Trap Motivation Quotes

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.

Charlotte had been surrounded by men most of her adult life. Only one attracted her, only one had she fallen in love with – and he turned out to be cruel and broke her heart. But he was dead. She had killed him. He was a Nazi, an SS officer, dashing and charismatic … an evil person.

We have patiently suffered long enough, hoping that someone or some kind of luck would one day grant us more opportunity and happiness. But nothing external can save us, and the fateful hour is at hand when we either become trapped at this level of life or we choose to ascend to a higher plane of consciousness and joy. In this ailing and turbulent world, we must find peace within and become more self-reliant in creating the life we deserve.

All night long Alec sat in his chair in his pyjamas and dressing gown, socks on his feet to keep out the cold, a cigarette in his fingers with a long ash hovering over a half-full ashtray. He attempted to go to bed but the incident with Father Joe kept his mind in turmoil. This girl, well, woman now – she would be around thirty – was a mystery during the war. She was kidnapped, it was thought, from her school, the day the Germans entered Paris. Her uncle, Sir Jason Barrett MP, was in England; her step-parents were somewhere else in France, on holiday, and found they could not get back; and Charlotte was being cared for by a Swedish couple, a nanny or housekeeper and her chauffeur husband. Was Charlotte actually Freya? What had this baron fellow to do with Freya, apart from marrying her? Had she been a prostitute? And what was the old cleric babbling on about “finding her and protecting her”? From whom?

The key is to monetize your appearances so you don’t fall into the trap of having thousands of followers but no revenue. It’s easy to be famous but broke.

I allow manipulation to find out where my enemy wants me to go. Then I use my mind to break the trap and punish the perpetrators.

You are Fire! Don’t believe these mere mortals. They want to put you on a pedestal and sing paeans to you; later they would burn you in the altar of that same fire! Stand away and stand alone! You are limitless! But these mortals can only limit your sky! You are the Universe! But they will only give you a little space! Break free! It’s a trap! They want to cage you! Because, they are afraid of your real power! You are a woman. You are the fire! You are all conquering. You are all powerful! You are Supreme! You were not born to be a mere beauty queen!!

The problem is that people have tried to look away from space and from the meaning of the moon landing. I remember seeing a picture of an astronaut standing on the moon. It was up at Yale and someone has scrawled on it, 'So what?' That is the arrogance of the kind of academic narrowness one too often sees; it is trapped in its own predictable prejudices, its own stale categories. It is the mind dulled to the poetry of existence. It's fashionable now to demand some economic payoff from space, some reward to prove it was all worthwhile. Those who say this resemble the apelike creatures in 2001. They are fighting for food among themselves, while one separates himself from them and moves to the slab, motivated by awe. That is the point they are missing. He is the one who evolves into a human being; he is the one who understands the future.

Often we judge ourselves by our intentions and everyone else by their actions. It is possible to intend one thing while communicating something totally different. Sometimes our true motives are cleverly hidden even from us.

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it.

He looks at me in a way that no one else does, as though he’s not just trying to decipher my thoughts and motivations. It’s like he’s trying to memorize the smallest details in my skin, to uncover every secret trapped behind my flesh.

The march of history is that of the human race obeying the mantra of the motivational triad—attempting to attain more pleasure, for less pain, with ever-greater efficiency.

No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods.

In our current culture, we place a lot of emphasis on job description. Our obsession with the advice to “follow your passion” (the subject of my last book), for example, is motivated by the (flawed) idea that what matters most for your career satisfaction is the specifics of the job you choose. In this way of thinking, there are some rarified jobs that can be a source of satisfaction—perhaps working in a nonprofit or starting a software company—while all others are soulless and bland. The philosophy of Dreyfus and Kelly frees us from such traps. The craftsmen they cite don’t have rarified jobs. Throughout most of human history, to be a blacksmith or a wheelwright wasn’t glamorous. But this doesn’t matter, as the specifics of the work are irrelevant. The meaning uncovered by such efforts is due to the skill and appreciation inherent in craftsmanship—not the outcomes of their work.

Sometimes we have spent so long in the cage that it feels safer to be trapped inside.

When you’re free from the shackles of solitude you never get the sense any mountain is too high to scale, or any horizon is too far to conquer.

Thorstein Veblen would say people hate squirrels, she called up to him, "because that's the only way to motivate expenditure on them - such as buying traps or guns. It's the same with stirring up patriotic emotionalism, because it justifies expenditures for defense.

It’s dangerous to be grateful for the cage that traps you.

If you’re trapped in a cage, you don’t want to start being grateful for the protection of the bars. You need to be grateful that there are gaps in between them so you can see what’s on the other side.

A rich and meaningful life is created through taking action. But not just any action. It happens through effective action, guided by and motivated by your values. And in particular, it happens through committed action: action that you take again and again, no matter how many times you fail or go off track.

Hurt has nothing to do with love, and love is unaffiliated with and unaffected by pain. We say, “My heart is full of love,” but love is not bound in our heart or our relationships, and thus, it is not caged and capable of being poked, taunted, or trapped. And no amount of love—no matter the pain or hurt—is ever

I surrender to the predator who has me trapped in his sights. Let him take me. Common sense tries to creep into my sex-saturated brain, but I slam the door in its face. I don’t want to think about what I’m doing. Thinking will spoil everything. I just want to feel. Without reason or motivation or guilt.

So we have to develop a very open loving attitude in our relationships with people. With everybody we meet, whether they are nice to us or not, we must have that initial feeling of “May you be well and happy”. Just a good feeling. It doesn’t mean we have to be stupid or that we can’t see that some people are bad or are going to cheat us. To be non-judgemental doesn’t mean that we are not discriminating. It means that we see the situation very clearly, we see clearly the kind of person before us, but we don’t react with anger. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be pushed around, we don’t have to be doormats for others to wipe their feet on. We can be very clear about what this person’s motivation is; we see it, and so can’t be trapped, cheated or abused.

Pettiness often leads both to error and to the digging of a trap for oneself. Wondering (which I am sure he didn't) 'if by the 1990s [Hitchens] was morphing into someone I didn’t quite recognize”, Blumenthal recalls with horror the night that I 'gave' a farewell party for Martin Walker of the Guardian, and then didn't attend it because I wanted to be on television instead. This is easy: Martin had asked to use the fine lobby of my building for a farewell bash, and I'd set it up. People have quite often asked me to do that. My wife did the honors after Nightline told me that I’d have to come to New York if I wanted to abuse Mother Teresa and Princess Diana on the same show. Of all the people I know, Martin Walker and Sidney Blumenthal would have been the top two in recognizing that journalism and argument come first, and that there can be no hard feelings about it. How do I know this? Well, I have known Martin since Oxford. (He produced a book on Clinton, published in America as 'The President We Deserve'. He reprinted it in London, under the title, 'The President They Deserve'. I doffed my hat to that.) While Sidney—I can barely believe I am telling you this—once also solicited an invitation to hold his book party at my home. A few days later he called me back, to tell me that Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, had insisted on giving the party instead. I said, fine, no bones broken; no caterers ordered as yet. 'I don't think you quite get it,' he went on, after an honorable pause. 'That means you can't come to the party at all.' I knew that about my old foe Peretz: I didn't then know I knew it about Blumenthal. I also thought that it was just within the limit of the rules. I ask you to believe that I had buried this memory until this book came out, but also to believe that I won't be slandered and won't refrain—if motives or conduct are in question—from speculating about them in my turn.

