somebody sexy or powerful or charming but soon after find themselves feeling alone in the relationship. It’s one thing to impress people, but it’s another to love them.

Tommorow Call you call me that night when you were alone and crying, but I am only an outcast, and it all blast in my mind, in my heart, an ocean of tears falling let me dream cause I feel so deprim, don't wake me up I won't get up cause I always chose to never give up, but lately it all fall apart like a castle of card let me go back to my fortress cause its the only place I can be a mess without distress and when love don't love you back make some step back even if you don't no where to go keep going even if you don't know what you doing cause you know you have a blessing and never let go cause you never know what can be made of tomorrow even when in a sorrow don't let it go you never know what can be made of tomorrow He was like a brother. He never showed it but he was broken and at some point he couldn't handle it anymore. Whitout the strength to get out of this pain Full of life i remember him crossing the door for the last time He was sad inside He was lost He was my friend He was my brother Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to live if I have time I would tell him that love and the time that goes by also makes mistakes Now he's gone and people finally realize how amazing he was but now it's to late. Maybe a little love and a hand to hold it wouldn't have come to this But I had been the pillar and now the base is broke. Walking in the street wearing masks of the lie, faded soul in disguise only an entity, invisible, intangible never let go cause you never know what can be made of tomorrow even when in a sorrow don't let it go

There is no old age like anxiety,” said one of the monks I met in India. “And there is no freedom from old age like the freedom from anxiety.” In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place. Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Without seeing Sicily one cannot get a clear idea of what Italy is. “No town can live peacefully, whatever its laws,” Plato wrote, “when its citizens…do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love.” In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real. The idea that the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one’s humanity. You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. They break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life. The Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water. Your treasure—your perfection—is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. Balinese families are always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to God—the gesture—while man takes what belongs to man—the food itself.) To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. The word paradise, by the way, which comes to us from the Persian, means literally “a walled garden.” The four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. Once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.

Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring to your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you they will all die in exile." He paused for a long while. "These are now your kinsmen." He waved at his sons and daughters. "You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not heard the song they sing when a woman dies? "'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' "I have no more to say to you.

And that’s when it occurred to me that if you get desperate enough you’ll go all in with living slow for a while. You’ll quiet down all the outside noise so God’s voice can become the loudest voice in your life. Now, I realize, none of us can just quit life when life falls apart. But we can quit some things.

information that Volkov runs the primary supply routes for small arms and other supplies between Russia and the rebels in Donetsk.” “Can’t we just call in an air strike?” Max muttered. He was squatting next to Kate, peering through the darkness with a pair of night-vision binoculars and listening on a separate earpiece. Silver moonlight illuminated Max’s face and Kate found herself admiring his profile. He was even more handsome than when they first met several months ago outside Minsk. Back then, he was recovering from a two-foot piece of rebar that had impaled his side. Despite the constant strain of trying to keep his family alive, she noticed he was thriving under the pressure. A simmering fire burned behind the deep blackness of his eyes. He was bred for this sort of thing. Kate almost felt sorry for the consortium members, knowing Max wouldn’t rest until they were all dead and buried. Max’s eyes flashed when he looked over at her, reminding her of the strength he possessed. When he held her gaze, she saw a powerful conviction, the confidence he had gained after surviving in the face of overwhelming danger, a resolve emanating from the depths of his soul, an aura she couldn’t help but be attracted to. The moment lingered even as his eyes moved back to the binoculars and he went back into the dark recesses of his mind. She fought back the attraction, willing it to a place somewhere out of reach. She was bad at love. She had a habit of falling fast and hard before paying the price as things fell apart. As she got older, she found she didn’t want to bother with it anymore. It was too much work, too much of a distraction from what drove her. Besides, she couldn’t imagine there was room in his heart while he fought for his family’s survival. She touched his bicep. “If you’re from Belarus, and your given name was Mikhail, how did you end up with the nickname Max?” He kept his eyes glued to the field glasses. “It’s short for Maxim, a common name in Belarus. My mother started calling me Max when I was young. She said—” “Your surrogate mother?” “Right. The mother who raised me. She told me that she lost an argument with my father. She wanted to name me after Maxim Gorky, a Soviet Marxist writer and comrade of Lenin’s. My father wouldn’t hear of it. I think it was her