You are trapped by nothing more than a poor attitude

When you see honey in the bush and there are no sign of bees, flee!! for its all but a trap

You're not trapped where you are. Your mind is tricking you.

To put your trust in a man is a trap.

If you look at this development from the perspective of a university president, it’s actually quite sad. Most of these people no doubt cherished their own college experience—that’s part of what motivated them to climb the academic ladder. Yet here they were at the summit of their careers dedicating enormous energy toward boosting performance in fifteen areas defined by a group of journalists at a second-tier newsmagazine. They were almost like students again, angling for good grades from a taskmaster. In fact, they were trapped by a rigid model, a WMD.

Why would insults matter to me? Insults were insults, what could they do? A superficial person would be angry due to curses and would be happy due to praises. These were just bystanders’ ways of looking at you. Those who lived according to others’ points of view were really pitiful. They are just pawns, merely restrained dogs. What truly stalls a person’s success is not talent, but the mindset. Criticize, trying to impart these morals to the people, not allowing others to have more freedom than them. In this process, they would even enjoy this ridiculous moral superiority and bliss. Any organization, once a person is born, would impart their morals and rules, constantly brainwashing. Those that want to surpass humanity’s achievements have to break this restraint on their mindset. Sadly, most people are trapped by this their entire lives, using this to move forward with motivation and even use their chained collar as a symbol of pride. A superficial person would be angry due to curses and would be happy due to praises. These were just bystanders’ ways of looking at you. Those who lived according to others’ points of view were really pitiful.

They are the humans, who are uniquely adorned with the priceless characteristic of empathizing. They are the humans who shed tears full of purity and piety, when they see even a complete stranger in pain and misery. They are the humans who come together to save a kid in the neighborhood when he is trapped under the wreckage of his fallen home, regardless of caste, creed and religion.

Don't get caught in the trap of always "Needing" something. Needing something always projects your mind into the future as if you have it and is the opposite of gratitude. Be content in the present moment.

Everyone in this world is Abhimanyu, the difference being that most of us are trapped in a labyrinth of our own creation. It takes a lifetime for people to realise that the way out lies in their own hands. All it requires is a little introspection.

He believed that all people existed behind varying layers of armor which, like the archaeological layers of earth itself, reflected the historical events and turbulence of a lifetime. An individual’s armor that had been developed to resist pain and rejection might also block a capacity for pleasure and achievement, and feelings too deeply trapped might be released only by acts of self-destruction or harm to others. Reich was convinced that sexual deprivation and frustration motivated much of the world’s chaos and warfare.

Keep an open mind: If you get trapped in your old ways of thinking, it’s a lot harder to work with others to solve problems. Other people can also have good ideas. By opening yourself up to other’s ideas, you will see more options and alternative ways of resolving problems.

Your values are reflections of what is most important in your heart: what sort of person you want to be, what is significant and meaningful to you, and what you want to stand for in this life. Your values provide direction for your life and motivate you to make important changes.

... his future, had either been sold or laid to waste by his parents' generation, trapping him in a perpetual adolescence that was further heightened by the infantilising unreality of the Internet as it encroached upon, and colonised, real life - 'real life', Tony thought, with bitter air quotes, for late capitalism would admit nothing 'real' beyond the logic of late capitalism itself, having declared self-interest the only universal, and profit motive the only absolute, and deriding everything that did not serve its ends as either a contemptible weakness or a fantasy.

Too often we don’t call out a wrong or expect ourselves or others to act with routine integrity, excellence, or love. There has been a worldwide failure in leadership, birthing an apathetic populace, unjustifiable poverty, unconscionable greed, and a globe ravaged and booby-trapped by war.

The more we procrastinate on something important, the worse we feel about ourselves. The worse we feel, the less motivation we have to get moving on our work. The less motivation we have, the more we procrastinate with mindless distractions. It’s a vicious cycle that traps you in self-recriminations and anxiety.

If renunciation is not embraced By the pure motivation of bodhicitta, It will not become a cause for the perfect bliss of unsurpassed awakening, So the wise should generate supreme bodhicitta. Beings are swept along by the powerful current of the four rivers, Tightly bound by the chains of their karma, so difficult to undo, Ensnared within the iron trap of their self-grasping, And enshrouded in the thick darkness of ignorance. Again and yet again, they are reborn in limitless saṃsāra, And constantly tormented by the three forms of suffering. This is the current condition of all your mothers from previous lives— Contemplate their plight and generate supreme bodhichitta.

Traditionally, there have been two major strains of motivation (or perceived motivations) in anarchist politics: Duty and Joy. Like any duality, it is easy to fall into the trap of simplistic black and white labels, ignoring the more realistic continuum of grays. Instead, think of these two motivations as the end points on a continuum, illuminating everything in between.

Entitlement is a double- edged sword (or a double-jawed trap) for kids. On one edge it gives kids all that they don’t need—indulgence, dullness, conceit, and laziness; and on the backswing, it takes from them everything they do need—motivation, inde- pendence, inventiveness, pride, responsibility, and a chance to really work for things and to build their own sense of fulfill- ment and self-esteem.

Donna learned quickly that there’s no point in beating yourself up when you screw up or fail to follow through. Guilt trips and self-criticism don’t motivate you to make meaningful changes; they just keep you stuck, dwelling on the past. So after each relapse, Donna came back to the basic ACT formula: A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present. C = Connect with your values. T = Take effective action.

People with heavy pain-bodies usually have a better chance to awaken spiritually than those with a relatively light one. Whereas some of them do remain trapped in their heavy pain-bodies, many others reach a point where they cannot live with their unhappiness any longer, and so their motivation to awaken becomes strong. ... Christ can be seen as the archetypal human, embodying both the pain and the possibility of transcendence.

Today my father still sits [in] prison. But what about all of us in our own prisons? For many of us, that's what we choose. There might not be metal bars or orange jumpsuits, but we keep ourselves locked in the prison of other people's expectations. Or we look across the street and put ourselves in the prison of wanting what those people over there have. We imprison ourselves in debt. We stay in our prisons because they're comfortable and don't challenge us.

There were five of them. 1. Never assume a man likes you unless he both tells you and shows you. 2. Never go out of your way to encourage a man to ask you out. 3. Never trap a man in a conversation about his feelings that he doesn’t want to have. 4. Never analyze a man’s behavior or read into his motivations and intentions toward you. 5. Never, ever, ever daydream about a future unless he’s promised you a future. Those were her rules, and she was determined to keep them.

Men have the blood of their fathers and the passions of their mothers, in the same sense that women have the blood of their mothers and the passions of their fathers. We often find ourselves trapped in life when we fail to balance the two. The most unusual of men are those who are haunted by the warped blood of their fathers and the untamed passions of their mothers. They become either the legends of the legends that mankind remembers for generations or they end up as the fools of their time,

When questioned in court (and she refused a lawyer): “All her life she had loved words and kindled to them, but now she was in their power. They shot to and fro, like shuttles weaving the threads of some invisible pattern… “The quick blade of his irony delicately laid bare the tissues wrapping cause and motive. He must trap her into some unguarded admission of complicity. But she, too, held a blade as powerful as her questioners. She was speaking the truth. She had nothing to hide from him.” -p. 295

On reflection, looking at shows like this and considering my own experiences, what fascinated me was that we have so many stories like this that help us empathize with monstrous men. “Yes, these men are flawed, but they are not as evil as this man.” Even more chilling, they tend to be stories that paint women as roadblocks, aggressors, antagonists, complications—but only in the context of them being a bitch, a whore, a Madonna. The women are never people. Stories about monstrous men are not meant to teach us how to empathize with the women and children murdered, but with the men fighting over their bodies. As a woman menaced by monsters, I find this particularly interesting, this erasure of me from a narrative meant to, if not justify, then explain the brokenness of men. There are shows much better at this, of course, which don’t paint women out of the story—Mad Men is the first to come to mind, and Game of Thrones—but True Detective doubled down. The women terrorized by monsters in real life are active agents. They are monster-slayers, monster-pacifiers, monster-nurturers, monster-wranglers—and some of them are monsters, too. In truth, if we are telling a tale of those who fight monsters, it fascinates me that we are not telling more women’s stories, as we’ve spun so many narratives like True Detective that so blatantly illustrate the sexist masculinity trap that turns so many human men into the very things they despise. Where are the women who fight them? Who partner with them? Who overcome them? Who battle their own monsters to fight greater ones? Because I have and continue to be one of those women, navigating a horror show world of monsters and madmen. We are women who write books and win awards and fight battles and carve out extraordinary lives from ruin and ash. We are not background scenery, our voices silenced, our motives and methods constrained to sex. I cannot fault the show’s men for forgetting that; they’ve created the world as they see it. But I can prod the show’s exceptional writers, because in erasing the narrative of those whose very existence is constantly threatened by these monsters, including trusted monsters whose natures vacillate wildly, they sided with the monsters. I’m not a bit player in a monster’s story. But with narratives like this perpetuated across our media, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how my obituary read: a catalogue of the men who sired me, and fucked me, and courted me. Stories that are not my own. Funny, isn’t it? The power of story. It’s why I picked up a pen. I slay monsters, too.

What replaced feelings when there were none to be had? The absence of something was never as effective as the presence of something, or so Libby had thought then. She suggested they fill the space something; a trap of some kind, or possibly something nightmarish if Callum really wanted to build some sort of existential snare, but he disagreed. To be suspended in nothing, he said, was to lack all motivation, all desire. It was functional paralysis. To want neither to live nor die, but to never exist. Impossible to fight.

Not to know yourself is dangerous, to that self and to others. Those who destroy, who cause great suffering, kill off some portion of themselves first, or hide from the knowledge of their acts and from their own emotion, and their internal landscape fills with partitions, caves, minefields, blank spots, pit traps, and more, a landscape turned against itself, a landscape that does not know itself, a landscape through which they may not travel. […] You see it too in the small acts of everyday life, of the person who feels perfectly justified, of the person who doesn’t know he’s just committed harm, of the person who says something whose motives are clear to everyone but her, of the person who comes up with intricate rationales or just remains oblivious, of the person we’ve all been at one time or another. Taken to an extreme, it’s the mind-set of murder; enlarged in scale it’s war. Elaborate are the means to hide from yourself, the dissociations, projections, deceptions, forgetting, justifications, and other tools to detour around the obstruction of unbearable reality, the labyrinths in which we hide the minotaurs who have our faces.

The key trait of a Sperm Pirate is that she is not driven by desperation. Escaping poverty or hardship is not her motive. She usually has a good education and access to the same opportunities as the man she tries to trap. However, she understands that it is more efficient to enjoy a lavish lifestyle through the sweat of another’s labour. But the Sperm Pirate is acutely aware that the infatuation of a hormonal man has a brief shelf life. This poor collateral must be cashed in before it expires. A pregnancy is the best way to convert this volatile resource into a stable asset. Babies are reliable insurance policies. They create legal obligations for financial support, even when the sweet milk of passion turns sour.

In Drive, Daniel H. Pink is clear on the three drivers that actually motivate people: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If someone is constantly on the receiving end of advice, with no option to share their own ideas, their autonomy and mastery certainly decline, and most likely their purpose too. Being told what to do—even with the best of intentions—signals that the advice-receiver is not really here for their ability to think, but only for their ability to implement someone else’s ideas. They certainly do not feel encouraged to bring their best self to work, to bring their creativity and commitment and competency, to assume leadership and try something new. If you lead these people, you now find yourself with an over-dependent team, a group that come to you for everything and seem to have traded in their self-sufficiency and autonomy.

The situation with Jordan was starting to seem too real for his comfort. This normally would be the point when he, sensing a possible attachment, would back away from the situation. But with her, he was trapped. Consequently, all he could do was carry on as usual, being that guy who didn’t let things become real, who was always handy with a quip but didn’t have feelings deeper than that. Because he didn’t. Undercover agents didn’t allow themselves to become attached to a case or anyone involved with it. He wasn’t complaining—he’d signed on for this. He’d worked hard to get where he was, and being the best undercover agent in the Chicago field office was a major accomplishment. It was his specialty, the thing that differentiated him from the other agents in the office. Without that distinction, he’d be just another guy with a badge, a gun, and cool facial scruff. Hell, he’d be Pallas. That alone was more than enough motivation to get his head back in the game.

But look at man, the impossible creature! Here nature seems to have thrown caution to the winds along with the programmed instincts. She created an animal who has no defense against full perception of the external world, an animal completely open to experience. Not only in front of his nose, in his umwelt, but in many other umwelten. He can relate not only to animals in his own species, but in some ways to all other species. He can contemplate not only what is edible for him, but everything that grows. He not only lives in this moment, but expands his inner self to yesterday, his curiosity to centuries ago, his fears to five billion years from now when the sun will cool, his hopes to an eternity from now. He lives not only on a tiny territory, nor even on an entire planet, but in a galaxy, in a universe, and in dimensions beyond visible universes. It is appalling, the burden that man bears, the experiential burden. As we saw in the last chapter, man can’t even take his own body for granted as can other animals. It is not just hind feet, a tail that he drags, that are just “there,” limbs to be; used and taken for granted or chewed off when caught in a trap and when they give pain and prevent movement. Man’s body is a problem to him that has to be explained. Not only his body is strange, but also its inner landscape, the memories and dreams. Man’s very insides—his self—are foreign to him. He doesn’t know who he is, why he was born, what he is doing on the planet, what he is supposed to do, what he can expect. His own existence is incomprehensible to him, a miracle just like the rest of creation, closer to him, right near his pounding heart, but for that reason all the more strange. Each thing is a problem, and man can shut out nothing. As Maslow has well said, “It is precisely the godlike in ourselves that we are ambivalent about, fascinated by and fearful of, motivated to and defensive against. This is one aspect of the basic human predicament, that we are simultaneously worms and gods.