You're staring at my boobs." Her tone is wry but somehow not insulted. "I am aware." I should be sorry, but I'm not. "I'm staring at your peachy butt, too, if we're being totally honest here." "Macon." I glance up at her. "Your body is fucking luscious, Delilah. Bitable in the best way possible. A juicy peach, a sweet apple covered in caramel. Do you know how much I'd kill for a caramel apple right now, Tot? And me stuck on this hell diet. It's a torment, I say." "I don't think this is very professional," she says weakly. "I should hope not." God, I love teasing her. Her whole body lights up when I do it. Foreplay. Does she realize that's what we're doing? "I was just thinking---" "What did I say about you thinking?" she warns. "They don't look like bananas now, Tot." "Oh my God, you're terrible." But she's grinning now. Fighting damn hard not to show it, but definitely grinning. "More like peaches. Ripe, juicy peaches." She sways in my direction before catching herself doing it and shifting her weight. "You called my butt peachy." A dry complaint. "My boobs can't be peaches too." Maybe I have a thing for peaches." Somehow, we're only a foot apart, the space between us humming with something. It licks over my tender skin, tickles the back of my neck. Take it slow, Saint. She's skittish. Back off. My body resents this greatly and strains toward her warmth. Her voice is a thread, drawn tight. "You're still staring." "Paying proper respect," I amend quietly. "You don't ignore a body like yours. It would be rude." "Pretty sure you have that backward." She's breathless now, her glorious breasts rising and falling with agitation. I lean down, take in the warmth of her scent. "Come on, Tot. I've grown up, seen the error of my ways. Give me your bountiful banana pie." Again she sways into my space, laughing softly. "Pervert. You're not getting any pie from me." I hum, heat and need making my head swim. "But I have this craving." She's whispering now. "Disappointment can be character building." "I'll need my strength for that. How about peach pie?" Kiss me, Delilah. Or let me kiss you. I'm not picky. The pulse at the base of her tanned neck visibly beats. The scent of her skin is like honey. "I thought you wanted banana cream," she says, a dazed look in her eyes. The tips of my fingers touch the collar of her shirt. "I don't think pie is what I want anymore.

Falling Her innocence

Woman.” I bend closer so she can see the sincerity on my face. “You’ve always been beautiful to me. Not because of how you look but because of who you are. Even when things were at their worst, it didn’t change how I saw you.” I reach out, grazing a thumb along her jawline. “You are strength and courage in a world that was falling apart. You’re the fire that warmed the coldest nights and the light in the darkest times. Your beauty isn’t just in your appearance. It’s in your spirit, your resilience.

A wonderful companion Is one who is humble and kind Yet stern and straight forward in times when their strength is tested One who teaches you to be a better person throughout your moments together And also shows you there's a fine line between being a nice person and being trampled over The one who teaches you how to love Not just with a word or gifts But through the way they read your mind through gestures The way one would say to other "can I help you with that" "I'll take over you seem exhausted" "We are always a team" The one who would value your hard work and dedication even if you never have that huge bank balance, fancy car or luxury house The one who looks at you and feels happiness in their hearts just because you mean so much The person who doesn't care whose eyes are on themselves they only care that their eye is always on you When learning about eachother you realise that you both grow together and grow into each other Your character rubs off on your person The person who feels pain if you feel pain It may sound unreal but why have a companion who can't walk beside you even at your worst The person who will always try to understand you, your actions and your response before playing the blame game The person who prays for you and prays with you The one who helps you achieve your goal but can also guide you on the practical path if your goal is unrealistic The person who says I'm always here, we will always be and I will not let things fall apart when life gets tougher And that my dear is companionship In the end all your beauty, wealth, and material goods won't satisfy your life in a way that a good humble companion would

You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth' and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not. heard the song they sing when a woman dies? "'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' "I have no more to say to you.