Bartal placed one rat in an enclosure, where it encountered a small transparent container, a bit like a jelly jar. Squeezed inside it was another rat, locked up, wriggling in distress. Not only did the free rat learn how to open a little door to liberate the other, but she was remarkably eager to do so. Never trained on it, she did so spontaneously. Then Bartal challenged her motivation by giving her a choice between two containers, one with chocolate chips—a favorite food that they could easily smell—and another with a trapped companion. The free rat often rescued her companion first, suggesting that reducing her distress counted more than delicious food.47 The empathy of laboratory rats has been tested by presenting them with a companion trapped in a glass container. Responding to the distress of the trapped rat, the free rat makes a purposeful effort to liberate her. This behavior disappears if the free rat is put on a relaxing drug, which dulls her sensitivity to the other’s emotional state.

The Kickstart Question: “What’s on your mind?” A perfect way to start many conversations. Both open and focusing at the same time. The AWE Question: “And what else?” The best coaching question in the world—because their first answer is never their only answer, and rarely their best answer. The Focus Question: “What’s the real challenge here for you?” We’re all wasting too much time and effort solving the wrong problem because we were seduced into thinking the first challenge is the real challenge. The Foundation Question: “What do you want?” This is where motivated and informed action best begins. The Strategy Question: “If you’re saying Yes to this, what must you say No to?” Strategy is about courageous choice, and this question makes commitment and opportunity cost absolutely clear. The Lazy Question: “How can I help?” The most powerful question to stop us from “rescuing” the other person. An alternative is, “What do you want from me?” The Learning Question: “What was most useful or valuable here for you?” Learning doesn’t happen when you tell them something, it happens when they figure it out for themselves.

So you don’t trust me: the guy who taught you everything you know. I’m guessing if you have her”—he jerked his thumb at Rae—“that’s no accident. Luke’s buddies sent her to trap you, and she thought she was doing the right thing, because, duh, she’s already proven she’s kinda gullible that way.” “Hey!” Rae said. “You are. Own it. Fix it. Now, you guys have her, which means you escaped whoever sent her after you. You didn’t escape without a fight, given that bruise I see rising on Daniel’s jaw and the scrapes on Derek’s knuckles. But you escaped, and you came back here, and you captured me. Who taught you all that?” “Daniel and I had already started learning,” Maya said, “during those weeks you were chasing us.” “Trial by fire,” he said. “Followed by hardcore, hands-on tactical training. You got away scot-free from these guys because of my lessons. And yet now you don’t trust I’m on your side?” “Nope,” Derek said. “Sorry,” Daniel said. Maya crossed her arms and shook her head. I shrugged. Moreno broke into a grin. “You guys do me proud. I’d give you all a hug, if that wasn’t a little creepy. And if I was the hugging sort. But if you survive the rest of this, I’ll take you all out for beer and ice cream.” “You don’t need to be sarcastic,” Rae muttered. “Oh, but I’m not, and they know it. This is exactly what I trained them for. Trust no one except one another. Excluding you, kid, because I don’t know you, and you have a bad habit of screwing up. But these guys are doing the right thing. Next step?” Turn the tables,” I said. “Capture someone who’s behind this and get them to talk.” “Mmm, yes. That would work. But even better?” “Stop them,” Derek said. “Don’t just take down one. Take them all down.” “Without running to the Nasts for help,” Daniel said. “Because in another year, some of us will be off to college, and we need to be able to look after ourselves.” “Starting with proving we can look after ourselves,” Maya said. Moreno beamed. “You guys are ace. See, this is what I told Sean. The best time to train operatives is when they’re still young and malleable. None of that shit about waiting until they’re eighteen and legally old enough to consent.” Maya shook her head. “I suppose you’d also suggest he have the Cabal terrorize them for weeks first, so they’re properly motivated.” “Exactly. Personal rights and freedoms are vastly overrated. And there’s nothing wrong with a little PTSD. I’ve always found mine useful. Keeps me on my toes.” Rae stared at him. “I’m kidding,” he said to her. “Mostly. Don’t you joke around like this with your instructors? Oh, wait. You don’t have any. Which is why you got tricked—again. And got captured by these guys.” “Can we tie him up now?” Rae said. “And gag him?” “Doesn’t do any good,” Derek said. “We could try.

Inside them, perhaps trapped where I can help find it, is all the information needed to make an accurate evaluation. At some point in our discussion of possible suspects, the woman will invariably say something like this: “You know, there is one other person, and I don’t have any concrete reasons for thinking it’s him. I just have this feeling, and I hate to even suggest it, but…” And right there I could send them home and send my bill, because that is who it will be. We will follow my client’s intuition until I have “solved the mystery.” I’ll be much praised for my skill, but most often, I just listen and give them permission to listen to themselves. Early on in these meetings, I say, “No theory is too remote to explore, no person is beyond consideration, no gut feeling is too unsubstantiated.” (In fact, as you are about to find out, every intuition is firmly substantiated.) When clients ask, “Do the people who make these threats ever do such-and-such?” I say, “Yes, sometimes they do,” and this is permission to explore some theory. When interviewing victims of anonymous threats, I don’t ask “Who do you think sent you these threats?” because most victims can’t imagine that anyone they know sent the threats. I ask instead, “Who could have sent them?” and together we make a list of everyone who had the ability, without regard to motive. Then I ask clients to assign a motive, even a ridiculous one, to each person on the list. It is a creative process that puts them under no pressure to be correct. For this very reason, in almost every case, one of their imaginative theories will be correct.

The thunder howled and the rain splashed, the leaves played with the breeze and the lightning flashed, and the tigress growled at last. She looked here and she looked there, she hadn't seen so much rain anywhere, a desire suddenly came in her heart, a mad longing that had to start, she felt deep love in the rain, looking at her cubs all over again But two years ago she had been wounded, By cowardly men who wanted her grounded, They were afraid of her power, they wanted to capture her and to enslave her in their tower They laid traps and they waited in the trees, The jungle was full of birds and the bees, The tigress was out hunting for meat, her cubs awaiting in the cave for their treat There was something missing in the air, the fragrance of jasmine was not there, The tigress looked up into the trees and saw the men's faces painted in grease, She challenged them looking into their eyes, And saw fear, fright , and faces full of lies! She roared with all her might, This was her land, She had all the right! The cowardly men crouching behind the trees, Fired their guns in twos and threes, The brave Tigress looked them in the eye, She was the fire and she was the sky, Indomitable force, invincible power, She was the Tigress, The Queen in her Empire None of the bullets could break her Spirit, Only one could graze her right leg a bit, She roared with all her heart's might, For she was the Queen for all to sight! The guns emptied and no more bullets to shoot, The cowardly men jumped from the trees and ran away in two hoots! The Tigress laughed and loudly roared, For she was the power and her Spirit soared She is the Tigress inside every Woman, She has the Power to defeat any Man, Love her and she would love you back, Respect her and she would respect you back, Dare to harm her and she would defeat you till the Last!

The end is a mystery, therefore think and act well now! Be robust, be focused and run the race with tenacity! When you fall, arise, learn the lessons and use them well! Learn everyday for life is an arena for learning! No one can ever be perfect! When you are speeding, be careful, for excessive speed can sometimes be dangerous, though it can get you to your journey’s end faster, and it can also make you avoid certain attacks! Sometimes the best things come delayed; when there are delays, be patient and wait, for not all things that delay are dead; time will speak with time! When it is going smoothly, watch out never to let comfort lead you astray, for because of comfort, so many people are not who they were truly meant to be, and they are in wrong tracks to an end of no glory! When darkness comes, remember life is about day and night! When day comes, note that darkness puts people to sleep; use the day well then whilst you have it! No day stays forever and no night is ever permanent! Never rejoice because someone falls during the day for you do not know what will happen to you in the night! Serendipity exists, but try your very best to do all you can to ensure that you never faint nor fall, for life is a battle! Stand for what is a must and do what is truly needed to be done! Be vigilant enough never to slumber nor be trapped in another track! Guard your tongue, for no one can hear it until you say it! Mind your actions, for it is the oil that keeps your lamps brighter for a good journey! Mind your mind for it is an engine for life, and a good remote control that controls the entire body to a good or a bad end! Guard your heart, for it is the house of your being! Remember, however in all things that human strength, efforts, wisdom and understanding is always limited! Ask God therefore for that little insight and understanding to get to your journey’s end successfully with a successful story so as to win that awesome praises from His angels! You are here for a purpose! We shall all meet the end, but how we shall meet it is truly a mystery! As you take the journey, mind the end!

But nature has protected the lower animal by endowing them with instincts. An instinct is a programmed perception that calls into play a programmed reaction. It is very simple. Animals are not moved by what they cannot react to. They live in a tiny world, a sliver of reality, one neuro-chemical program that keeps them walking behind their nose and shuts out everything else. But look at man, the impossible creature! Here nature seems to have thrown caution to the winds along with the programmed instincts. She created an animal who has no defense against full perception of the external world, an animal completely open to experience. Not only in front of his nose, in his umwelt, but in many umwelten. He can relate not only to animals in his own species, but in some ways to all other species. He can contemplate not only what is edible for him, but everything that grows. He not only lives in this moment, but expands his inner self to yesterday, his curiosity to centuries ago, his fears to five billion years from now when the sun will cool, his hopes to an eternity from now. He lives not only on a tiny territory, nor even on an entire planet, but in a galaxy, in a universe, and in dimensions beyond visible universes. It is appalling, the burden that man bears, the experiential burden. As we saw in the last chapter, man can't even take his own body for granted as can other animals. It is not just hind feet, a tail that he drags, that are just "there," limbs to be used and taken for granted or chewed off when caught in a trap and when they give pain and prevent movement. Man's body is a problem to him that has to be explained. Not only his body is strange, but also its inner landscape, the memories and dreams. Man's very insides-his self-are foreign to him. He doesn't know who he is, why he was born, what he is doing on the planet, what he is supposed to do, what he can expect. His own existence is incomprehensible to him, a miracle just like the rest of creation, closer to him, right near his pounding heart, but for that reason all the more strange. Each thing is a problem, and man can shut out nothing. As Maslow has well said, "It is precisely the godlike in ourselves that we are ambivalent about, fascinated by and fearful of, motivated to and defensive against. This is one aspect of the basic human predicament, that we are simultaneously worms and gods." There it is again: gods with anuses.

In everyday life we know that someone who is a true lover is very different from someone who is a pretender or a playboy. We know that true love should not be motivated at all by self- interest. And such is God’s love for us. It is a love that seeks the very best for us; it is sacrificial; it never stops giving. Perhaps the closest we can come to understanding the essence and quality of God’s love for us—though it is still a faint reflection of the reality—is the way in which we love our children. We bring these helpless, fragile little things home from the hospital and we love them. They have not done anything to deserve our love, indeed they are totally incapable of doing anything for us, yet we love them. From the moment we become a parent we know that from now on, life will pretty much revolve around our child and often they will inconvenience us in ways we can only dream of! Yet, we never stop loving them—really loving them. Parents and their children are a model to help us understand the way in which our Heavenly Father God really loves each one of us. As we think about how unconditionally we love our children and begin to grasp how complete and unconditional the Father’s love for us is, we can begin to scratch the surface of His grace and understand a little of the motivation behind God’s unmerited offer of salvation and forgiveness for our sins. Despite a lot of good teaching on the subject in the Church over the years, many Christians are still mystified by grace. They fail to live in the richness of it themselves and they fail to show grace to others. Many are still trapped by a performance-based theology that thinks God’s love must be earned or deserved. They think that if they behave well and perform good works for God then He will love them more. This is so far from the truth! God cannot love us any more nor any less than He does now, and He longs for us to live in the place of grace where we understand that He gives His love to us freely. God’s love and grace are gifts for us to receive. Do we ever deserve them? No! We are totally undeserving, but we are the undeserving who are the apple of His eye. GRACE AND FORGIVENESS The title of this book Grace and Forgiveness is purposefully chosen because the issue of God’s grace is vitally intertwined with the issue of forgiveness. They are not simply two distinct aspects of our spiritual life that we have decided to place together in the same book. When we come into a real understanding of the extent of God’s grace towards us and what that means, we begin to see how vital and necessary it is that we pass that grace and love on to others. Grace becomes an irresistible force in our lives. When properly understood, the “unfairness” and “injustice” of God’s grace towards us is deeply shocking, even offensive to our human understanding, as we will see. But in the same way that God lavishly and extravagantly pours His grace out upon our lives, He is calling us to learn how to show grace to others by forgiving those who truly don’t deserve it. The great discovery of forgiveness is that, through a selfless act, we open ourselves up to a greater outpouring of the blessing of God on our lives. There are two important things that every Christian needs to realize at some point in their journey as a believer, preferably sooner rather than later! The first is that our God is very big and very powerful and there is nothing that He cannot do. The second is that He is very loving and compassionate towards us. The Bible says that “God is love”. This is not a statement about what He does, but about who He is. He is the very embodiment of perfect, flawless love. His heart for us is to see us living our spiritual lives where we are operating with the dynamics of His Kingdom, just as Jesus did. It is a Kingdom of love, filled with faith, aware of the bigness of our God; aware of His willingness to interact with us and do things for us as we act in loving obedience to Him.

How you interpret challenges, setbacks, and criticism is your choice. You can interpret them in a fixed mindset as signs that your fixed talents or abilities are lacking. Or you can interpret them in a growth mindset as signs that you need to ramp up your strategies and effort, stretch yourself, and expand your abilities. It’s up to you.” A growth mindset is all about being motivated to persist at figuring things out and it leads to better critical thinking.

You are trapped within the illusions you have created for yourself.

He was actually glad to be alone with his silence and the remains of those who had died. These men hadn’t cared about the squabbles of those born with lighter eyes than they. These men had cared about their families or—at the very least—their sphere pouches. How many of them were trapped in this foreign land, these endless plateaus, too poor to escape back to Alethkar? Hundreds died each week, winning gems for men who were already rich, winning vengeance for a king long dead.

COHEN We were all caught in a trap of circumstance. LOUISE How so? COHEN This event, this failure of a knot in a string, catapulted us into rare air. Our desires became disconnected from this earth. Versati motivated by fantasy, myself motivated by jealousy. Your mind clouded by romance.

No man’s land They call it no man’s land, Their nobody treads and nobody dares to stand, Because it belongs to nobody, Neither this side, nor that side, and there I saw somebody, Standing there, looking at it from every side, And it neither sulked nor made any attempt to hide, But it said something with clear thoughts and in a very clear sound, “This is where everything lies, but never nothing is found, Because it is the no man’s land, Created by man’s mind alone and not by the God’s hand, Here lie trapped, and exiled emotions many, memories endless, A region in a constant state of emotional lockdown ruled by sensations pitiless, Because the side that owns the half, wants the other half too, And the one that owns the other half, only believes one is always followed by two, And the pull from one side is resisted by a strong push from the other, But if you ask me about the no man’s land, just the land, one half is always missing the other, Because both sides receive the same sunshine the same moonlight, And ah in the summer, they witness the same and beautiful feelings of delight, Same flowers, same wind, same smiles , same everything, Except human feelings, the only opposing thing, And here I stand exiled in eternity of no man’s land, I am life, that has forsaken you all, the life that was created by God’s own hand, Your wars lead to miseries, to untimely deaths, and to the creation of no man’s land, Where one day you too shall just beside me, trapped in the eternity of forlorn stand, Then let us stare at one another and forever, Because in no man’s land, what gets in; leaves never!

No man’s land They call it no man’s land, There nobody treads and nobody dares to stand, Because it belongs to nobody, Neither this side, nor that side, and there I saw somebody, Standing there, looking at it from every side, And it neither sulked nor made any attempt to hide, But it said something with clear thoughts and in a very clear sound, “This is where everything lies, but never nothing is found, Because it is the no man’s land, Created by man’s mind alone and not by the God’s hand, Here lie trapped, and exiled emotions many, memories endless, A region in a constant state of emotional lockdown ruled by sensations pitiless, Because the side that owns the half, wants the other half too, And the one that owns the other half, only believes one is always followed by two, And the pull from one side is resisted by a strong push from the other, But if you ask me about the no man’s land, just the land, one half is always missing the other, Because both sides receive the same sunshine the same moonlight, And ah in the summer, they witness the same and beautiful feelings of delight, Same flowers, same wind, same smiles , same everything, Except human feelings, the only opposing thing, And here I stand exiled in eternity of no man’s land, I am life, that has forsaken you all, the life that was created by God’s own hand, Your wars lead to miseries, to untimely deaths, and to the creation of no man’s land, Where one day you too shall just beside me, trapped in the eternity of forlorn stand, Then let us stare at one another and forever, Because in no man’s land, what gets in; leaves never!

Their sake It was meant to be so, Their lives were meant to be so, But then when it all began neither of them thought it would be so, They felt time lived for them and forever it shall be so, And they loved, they rejoiced, and they loved it so, Always together under all situations very sure that it will always be so, The woman loved the man and the man loved her equally so, Whether it was a sun kissed day or a moon lit night, it never felt so, Because during the day they experienced light of love and felt so, On silent nights they lit candles of desires and passions, and they obediently lit so, There was never a dark moment in their lives, at least for now it was so, In their lives existed no vitriolic moment because for now it was not meant to be so, They sought ratification from their hearts, and nothing else, and it was so, This agitated the fate, and chance too; and they ployed to not let it be so, They cast them in the world managed by predefined outcome of moments and now for them it was so, No matter what they did, how hard they tried, it was never like before, and how they longed for it to be so, Like before, like those sweet days, because fate and chance did not want it to be so, Maybe they were scared the two lovers would render their existence purposeless, and how could they afford it to be so, And to feed their pride they invented moments with predefined destinies, and made they fight a pre-determined battle, and for them it has been so, Even the bright days appear dark, the moonlit nights seem hopeless, and now for long it has been so, But they still love each other, they still hope, and with them it shall for eternity be so, This has left fate and chance wondering how to rob time of new moments everyday, so that the world of lovers remains so, Trapped in moments coded by malice and extreme cussedness of fate and chance, because they desperately want it to be so, It seems time has realised the evil intentions of the two conspirators and it doesnt want it to be so, Because then time will lose its purpose of existence and it ought not to be so, As it would lead the universe into an endless struggle where all shall be busy keeping the fate and chance pleased, and it cannot be so, For life to be organically progressive the two lovers should be free to desire anything and anytime, as and whenever they wish so, Fate‘s deliberate interference, and chance’s intentional disappearance, would steal from life it's every charm, and life isn't meant to be so, This is why time has stamped all its moments with emptiness that can never be filled by fate or chance, and now it is so, And now the two lovers romance like before, they love like always, and since it has been so, Fate and chance have been disenfranchised from free will, and now it shall be so, it has to be so, Otherwise not just the lovers, love will lose its existence across the universe, that cannot afford to be so, And now the two lovers love each other like before, only that now they respect time more, and what a great wonder it is to realise it and feel so! The lovers loving like before as it was always meant to be so, And now only for their sake the universe shall always be so, Happily existing because the universe is meant to be so!

While it is important to be mindful of how we spend our time as to not let it be piddled away, it is equally important to avoid the trap of over-planning.

Everyone who is in your circle is like a net. He can be a trap for you, or be helpful in fishing. It's up to you to discern.

Upholding the belief that we can be trapped in a perpetual cycle of sadness creates a barrier to the healing process.

I will not fall into the trap of being told to eat more and then being called fat at the same party. Only I control what I eat and how I feel about my body.

A trap that people often fall into is to put barriers in front of their ability to exercise. They do this by telling themselves that they must buy something before they can begin. It could be new shoes, gym clothes or a stopwatch that they have told themselves they need before they can start training. These are really just ways to procrastinate. The reality is that you don’t need any special equipment in order to get started on an exercise routine. Put the excuses aside, save your money, and just get started.

Against All Odds --- Nobody taught me how to swim. So, I swam and followed the rivers, hoping that I'd end up in the ocean; the calm seas. To see some dolphins and the colourful fish. But the river that chose me was long with hard turns, blockages, and fishing traps. On some days, the river would run dry, leaving me nowhere but in the middle of hard cracks. While suffering underneath the hot sun, the rains would hit again on my sore flesh. Luckily by then, I'd still be breathing; even though affected, harmed, and bleeding. But, I had a dream that was heavier than my challenges. So I continued with my journey, following the stream of the river. Hoping to reach the ocean; the calm seas. Some days the current would be brutal, even though I was flowing with it. It would hit on my body, my bones would crack. Sometimes the river would eject me to the side. Where I'd need to survive while I found my way back to it. I'd have to fend off snakes, defending myself from harm and malice. Back in the river, I'd have to fend off scorpions, rocks, and the debris. So, there I went, alone in the river I flowed. At times I'd meet with swimmers who'd be cooling off from the same waters. Some were kayaking; others fishing. All oblivious to my dreams, and to my state of struggle. Some would greet me; smiling at me. While some laughed the hardest, laughing at me. Some would express pity, while some expressed their sympathy. Some would pretend that I wasn't even there. And those who ignored me equalled my presence to that of the debris. I remember that a few picked me up and placed me in their small boats; helping me to cruise afloat. But, eventually, they left me in my struggle too. Those who carried me, left me in the rivers where they'd found me. Those who passed me by, passed-by me again on the following days. Some shouted the loudest from their lungs encouraging me from the sides. Telling me that I was almost reaching the seas. That the ocean was at a hand's reach. But those who shouted the most rarely did anything else to help. I also learnt that those who picked me up rarely shouted about their help. Some used my vulnerability to gain charity points. They'd say, "see I helped her, now clap for me from your joints". But, above all the help, true or fake, my dream was carrying me for my sake. With my dream to reach the ocean, the calm seas, I held my head the highest and swam beyond all the peaks.

This goes for any type of positive change, including how we try to motivate ourselves. We need to feel like the kind of person who wants to do the right thing. Moral licensing turns out to be, at its core, an identity crisis. We only reward ourselves for good behavior if we believe that who we really are is the self that wants to be bad. From this point of view, every act of self-control is a punishment, and only self-indulgence if a reward. But why must we see ourselves this way? Moving beyond the traps of moral licensing requires knowing that who we are is the self that wants the best for us—and the self that wants to live in line with our core values. When this happens, we no longer view the impulsive, lazy, or easily tempted self as the "real" us. We will no longer act like someone who must be bribed, tricked, or forced to pursue our goals, and then rewarded for making any effort at all.

Being trapped in a marriage with the wrong husband is like dwelling in a perpetual inferno, where every day is a fresh torment, every moment a searing reminder of mistakes made and futures foreclosed, a living hell that consumes the soul and scorches the heart.

If you want to assign dubious motives to anyone, you should start with the Creator who set this game in motion in the first place, who trapped your strange little wandering souls in flesh-cages and then demanded you look away

My motives were purely selfish. Being able to hear your voice in my ear anytime I want? That's a dream come true.

Outlandish feelings Outlandish worlds exist within us all, Because there are stars that rise and then they fall, Stars that belonged to a different world and now here in an alien world they are, Alienated from their native skies to be cast into worlds astoundingly too far, And in this outlandishness of rising feelings and many a belief, The mind with the heart seeks familiar trails of relief, But both lie mired in their unwillingness to accept forced retirement, Because loving her thoughts, believing in her brings wavers of excitement, That condition the mind to seek the heart that felt and knew her so well, In this outlandish emotional landscape where fate launches its ominous spell, To never let the mind find the heart that easily fell for her charms, Trapping the mind in new emotional storms, Where life is turned into this falling star, That gets thrown into a world of alien sentiments and a new emotional spar, Between the mind that seeks those known feelings and the heart that knew her so well, And deals with the hostile world of emotions where nothing feels like her and nothing bears her smell, And it is in these outlandish territories of life that few of us seek a domicile existence, Even if that means indulging in pretense and experience a few artificial moments of romance, Whatever the case maybe, the romantic mind always seeks the romantic heart, In these unknown landscapes where the fakeness of the alien feelings every sense does so easily outsmart, Until the mind learns to calm itself with the hope that fallen stars rise and shine again, And it forms a covenant of survival with the diabolic and ruthlessly crude spells of pain. And then life continues to wander in all directions seeking the heart that knew her, Until one day it resembles the life that hangs on the devil’s spur! But the aging mind is still rigid and unwilling to believe in the deceptive landscapes of this outlandish territory, Because it remembers all the heart beats of love and still believes in their fraternity, Finally one day the mind rises once again above the feelings of alienation, Because few minds believe in endlessly seeking her sequestered feelings of love with a God like determination!

Contact theory works best when everyone has enough motivation, stability, and power to take risks and withstand discomfort. These are pretty major requirements.

Actions are important because, unlike your thoughts and feelings, you can have direct control over them. Values are important because they can guide you and motivate you through situations where your feelings might lead you off course.

We face a dilemma. 'We' -- the intelligent model of ourselves residing in the neocortex -- are trapped. We are trapped in a body that not only is programmed to die but is largely under the control of an ignorant brute, the old brain. [...] We try to control our old brain's destructive and divisive impulses, but so far we have not been able to do this entirely. Many countries on Earth are still ruled by autocrats and dictators whose motivations are largely driven by their old brain: wealth, sex, and alpha-male-type dominance. The populist movements that support autocrats are also based on old-brain traits such as racism and xenophobia.

She had the sexy librarian look on lock, and God help me, even feeling used, I was very interested in signing up for a library card so I would have an excuse to return day after day to check out a new book when my real motive was just to see her.

try not to ever fall into the trap of taking yourself too seriously.

The past is a beautiful illusion trap of sweet memories. the more you remember it the more you get trapped in it and thus your life never changes.

Do you like this series?” “Eh…yeah. I love it…” “Do you? So what are your feelings on the holy knight’s valet?” “You mean Edgar? Eh…well, I totally love him?!? ‘To put others before oneself.’ He’s a fine man who’s not afraid of getting hurt while protecting others! Gosh, I mean I completely understand why the readers would love him, he’s my favo—” “Tch…!” “Tch…!?” “…Ohh, I see. Hate to tell you…but I…utterly despise that piece of shit known as Edgar…!! He talks so self righteously, it pisses me off.” “Eh…” “Self-sacrifice makes me wanna puke.” “No way…!” “Why the hell’s a guy like him so popular? I mean, it’s obnoxious that even in the story, the other characters love him so blindly!” “Hey…how could you!? After I told you I liked him..!” “This is how I feel, so I can’t help it. Most of all, I can’t stomach his final moments. He laid down his life to protect his master…and went and died alone while praying for the happiness of those dear to him…just what part of a guy like that’s so great-!!?” “EH!? Edgar…dies…” “? He did…right? Around the middle of volume sixteen, I think it was…” “Uwaaaaaaah!! That is such a spoiler—!!” “Huuh!? Not my problem!! Any real fan would have read it already! Hey don’t get all up in my face!!” “Shut you’re trap! I got ten years o’catching up ta do, darnit! Ahhhh, all the motivation I had to read it is gone! Gonnne just like that—! Anyway the point is…protecting his master to the death is just wonderful. It’s just like Edgar!” “Hah!? All that amounts to is satisfying his own ego, you idiot!!” “This guy..” “This jerk…” “Really pisses me off…!!” “Ahh, you two there. Would you mind keeping it down a little?” “Leo!” “Josephine is in trouble right now. Nnn…I never would have thought Jackie would be the culprit. What a surprise. Besides, I’d say Elliot was at fault just now.” “Huuuh!? What did I do—” “You asked someone for his own opinion…but tried to force your opinions on him when you didn’t like what you heard.

We are not called to find our comfort in controlling this world. Life isn’t about embracing every comfort and controlling every variable. If personal comfort is the driving motivation in your adoption of technology, it’s a worship-killing trap. But

more, he had lost his pride. The mobs defeated him, got past all his defenses. Nothing worse can happen to a warrior than that, I imagine. Not only that, but he’s trapped here, in Minecraftia. He really misses Earth. For once, it was my turn to be the strong one. For Steve. I marched over to the bed, looked up, and said: “You know, those mobs are going to figure out how to break through our wall sooner or later. Some day, the creepers are going to realize they don’t need to bomb us with slimes. They can just blow up next to the wall, and that’ll be it. We need you, hurrrrr. Besides, don’t you want to get revenge?” I thought it was a good speech. But Steve just made a strange groaning noise. “Uuuuuggghhhhhh . . .” I tried a few more times to motivate him, but he didn’t move. He was just another zombie. A zombie who sleeps and eats cake. My parents said I shouldn’t bother him. They said he needs some time alone. That’s fine. I understand. Besides, he’s not the only warrior around. Tomorrow, I’m going to visit Mike.

We typically see ourselves as more benign than we are, and are quicker to attribute malign motives to potential adversaries

Often when we connect with our values, we realise that we’ve been neglecting them for a long time and this can be very painful. But remember, this is not an excuse to beat yourself up! (‘What a hypocrite I am! I say I value doing all these different things, yet I’m not doing any of them! I’m pathetic!’) All of us lose touch with our values from time to time. Dwelling on those times is pointless because there’s nothing we can do to change the past. What’s important is to connect with our values here and now and to use them to guide and motivate our current actions. So if your mind does start beating up on you, simply thank it.

Emotions have their own movement. They move like waves: huge tsunami waves, choppy rapids, or long slow tides. The best way I know to work with emotion, especially strong and difficult emotion is to let it move like a wave, allow it to complete its movement and, eventually, to leave. If the movement gets held back, if it gets trapped and stagnates, or an inner turbulence stirs, the unexpressed emotion and grief can turn into physical illness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, or other displaced emotion.

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can’t help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn’t four years anymore. It’s a number I wouldn’t even be able to say. It feels like four years. It’s trapped in my tender memory as four years. It’s been an age. Multiple ages. It’s been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It’s been so long. Why am I alone?

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I’m too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She’s waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I’m eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I’m so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met?

Actions are not simply a product of conscious decisions. A web of influence lies behind our motivations, including the unconscious brain activity immediately causing conscious intentions, and the more remote pressures of genetics and environment that shaped our developing brain.

There is, in the circumstances of modern life, only one solution to the problem of resentment, and that is social mobility. The worst thing that the state can do is to create those traps – the poverty trap, the welfare trap, the education trap – which deprive people of the motives and the skills to improve their lot, and retain them in a state of permanent discontented dependence on a world that they cannot fully enter. In

When you are trapped in a cage with broken wings, freedom can seem like a faraway deeply buried treasure. But it is always within reach.

AJ huffed a heavy sigh. “I’m not good at this.” She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands tucked under her legs. “Good at what?” “This…” he motioned between them “…this relationship stuff. I should care enough to ask you more about your past, the blood thing, the ridiculous profession you’ve chosen, the reason why you’re living with your brother … but I’m too fucking selfish. I can barely deal with my own pathetic life, I just—” She shook her head. “It’s fine. I have nothing to tell.” His head jerked back a fraction as his eyelids fluttered with rapid blinks. “What is that supposed to mean?” Jillian lifted a single shoulder. “You act like I’m on a cliff’s edge just waiting, begging you to ask me about my past and my ‘issues,’ but I’m not. The fact that you don’t ask me about it is why this…” she mimicked his motion between them “…relationship works.” He nodded with an absent stare. She’d gone too far. It was a slippery balance between too much and not enough. It’s human nature to desire what’s perceived as the unattainable. Was she making her past seem too unattainable? “Don’t.” AJ’s gaze snapped to hers. “Don’t what?” “I was simply stating a fact. Don’t interpret it as a game. I’m not playing hard to get with my emotions. It’s not a trap.” He rested his hands on his hips and stared at his feet. “It’s a gift, AJ. You will never have to be my gallant knight on his trusty steed, drawing your sword to defend my honor. I will never gawk at sparkly diamonds in the jewelry store window or ask you where you see our relationship going.” “You sound callous, but I know you’re not. I’ve experienced your compassion.” “That’s a gift too. I’ve never been compassionate toward you with an ulterior motive. I’m not callous. I’m strong. It takes a lot of strength to give unconditionally because the ego is a savage, demanding beast.” He narrowed his eyes a bit. “So nothing … you don’t want anything from me in return.” Jillian smirked, prowling toward him. “I’m compassionate, not a saint.” She slid her hands under his shirt, tracing the definition of each firm plane of muscle. He quirked a brow. “So you want me for my body?” A provocative smirk stole her lips as she pushed up his shirt and teased her teeth over his skin. “I think we both know it’s not for your stellar personality.” “You’re such a bitch,” he growled, grabbing her ass and lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and laughed. “But an honest bitch.

The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as an anti-colonial revolt against a “brutal” autocrat propped up by the West for its own exploitative economic and geostrategic purposes. The aim of the revolution, the argument went, was to create a government more sympathetic to national sovereignty and Western pluralistic government. However, it soon became clear with the political triumph of the Ayatollah Khomeini that the revolution was in the main a religious one, inspired in part by anger at the Shah’s secularization, modernization, and liberalization policies. As Khomeini said in 1962, the Shah’s regime was “fundamentally opposed to Islam itself and the existence of a religious class.